Have fantasy novels gotten "better" since D&D?

[Storm Raven]

I have about 1,000 books in my library, mostly science fiction and fantasy, and mostly fantasy. I think most are post-LOTR (which is my contention, not D&D)

I have catalogued 1,283 books in my library, which does not include any of my law or gaming books. Most of my collection is fantasy and science fiction.

Hmm. Zelazny's big fantasy work, the Amber Chronicles, were 1970-91, only two were published pre-74.

Zelazny has several works that work the border between fantasy and science fiction that were published prior to 1974: Lord of Light, Creatures of Light and Darkness, Jack of Shadows and so on. I was mostly thinking of those when I listed him, since they are essentially fantasy with a veneer of science added here and there.

* Writing Style. This is an ever-changing medium. Read David Eddings, Lois McMaster Bujold and then Fritz Leiber and you get very different styles.

And I have enjoyed them all. Bujold more than Lieber, and Lieber more than Eddings, but all have been worth my time.

 

[Thunderfoot]

Time to make a few million enemies....
It depends on what you mean better; If you meant the Dragonlance novels and the Forgotten Realms books then...NO! As much as TSR and the WotC have done for the hobby of the game, their novels just plain blow chunks of green crap!

I stopped reading a lot of fantasy novels becuase they are nothing more than over-glorfied gamer fiction. Of course this is a generalization and there are a few books that I have read that were advertised as gamer fiction so I knew what I was expecting before I picked it up. I have a friend that has tried to get me to read the DL novels (I have a think against Weis/Hickman ever since The Darksword Trilogy - great books, STUPID ending.) and I finally relented, yep, same old, same old. A novel that is advertised as a novel should be just that, a novel, not a long labourious gamer fiction reading. I can get that on websites like ENworld (not the laborious part, the gamer fiction part.) Heck I'm even writing a novilation based on my current campaign, but I have no allusions of fame and fortune just because its fantasy; my buddy thinks its high literature, I think its something to pass the time on Tuesday.

I know this is a generalization, but for the most part I would say that fantasy has suffered. There is a lot of it now (which there wasn't in the day), but quantity doesn't equal quality. LotR is a great trilogy because of the significance of it, if it were written today it would be panned as long, unwieldy and too slow, but would it be any less great? A modern publisher would say yes. As much as I hate Harry Potter, I must admit that they are well written and thought out extrememly well. The Wheel of Time was great until about book seven, now I just want him to finish before he dies; I'm committed so he had better be too! Brooks, Eddings, McCafferrey, and Lackey were awesome until they forgot how to stop.

Unfortunately this kind of ties into my rant on anime, whatever is popular must be mass produced and watered down immediately if not sooner. Fantasy was good once, it was innovative, humorous, horrifiying and stretched the limits of our imaginiations; no its just a rehash of whatever was released last week. I appreciate a few authors like Robert Lynn Asprin that figured out what was fresh and when to quit (MYTH INC) and a new way to keep the same old fresh (Thieves' World), if this is what fantasy can aspire to, then yes, it is moving forward, otherwise, we're stuck in the mud and have four flat tires to boot.

 

[Hussar]

While I'm not sure entirely about fantasy, I know that in one of my Year's Best SF collections, Gardner Duzois mentions that there have been more SF stories published in the first three or four years of the Oughts than were published in the entire decade of the 1970's. And SF was a considerably larger genre at the time than fantasy.

The 90% rule has always been true. Much that is written is crap. Some of it is good crap and others just crap, but, it's still crap. The fact that there are probably more books in the fantasy genre published after 1980 than were published before by a couple of orders of magnitude just means that there are that many more great books on the shelf.

Back a bit, someone mentioned a lack of good fantasy in the 80's. Stephen Donaldson leaps to mind. Philip Farmer as well. I'm sure there are lots more.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Unfortunately this kind of ties into my rant on anime, whatever is popular must be mass produced and watered down immediately if not sooner. Fantasy was good once, it was innovative, humorous, horrifiying and stretched the limits of our imaginiations; no its just a rehash of whatever was released last week.

No, it's always had a lot of crap. You just read less of it then.

I appreciate a few authors like Robert Lynn Asprin that figured out what was fresh and when to quit (MYTH INC)

You mean the series he's restarted recently?

 

[pawsplay]

You mean the series he's restarted recently?

... after recovering from writer's block? Twice?

 

[Hussar]

Unfortunately this kind of ties into my rant on anime, whatever is popular must be mass produced and watered down immediately if not sooner. Fantasy was good once, it was innovative, humorous, horrifiying and stretched the limits of our imaginiations; no its just a rehash of whatever was released last week. I appreciate a few authors like Robert Lynn Asprin that figured out what was fresh and when to quit (MYTH INC) and a new way to keep the same old fresh (Thieves' World), if this is what fantasy can aspire to, then yes, it is moving forward, otherwise, we're stuck in the mud and have four flat tires to boot.

I would point out that Robert Asprin has nothign to do with the new Thieves World books. It's entirely his ex-wife this time around.

But, this point of view is the same that you see in a lot of genre fans. It completely ignores the incredibly good fantasy that's come out over the past few years. I'll stack up Neil Gaiman or China Mieville or Steven Erikson against any golden age authors any day of the week.

Now is a bloody good time to be a fantasy genre fan.

 

[Melan]

NO. Heavens, no. If anything, D&D's literary heritage seems to be genreification, stagnation and self referential fantasy without the freshness and originality of works like Dream-Quest for Unknown Kadath or Dwellers in the Mirage. And that's without going into the extensive D&D novel family, of which none can hold a candle to the lesser artists from the Weird Tales era.

Of course, D&D was only one of the culprits, and may have even been a smaller ones - LotR knockoffs probably did more damage. But Dragonlance and Dritz certainly didn't help.

P.S.: Delver, would you please reduce the size of the image? My computer at work is in 800x600, and I can't read the freaking thread because of it. Thanks.

 

[RFisher]

I personally feel that the quality of that which I am reading has been improving. This may, in part, be due to my ability to be more discerning in my choices.

Yeah. I think the quality of what I've been reading has been improving. But I've been reading a lot of old stuff. I suspect it isn't because old stuff is better. I suspect it is because it's the good stuff that tends to stand the test of time.

 

[JoeGKushner]

No. I suspect they've benefited from JMS and Babylon 5, and possibly Chris Claremont's original run on X-men.

D&D is remarkably bad at creating ongoing storylines. The discipline isn't there, and it is *certainly* not on show in most pre-3e adventures.

Cheers!

But this isn't necessarily D&D's fault.

It's whole advancement system is aimed at a "kill it, loot it, repeat". Personalized games can be heavily based on classic storytelling methods but since advancement per the book is almost 99.9% based on CR vs level the published adventurers have to follow that model no?

 

[Raven Crowking]

As much as I hate Harry Potter, I must admit that they are well written and thought out extrememly well.

Your threshhold for "well written" and "thought out extremely well" must be far, far lower than mine.

They are fun, light, entertaining reads on a popular level, but the writing doesn't sparkle or shine. Nor are they well thought out, IMHO at least.


RC