Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 9610610" data-attributes="member: 85870">Beyond Tolkien, the most radical changes to my views of fantasy fiction have come from authors Anthony Ryan and Guy Gavriel Kay. If I could somehow magically convince every user of this website to read Blood Song by Anthony Ryan and Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay, I would consider my life's work as a humanist complete.They profoundly speak to my taste in fantasy these days. <ul>
<li data-xf-list-type="ul">They're fantasy, but much, much closer to &quot;alt world reality&quot; than high fantasy. </li>
<li data-xf-list-type="ul">They're thoroughly grounded as humans-only worlds. No elves, no dwarves, no gnomes, no dragonborn, no tieflings, no halflings, no ANYTHING other than humans. It's not that I mind if there's non-human intelligences meandering about, it's just that unless there are specific, highly contextualized reasons why those things are relevant to the story, they come across as boring and bland at best, and tedious at worst. On the RPG front, this is even more pronounced, as I've yet to play with a single player who could actually make race matter at the gametable as anything more than a set of mechanical bonuses and inane &quot;color and fluff&quot;. <ul>
<li data-xf-list-type="ul">Literary case in point -- I have overall enjoyed Sanderson's Stormlight Archive, but find the entire concept of &quot;spren&quot; and &quot;the Shadesmar&quot; to be immaterial at best to my enjoyment of the works. I find myself largely skipping chapters that focus on either.</li>
</ul></li>
<li data-xf-list-type="ul">The conflicts are personal and intimate. There's no &quot;cosmic catastrophe&quot; / &quot;save the world with the Great MacGuffin&quot; tropes. They're about people dealing with human concerns. At best, the heroes' actions might affect a city, or a small nation-state at the most. The world's problems remain the world's problems elsewhere, out of sight of the protagonist. </li>
</ul></blockquote>

[QUOTE="innerdude, post: 9610610, member: 85870"] Beyond Tolkien, the most radical changes to my views of fantasy fiction have come from authors Anthony Ryan and Guy Gavriel Kay. If I could somehow magically convince every user of this website to read [I]Blood Song[/I] by Anthony Ryan and [I]Under Heaven[/I] by Guy Gavriel Kay, I would consider my life's work as a humanist complete. They profoundly speak to my taste in fantasy these days. [LIST] [*]They're fantasy, but much, much closer to "alt world reality" than high fantasy. [*]They're thoroughly grounded as humans-only worlds. No elves, no dwarves, no gnomes, no dragonborn, no tieflings, no halflings, no ANYTHING other than humans. It's not that I mind if there's non-human intelligences meandering about, it's just that unless there are specific, highly contextualized reasons why those things are relevant to the story, they come across as boring and bland at best, and tedious at worst. On the RPG front, this is even more pronounced, as I've yet to play with a single player who could actually make race [I]matter [/I]at the gametable as anything more than a set of mechanical bonuses and inane "color and fluff". [LIST] [*]Literary case in point -- I have overall enjoyed Sanderson's [I]Stormlight Archive[/I], but find the entire concept of "spren" and "the Shadesmar" to be immaterial at best to my enjoyment of the works. I find myself largely skipping chapters that focus on either. [/LIST] [*]The conflicts are personal and intimate. There's no "cosmic catastrophe" / "save the world with the Great MacGuffin" tropes. They're about people dealing with human concerns. At best, the heroes' actions might affect a city, or a small nation-state at the most. The world's problems remain the world's problems elsewhere, out of sight of the protagonist. [/LIST] [/QUOTE]

Verification