The current state of fantasy literature

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

The publishers haven't decided anything...they're just responding to market forces.

Bull. Read a marketing report, ANY marketing report, and see if it gives a really, really solid idea of the appropriate course of action. In the rare case that the report does lead to one, solid, inescapable conclusion, I can guarantee you that your average company will run in exactly the opposite direction.

Marketing departments are the bane of all logic and reason in the universe.

 

[barsoomcore]

But I was actually asking if you frequently DO separate quality from appreciation, not if you were capable. Many people just don't. I frequently lament that I like something that's in poor taste.

I never lament that I like something that's in poor taste.

If I like something, that's because it's good. It's got some value in it that I appreciate. I like Edgar Rice Burroughs, with all his faults, because he can write sentences like:

I cannot explain the phenomena;I can only set down here in the words of an ordinary soldier of fortune a chronicle of the strange events that befell me during the ten years that my dead body lay undiscovered in an Arizona cave.

That pleases me and I recognize the literary value such writing possesses. It is less than Shakespeare, certainly, but it is not crap. It offers its own joys.

If people want to argue that ERB is a crappy writer, bring it on. I'll happily defend his value to all comers.

But I won't pretend that I like crap. I don't. I like good writing. Frequently I see value in works that are dismissed by others -- I don't care. I have my reasons and can defend my choices.

In another thread on a similar topic, I wrote: "Sometimes everybody else IS wrong. If you can't believe that, you're not capable of original thought."

Separating what you like from what you approve of only means you're not bothering to analyse your tastes. If you like something it must possess value, and I think it's interesting to investigate WHY we find value in things other people don't. They may be idiosyncratic reasons, they may reveal general truths about ourselves or our history, or they may uncover values many people share but have never acknowledged. Unless we investigate this stuff, we'll never know.

Okay, I'm ranting a lot here, aren't I?

Art really really really matters to me. Storytelling is the most important thing in my life -- even though I'm not super great at it. I think about this stuff a lot and obviously I have a lot to say about it. Sorry if I'm going on and on.

Feel free to slap me. Especially if you're Maggie Cheung.

 

[takyris]

The publishers haven't decided anything...they're just responding to market forces. No one has a gun to their head, forcing them to buy those books.

As I said above, I was coming at it from the point of view of the writer. As the writer, I don't really care why the publishers are doing what they're doing. Maybe they are being controlled by the marketing departments rather than the editors. Maybe the bean-counters are in charge now instead. Maybe the editors are actually trying really hard to make the coolest story ever, and this is honestly how they think it will go. I don't care about any of it. All that matters to me personally is the fact that selling a standalone fantasy novel is a lot harder these days. Not impossible -- nobody's gonna turn down greatness if it smacks them in the face -- but harder.

Or, to put it another way, if somebody is kicking me in the shins, I don't care if he's doing it because his friend told him to, because the school bully forced him to, or because I offended him in some way without realizing it. Mainly, I just care about the fact that some pinhead is kicking me in the shins.

By and large, fantasy fans enjoy multi-books series. This is not new and since the early 80s, has been the standard in the genre.

I don't believe that was in question. I like multi-book series as well. I've also read and enjoyed a number of standalones. Those are hurting these days.

There is plenty of fantasy fiction coming out that is standalone, it just doesn't sell as well.

Which is at least in part due to the lack of support from the publishing houses for standalone fiction.

They seem to be following ABC's example for media success: Take something popular ("Who Wants to be a Millionaire"), pump it up with all the publicity you can, spin off a bunch of new cloned products with the same basic premise, overexpose it until people are sick of it, and then pull the plug and declare that it has "run its course".

 

[barsoomcore]

Marketing departments are the bane of all logic and reason in the universe.

On the other hand, they are an excellent source of protein.

 

[buzz]

Subjective opinions still require defense, if they're to carry any "convincibility" -- if you want me to agree with your opinion you have to provide support and evidence and all that. Do that well enough and I will agree with you.

That doesn't make your opinion objective. It's still subjective. I just happen to agree with it.

I was all ready to put on my asbestos underoos and start flaming all you Subjectivists... but then you had to go and post somehting really intelligent, like this. Your opinion has good "concinvibility".

Still... I have to say that I tend to think of good and bad art along the lines of the old adage about pornography, i.e., "You know it when you see it." This gut feeling I get makes me want to believe in some ultimate truth, i.e., objective criteria. I mean, I've been palying guitar for getting close to 20 years now, and I can tell you within minutes whether I think another player is good nor not. I feel like I've learned something about what it meas to be a good player, and thus can spot it in others pretty readily. This *feels* objective to me.

But I guess that's the rub. It's a *feeling*... and that's my only proof.

And THAT'S what art is for -- producing wisdom. We experience, study, think about and analyse art in order to acquire wisdom. A wise person is one whose back yard encompasses many people's back yards, where whole neighborhoods play, trees grow and creeks bubble, well-kept lawns lie next to tangled bushes, birds sing and the occasional wild jungle cat prowls through.

Post of the Year!

 

[barsoomcore]

Post of the Year!

Man, I slave over my story hour entries, make Mrs. Barsoom review them before posting them, take up valuable hours of work time crafting them, and I win Post of the Year for this? What I ripped off from Harold Bloom? Who I haven't even read but only had Mrs. Barsoom summarize for me?

Oh well.

 

[buzz]

Separating what you like from what you approve of only means you're not bothering to analyse your tastes. If you like something it must possess value, and I think it's interesting to investigate WHY we find value in things other people don't. They may be idiosyncratic reasons, they may reveal general truths about ourselves or our history, or they may uncover values many people share but have never acknowledged. Unless we investigate this stuff, we'll never know.

If ENWorld had a thread rating system like RPG.net, I'd give this thread 87 stars.

Barsoomcore is now officially The Man, and thus I bow down to him. I'll now start taking collections for the "Relocate barsoomcore to my town and make him join my game group" Fund.

 

[buzz]

Man, I slave over my story hour entries, make Mrs. Barsoom review them before posting them, take up valuable hours of work time crafting them, and I win Post of the Year for this?

Well, if you want me to take it back...

 

[barsoomcore]

Well, if you want me to take it back...

Hell, no! I want you to go post sycophantic murmurings on my Story Hour thread and get my view count ahead of Piratecat's!

 

[WizarDru]

Bull. Read a marketing report, ANY marketing report, and see if it gives a really, really solid idea of the appropriate course of action. In the rare case that the report does lead to one, solid, inescapable conclusion, I can guarantee you that your average company will run in exactly the opposite direction.

Marketing departments are the bane of all logic and reason in the universe.

And anyone who plays D&D is a fat loser who's never kissed a girl and lives in their parent's basement with no social skills whatsoever, right? If you honestly believe that all marketers everywhere always do the wrong thing and have no benefit, then I can only assume you were personally kicked by a marketer as a small child. I've met plenty of stupid marketers in my time, to be sure...but then we come back to Sturgeon's law, and the stupid net admins, CEOs, managers, receptionists, carpenters, accountants, engineers, bellhops, pharmacists and everybody else.

I don't believe that was in question. I like multi-book series as well. I've also read and enjoyed a number of standalones. Those are hurting these days.

Actually, I thought that you were saying that publishers had arbitrarily decided to switch to multibook series for no particuar reason, when it's clearly not the case. Fantasy fans have voted with their dollars. If they wanted more standalone books, they'd buy them.

Which is at least in part due to the lack of support from the publishing houses for standalone fiction.

They seem to be following ABC's example for media success: Take something popular ("Who Wants to be a Millionaire"), pump it up with all the publicity you can, spin off a bunch of new cloned products with the same basic premise, overexpose it until people are sick of it, and then pull the plug and declare that it has "run its course".

Well, maybe for fantasy fiction. Tons and tons of standalone SF novels come out every month. And as for it being some sort of fad that's run it's course...well, if it hasn't burned out over the course of 25 years, I don't think it's really a fad, do you? SF, Mystery, Horror, Romance and military ficiton has equal amounts of stand-alone and series work...because the buying public reinforces that. Fantasy readers, by and large, don't.

The Universe, above, says as much. And I'm the same way. I prefer a nice long series to sink my teeth into. And I'll keep buying Jordan's books, even though I'm not very happy with his work right now. A big problem you face, as a writer, is that it is much easier to produce a manuscript for submission than it was 25 years ago, when computers weren't in most homes, and word processors and typewriters were expensive. Which stinks, but there it is.