What do you think of the Fantasy Novel Apparatus?

Greatwyrm said:
It just seems like I can find a complete story in one book in several other genres, just not stuff written in modern fantasy. The last one I can remember was Feist's "Magician" -- originally one book, but two paperbacks.

Doesn't that sorta prove the other guy's point? I mean, even leaving out Silverthorn and Darkness at Sethanon, that's one story that filled two books. Saying that it was one book but two paperbacks is, well, not technically true. It was one story in two books. Which is what you were complaining about. I'm confused.
 

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takyris said:
Doesn't that sorta prove the other guy's point? I mean, even leaving out Silverthorn and Darkness at Sethanon, that's one story that filled two books. Saying that it was one book but two paperbacks is, well, not technically true. It was one story in two books. Which is what you were complaining about. I'm confused.

Magician was originally published as one large, hardback book, IIRC. When they issued the paperback, they decided to split it into two books.
 

Greatwyrm said:
Magician was originally published as one large, hardback book, IIRC. When they issued the paperback, they decided to split it into two books.
I think the point he was making is that it was physically two books.

I think you need to redefine the intital rant. It seems it's not that you have a problem with series (though you or the original poster might personally feel so, I do not know), but that you have a problem with excessively long stories. Which is really what Jordan is, or Martin, or so on. When I think series, I think something like Hobb's three trilogies... each stands on it's own, but they're all interconnected as well.

Jordan was a poor example anyway, since he's the perfect definition of an author writing too much, for (in my opinion) the wrong reasons. Not to mention his wife being his editor, and his rediculous overuse of descriptive text.
 

I think the apparatus you're mentioning -- maps, etc -- is mostly the copying of an apparently successful formula. You see a similar formula in other types of fiction; it isn't exclusive to fantasy.

I have found the "multi-parting" of books lately to be pretty annoying. Doesn't anyone [fantasy author] put a complete story in one book anymore, instead of the requisite trilogy? I guess J.K. Rowling does, but ...
 

Olgar Shiverstone said:
Doesn't anyone [fantasy author] put a complete story in one book anymore, instead of the requisite trilogy? I guess J.K. Rowling does, but ...

Peter S. Beagle
Micheal Ende

A.
 

nikolai said:
I recently picked up the first books of a couple of multi-book fantasy series.

What struck me when I took my first glance at them was the ritualised apparatus that comes with each novel. At the beginning of the book you get a map of a continent. Sometimes you then get further maps of cities or sub-areas. You then get a list of characters and their job descriptions (Strider, a ranger). This is followed by quote which acts as a preface. The book is then divided into subsections and then chapters. Each chapter is headed by a fictional quote from some history book, often attached to dates from some fictional calendar. The book is then finished by an Appendix which give a comprehensive list of people, places, organisations and pronunciations.

And why is it peculiar to fantasy?

Well, the whole thing about appendices, maps, glossaries may appear more in fantasy I suppose. To the point where its fairly common. But to me, I see it as an obvious needed thing. Their settings are unfamiliar to us. They need explaining. As do some of the fictional words or phrases associated with the cultures involved.

I can pick up a book about detectives in modern day Los Angeles and the book wouldn't need a map, glossary, or whatever. I know what the modern urban landscape is like. Especially in America.

Although. Like an above poster mentioned. Even non-Fantasy books have maps. When I read "Black Hawk Down" (great book by the way)....it had plenty of maps.
 

nikolai said:
I recently picked up the first books of a couple of multi-book fantasy series.

What struck me when I took my first glance at them was the ritualised apparatus that comes with each novel.
I think you just happened to get the luck of the draw. The last four books I've read have no maps (with one at least sorely needing one); indeed, none of the things you've mentioned. I find maps, pronunciation guides, character listings, etc very very helpful and I wish more fantasy books had them.
 

I think, well "it depends". I just finished reading The Fall of the Kings (by Kushner and Sherman), which had no map or list of dramatis personae. But it didn't really need either.

On the other hand, when I read The King's Peace, and The King's Word (both by Jo Walton), I found myself begging for one. I had trouble keeping track of which character was which, and a map to show the geographical relationship of different kingdoms and locations would have been very handy.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if a story or series is complex, in number of characters or geographical locations, then a list of characters or a map is useful. You can look at this aspect of such books as good (if you like the complexity) or bad (if you find it cluttered).

Quotes can be used in a number of different ways; like most anything else in writing, they can be good or bad. The quotes in Asprin's Myth series were all funny (and I believe he wrote at one point that coming up with a whole new set of funny ones was becoming more of a challenge). More conventially, they give the author an opportunity to make a statement about the world (from the POV of a historian, perhaps) or insert a bit of poetry or song which would not otherwise fit into the storyline but which helps to add more background detail to the world in which the story is taking place. And they can do so in a more concise way that including a whole song a la Tolkien, or a long section on history.
 
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Olgar Shiverstone said:
I have found the "multi-parting" of books lately to be pretty annoying. Doesn't anyone [fantasy author] put a complete story in one book anymore, instead of the requisite trilogy? I guess J.K. Rowling does, but ...
There are a few, but only a few, and most of them don't write traditional pseudo-tolkienesque fantasy. Steven Brust, Guy Gavriel Kay, Charles de Lint, China Mieville, and Neil Gaiman all write self-contained books.
 

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