Who are Howard and Leiber?

[Turjan]

Turjan, I would argue that the reason those stories made it into translation is due to the fact that they became so popular in the States. Without that popularity, publishers would be unwilling to translate them into other languages. We see this with movies all the time. Despite being crap many times, Hollywood movies get translated into pretty much every language on the planet. How many Korean movies have you seen lately?

That's not that easy in this case. Being popular in the US definitely helps with being translated in the first place. That doesn't help selling the books, though. People must have some incentive to buy them . I think it's movies like Star Wars that slowly paved the path to success. I'm sure there are quite a lot of people who made the SF->Space Opera->Science Fantasy->Fantasy transition.

Your book/movie analogy doesn't work exactly like that in my home country. As books have fixed prices (even on amazon they have the same ), publishers take more risks with completely unknown foreign authors. And as state TV is paid by compulsory fees, they also translate Korean films that potentially 5 people watch around Tuesday midnight.

 

[davidschwartznz]

That was, in fact, his point.

My point is: Getting a cohesive group from a small percentage of the population together may be hard, but it's not 'bloody slight'. A fantasy world may not have the advantage of the Law of Large Numbers (which may, in part, justify why we're able to have this conversation right now), but it does have the Law of Large Monsters - which certainly puts an imperative on the adventurous sort to get together (even if they do have the occasional personality conflicts - just like a gaming group).

 

[barsoomcore]

As far as quantity over quality goes, well, I'm willing to stack up the best of the 21st centuries fantasy authors against Howard any day of the week. Let's face it, great prose Howard is not. I'll see your Howard and raise you a Mercedes Lackey, or CJ Cherryh or Donaldson or Pratchett.

Um, snicker?

MERCEDES HACKEY (sorry, couldn't resist) as an example of great prose? Okay, whatever. What's next, Anne McCaffery?

Cherryh has interesting ideas and Donaldson's got stones, and Pratchett's funny enough to get around anything, but NONE of those writers are producing great prose.

Steven Brust is, but nobody reads him anyway.

But okay, throw down: Give a a quote from one of the above named authors (except Steven Brust) that demonstrates a level of prose quality that you think Howard is incapable of. I'll smack you down with a quote from Howard that blows it away.

One thing Howard's DEFINITELY got going for him is very strong prose. He's a powerful, exciting writer who isn't always the best thinker about the human condition, occasionally uses racial stereotypes instead of defining characters, and is a little too fond of wacky coincidence to suit my tastes, but his PROSE? Howard kicks prose butt.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Um, snicker?

MERCEDES HACKEY (sorry, couldn't resist) as an example of great prose? Okay, whatever. What's next, Anne McCaffery?

Cherryh has interesting ideas and Donaldson's got stones, and Pratchett's funny enough to get around anything, but NONE of those writers are producing great prose.

Steven Brust is, but nobody reads him anyway.

But okay, throw down: Give a a quote from one of the above named authors (except Steven Brust) that demonstrates a level of prose quality that you think Howard is incapable of. I'll smack you down with a quote from Howard that blows it away.

One thing Howard's DEFINITELY got going for him is very strong prose. He's a powerful, exciting writer who isn't always the best thinker about the human condition, occasionally uses racial stereotypes instead of defining characters, and is a little too fond of wacky coincidence to suit my tastes, but his PROSE? Howard kicks prose butt.

Goodness, yes. Donaldson or Lackey as "great prose"? Yeeech. There's good fantasy being written yet (or was in the '80s, I can't think of a single post 1995 fantasy novel I've enjoyed that wasn't unambiguosly a 'trashy quick summer read' or a Discworld novel). Better than Howard? I seriously doubt it; I find Howard's prose the very best in the business.

Pratchett is a brilliant humorist, but he's a humorist first, a fantasist second. As well call Dave Barry a great fantasy writer! He's written about giant insects and magic from time to time, and he's certainly funny.

Go back to when Glen Cook was churning out Black Company novels and I'll say there's good fantasy, perhaps even approaching Howard's level. Since then? Not so much.

Personally, I've found far more innovate settings and well-told stories in console RPGs of the last ten years than in the fantasy novels of the same period. If future pen-and-paper RPGs take their cue from the former, I'll be pleased as punch. If the latter, well, it's not like I have to use their generic, 90s-mentality-in-pseudo-medieval-trappings settings, and since no one even tries to put together any metaplot anymore, much less an interesting one, no worries on that account.

 

[tetsujin28]

Um, snicker?

Word. None of the current crop are nearly as good as Howard, Leiber, A.A. Merritt, C.L. Moore...not only are they lacking in any ability to write decent prose, they lack originality.

Steven Brust is, but nobody reads him anyway.

Did, up 'till Tekla. Then it went rapidly downhill. Gypsie? *yeesh* Just plain awful.

 

[MonsterMash]

Pratchett is one of the few authors that I know played D&D - he has mentioned it in interviews with gaming magazines back when his books first started appearing, for example the luggage was actually in a D&D game originally. Not sure what edition though (must have been either OD&D, BD&D or 1e due to the period though).

 

[Krypter]

I agree with Moogle and Barsoomcore that few, if any, of today's fantasy writers can match the great masters of the past...and I'm not some old, nostalgic fogey! Their prose is just plain better, though I understand that people's tastes will vary according to their preference for high-brow or middle-brow culture. I just finished reading Perdido Street Station (a modern book which has won awards and plaudits left and right) and was terribly disappointed, not by the world (which was very interesting), but by the story and prose. It was mediocre, and it seemed to reek of D&D. D&D needs to go back to the roots for some of its inspiration. I think the success of "originalist" books like Iron Heroes and Grim Tales attests to this.

As for Vance, if you want to see which RPG was most influenced by his work, try Talislanta. It's a wonderful interpretation of his worlds, without being a hack clone. The weird spell names, strange creatures, devastated landscapes, eccentric wizards and circumlocutious descriptions are all there.

I also agree that today's authors make magic too commonplace, and reflect too much the contorted politics, political-correctness and sensibilities of our times. They create bland, magic-suffused worlds that appeal to everyone and no-one.

I don't agree with the "high-magic/low-magic" dichotomy. I want my worlds to be dazzlingly high-magic and my characters/players solidly mundane; therein lies the adventure.

I think Howard, Leiber, White, and Glen Cook got it exactly right.

Last note: I blame today's educational system for the shortcomings of modern writers. The great masters had a far better classical education than any university is capable of today. Even as our sciences have gotten better, our humanities have degenerated in a horrendous fashion. That too, is a sad reflection of the politics of our times. :\

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Last note: I blame today's educational system for the shortcomings of modern writers. The great masters had a far better classical education than any university is capable of today. Even as our sciences have gotten better, our humanities have degenerated in a horrendous fashion. That too, is a sad reflection of the politics of our times.

Don't blame the system, the educational system is just there to give you the fundamentals and perhaps erect some signs in your line of sight towards points of interest...

The person with the most responsibility for educating a person is THAT PERSON. I've got friends who learned greek to read certain philosophers in their original words. I've got a personal library numbering thousands of books: fiction and non-fiction; sci/fantasy and "classics;" philosophy and sciences.

If the writers of today are poorly read, then its on their own heads.

Besides, even those writers with brilliant minds make occasional gaffes. I've read several ruminations on the craft by luminaries like Asimov, Niven, Bester and others who point out (with great humor, I might add) the errors they and others have made in their worlds' physics, economics, continuity, and even the basics of grammar.

Example: Zelazny's 10 book cycle of The Chronicles of Amber has recently been collected into an omnibus edition...and the stories are FULL of innapropriately used homonyms. Ultimately, the final error in the missed corrections is on the part of the editors...but Zelazny erred FIRST and FUNDAMENTALLY.

 

[Thotas]

I've actually found it harder to find good science-fiction and fantasy since the popularities of Tolkien and Star Wars upped the amount both genres to be found in stores about a generation ago. It's entirely possible that with the increase of material that there's an increase in good material, but there is definately an increase in the bad, to the point where the signal to noise ration is extremely frustrating.

And there is good and bad in whatever era you look at. For example the "classic" Amber Chronicle mentioned above ... I found a major plot point in the first book to be so un-grandma-friendly-adjective assinine that there's no way in blazes I'm touching anything past it. Many people have told me that if I read further, it will make sense. They don't say anything further, I assume because they don't want to spoil it. They fail to understand that without a very good explanation of how it isn't stupid, there's nothing to spoil 'cause I'm not reading it.

On the other hand, if you claim to like fantasy and haven't read Lieber's Fafhrd and Grey Mouser, it's as if you claim to like Italian food but just haven't tried pasta yet. Age is no excuse.

 

[Turjan]

As for Vance, if you want to see which RPG was most influenced by his work, try Talislanta. It's a wonderful interpretation of his worlds, without being a hack clone. The weird spell names, strange creatures, devastated landscapes, eccentric wizards and circumlocutious descriptions are all there.

I agree concerning Talislanta, although I sometimes have the feeling that, in some places, it's different just to be different, whereas in other regards it only pretends to be different without actually being so . Anyway, for RPGs influenced by Vance I'd like to add the "Dying Earth RPG". That one breathes that much Vancian prose that it's getting very difficult for people who aren't native English speakers .