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Topics - daranthered

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Writing Group / Fallen Fantasist
« on: February 21, 2011, 08:36:06 PM »
There's been a debate going on around the web lately about fantasy, specifically the tendency toward less morally elevated characters and stories..  I thought I'd post some of the articles here and get some reactions.

It started with an article, "The Bankrupt Nihilism of Our Fallen Fantasist," by Leo Grin talks about the increase in nihilistic and gritty fantasy as opposed to the more traditional Sword and Sorcery of Robert E. Howard, and High Fantasy by Tolkien.  The article uses the works Joe Abercrombie as as its main example of this trend

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/lgrin/2011/02/12/the-bankrupt-nihilism-of-our-fallen-fantasists/

Abercrombie replied, rather glibly I thought, on his blog.

http://www.joeabercrombie.com/2011/02/15/bankrupt-nihilism/

The Black Gate ran an interesting rebuttal to several remarks Ambercrombie made.

http://www.blackgate.com/2011/02/20/the-decline-and-fall-of-the-fantasy-novel/

I don't know if this is one of those things which is a lot of sound and fury, but I find the discussion intriguing.  As someone who enjoys the more traditional moral heroes (like Dresden) and more traditional stories where people are basically decent, and are distinct from the bad guys, I don't much like the more nihilistic fiction trend.  I have for a long time known that I had to avoid works that were more "real," or "gritty."  I'm not saying that there's no place for works like that, but they're not to my taste.

Frankly, I find the idea that works like Abercrombie now dominate fantasy (an idea expressed in the first article, the one that started it all) is absurd.  The more traditional fantasies are still the ones that sell.  There hundreds who want to be the next Jordan, or Sanderson or Butcher.  I don't know many people who want to be the next Abercrombie.  There might be a few who want to be the next George R.R. Martin, and that's a scary thought.  But I think that the former authors are popula,r and inspire emulators, not because they sell so well, but because there is a joy in reading that kind of fiction, and a joy in writing in that vein.

I've put this up a couple of places I know fantasy readers hang out.  I'm hoping to get an idea of what writers and readers alike think about the rends in fantasy today.
Anyway, that's my opinion.  What's yours?

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Books / NPR's Summer Genre Reading List
« on: July 11, 2010, 12:33:41 PM »
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128273155&sc=nl&cc=bn-20100708

Has anyone read any of the books on this list?  Several of them look interesting.

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Books / Has Anyone Read the Wild Cards Series
« on: July 09, 2010, 03:23:34 AM »
I don't particularly like George R.R. Martin (the one exception being "The Armageddon Rag").  However, some writers I really like, Roger Zelazny for example, have written in the Wild Cards Universe.  I was wondering if it was worth getting into.

Anyone have an opinion?

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Movies and TV / The Last Airbender
« on: July 05, 2010, 07:07:22 AM »


I was hoping to warn people away from this movie.  In addition to being a very bad adaptation of the original cartoon (in some cases changing the way the names of major characters were pronounced), the movie itself was badly paced, featured wooden acting, and was just generally badly put together.

Any other opinions would be welcome.

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