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Fallen Fantasist

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daranthered:
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?

maxonennis:
First off, the article is bad. The author obviously is living in the past and wants nothing but tLOR rewrites to read (look closely at what he writes and you can see this for yourself), regardless of character. Second, The First Law series is amazingly good, and you know what you're in for in the first pargraph. I have no pity for anyone who continues to read beyond that and then complains. Third, the series isn't half as bad as Mr. Grin puts it. Fourth, the writer doesn't know the genre. Fifth, Black Gate is a third rate literary mag that targets high schoolers. Sixth, there are still a hundred times as many generic, happy-go-lucky fantasy novels as there are any other kind.

The core of the problem with that article is that Mr. Grin doesn't actually like fantasy at all to begin with and is using Abercrombie as a strawman to blast the genre as a whole.

Anyway, about this 'darker fantasy' as a whole. I think that there is a place for it, just as there is a place for the happy-go-lucky, but the vast majority of the fantasy published today is somewhere in the middle, the way I believe it is supposed to be. In every genre there books that toe the line of no return, and I think that that is a good thing. I believe that part of the importance of fiction is being able to experience things that you would never actually do, for good or bad. But then again, as one who writes fiction I have an overinflated sense of value for fiction.

Bookstore Guy:
Not to mention the author of the original article talks about all of these authors--bashing them endlessly--and then says, "Oh yeah, haven't read this stuff."  If he read Abercrombie's THE HEROES, he would know that the title is meant for irony, is a direct product of philosophical discussions in the novel, and IS THE LOCATION THAT IS FOUGHT OVER FOR THE ENTIRE NOVEL.  It's one of my rules to reviewing: you have ZERO right to review something if you haven't read it.  A quick test:  has the writer of the article read THE HEROES?  No.  It kind of invalidates his comments on it.

I also personally loved his little part on Steven Erikson which shows his complete ignorance.  Again, he finds 1 bad review of the novel which he himself didn't read to help prove his point.  Seriously?  That's like me grabbing a random book at the store and writing a review based only on a cover-quote.

His claim that all the modern fantasy is nihilistic in nature is completely false, and saying that it applies to the works of Abercrombie and Erikson is absurd--again, it shows that he has read very little of anything by these authors (no matter his claims).  There is actually very little in fantasy that is nihilistic.  There is an astounding amount of hope, religion, righteousness in modern dark fantasy.  It's what makes it good, in my opinion.

But the article writer MUST be right, and everyone else WRONG because he invokes the name of Tolkien.  And EVERYONE knows that Tolkien was perfect, flawless, and a GOD.  Nope, he never once got his ideas from anywhere else.  Nope, before Tolkien, fantasy in another form never existed.

As usual in these laughable "essays" the writer points at an extremely few examples in the genre to make his point while ignoring the rest.  And even then, he gets most of it wrong because he couldn't bother to read the full series, or take off his elf-colored glasses.  He seems to be saying that all modern sword and sorcery is garbage, not game-changing, pitiful, and a diminished facsimile of "classic" work.  I somehow doubt that all these so-called classics were immediately loved and accepted as the best thing since sliced bread.

Sigyn:
"Elf-colored glasses" is my new favorite phrase.

maxonennis:

--- Quote from: Sigyn on February 22, 2011, 06:33:14 PM ---"Elf-colored glasses" is my new favorite phrase.

--- End quote ---

I'm rather fond of Abercrombie's entire pargraph that goes as such:


--- Quote ---It’s a very simple argument he advances, really.  A kind of literary battle of good against evil, you might say.  On one side are the towering mythic geniuses of Tolkien and Howard, who wrote “in blood and lighting” according to Leo, although presumably on extremely hardwearing paper.  On the other side are, well, me, Steve Erikson, Michael Swanwick, and Matthew Woodring Stover, apparently.  I’ve never met those guys, or read any of their work, I must admit.  But that doesn’t mean they’re not down here with me in the evil postmodern myth-destruction bunker.  It’s a big old bunker we’ve got, and there’s lots of us down here.  Though I’m not entirely sure who.
--- End quote ---

Which is made hilarious due to Grin's general hate for fantasy and labeling anything beyond the cardboard cut out "postmodern blasphemies against our mythic heritage'.  ::)

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