Reinvent the Fantasy Genre -- What would you like to see?

[Teresa Edgerton]

As readers, we frequently say, "I'd like something different." It's rare that anyone says exactly what that something is -- more often we hear what it isn't.

So the question: If you had the power to reinvent the Fantasy genre -- or at least were on the committee with full voting privileges -- what would you put in? How would you expand the genre?

(I'm not looking here for "more books like _______ (fill in popular or influential writer) writes." Because even if his/her books really have unique features, you can bet there are hundreds of imitators hard at work right now trying to duplicate those very features. Also, that's not specific enough to really answer my question, and neither are negatives, which are much too vague. If you are tired of medieval European settings, which settings would you prefer? If you don't want quests or court intrigues, what would you rather see characters do?)

What would you like to see within the genre that is missing or extremely rare now?

 

[McMurphy]

When a Wizard says "I'll be back."

There can be a few different directions or, at least, attributes that main stream fantasy literary sect may take that would be provocative.

First, the placement of multi-cultural mythologies within present day (i.e.: modern "real world") settings could be appeasing. Yes, readers may be putting their noses in hard cover and paperbacks alike in quest of escapism, but let's grow such wonderment from a soil that readers can connect with. Why would Loki show up at a rundown pub in England, for example? What happens when Aizen-Myoo, the Japanese deity of love and performance arts, is left to haunt an old movie theater in the middle of Japantown, San Francisco? Or, the most important question to let the readers ponder, what magic is hidden in ever-so-bland daily routine that has thus far propped its hammock in only the very corners of a reader's eye sight?

Not that a lot of fun and merriment can't still be had with medieval and feudal era settings. It is the backbone of the genre for a reason, after all. These tales can be woven to reflect what readers can identify with in their own lives. The science fiction genre has been doing it for decades and, for some reason, such an approach has largely been ignored when it comes to fantasy writing. Let's give the main stream fantasy genre the chance to voice or amplify the readers' own concerns on corruption, censorship, or other forms of abuse in power. Let's allow fantasy to tell us something about our social issues both national and universal in scope. Like science fiction has, fantasy can be an essential tool in enlightment, while, like all great literature of any genre, still be the iconic bard sitting at the readers' collective and proverbial campfire.

Those are just a few suggestions I like to see in my reading practices and implemented in my creative hobbies.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I would like to see more fantasy built around American folklore. I don't just mean Native American, although that would be good, too, but the folklore of places like the Ozarks and the Appalacians. Fantasy is so big in this country, but it's hardly ever about this country and our traditions. When it is, if it has a name like Bradbury or Card on the cover, it sells well enough, but the idea never seems to catch on, it never seems to stick.

And I would like stories with a more intimate focus, where we would see how ordinary people are impacted by the events that shake their world. What happens in the aftermath of war, after the heroic battles are done? Once you've saved the world (usually a messy, messy process) from some ultimate peril, how do you put things back together again? I'd like to see that part of the story, too.

 

[Quokka]

More Quest-less Fantasy, from what I've read science fiction seems to have traditionally done a better job of creating new environments, people etc and then using this basis to tell a whole range of stories from the science focus of hard SF to the ethical/anthropological ideas explored by Ursula Le Guin, stories where the environment or world is the real focus to..... whatever. It just seems that SF has been used to explore a much wider variety of ideas than Fantasy has, although some of that may be me needing to widen my reading as well .

I like that sometimes the SF is the focus of the story and other times it's almost irrelevant, in most of the Fantasy I've read there's a real focus on the character's interaction with a strange new world as opposed to the story being written to explore the interaction between the characters themselves.

Something I've been meaning to ask for awhile now, can anyone recommend any fantasy stories that don't involve the main character/s travelling? So many good stories are created in other genres involving the character/s experiences in one setting such as a town or city that I'd be curious to read a fantasy novel/series where the central characters have lives, jobs, family etc that aren't put aside to allow an adventure to happen.

I remember (well half remember) one of Feist's books that was mainly the character Roo setting up his business and from memory almost the whole story took place in the one city and I don't remember thinking that it lost anything because of it, as something different if nothing else I think I'd enjoy reading a (well written) story along the same lines.



Edit: reading Teresa's post I think her second point is along similar lines of what my rambling was trying to say .

 

[Wiglaf]

Personally, I like the traveling stuff,but at least having something happen near the main character's home would be different.
Tweaking the time period on occaision would be nice. Bronze age, Paleolithic, Neolithic - all within the village(new enough situation I wouldn't mind the lack of travel), 1890's.
Teresa, could you give an example of an American based fantasy idea? I always considered my history to be English history, if the time period was before the early 1600's. I have become increasingly aware that not everyone traces American history straight back through the colonies to England (pre-Act of Union).

 

[iansales]

Drop the Hero Journey's template, get rid of the all the Dungeons & Dragons knock-offs. Lose European mediaeval as a setting - it's been sanitised and romanticised out of all recognition and into a parody. Start presenting the real worldviews of characters, so they're not just 21st century white males in chain-mail jockstraps, or 21st century feisty females in robes and cloaks. If you're going to rip off an historical period, get the details right - so the combat doesn't bear as much resemblance to the reality as the technology does in CSI... No more Celtic mythology. No more Matter of Britain. No more silly magic systems, or twee fairies, dwarves, elves, etc. No more deep winters, no more the land is dying as a metaphor for the failure of the king's rule, no more evil dark lords that are evil just because they're evil...

 

[Ragnar]

Drop the Hero Journey's template, get rid of the all the Dungeons & Dragons knock-offs. Lose European mediaeval as a setting - it's been sanitised and romanticised out of all recognition and into a parody. Start presenting the real worldviews of characters, so they're not just 21st century white males in chain-mail jockstraps, or 21st century feisty females in robes and cloaks. If you're going to rip off an historical period, get the details right - so the combat doesn't bear as much resemblance to the reality as the technology does in CSI... No more Celtic mythology. No more Matter of Britain. No more silly magic systems, or twee fairies, dwarves, elves, etc. No more deep winters, no more the land is dying as a metaphor for the failure of the king's rule, no more evil dark lords that are evil just because they're evil...

Pretty much what he said ^^

 

[Culhwch]

Something I've been meaning to ask for awhile now, can anyone recommend any fantasy stories that don't involve the main character/s travelling? So many good stories are created in other genres involving the character/s experiences in one setting such as a town or city that I'd be curious to read a fantasy novel/series where the central characters have lives, jobs, family etc that aren't put aside to allow an adventure to happen.

I remember (well half remember) one of Feist's books that was mainly the character Roo setting up his business and from memory almost the whole story took place in the one city and I don't remember thinking that it lost anything because of it, as something different if nothing else I think I'd enjoy reading a (well written) story along the same lines.

One that immediately springs to mind is The Lies of Locke Lamora. Though the 'regular' job of the main characters is that old fantasy stand-by, thievery (by way of elaborate confidence games), Lies takes place entirely within the confines of one city - much like Rise of a Merchant Prince. I'm sure there are others besides...

 

[Giovanna Clairval]

I am not answering the thread question, for now, just signalling a few novels that are not about quests and travels...

In Little, Big by John Crowley, we have a "normal" person visiting a strange house that unfolds like a tesseract, in which apparently normal people--but fairy, in fact--involve him in intricate relationships.

There is also Neil Gaiman's American Gods. What happened to the gods of European immigrants who came to America? And, in the same mythical streak, Anansi Boys. You discover that your dead father was a god. And your estranged brother answers when you summon him by whispering into a spider's ear.

As a reaction to Fantasy characters' journeying, the first novel I wrote took place in a three-square-kilometre setting.

 

[McMurphy]

I would like to see more fantasy built around American folklore. I don't just mean Native American, although that would be good, too, but the folklore of places like the Ozarks and the Appalacians. Fantasy is so big in this country, but it's hardly ever about this country and our traditions. When it is, if it has a name like Bradbury or Card on the cover, it sells well enough, but the idea never seems to catch on, it never seems to stick.

And I would like stories with a more intimate focus, where we would see how ordinary people are impacted by the events that shake their world. What happens in the aftermath of war, after the heroic battles are done? Once you've saved the world (usually a messy, messy process) from some ultimate peril, how do you put things back together again? I'd like to see that part of the story, too.

I really like the American folklore idea, too. You are right. A lot could be done in this area.

 

[iansales]

It's been done. Coyote is nearly as popular a mythological character as Loki

 

[McMurphy]

Maengun

It's been done. Coyote is nearly as popular a mythological character as Loki

The coyote and Loki comparison has a nice ring to it considering the offspring of the said Norse trickster god...

 

[Jigoku Neko]

I'd like to see something that deals with ordinary people and ordinary lives within the boundaries of the *extra*ordinary that is fantasy literature. in most fantasy books the world, if not the entirety of universes, is in terrible peril if not for the hero/ine's intervention. that's all very sweet if done well but i find myself wanting to read something...well, simple. i am no longer much moved by grand, earth-shaking tales of legendary kings and queens, spoiled princelings and valiant knights, mighty wizards and scarred war-lords of mythical fame.

it seems that every single character in a fantasy novel is a celebrity waiting to happen. while it certainly gives one a warm, fuzzy feeling if the hero/ine they were cheering for got some fame&fortune after his/her thousand mile journey to the evil lord's Mordor-esque residence, it feels like a videogame sort of conclusion to me.

nobility aside, every fantasy world apparently has millions of invisible people that only serve as target practice for the enemy. i would love for more authors to tell me a story about simple folk that stayed simple folk even after their unique/magical experience. to give the general populace a face and tell me a little story set in a big world instead of the opposite.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

(sigh) Ian, the first message did ask for specifics of what you want to see, not a long list of negatives. I think we've heard all of that before, and I was hoping to take this thread into new territory.

That said, I agree that (whatever the period of the story) I would like to see characters who are products of their time and place, who, instead of thinking and acting like they arrived five minutes before the reader and put on the costumes, behave like they have spent their entire lives immersed in that time and culture (because they have). I would like stories where the author shows me what living in (fill in particular time or society) does to your head.

Wiglaf -- You asked about American-based fantasy ideas. Orson Scott Card's Alvin Maker books and Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes make use of American folklore in different ways. Card uses the frontier for his setting, and takes some of his inspiration from the folklore and folk magic of the late 18th and early 19th centuries -- basically the world in which Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church, grew up. Bradbury, on the other hand, takes the American midwest of the 1930's or 40's, and builds his story around the mystery and magic of carnivals.

We have a rich tradition of rural magic, and ghost stories, and treasure-seekers, and snake-oil salesmen, all of which, I think, could be woven into some fascinating stories. Then you have Voodoo in New Orleans, mythical beasts in the northern woods and southern deserts, lake monsters in the midwest, communities of mystics and occultists springing up along the California coast during the early 20th century. And now that we are sufficiently removed from that period, I think someone could do something quite effective with the occult revival of the 1960's and 70's.



As for fantasy in which the action takes place within a small area -- I think this is not uncommon in Urban fantasy, where a large town or a city offers sufficient scenery and variety without anyone having to go anywhere else. The first two books of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy take place in and around a great castle -- which happens to be roughly the size of a city. Although the place is immense, there is a claustrophobic quality, because of the weight to tradition which threatens to crush (and does crush) some of the characters. But then in Charles Williams's The Greater Trumps almost all the action takes place in or in the immediate vicinity of a country house.

There is really more variety in older books then in the books being written now.

 

[Connavar]

I would wanna see more stories based on Asian mythology,Native American,Norse.

By Norse i dont mean the blond barbarian from north that is usuall. But stories based on Oden,Thor and co and the normal people of ancient norse that worshiped them.

Not historical Fantasy or Historical Fiction like story but in a fantasy setting with hole new world,culture etc based on those cultures.

If there are good fantasy books like these i describe then i have to find them.

 

[Wiglaf]

I'm not burnt out on the old cliches, yet. At least, not with books. Movies are a different matter. As for the American folklore thing, I am not into the wild west. Worse, I was picturing Paul Bunyan brandishing a redwood and calling it a wand. Now I think perhaps the idea has some merit. A kid finds a wounded Jersey Devil in the park. After nursing it back to health, the child learns its habbitat is being destoyed and launches an environmental campaign to save the Jersey Devils. Does that kind of thing fit into what you were talking about?

By the way, if someone does a good job with the characters, it would go a long way towards making a good novel. Identifying with the characters is much more important to me than if the plot is novel or a retread. Identification does mean I have had the characters experiences, but that I can empathize with the character.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

A kid finds a wounded Jersey Devil in the park. After nursing it back to health, the child learns its habbitat is being destoyed and launches an environmental campaign to save the Jersey Devils. Does that kind of thing fit into what you were talking about?

Yes, that would fit in, though the possibilities are much larger than that, of course. Our history may be shorter than European history, our traditions fewer than theirs, but when you consider what a tiny part of their history and folklore inspires the majority of fantasy novels, that hardly matters.

A lot of people equate fantasy with the Middle Ages, as if all the folk traditions and the belief in magic and the practices which we today would call superstition just suddenly ended in the fifteenth or sixteenth century. And that is very, very far from the truth. People brought these traditions with them when they came here, and particularly in rural areas those traditions continued to grow and change and take on a local flavor right up into the early twentieth century. And I think this kind of setting would lend itself to smaller (but no less dramatic) character-driven stories.

And I am sure the same is true in Canada, and Australia, and New Zealand.

But even if we were going to limit ourselves to Europe, there are other periods we could use to provide our inspirations. And I would love to see more writers explore them.

 

[iansales]

(sigh) Ian, the first message did ask for specifics of what you want to see, not a long list of negatives. I think we've heard all of that before, and I was hoping to take this thread into new territory.

There were a couple buried in there amongst the negatives - characters that actually into fit into their surroundings, realistic combat, a real feel for what life is like in that time and place... and honest character motivations.

I also don't see why high fantasy needs to rip off historical templates. It's all very well saying we'd like to see more Native American, Norse, Wagnerian, or Greek mythologies, but why can't we ask for something original.

 

[Connavar]

First they have to stop using mostly euro medevil type fantasy setting before expecting to create something original.

Thats why people want to see other myths and cultures.

Something totaly original wouldnt hurt but you cant really expect of today market and how things are. Whatever sells will be remade 100000 times.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I also don't see why high fantasy needs to rip off historical templates. It's all very well saying we'd like to see more Native American, Norse, Wagnerian, or Greek mythologies, but why can't we ask for something original.

If there isn't one or more historical templates in there somewhere, I find that the background rarely hangs together. Authors throw things in at random, without any thought for whether those elements could co-exist in the same society. The plotting and characterization are often as murky as the rationale behind the background. You say rip-off, I say internal consistency. Sometimes I find an author who can throw away historical templates and make it work magnificently, but in the vast majority of cases I am disappointed, and think they are trading older cliché's for modern ones. This is a personal reaction, and it may or may not be a fair one, but the topic is what we would like to see (not what we think the genre should be or shouldn't be). And I like historical templates when they are used well.

And if we are going to take a historical approach, there is still so much territory left untouched, or practically untouched. Even within medieval-style fantasy, we leave most of western Europe out of the picture. Backgrounds are vaguely English, or not-so-vaguely Dark Ages Celtic, occasionally Norse. I hardly ever see anything with a French-inspired background, or a German, or an Italian, or a Spanish and I would like to see more. What about Swiss, what about Dutch? Did they fall of the map while I wasn't looking?