Has the fantasy genre become stagnant?

Yes

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by Michael Fassbender

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The contemporary fantasy scene is not particularly inspiring. More than anything else, this is because of a fundamental irony in the fantasy marketplace: fantasy exists as a genre because of a human need to experience imaginative alternate realities, but the average consumer of fantasy literature has a fixed idea of the parameters of a fantasy world, and prefers to tread familiar territory.

All writers have their influences; none of us writes in a vacuum. Moreover, one could do a lot worse than looking to a great writer like J.R.R. Tolkien for inspiration. The problem is that far too many writers derive only the simplest lessons from Middle Earth. They see a world with a quasi-medieval level of technology, some magic, a lot of funny names, and non-human races like elves, dwarves, orcs and trolls. Too many people simply imitate these elements, without many of the things that really made Middle Earth magical, such as a cohesive vision of the grand scheme of things; a profound knowledge of language and folklore, which meant that Tolkien knew the images that would speak to us and could express them in compelling ways; and most elusive of all, a profound confidence in his world born of thorough knowledge. It is worth observing that Tolkien had been hammering out the history, geography, languages and traditions of Middle Earth for about 20 years before The Hobbit was published. This is not to argue that all fantasy novels must be massive tomes compiled after decades of work, but only to suggest that writers should not think that a string of traditional elements (say, dragons + elves + men with swords + the occasional wizard) is sufficient to create a meaningful world.

The Star Wars universe poses a striking parallel. Technically, Star Wars is not science fiction, despite the use of sci-fi imagery; at its heart Star Wars is epic fantasy. The semi-official Expanded Universe of Star Wars novelists suffers from the same lack of inspiration that plagues the would-be disciples of Tolkien. Despite the lack of Tolkien's grasp of language, George Lucas made a comparable accomplishment with his Star Wars films. His story had a decisive arc, however, that was officially resolved at the end of Return of the Jedi. The Emperor was dead, Darth Vader was dead, the Empire had been toppled, and a new beginning resulted. The novelists, however, have struggled to find new justifications for recreating the same crises they had enjoyed in the classic films, and in the process they have completely subverted the intentions of George Lucas. It is as if somebody had gotten the rights to publish tales of the Fourth Age of Middle Earth, and then abused it by coming up with stories about how the spirit of Sauron managed to incarnate himself afresh and try again, or perhaps about how the Ring were not destroyed in Mount Doom, but only blown out of the volcano to be found a few years later by some farmer who, predictably, put on the ring and began the evil anew.

To be sure, there are some bright spots in the fantasy field. For example, Gregory Maguire's novel _Wicked_ was a remarkable book. It was a brilliant and thought-provoking tale, and an original one, despite the fact that it is based upon the work of L Frank Baum. In many respects, Maguire's vision of Oz is an improvement upon Baum's, in that he brought a far greater cohesion to the setting than Baum ever intended, and in the ways that he applied that vision in his novel. Unfortunately, success both demanded a follow-up and killed its prospects. Specifically, the adaptation of the novel to a Broadway musical distorted Maguire's vision in a way comparable to the abuse of Tolkien's and Lucas' visions outlined above, only in this case to have a more sentimentally innocuous resolution to the crisis, rather than to prolong it. This musical proved so successful that Maguire was moved to write _Son of a Witch_ as a sequel, and in writing it, he bowed to Broadway's sensibilities. The result is a novel with a wholly different character from that of the original, and a decidedly lesser one at that.

On a more positive note, however, it may be that the dreary tendencies in the fantasy field can be attributed more to an increase in the number of mediocre books that get published, than to a decrease in the number of meaningful novels being written. If so, then it remains as possible as ever for a really great fantasy novel to come along at the right time, or for a previously ignored tale to get the attention it deserves. We will never reach a point where everything that gets published is a gem (or, for that matter, that every gem will get published), but sooner or later another great author, or authors, may arise to shake up the fantasy field and spark some renewed creativity.

Learn more about this author, Michael Fassbender.
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