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Add to FavoritesOne of the more frustrating activities in which I waste time is to go to Borders and Barnes and Noble in a fruitless effort to locate fantasy that is simply not a constant rehash of the same old thing. At one time my fantasy and science fiction purchases were the single largest proportion of my total book buying budget - including (unfortunately) school texts - but the number of fantasy novels and magazines I currently buy has dwindled to almost nothing.
Obviously I do not dislike the genre. I credit reading fantasy, science fiction, and adventure novels and short stories with stretching my imagination and giving me a greater perception of the human condition. The problem is, I wish writing it had done the same for those authors who specialize in churning out the seemingly endless streams of volumes all saying the same things, all employing the same basic themes, even using the same basic stock characters, often with names that seem little different from one author to the next.
In short, there are only so many regurgitated revisions of northern European mythology a reader can take. Worse, I have noticed this spreading into other genres into which I had fled seeking escape. You can imagine my surprise when I picked up an English edition of a new Japanese Manga volume, and discovered that, instead of using the vast treasury of Oriental myth and legend as the basis for the story, the Mangaka (Manga artist) had put together another remix of Norse myth.
Writers working in a genre based on presumed archetypes of western culture seem intent on violating the essential principles of what it means to be human that are embodied in the myths on which they base their stories. This may be done to titillate or shock in order to sell more books, but the effect is to deny the mythic framework within which the author constructs the fantasy world. Again, the result is to rewrite the same things endlessly. Rather than work to try and connect with the underlying principles contained in fantasy and myth, fantasy writers seem to be doing their utmost in an attempt to undermine the very principles that give life to their work.
Further, far too much fantasy violates the basic principles of good story telling. A reader has to connect with the story on some level, hence good fantasy - or good fiction of any type - falls into two very broad categories. Either the writer throws an ordinary individual into an extraordinary situation, or (very effective for humor and satire) inserts an extraordinary individual into a mundane situation. An ordinary individual in an ordinary situation is, frankly, boring, while an extraordinary individual in an extraordinary situation provides no connection with the reader - again leading to the boredom which I have lately found pervading the fantasy genre.
In conclusion, fantasy has not so much become stagnant as moribund. It has been living off the legacy of Tolkien, Lang, Lewis - even Edgar Rice Burroughs - for far too long. It has used up the inheritance. It may be something of a paradox, but the fantasy genre is seriously in need of a reality check if it wants to reconnect to a viable readership and become relevant once again.
Learn more about this author, Michael Greaney.
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No
Fantasy Is Like An Eternal Spring Flowing Through The Human Mind
How could fantasy ever become stagnant as a genre, when it is like an eternal spring flowing through the human heart and mind?
If one could suggest that fantasy is just one tiny little creek, that only flows in one season of the year, for example in the spring, then one might argue that the fantasy genre has become, or could become stagnant. In the summer, the creek would dry up and only if there was a lot of rain in the fall, would it begin to flow again. In the winter time, it would freeze over completely.
In reality, life has its seasons too. Can we suggest that only in early childhood or youth, that the fantasy genre is active? No, we cannot state that. To teenagers, is fantasy no longer active? We have to say no to that too. How about to adults? Is there no room for fantasy in the adult heart or mind? We will have to state that adults love fantasy too. How about the elderly? Even really old people thrive on fantasy.
A child can be totally thrilled by fantasy and generally enjoys every single minute of it. Even a young child can create his or her own unique fantasy world and revel in it. A older child or youth, enters into fantasy willingly, actively participates in it and expands it, in his or her heart and mind. So do adults. In fact, what happens is the gradual expansion of the fantasy genre with age. By the time a person is really old, the world of fantasy has grown in such a way, that most people cannot even begin to comprehend it fully.
The difficulty with the fantasy genre, lies is the reality that some people can enter into a fantasy world, play in it, or even develop it further and then exit back out of it and return to a non-fantasy world, without encountering any harm from it. When a person is locked into that fantasy world and cannot get out of it, then serious mental health problems arise. This is the world of schizophrenia.
Most of us travel into the fantasy realm of life, many times a day and enjoy sitting on rainbows in our imagination, surveying or ruling our imaginary worlds, winning weird and wonderful inter-galaxial wars and so on. There is just no end to the possible fantasies that one can build. In fact, the fantasy mode is one that can be expanded indefinitely by almost anyone.
The fantasy world is akin to the world of a genius mind, simply because there are no limits placed upon it by anyone, except those of the person building the fantasy, in his or her own way, in time or space. That person may be bounced in and out of fantasy repeatedly, by any number of realities. Remove the limits and the possibilities are endless.
But the bottom line is this. A fantasy garden has been planted, in the heart and mind of humankind, for a reason. It is like that eternal spring that keeps on welling up. Is that not part of what keeps us forever young?
An eternal spring can never become stagnant and the fantasy genre will never become stagnant either.
Learn more about this author, W. Diane Van Zwol.
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