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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 has existed long before J.R.R Tolkein wrote his famous trilogy, in the form of Babylonian epics (Gilgamesh) classic Greek Myth (the Minotaur, Olympian Gods, and Hercules) fairy tales and fables (the Brother's Grimm and Aesop's Fables) and oral tradition (aboriginal lore and legends like Ulagaru and the First People) so why is it then that we (I mean of course, us fantasy-loving geeks) start and end every discussion of the "genre" with the esteemed Mr. Tolkein? He is a cornerstone of modern fantasy, and is aptly credited with the creation, catalogue, and definition of many fantasy staples like elves, orcs, dwarves, and wizards, but while he did innovate the genre (some argue he created it) I say he merely modernized antiquated archetypes into pallatable characters. He popularized a hodge podge of myth, legend, and fantasy into his great compendium of Middle Earth. He packaged fantasy and brought it to the masses.
I state this history of the origins of fantasy in order to address it's future as a literary style, for without a knowledge of its lengthy journey to the popular status it enjoys today, we as readers might misunderstand its current standing as a genre.
Think about the length of time, geography, and culture that fantasy tropes like the rebellious God (Melkor and Sauron of the Valar, Ouranos, Kronos, Zues, Odin, and Loki) the outmatched yet powerful hero (Gilgamesh, Hercules, Bilbo, Aragorn) and the hapless, jolly fools (hobbits, elves, nymphs, fairies) have all had to go through to arrive, preserved in their present state. The trail of that narrative stretches to the dimly lit caves of Homo Sapien in the dawn of spoken word whispered to keep spirits and predators away.
The point however, is not that these archetypes have merely survived, but that they have prospered, profligated, and perforated every facet of our culture. One must only look to the recent explosion of comic book titles not only in print, but in film that have erupted over the past few years to see that fantasy is alive and well. Classics are being unearthed and exciting new epics like Marvel's Civil War and Secret Invasion are taking new readers by surprise. Fantasy characters like Superman, Spider Man, The Hulk, X-Men, and many others that draw on the supernatural have easily been accepted right alongside characters that draw their fantasy from the elements of science like Ironman, War Machine, Henry Pym, and others to the point where many origin stories for fantastic characters draws from both the scientific and supernatural world. The very idea of what is fantastic and what is merely possible, but just out of our reach is at the very heart of fantasy writing, and has been since Prometheus stole fire, or the first Golem was animated.
We as readers seek to delineate styles and tropes within the two catch-all genres of "fantasy" and "science fiction" when in fact they are merely mirror images of each other that address our struggle to carve the best future and simultaneously come to grips with the horrors of our innerselves and our past as a species, from two different angles. Fantasy encompasses all of that territory.
So call it what you will, fantasy is much more than scantily clad sword priestesses and arcane mumbling warlocks. Dragons dot the landscape, but they don't define it. Fantasy touches on every aspect of the human imagination and does what so few other literary disciplines accomplish - it makes it real. In this paradox the impossible becomes graspable, and as long as fantasy continues in this millenia old tradition, I see no end in sight for the infinite pertubations of the "genre." Just as our culture, civilization, science, and psychology have grown and will continue to grow, so has our need to understand. Fantasy always keeps pushing us one step further while reminding us of our past - and to me, that's a truly fantastic thing.
Learn more about this author, Shawn Forno.
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