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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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