by G.N. Jacobs

Created on: March 13, 2008   Last Updated: December 03, 2010

Let's shake the Magic Eight ball for this answer: signs point to YES!

The key indicator is that no one seems to write outside of the Tolkien Box. Many fantasy books involve the great quest for the powerful object in order to keep it away from the dread powerful lord, or to use it on said lord, black wizard or necromancer. Please...please kill me now! I thrilled to see Frodo Baggins dump Sauron (almost) with a timely assist from Gollum. I'm currently jazzed to read of Lyra Belaqua and her quest to save her father and learn about Dust (I'll let you know how I feel when I finally read The Amber Spyglass). But what makes you assume I will spend the valuable heartbeats I have left on poor imitations?

Yes, it can be argued that His Dark Materials owes some of its lineage to Lord of the Rings, but the similarities are only skin deep. Phillip Pullman grafted the fantasy quest over what is essentially a little girl's coming of age story that includes overcoming being the object of a nasty custody battle. This reflects more of the world I live in and I think this is the direction the Fantasy genre needs to go in to revitalize. Someone on the No side has got to be waiting with a copy of George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones series. It's the exception that proves the rule. Just reading, the back cover tells the reader that it is a different book. Politics, mystery, intrigue, romance and adventure suggest that Martin is doing what I advocate: steal from other genres.

Why did fantasy stagnate?

The formula became paramount; when did editors start acting like Hollywood suits and make decisions based on what sells to the total exclusion of new material? The Lord of the Rings Format has sold well for 50 years and someone (don't know who) convinced writers to replicate the formula. Who cares if Robert E. Howard's Conan was swept under the rug until sort of rescued by Arnold Schwarzenegger for an all too brief moment? So we got the many works of David Eddings and Piers Anthony.

Some writers didn't know when to put their favorite series down and do something else-speaking of Piers Anthony and David Eddings, their many series just went too long. Those of us with short attention spans couldn't get through the Belgariad, The Apprentice Adept series, or my personal hate: Xanth-boring and repetitive because it takes you many thousands of pages when Tolkien was done in 1300 pages or so (not counting appendices etc.) is one sign of stagnation.

Role Playing Games have both helped and

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