ysabel, a cranky musing on (high) fantasy

[mimesere]

read ysabel. was somewhat disappointed, though two of my all time favorite characters from another of GGK's books show up.

Unrelatedly:

now I am all grumpy, though, because dammit, I'm *tired* of reading the same old fantasy novel over and over and over again. Kingkillers, amazing prodigious boy-children(-of-prophecy), darkness to shadow the world, elves/fae, amazing never-before-seen-uses-of-magic, orcs/trolls as the armies of darkness, cruel beautiful women.

just. seriously. there's NOTHING ELSE to be done in high fantasy now? REALLY?

Also, whatever happened to WRITING A GODDAMN NOVEL? WHY IS IT ALL TRILOGIES AND SERIES AND WHATNOT? TELL A GODDAMN STORY AND HAVE DONE.

eta: totally unrelatedly - a CCI 2008 update - 4 day and Saturday is totally sold out, Friday is almost sold out, Thursday is getting there, and Sunday is lagging behind. They all sold out last year and look well on their way to selling out this year.

Comments

[fox1013.livejournal.com]

*nudges*

You know what's not cranky-making like high fantasy?

circus freaks.

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

Yay circus freaks!

*adores*

[fox1013.livejournal.com]

Sometimes, it occurs to me that if you weren't living in our heads/cell phones, these comments might seem like non sequiturs.

WEIRD.

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

Pfft. Don't be silly. The whole world is just something we made up.

*burrows*

[penmage.livejournal.com]

Some fantasy that is unlike anything else in the genre that I've read:

Dreamhunter and Dreamquake by Elizabeth Knox. It's two books, but it feels like one book in two physical volumes (and best of all, it's complete.) Don't bother reading any descriptions of the series. They don't do it justice at all, and I almost didn't pick them up. But they are fascinating and gorgeous and unlike anything else I've ever read.

Anything by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, particularly A Fistful of Sky, which is just about as urban as fantasy comes, but it's very strange and delicious, with a flavor that's very very different and very very good.

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

I love Nina Kiriki Hoffman a LOT and A Fistful of Sky made me really really happy.

And I will pick up the other books :) Yay books!

[halfacork.livejournal.com]

<3's urban fantasy.

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

<3 SO MUCH. It's often utterly wtf-inducing, but SO GOOD. LIKE CRACK. *grabby hands*

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

I think it has reached the point where people think that's what fantasy is, so they keep writing fantasy like that and feeding into the unimaginative loop. Even that wiki article is full of tropes that have to be filled for the story to be fantasy. So we get elves and quests and dark lords and the whole thing ends up exactly like The Tough Guide to Fantasyland.

Meanwhile, I'll be off in a corner, reading children's books. At least Moomintrolls and enchanted kangaroos haven't been done 1000 times.

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

That's why I read a lot of YA/kidlit fantasy, actually. It tends to be more imaginative and less cliche. Or at least there are interesting things done with the cliche.

It's also why I read GGK; most of his fantasy (other than Fionavar) doesn't fall into the same lines and so it is soothing. Also often tragic.

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

That's why I read a lot of YA/kidlit fantasy, actually. It tends to be more imaginative and less cliche.

Oh, absolutely. Diana Wynne Jones said at one point that if you tell children, "This bus is also a space ship full of witches," they'll take it in stride, while adults will start complaining: "If it's a bus it can't be a space ship! And there are no witches in space ships!" (The fact that she wrote it anyway is one of many reasons I love DWJ.)

It's also why I read GGK

Noted. I read Fionavar as a teen but haven't read anything else of his. I guess it's time to start. :-)

[cupiscent.livejournal.com]

The trilogy question is something near and dear to my heart, since my novel is a single-volume fantasy, and although it will be both very long and of three movements, I am going to resist any and all suggestions that it be split into a trilogy because it's a single-volume story.

It's a publishing thing, though. More books = more money. It's more or less a fact that unless a first book is a freakish success, it does not make money. What makes money is back-catalogue, and a trilogy is instant back-catalogue. Fantasy publishers in Australia want trilogies, and I am still uncertain how I'm going to overcome this.

It's an interesting point that I read and have always read fantasy for the epic of its scope, but in recent years I, too, have been yearning for something solid and finite.

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

See, the problem for me with trilogies (and especially with first-time published) is that a) I'm not inclined to trust the author enough to invest that much time and care if I haven't read them before, b) I hate having to wait a LOT, c) if it's going to be a trilogy then I kind of feel like the whole thing should be *done* by the time the first book is published. So maybe it is less the trilogy thing than it is the WIP thing. I um. Was one of the many who got burned by Robert Jordan as a wee me.

And I do totally understand the publishing thing and I'm absolutely willing to buy back catalogue for series and such, but the funny thing with trilogies and stuff like it is that if I can't buy the first book, I won't buy the trilogy *at all*. What's the point? I will have missed all the good stuff! (I am usually a fan of the 1st 2 in a trilogy, not so much the 3rd. IDEK) It just all makes me very grumpy.

eta: when your book comes out here, I will buy it and make everyone else I know who reads fantasy buy it. Just sayin'. Built in audience of 3!

[cupiscent.livejournal.com]

Heh. In Australia, if you haven't finished the trilogy when you're selling it to the publisher, they don't want to know. At least, if you're a first-timer. So the books hit the shelves one book every six months, regular as clockwork. (Now if they could just make them good...)

The funny thing about the fantasy-back-catalogue publishing ploy is that it's frequently foiled by bookshops and their crazy stocking plans. I was in a store the other day, and they had books 1 and 3 of GGK's Fionavar, but not 2. I don't know how this made sense to them. (And they didn't have Al-Rassan at all, which I need a new copy of, because my old one had just about been loved to death. Fie.)

Also: Hee. Thanks. *G* Although if I manage to sell it to the States, I will be set.

[kidchyron.livejournal.com]

Okay, seriously? You want an antidote? You want something else?

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch.

Seriously.

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

*sheepish* I tried it and uh. Yeah. It didn't do a lot for me.

[nyagosstar.livejournal.com]

seriously. this is why i don't read much in the way of adult fantasy anymore. i hit a wall-- i just can't take the poor, orphaned farm boy saving the world for one more second. as a culture, we have to have better ideas than this, and yet.

yep, there's another one, orphans are so good at saving the world, especially when they're 16 year old boys.

sigh.

have you read any ellen kushner?

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

I've read some Ellen Kushner. I liked Swordspoint but I kind of hated the sequel.

Honestly, I know it will never happen, but I want another in the Pointsman series from Melissa Scott and Lisa Barnett. Point of Hopes was the first book and Point of Dreams was the second and they are essentially police procedurals in an awesomely built world. So I like them a lot.

[copracat]

WRITING A GODDAMN NOVEL? WHY IS IT ALL TRILOGIES AND SERIES AND WHATNOT? TELL A GODDAMN STORY AND HAVE DONE.

I have been asking this question for nigh on fifteen years. I believe the answer must be either a)money and/or b)writer's desire.

It is why I have scarcely spent money on a fantasy book in fifteen years. Yes, writers and publishers, my money, you may not have it.