Searching for Heroic Fantasy
Another bit of rambling with a sort of mission statement and a call for help!
I first became acquainted with the fantasy genre at the age of 10, in late 1977, with the first airing of the animated TV Special "The Hobbit". Now, I'd already spent (some might say wasted) a childhood reading collections of fairy tales from around the world, perusing encyclopedias of monsters (both folkloric/legendary and cinematic) and watching "Seventh Voyage of Sinbad" or "Jason and the Argonauts" on TV. (Star Wars fits in here too, just a few months earlier, though it wears sci-fi clothes). But "The Hobbit" was different somehow, a sort of crystallized ideal of a kind of story I'd only seen in parts. Here we had the band of explorers/adventurers, a disparate group (though it was a bit hard to tell the dwarfs apart) embarking on a journey/quest on which they travel to different lands and encounter interesting people and dangerous obstacles/creatures. And to top it all is that awesome beastie, Smaug, still my platonic ideal of dragons.
This lead to seeking out the book, of course, then to my attempt to read Lord of the Rings at age 11 (got halfway through Two Towers, never looked back.) There was even a moment where I chose to go to the frankly lousy Ralph Bakshi film of Lord of the Rings rather than Superman: The Movie. Then, some time in 1978 (or maybe 79), my brother and I spotted this at the Toy & Hobby shop in the local mall:
Look familiar? (I had totally forgotten the pointy hat wizard in the lower left there.) Well, we had to have that, didn't we? And that sealed the fate of many a future hour which might have been spent more "productively" (like that would have happened...) It wasn't until high school a couple years later that we really played D&D, and by then we were onto Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (which was in hardcover and therefore seemed more adult, I guess. Plus, the Monster Manual totally had drawings of topless harpies and naked demon chicks in it!) Most germane to the current topic, though is the recommended reading list at the back of (I believe) the Dungeon master's Guide. Aside from the inevitable JRR Tolkien, there were what I think of as the Big Three: Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, and Michael Moorcock. (There were others, of course, and it would probably do me good to get hold of that list. Wonder if I still have a copy somewhere here?) Of those three, I read a few volumes of Howard, all six (later seven) Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser books by Leiber, and far, far too much Moorcock.
These three together, plus impressions from D&D and the fantasy adventure movies of my youth shaped my taste in fantasy fiction, a style I tend to identify as Heroic Fantasy. These days, fantasy fans seem to separate the genre into High and low Fantasy. Near as I can tell, High tends to be more overtly magical, with elves, dragons, benevolent powers, and a generally positive outlook. It's also easily stereotyped as "girlier", with unicorns, fairies, romance and other yucky stuff. Low Fantasy is usually described as "gritty" (a word that makes me wince these days), and tends to be less magical, more pessimistic, and much, much bloodier. By this description, the Lord of the Rings is the quintessential High Fantasy, and Conan would be the exemplar of Low. Moorcock's Elric, perversely, ends up being High Fantasy (the main character is a sorceror, after all, and there's loads of gods roaming about) despite its overall bleakness, and Leiber's Fafhrd & Mouser stories lean more to Low, despite their general good humor (gallows humor, sometimes, but still...)
It's due to examples like this that I find these definitions less useful. After all, Game of Thrones (which I know only from the TV series) is classed as Low Fantasy, due to limited use of magic and a whole lotta dismemberment and fornication, but at the end of the day its still a political thriller about kings, princes, and emperors squabbling over dynastic succession. I have trouble thinking of this as "low". I also have trouble relating too directly to the fates of kingdoms over the fates of specific individuals (good thing GoT has such great individuals). So on to my (loose) definition of Heroic Fantasy:
Heroic Fantasy stories are about one or more extraordinary individuals who take the role of active protagonists. They might be pushed into motion by outside forces, but their path will be their own. They should have a strong personal motivation, whether base or noble. They earn their victories, rather than being carried on the coattails of destiny. They can be warriors, rogues or wizards. The world can have great magics worked every day, with fey creatures crowding the wilderness and gods striding about, or the world can be almost devoid of all but the most oblique magics and the occasional over-sized lizard. The stories involve the protagonists engaged in perilous adventures, opposed by dangerous forces. The stakes can range from claiming an ancient treasure or gaining revenge for some slight, to saving mankind from the forces of darkness. The fate of kingdoms, if they are at stake, should be resolved by vigorous action, not by politics. If the protagonist becomes ruler of a nation, or otherwise possessed of a position of responsibility, the story is probably over.
There are always exceptions to these stipulations, of course. This is literature, not chemistry. But that's the basic shape of it. Which leads me to my Appeal For Help: I've read almost no fantasy novels in the past 20 years, except for Terry Pratchett and the occasional Steven Brust (and I haven't read Brust in at least 10 years). Most of my genre novel reading has been older crime and mystery novels, which tend to be fairly terse and to the point, and rarely exceed 200 pages. Now that I'm trying to move back to fantasy, I'm finding little patience for the wall of words that fantasy authors tend to use. Here's a list of items of what I'm looking for in a fantasy book:
Next, I'll start reviewing the books I've read so far in this "self-improvement" project. First up, the Forgotten Realms line of novels gets of to a bad start...
I first became acquainted with the fantasy genre at the age of 10, in late 1977, with the first airing of the animated TV Special "The Hobbit". Now, I'd already spent (some might say wasted) a childhood reading collections of fairy tales from around the world, perusing encyclopedias of monsters (both folkloric/legendary and cinematic) and watching "Seventh Voyage of Sinbad" or "Jason and the Argonauts" on TV. (Star Wars fits in here too, just a few months earlier, though it wears sci-fi clothes). But "The Hobbit" was different somehow, a sort of crystallized ideal of a kind of story I'd only seen in parts. Here we had the band of explorers/adventurers, a disparate group (though it was a bit hard to tell the dwarfs apart) embarking on a journey/quest on which they travel to different lands and encounter interesting people and dangerous obstacles/creatures. And to top it all is that awesome beastie, Smaug, still my platonic ideal of dragons.
This lead to seeking out the book, of course, then to my attempt to read Lord of the Rings at age 11 (got halfway through Two Towers, never looked back.) There was even a moment where I chose to go to the frankly lousy Ralph Bakshi film of Lord of the Rings rather than Superman: The Movie. Then, some time in 1978 (or maybe 79), my brother and I spotted this at the Toy & Hobby shop in the local mall:
Look familiar? (I had totally forgotten the pointy hat wizard in the lower left there.) Well, we had to have that, didn't we? And that sealed the fate of many a future hour which might have been spent more "productively" (like that would have happened...) It wasn't until high school a couple years later that we really played D&D, and by then we were onto Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (which was in hardcover and therefore seemed more adult, I guess. Plus, the Monster Manual totally had drawings of topless harpies and naked demon chicks in it!) Most germane to the current topic, though is the recommended reading list at the back of (I believe) the Dungeon master's Guide. Aside from the inevitable JRR Tolkien, there were what I think of as the Big Three: Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, and Michael Moorcock. (There were others, of course, and it would probably do me good to get hold of that list. Wonder if I still have a copy somewhere here?) Of those three, I read a few volumes of Howard, all six (later seven) Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser books by Leiber, and far, far too much Moorcock.
These three together, plus impressions from D&D and the fantasy adventure movies of my youth shaped my taste in fantasy fiction, a style I tend to identify as Heroic Fantasy. These days, fantasy fans seem to separate the genre into High and low Fantasy. Near as I can tell, High tends to be more overtly magical, with elves, dragons, benevolent powers, and a generally positive outlook. It's also easily stereotyped as "girlier", with unicorns, fairies, romance and other yucky stuff. Low Fantasy is usually described as "gritty" (a word that makes me wince these days), and tends to be less magical, more pessimistic, and much, much bloodier. By this description, the Lord of the Rings is the quintessential High Fantasy, and Conan would be the exemplar of Low. Moorcock's Elric, perversely, ends up being High Fantasy (the main character is a sorceror, after all, and there's loads of gods roaming about) despite its overall bleakness, and Leiber's Fafhrd & Mouser stories lean more to Low, despite their general good humor (gallows humor, sometimes, but still...)
It's due to examples like this that I find these definitions less useful. After all, Game of Thrones (which I know only from the TV series) is classed as Low Fantasy, due to limited use of magic and a whole lotta dismemberment and fornication, but at the end of the day its still a political thriller about kings, princes, and emperors squabbling over dynastic succession. I have trouble thinking of this as "low". I also have trouble relating too directly to the fates of kingdoms over the fates of specific individuals (good thing GoT has such great individuals). So on to my (loose) definition of Heroic Fantasy:
Heroic Fantasy stories are about one or more extraordinary individuals who take the role of active protagonists. They might be pushed into motion by outside forces, but their path will be their own. They should have a strong personal motivation, whether base or noble. They earn their victories, rather than being carried on the coattails of destiny. They can be warriors, rogues or wizards. The world can have great magics worked every day, with fey creatures crowding the wilderness and gods striding about, or the world can be almost devoid of all but the most oblique magics and the occasional over-sized lizard. The stories involve the protagonists engaged in perilous adventures, opposed by dangerous forces. The stakes can range from claiming an ancient treasure or gaining revenge for some slight, to saving mankind from the forces of darkness. The fate of kingdoms, if they are at stake, should be resolved by vigorous action, not by politics. If the protagonist becomes ruler of a nation, or otherwise possessed of a position of responsibility, the story is probably over.
There are always exceptions to these stipulations, of course. This is literature, not chemistry. But that's the basic shape of it. Which leads me to my Appeal For Help: I've read almost no fantasy novels in the past 20 years, except for Terry Pratchett and the occasional Steven Brust (and I haven't read Brust in at least 10 years). Most of my genre novel reading has been older crime and mystery novels, which tend to be fairly terse and to the point, and rarely exceed 200 pages. Now that I'm trying to move back to fantasy, I'm finding little patience for the wall of words that fantasy authors tend to use. Here's a list of items of what I'm looking for in a fantasy book:
- Less than 300 pages. This seems especially rare these days
- The main character is not The Chosen One. If he/she is "Chosen", then the prophecy is wrong. The protagonist must not be a pawn of destiny.
- The protagonist is a free agent. Not a soldier in an army, or the heir to a throne. If they are either of these, they must not want to be, and in fact, had better be trying to get out of it. Again with the free will and ability to make their own fate.
- The protagonist is an adult. If not at the start, then soon. No more coming of age stories, please. And no more teen angst.
- Angst in general can take a hike. I'm not looking for slapstick, but its best if the heroes don't hate themselves. It's nice if they take some satisfaction (if not enjoyment) from their adventures.
- Pacing. I'd like some forward plot motion, please. Minimal digressions. I shouldn't need a chapter of world history or an encyclopedic description of every magical beast encountered. I couldn't care less what the kings great-grandfather did on Shrove Tuesday in the Year of the Fruitbat. Just sum it up for me, thanks.
- No magical pets. Also, horses are not characters.
- No comedy-relief fey creatures.
- No comedy-relief dwarfs.
- No fake Hobbits. (Unless its an RPG-based novel, then I'll forgive you). If you're creating your own fantasy world, I expect more effort.
- Keep the verse to a minimum. Even if someone in the story likes to sing, there is no need for lyrics.
- Sense of humor. Not parody or pastiche, just an awareness of any internal absurdities or ironies, and a light touch with characters.
Next, I'll start reviewing the books I've read so far in this "self-improvement" project. First up, the Forgotten Realms line of novels gets of to a bad start...