What is your ideal concept of fantasy?

[Morning Star]

I was just curious...there are so many varying types of fantasy out there...by this you can include science fiction as well. But in the traditional terms of "sword and sorcery" fantasy I have picky tastes.

I like what has now been established as traditional western concepts of fantasy, which found their roots in european legends and I think a lot from Tolkeins own visions.

However, I do not like to think that a world so infused with magic and epic landscapes is one set in the 'middle' or 'dark' ages. While I enjoy the luxuries of modern living, I wish sometimes that the industrial revolution had never taken place..if magic was such a tangible concept then it could substitute a lot of science. (The two have always seemed to resent or fear each other, science vs magic.)

I would like to create an alternate 'fantasy' world that has developed in it's own right, but is still dominated by magic and monsters and dark lords...without the need for cars and computers.

Basically I would just like to see a break away from the stigma that a novel set in alternate world that still has vast untouched forests is a world that is still primative.

Or maybe I'm just rambling and making a fool out of myself.

[knivesout]

I don't have a single sort of ideal setting I like to see in fantasy novels. All I ask is that it be filled with wonder and strageness. As I believe our world is. Rambling is good.

[Leto]

Originally Posted by Morning Star

I like what has now been established as traditional western concepts of fantasy, which found their roots in european legends and I think a lot from Tolkeins own visions.

That's definitly what I don't want to read anymore. So many fantasy books nowadays are just a re-harsh of Tolkien's works and of D&D world, it's getting boring. Unless you have a real twist to it, please no more elves, orcs or dragons in fantasy book. There's others mythos worlds around to play with...

My main complain about current fantasy is its lack of... "fantasy". If you want to play with orcs and elves, make then shift their side for example. The beautiful elves are the incarnation of evil, and the ugliest orcs fight for the good side.

[Morning Star]

I agree with you entirely, but that's not so much a fault of the origin of those concepts. More likely it's the fault of unoriginal writers churning out pulp fantasy..and I find the DnD world to be so 'cluttered' and far from epic or surreal, but rather bordering on contemporary and 'popular' concepts.

I am creating concept art for a table top RPG (private use) that has trolls still outwardly appearing as huge behemoths with massive tusks...but in reality being misunderstood warrior poets with a deep affinity with the fey folk that they share their forest with. So I can see exactly where you're coming from.

EDIT

PS: I am no fan of elves..never have been never will be, it seems that they have developed a form of cult worship...I have nothing really against them..but it does seem that everytime there is fantasy, there is an elf thrown into the mix and they are always "teh beautiful!!11!"

[Lucifer]

Originally Posted by Morning Star

I like what has now been established as traditional western concepts of fantasy, which found their roots in european legends and I think a lot from Tolkeins own visions.

I have to agree with Leto on this one. The Euro Tradition is very, very done, but it's often done poorly. For some reason, fantasy people living in medieval conditions seem awfully healthy. Bad teeth, disease, shortened life span, and the back breaking day to day labor of the serfs is rarely mentioned. The labor is especially important, as that's what kept our nobility in their castles, but it's rare to find a story this blunt. It would be no fun to read.

I'm also tired of authors borrowing from other world cultures and religions as well. I often wonder why no authors are going all out an devising completely unique cultures, creating new solar systems, new principles of how the world works, new races that avoid the cliches of elves and orcs. It's as though humans are humans, elves are elves, dwarves are dwarves, modes of behavior are set, here are your conventions, write about them.

But then again, I wonder if the community would embrace omething so alien to them. Le Guin pulled it off with "Stranger in a Strange Land," but how many places are that unique?

Originally Posted by Morning Star

However, I do not like to think that a world so infused with magic and epic landscapes is one set in the 'middle' or 'dark' ages...if magic was such a tangible concept then it could substitute a lot of science.

I would like to create an alternate 'fantasy' world that has developed in it's own right, but is still dominated by magic and monsters and dark lords...without the need for cars and computers.

Actually, I agree with you, and that's what I'm working on. I think a lot of the novels out today are set in the medieval period of a world because we have very little groundwork for what might come before or after. My series (anticipated 36 volumes) starts 200 years after time begins and follows the world through to space travel. There will be something like computers, but they come across AI sooner than we do. The world is also much more thinly populated (part of the Laws of Essences laid down by the Deities of the world) and natural features are left mostly intact. As for magic, there are two main groups of users: those whose abilities are Deity given and those whose abilities are scholarly. Deity given gifts vary according to race; some can earth sculpt, some can shape shift, some can see the future. The scholarly arts include Alchemism, Naturalism, and Contraptionism - these are basically magic-based versions of mage-work requiring the use of various substances, mage-work based upon biology, and mage-work based upon mechanics respectively. Some people specialize in one discipline, others work in all three. A lot of the time, the three groups work together: for example, they created a line of living mechanical horses that require maitenance rather than grooming and feeding.

One of the cool things about the series is going to be seeing what kinds of situations arise organically from the past and how the cultures change over time. By the time I get to the last of the books, it will be an aggressively fleshed out world, with it's own history and unique cultures. (I hope!)

Luce.

[Foxbat]

I don't read a lot of what is normally classed as Fantasy because I find it to be quite repetetive: sword/ring/ whatever, - quest, elves/monsters/gnomes nice scenery, character fulfilling potential (king/queen/wizard...blah blah blah) etc. etc.

It's probably just a bad choice of writer on my part but, there you go.

I try to look for something a bit different. Michael Ondaatje's In The Skin Of A Lion is not classed as a Fantasy but has some interesting elements that I would class as Fantasy. It's refreshingly different.
Another is Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale.

I've got myself a couple of books by China Mieville so I'm hoping that he may offer something new (when I get around to reading them)

[BandSmurf]

I like elves. Of course, what I really like about them is when the author gives more of the lore correctly, and has both the Bright and Dark Courts, thus representing the fact that bad can wear just as beautiful a face as good. Anyway. I guess my ideal fantasy stems from the fact I want interesting characters, and a well written book/series. A lot of the fantasy I've tried to read was either all action, or all character development, or just poorly written altogether. That's why I stopped reading Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. For me, the books weren't balanced enough to be absorbing. They got too complicated, too dark, and I didn't connect to enough of the characters well enough to continue reading the series. I guess my ideal fantasy just means it's well enough written that it can draw me in and make me forget my surroundings, but that can go for any art form too... now who's rambling?

~BandSmurf

PS Lucifer, what's Le Guin's Stranger in a Strange Land about? I've read Heinlein's, but I didn't know she wrote a book by the same name.

[littlemissattitude]

As I've probably said ad nauseum around here, I really like urban fantasy. I love the idea of our industrialized, computerized, nuclear age/space age world still being a place where magick can live and wondrous things can happen. I especially like the idea that normal, common folks can get caught up in all of that.

Lucifer wrote:

For some reason, fantasy people living in medieval conditions seem awfully healthy. Bad teeth, disease, shortened life span, and the back breaking day to day labor of the serfs is rarely mentioned.

I've found that in most traditional fantasy (and, yes, I do know that there are exceptions) it's the nobles who are the focus of the books, with a serf or slave sometimes thrown in for contrast or to "straighten the rich folks out". And even then, the nobles are notably healthier and more attractive than medieval nobles ever were in reality. But in urban fantasy, taking place in the more modern, presumably more egalitarian world, the main characters can be just about anyone from just about any walk of life. I like that a lot.

[Circus Cranium]

I often read traditional fantasy, if it's well written, as it offers a nice lulling escape. But I personally write contemporary fantasy, and urban fantasy. I find it more fun to take the fantasy into my own world, and let it toss the normal-peeps around a bit, rather than going offworld.

[Teresa Edgerton]

Actually, readers have been saying they are tired of the same old quasi-medieval fantasy for at least the last twenty years, but our buying habits continue to say otherwise.

I could name dozens of fantasy novels where the setting was either not medieval or not European, but most of them did very poorly in terms of sales, while the Robert Jordanses and the David Eddingses of this world continue to sell very well indeed.

The problem may be that when readers say "I want something different" we all have a pretty clear idea of what that something different should be and it's a different idea for each of us. When something different does come out but it doesn't fit that internal description, the average reader ignores that and buys the latest Eddings instead. Neither one is exactly what he wanted, but at least with the Eddings he knows what he is getting.

Of course the price of books these days is also a factor. Why take a chance when books are so expensive?

[littlemissattitude]

Originally Posted by Kelpie

Of course the price of books these days is also a factor. Why take a chance when books are so expensive?

I have one word for you, Kelpie: library.

[Teresa Edgerton]

But libraries don't sell books or pay royalties. What I am trying to say is that everytime we buy a book new, we essentially cast our vote for more books of the exact same sort to be published. If we check out a book from the library, or borrow a book from a friend, or wait to buy it used, we don't vote at all. If we wait for a hard back or a trade paper back to come out in mass market we delay voting, maybe until the publisher has already conceded defeat (in which case there will be no mass market).

I know this, but I seldom have the nerve to put out the dollars for a hardcover edition of a book by a new author. ("Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell" was a big exception, but it sounded like the kind of book that I like and want to see more of, so I took a chance. Still, I hesitated for a couple of months because of the price.)

[BandSmurf]

Kelpie- very very good point. And littlemissattitude, what about us that don't have a library we can go to? For some reason, my college library does't carry much fiction (even less SFF), and I can't get a library card for the county I'm in. Which, since this is Eastern Kentucky, probably doesn't have much SFF in it either.

Though I have another point to throw out- marketing. The traditional fantasy books have much better marketing, and a much better history of marketing behind them, so they reach more of the random buyers, or gift buyers. To someone who hasn't read much fantasy, but wants a start, the stereotypical images presented on traditional novels appeals more, not to mention the fact it is usually the traditional novels out on the stands where you can see the whole cover. All of this contributes to the 'vote' that a buyer makes, but how much do many of the buyers know about what they're buying?

~BandSmurf

[dwndrgn]

Just a note on the library stuff - libraries order their books directly from the publishing houses and most welcome suggestions. Therefore, if everyone suggests to their home libraries (those lucky enough to have one) books by lesser known authors and such, the publishing houses hear and note that type of thing. This is why many authors who have their own websites ask that you suggest the library carry their books - it is advertising in its own way. Also, people are much more likely to pick up an unknown if it is free and discover more and diverse wonders...and then spread the word. Word of mouth is still the most effective advertising tool there is. Another reason why forums like this are considered good things by the publishing houses. They know that if people are talking about a book, more people will buy it.

[Lucifer]

Originally Posted by Foxbat

I've got myself a couple of books by China Mieville so I'm hoping that he may offer something new (when I get around to reading them)

You are in for a treat, as long as the book isn't King Rat, because Perdido Street Station and The Scar are amazing. Some of the best fantasy I've ever read, and I can't believe I forgot to mention him when I wrote my list.

And speaking of said list . . .

[quote=BandSmurf]
PS Lucifer, what's Le Guin's Stranger in a Strange Land about? I've read Heinlein's, but I didn't know she wrote a book by the same name.[quote]

It is about me being an easter egg.

I have officially stuck my cloven hoof in my fanged mouth, because I meant Le Guin's "The Left Hand of Darkness". I will point out that I was rushing to post before I dashed off to work, but it's a lame excuse at best. My apologies to Heinlin and Le Guin, as well as to you for the mislead.

Uh . . . Charles de Lint is pretty great too.

Luce.