[polymorphikos]

To bring this back around to the original point of the topic, in fantasy I like anything that is using a hell of a lot of imagination and doing it well. This is why I love Burroughs, Howard, Mieville, and many other authors. This is why I prefer Victorian and Golden Age sf, and try to avoid the self-satirising cynicism sneaking into a lot of authors' work. This is why I mostly read short stories and often read adventure novels, which are just sword and sorcery without the sorcery. That said, I am currently writing (inevitable reference, but sorry) a trawl through the lives of two criminals in a quasi-industrialised world, focussed upon trying to pump as much interesting stuff into it as possible, and there isn't a single noble or unconquerable hero in sight, and numerous whores and thieves and gangsters and individuals with substance-abuse problems float past. Mary Gentle's Grunts! and Rats and Gargoyles taught me that fantasy can be ugly, cruel and completely lacking a conscience, and I'm trying at it to express, in a sense, exactly what I want in fantasy (or at least one part of it).

Note that this is not a plug, as this book probably won't be finished, and almost certainly will never be published.

If you understood what the hell I was on about, please tell me. I'd like to know.