Low Fantasy

[thaddeus6th]

Sorry, ma'am.



Cheers.

[I, Brian]

Originally Posted by psychotick

I thought, and I could well be wrong, that high fantasy was the Tolkein style stuff. Elves, dwarves, magic and epic quests.

Indeed, but I've noticed books like Erikson's Malazan series being lauded as epic High Fantasy, but there are no elves and dwarfs in that - just a ton of magic that drives everything.

As fantasy seems to be turning away from trying to mirror Tolkien, my impression is that the term High Fantasy now relates to how prevalent magic is in the world of a story.

No idea if I'm right on any level, but "Low Fantasy" seemed a good term to start with. I'm not aware of any other genre definitions that define fantasy works with very limited use of magic/technology in a mediaeval setting.

[HareBrain]

Seems to me the common-sense definition is: high fantasy = very fantastical; low fantasy = not very fantastical.

I'd suggest that a story with talking dragons, non-human races etc would be high fantasy even if it had very little magic. But I agree it doesn't necessarily indicate a cast of kings and knights.

[Anne Lyle]

True. Swordspoint has no kings or knights - in fact it makes a point of mentioning that there are aristocrats but no king any more. It's more 17th/18th century in flavour.

[AnyaKimlin]

Wish I knew the differences of the sub-genres lol

I thought but purely gleaned from wikkipedia that High Fantasy was a lot of magic and set on different world or within a different part of our world.

Low Fantasy was little magic and set on Earth.

I became even more confused when recently I discovered mine couldn't be high fantasy as despite having another world, lots of races and a magic system it was set in a timeframe contemporary to our own.

Now I don't know ...

[Anne Lyle]

I disagree with Wikipedia, then. I don't think setting is as central to the distinction as they make out.

High fantasy - overt magic/fantastic elements, whether that means dragons, wizards, folkloric non-humans (elves, dwarves, etc), parallel worlds or whatever. Usually set in an invented world, although modern-world urban fantasy often has "hidden realms" full of high-fantasy beings.

Low fantasy - low-key or minimal magic. No mythical beasties; any non-humans are within the bounds of scientific plausibility. Can be any setting, but if zero magic then it must be set in an invented world or it doesn't qualify as fantasy

There's a lot of confusion between high fantasy and epic fantasy, because the latter often falls into the former category. Epic fantasy is nearly always set in an invented, pre-industrial world, but its key feature is the global scale of its conflicts. ASOIAF is unusual in being a relatively low-fantasy incarnation of epic fantasy.

Anya, can your characters travel to our world, or do you just mean that the technology/culture level is analogous to our own?

[David B]

Paul Kearney's 'The Ten Thousand' has no magic that I remember, uses ancient greek technology/warfare but is set in the imaginary world of Kuf.

The book blurb refers to fantasy. I doubt any marketeer would be happy describing a book as 'low fantasy' on its jacket.

Great book by the way.

[Mouse]

Originally Posted by Anne Lyle

Low fantasy - low-key or minimal magic. No mythical beasties; any non-humans are within the bounds of scientific plausibility. Can be any setting, but if zero magic then it must be set in an invented world or it doesn't qualify as fantasy

Mine has no magic and is set in our world. I'm still calling it fantasy. (Was mentally calling it paranormal fantasy or urban fantasy* but I'm only on chapter four so not too fussed about the technicalities yet!)

Personally, I've never heard of 'low' fantasy. Or 'high' fantasy, for that matter.

*but contains no vampires, werewolves or zombies.

[AnyaKimlin]

Originally Posted by Anne Lyle

Anya, can your characters travel to our world, or do you just mean that the technology/culture level is analogous to our own?

The only travel between our world and their's was at divine intervention several generations ago. (I did like a Noah and the ark style story with a spaceship).

The technology is similar to our own. I haven't recreated Earth either so some things are different. They do have computers, electricity, things to play music on, motorised boats, limited vehicles etc Because of widespread bird shifting ability air travel was later, and came about as a byproduct of trying to get into space. Lack of hydrocarbons made some things slower etc

[Anne Lyle]

Originally Posted by Mouse

Mine has no magic and is set in our world. I'm still calling it fantasy. (Was mentally calling it paranormal fantasy or urban fantasy* but I'm only on chapter four so not too fussed about the technicalities yet!)

Personally, I've never heard of 'low' fantasy. Or 'high' fantasy, for that matter.

*but contains no vampires, werewolves or zombies.

Sounds like you might have to call it "interstitial" then

I don't think "high fantasy" or "low fantasy" are marketing labels - they're more like lit-crit terms used to categorise books in terms of their tropes. I suspect you might come across them if you read a lot of pro reviews, as I tend to (yep, I subscribe to Locus)

[Mouse]

Interstitial fantasy. Ha. All right, it sounds posh.

[AnyaKimlin]

it's a good one Mouse - the subgenre for the fantasy that is not quite any other subgenre

I've given up and just calling it fantasy. If I call it anything else some readers get upset about my main character wearing jean.

[Anne Lyle]

Originally Posted by Mouse

Interstitial fantasy. Ha. All right, it sounds posh.

No, just "interstitial" or "interstitial fiction". It's not a sub-genre of fantasy or SF, more WTF

Originally Posted by AnyaKimlin

I've given up and just calling it fantasy. If I call it anything else some readers get upset about my main character wearing jean.

True. There's a character in Steph Swainston's books who wears jeans, but her writing is labelled "New Weird" (which <sarcasm-alert>basically seems to mean "throw a load of random tropes in and use lots of big words"</sarcasm>)

[AnyaKimlin]

Umm I'll accept weird ... It's not very literary though ... at least I hope not. I'm less bothered now, I was misinformed it needed to be narrowed down for my covering letter. However I am now curious about how it gets narrowed down - I'm off to start a new thread rather than derail this one too much.

[Coragem]

Originally Posted by Anne Lyle

I get that it isn't everyone's cup of tea, but as someone who grew up on soft SF I actually prefer low fantasy to the fireballs'n'dragons school of high fantasy - which is one of the reasons I've delayed reading the rest of ASOIAF

I believe I was discussing this with IBrian in a thread in the Steven Erikson forum ...

Anyway, it took me a little time to realise that I really don't like magic-driven plots, unless (maybe) the magic has very well defined rules and limits.

If the characters can create a great spell to solve any problem there's no tension! Also, I just have a very "empirical" world view -- if I can't even begin to verify things via my own experience (if it seems too superstitious or supernatural) I just can't suspend my disbelief.

Which is why I choose to write sci-fi, even though I typically prefer fantasy in terms of its character emphasis and style. In my own writing I make sure that everything seems "scientific" and could, most of the time, really happen.

My favourite fantasy is typically low on magic.
** I LOVE Guy Gavriel Kay, may he live a very, very long time, and write many more amazing books.
** Similarly, GRRM is amazing.

They're my top two, but others that are good for me have been Joe Abercrombie and Paul Kearney (mentioned above).

Please, someone, find me another Guy Gavriel Kay!!! Wouldn't that be amazing.

Anne, thanks, I'll check out Ellen Kushner (as well as The Alchemist of Souls).

Coragem.