Science Fiction Fantasy Chronicles: forums - View Single Post

knivesout · 5th January 2004, 06:47 AM

I must confess that I really haven't read enough fantasy to pass a definitive judgement.Still, here's my two cents.

A big problem in creating interesting fantasy seems to be combining the epic scale of events with a narrative that is centered on realistic characters. And sometimes I feel that many authors end up making their characters a little too 'realistic' - a little too much like you and me. I'd like to see more genuinely different (I nearly said 'alien') cultures, societies and people.

Imagine a race of bird-people. They are not just a convenient race of 'exotics' who can function as plot devices. A sentient mind that is used to thinking of the open sky as its medium and gravity as its prime enemy would think very differently than ours. The difference would go beyond vocabulary or religion - their entire frame of reference would beutterly different from ours, and so, therefore,would their perceptions. If you've read about the huge conceptual gaps that have been exposed when people form radically different human cultures meet, you can imagine how much more complex and intriguing the interaction between the bird people and a ground-dwelling race might be. Even basic spacial concepts would be different - the winged folk would have sovery many more directions to speak of than just up, down right and left. They would think in terms of arcs and tangents, trajectories rather than straight lines on a flat surface. Their whole notion of stability and precariousness would be different from our own. Perhaps they might associate the stability of being on the surface with the final stillness of death. And so on. I can imagine (vaguely) a variety of intersting stories building from a situation like this, conflicts and tensions, perhaps, as well as reconciliations and truces far more complex and fresh than taking sides for or against the dark one plotting in his lair...

I don't know if any of what I've said makes too much snese. My main point is that I'd like to see a real effort to imagine and flesh out the truly fantastic rather than impose familiar ways of thinking and acting upon it.

5th January 2004, 06:47 AM	#8 (permalink)
knivesout cheap,flashy little crook Join Date: Nov 2003 Posts: 2,998	Re: What does Fantasy need? I must confess that I really haven't read enough fantasy to pass a definitive judgement.Still, here's my two cents. A big problem in creating interesting fantasy seems to be combining the epic scale of events with a narrative that is centered on realistic characters. And sometimes I feel that many authors end up making their characters a little too 'realistic' - a little too much like you and me. I'd like to see more genuinely different (I nearly said 'alien') cultures, societies and people. Imagine a race of bird-people. They are not just a convenient race of 'exotics' who can function as plot devices. A sentient mind that is used to thinking of the open sky as its medium and gravity as its prime enemy would think very differently than ours. The difference would go beyond vocabulary or religion - their entire frame of reference would beutterly different from ours, and so, therefore,would their perceptions. If you've read about the huge conceptual gaps that have been exposed when people form radically different human cultures meet, you can imagine how much more complex and intriguing the interaction between the bird people and a ground-dwelling race might be. Even basic spacial concepts would be different - the winged folk would have sovery many more directions to speak of than just up, down right and left. They would think in terms of arcs and tangents, trajectories rather than straight lines on a flat surface. Their whole notion of stability and precariousness would be different from our own. Perhaps they might associate the stability of being on the surface with the final stillness of death. And so on. I can imagine (vaguely) a variety of intersting stories building from a situation like this, conflicts and tensions, perhaps, as well as reconciliations and truces far more complex and fresh than taking sides for or against the dark one plotting in his lair... I don't know if any of what I've said makes too much snese. My main point is that I'd like to see a real effort to imagine and flesh out the truly fantastic rather than impose familiar ways of thinking and acting upon it.