It’s Friday on the east coast now, so I’m going ahead and kicking this puppy off. What can you tell us about fantasy literature that we don’t know? Amaze and delight me! We’ll pick the best of the comments and buy them a beer (or latte, or mineral water, or whatever liquid is most appealing and yet affordable).
I make no claims that this is something you don’t know, this is just my way of conveying it:
Science fiction takes real concepts (technology, biology, quantum physics) and extrapolates them to fantastic heights (FTL travel, alien beings, AI).
Fantasy (or at least really good fantasy) takes mythic concepts (magic, vampires, faeries) and details them to believable depths, as if they were real.
I’m ambivalent about the term Science Fantasy because it can mean vastly different things. Do we mean “science” in the sense of the physical laws that make up our existence, or in the sense of a method for examining the world and defining it. I like both, and much of my writing revolves around both intepretations, fanastic elements working parallel to and integrated with science and technology, and making sure those supernatural elements adhere to their own strict set of laws.
Much of my fantasy reading is an attempt to “examine” the laws of the fantastic. Fictional concepts exist beyond the realm of experimentation, so, like a lawyer or judge, I look to precedents in the works of other writers.
Of course, when do fantasy writers ever agree?
I’m glad you posted that, since I’m also somewhat ambivalent about the term. To me (and this is, I suspect, just me), Steampunk is an example of science fantasy, work which uses the trappings of Science in the name of Fantasy. A romanticized, somewhat glamorized form of Science, science made fantastic.
“Don’t go into the woods,” Mama says. “There are voices in the woods. There are faces in the trees.”
“Never mind your mama,” Daddy says. “She sees things that aren’t there. Her mother did, too. If I’d known it before I married her, she’d be a spinster still.”
Daddy goes into the woods. He cuts down the trees, despite their voices, and from their faces he carves other faces, which he sells.
“You see?” he says to me, and he shows me the laughing face of a child, sanded and polished smooth. His big hands almost obscure the shrieking mouth beneath the child’s smile. “It’s only wood.”
Daddy can’t hear the trees screaming. Mama can. So can I.
Daddy went into the woods today.
I don’t think he’s coming home.
Oops… I posted before I read the instructions. (Because I was all excited to post what I wrote last week, when there was no blog for a beer…) So never mind that. Let me see if I can say something intelligent about fantasy literature.
While I enjoy fantasy that treats the fantastic as a form of science, and attempts to detail the rules by which it works, I do tend to agree with what Cory Doctorow and Karl Schroeder say in “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Publishing Science Fiction” – that “Much of what passes for fantasy these days is just SF in disguise: Adventures told in other worlds worlds where the physical laws are different, allowing ‘magic’ in one form or another.” If taken too far, this is the kind of fantasy that winds up with mitichlorians (sp?) fueling Yoda’s Jedi powers. (Can you tell I’m still upset about that? Or that I preferred the Star Wars when the Force was still mysterious, and you didn’t need special blood to channel it?)
Of course, fantastic literature that operates by no rules at all risks chaos – the kind of chaos that allows the Enterprise to beam people through the shields in only one episode out of hundreds.
And yes, there’s a reason I’m using Star Trek and Star Wars as models – because I consider both more “fantasy” than “science fiction.” You may disagree. I might also, though, compare Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel novels, in which there’s no attempt to explain why Phaedre is what she is (except that she’s part of some divine plan that required her birth at a very specific time) to Melanie Rawn’s Sunrunner series, in which certain families are actually being bred for the specific ability to weave light into magic. One series posits a mythic source for the magic in the world – the other posits a purely material, even genetic, one. (Though both stay true to their initial vision – Phaedre doesn’t discover she’s got blood parasites staining the white of her eye, and none of the Sunrunners suddenly develop the power to channel the energy in water…)
I would agree that Star Wars and Star Trek are somewhat science-flavored fantasy. I wouldn’t say that a lot of fantasy is really SF, especially because I find it dangerous to meld genre descriptions too much, but that’s probably because I’m a fantasy junky and don’t really enjoy SF that much.
Another interesting thing to point out is that as genres go, fantasy is arguably the oldest. Of course, that’s if you consider mythology to be fantasy. The big difference being that the storytellers and readers presumably believed what was being told. I’m conflicted on the matter, since I wouldn’t consider religious texts fantasy (being biased as a religious individual), but things like the tales of Hercules and Gilgamesh, which are pretty much just entertainment, would seem to fall into the same category as any superhero story.
I think I’ve rambled myself way off topic. Back to work…
ChiaLynn, it’s all good! I liked your little story and people are welcome to wander as they like in the thread.
In Touch With It
Fantasy is (hush, I’m working)
when the things other people don’t see (stop that!)
intrude on the real world, (yes, I see you)
affect it in some way; (claws IN!)
grremmegrremmegrremme
we pretend it doesn’t, (you’re going to break it!)
because the alternative (stop, I told you!)
is to look like a crazy person (make yourself useful, fly up and put paper in)
and we all know where that gets you– (thank you)
so we write it down and call it
grremmegrremmegrremme
fantasy.
Press the button, watch what happens.
I’ve been won over by the faction that claims that all fiction is, in a sense, fantasy. It is no less a fantasy for me to put myself in the shoes of Grissom and Catherine and Warwick investigating crimes in Las Vegas than it is for me to put myself in the shoes Anton and Svetlana as they chase Dark Others around Moscow.
Fantasy is personal, it is yours in a sense, though, the sense is different for creators and for their patrons. When you connect with a fantasy, you make it your own fantasy. It could be something that someone else has created, but when you connect with it, it becomes yours.
Somewhere in the swamps on the border of the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribe territory, there is a swamp bender in a big green coat named Watermelontail. Somewhere in Franco’s Spain, I am fighting against the fascists. I can barely imagine what the rolls at Hogwarts look like when you add all the people who have imagined themselves students (For the record, Griffindor, because I am belligerent)
A creator of a fantasy hopes for the same thing. And I think that it’s a legitimate indicator of success that someone spends a few minutes with their mind wandering as a character into your setting, to interact with your characters.
It’s probably not something that everyone doesn’t already know, but it struck me important. In the meantime, I am off to the forest to see what I can do to comfort some screaming trees.
A lot of the fantasy as SF thing comes Doctorow and Schroeder are getting at, I think, from the magic in fantasy.
It very often acts the way a third-grader may believe that electricity works. There are certain laws the regulate magic, making it rather explicitly “regular” and thus technological.
There are laws of dosage (more willpower or expensive stuff equals better magic), there is often a notion of polarity with magic, and also a taxonomy of sorts of magic.
Magic in these fantasies is essentially a form of technology. Surely many editors and writers insist that magic (or magical things like ghosts) should have “rules”, if only to keep the adventure plot going. If magic can do anything, then the story is over right away, innit? No need for toiling peasants or Dark Lords planning for devastation over the long term if a wiggled finger can make deserts bloom and stop hearts from a million miles away. In horror, magical monsters have rules that the human protagonists can discern and exploit. Shoot the zombie in the head and all that, though why would the head matter more than any other crucial organ? To ask the question is to invite an answer that is reminiscent of a “rational” description of the workings of an irrational being.
But there is a different sort of fantasy that uses a different form of magic. This magic is more obviously based on historical occultic practices in some way, but also on the rhyme-not-reason of the subconscious and of the dream. Magic is an aesthetic principle rather than an alternative set of technologies. There are relatively few fantasies like this, but one I’d strongly recommend is STRANGE TOYS by Patricia Geary. Magic in fantasy doesn’t need to be the literary equivalent of manna points from a role-playing game or an energy/life meter from a video game. I don’t think it is a coincidence, though, that the ineffable magic of this sort of fantasy fiction is hardly ever accompanied by an adventure plot. One way to make adventure plots exciting is to find the drama in resource and travel issues — do we have the energy to do X in Y time? If the energy is truly inexplicable, that is actually fantastical as opposed to ultimately rational, those questions are unanswerable.
I am very bad with labels… viewing the mixing and blurring of genres as a “you got chocolate in my peanut butter/you got peanut butter in my chocolate” sort of discussion. I can try to quantify the amount of science in my not-steampunk-but-retrofuturist-neoVictorian story, or I can add more goggles, brass and steam (while eating peanut butter cups.)
That said, I have planted some birdseed alongside my tulip bulbs and I’m hoping for a crop of doves. Or peacocks.
Fantasy is pretty much all around us: soap operas (I mean, have you seen Passions), fantasy football, HALO2, and practically everything that happens in romance novels.
What most of us mean here, though, is Fantasy, the genre. We’re so trained by the genre name to think this is world-saving stuff like Tolkien or bizarre unreality like Gaiman, that we often forget that fantasy is in the tiny things that go on about us every day.
Fantasy slips in when you notice that for the first time in years the weigela is blooming in your yard and the blossoms look like they could fly up and flutter into the sky, when there’s an odd vibration in your car, and you could swear it’s trying to tell you something, or when you meet someone at the coffee shop and something about them sends a shiver down your spine.
Fantasy is inside each of us, always trying to get out. We’ve just been trained to hide it…most people, all too well.
Not sure if this fully sums up my feelings about fantasy, but it did a few years ago when I wrote it:
In Dreams I Start
When I was young and all my dreams were new,
I did not know the ways of love and pain.
I lived and fought with heroes brave and true
And lines ‘twixt white and black were clear and plain.
A hero’s world is simpler than our own–
Where Right is clear and evil can be fought,
And gods and monsters there are plainly known,
And magic made from nothing but a thought.
Where purpose guides and every choice is clear,
And no ill falls by chance, without intent,
These worlds are sung by bards to eager ears,
Whose tastes these tales did bid them to invent.
And to this day in story-worlds I thrive
For ’tis in dreams I start to feel alive.
(content deleted by Alethea’s request)
Nick-
You are absolutely right. For a long time now I’ve been trying to talk other fantasy writers into breaking away from the science fiction taint that currently corrupts the genre.
And magic is a big part of this. Another one is the “races” of fantasy worlds, which are no different, really, than alien races in most space opera.
In fact, most fantasy these days are just space opera with swords (or if it’s Urban Paranormal, chic lit space opera with guns and crossbows)
This may be an unfair rhetorical question, but didn’t Science Fiction take the idea of alien races from fantasy? Literature contained elves, dwarves, and monsters long before it had Martians.
I think SF generally handles it better, given that species differ biologically and culturally, but don’t have a lot of the superiority issues of fantasy races. I’m not even talking about “Good” races vs. “bad” races, because most authors are past relying on that crutch. What bugs me is that in the majority of lit where humans and elves/fae-type beings interact, humans have little to no inherent magic and elves are all skilled mages.
I think this too comes back to the Tolkien archetypes. Before Tolkien faerie lit involved crossing over from one world to another. Hence if a being was able to cross over to our world chances are it has sufficient magical ability, but we don’t assume all beings from that race. Tolkien eliminated that distinction and took magic out of the hands of human characters.
Phew. I gotta stop getting on a roll like this.
I’m going to risk being abstruse for the sake of brevity.
Everything is fantasy.
All else is subset.
One’s own reality is, by definition, subjective. Accepted reality is simply a form of consensual fantasy.
People with few doubts, who believe in absolutes (e.g. There is only One True God; You’re either with us or against us; Tom Baker was the only good Doctor Who) live in a deluded reality.
Conversely, those capable of seeing reality as malleable, of defining truth–not in absolutes, but in terms of perspective, live a more generous life. These are the people who partake of art.
To wheedle the above into a beer-worthy blog, I posit that (successful) Fantasy Literature is fantasy that contains a consistent internal “reality” that interweaves and supersedes the external consensual fantasy. Are you still with me?
Science Fiction is a type of fantasy with rigor based on external consensual reality (i.e. scientific extrapolations–which may or may not withstand time).
Mimetic fiction is fantasy with internal consistency matching the external consensual fantasy. Okay, I’ve made my own head hurt.
In any of the above, or in any combination thereof, the more artful the writer, the stronger the reader identifies with the fictional perspective. Vice versa: the stronger the reader identifies with a fictional perspective the more artful the writer will appear. Can you say “fan-fiction?”
Great writing in any form, whether it be fantasy, science fiction, mimetic fiction, or even non fiction–which is of course just one person’s perception–is world creation (the creation of a “reality”) where an author invites readers in.
The whole notion of labeling writing this-or-that is merely to provide a street address for those looking for a party, cover charge be damned.
Of course, I could be wrong.
But not in my world. ;>
“This may be an unfair rhetorical question, but didn’t Science Fiction take the idea of alien races from fantasy? Literature contained elves, dwarves, and monsters long before it had Martians.”
Right, but the portrayal of them are DIFFERENT. If you look at elves/dwarves of folk lore and mythology and then compare it to latter works, you can see what I mean. The dwarves of the Nibilung are not the same dwarves of Shannara.
And I’m sick of it- because most fantasy these days the races are no different than extraterrestrial races of star wars. And I think it goes back to the ideas of rules again, in a way.
“I think this too comes back to the Tolkien archetypes. Before Tolkien faerie lit involved crossing over from one world to another.”
And, well, most of the time it still does require this. of course, if you take older science fiction as science fantasy (which a lot of it was), then you could point fingers there and see other worlds existing without the need for travel to them (through the gateway to Narnia, or whatever).
“Hence if a being was able to cross over to our world chances are it has sufficient magical ability, but we don’t assume all beings from that race.”
See? The way you are applying Race here is a very SFnal way. Not in a folkloric way, or in a mythological way (and even then, the word race should not be used in any way shape or form- these were supernatural creatures, not variations on our own biology).
“Tolkien eliminated that distinction and took magic out of the hands of human characters.”
What? So, um…What?
I’m going to keep saying what, because that’s a whole lot of bullshit without anything to back it up. Lotsa fantasy (secondary world and otherwise) has human “mages”.
“One’s own reality is, by definition, subjective. Accepted reality is simply a form of consensual fantasy.”
Bull shit wish fulfillment fuckload of crap. In fact, statements like that make me want to hold you over a cliff and let go. Because really, if what you were saying is true, you would just have to really believe that gravity is a lie and then you would not fall, but float away into a happy land.
Sorry for the confusion, I meant that within Tolkien’s work it is primarily the non-human races that are adept at magic. Exceptions abound, of course, and I cannot currently find the essay in which tolkien discusses the different types of magic in Middle Earth (and how the elves don’t view their abilities as magical–a fascinating view point). I certainly wasn’t trying to imply that other books lack human mages.
(By the way, major brownie points for referencing the Nibelung)
It’s really interesting how the similarities between SF and fantasy so starkly highlight the differences. I think we need some new fusion genres.
Heya, let’s keep the discussion reasonably civil and free of verbal violence, so as to encourage actual…discussion. Okay? Thanks.
Nick Mamatas has recently blogged about (or against) the amount of retold folktales which end up in his slush. While I do not want to discuss the term “fantatwee” which he coins, I would like to say a couple of words about the persistence of retold folktore and its attraction to both readers and writers.
Beyond simple communication, the need to construct and to absorb narratives is one of the basics of human condition (Mark Turner and others). Perhaps we can, in a very generalized way, view narrative construction through the ages as hovering between two tendencies: the need to maintain, refer to, and update the existing narrative forms, and the need to radically revolutionize them. The revolutionaries get more attention and often feel superior to the more traditional producers, and yet without the traditional forms very little revolutionizing would be possible. The Russians sang in their version of the Revolutionale, “We will destroy the old world/ Down to the foundation, and then we will build our new world.” However, the stories of Young Lenin, for some reason, closely followed the “Quest of Young Hero” structures familiar from Aarne-Thompson. Oral epics about Lenin and Stalin were composed and sung (I can give examples from this period ad nauseum).
But let us leave the innovators aside (though I for one am a very big fan of innovation); and let us turn to traditional forms. Tale types are not the same the world over, nor are they unchanging throughout the ages. And yet tale types persist because of their relevance, I dare say even their basic cognitive relevance. Many (or indeed most) folktales deal with liminal states (Van Gennep) such as birth, coming of age, marriage, childbirth, death. These transitional/liminal states of human existence are couched in narratives throughout the world’s cultures. With decline of oral transmission of narratives (we can argue about that, but let’s not, for now) the liminal narratives migrated to our written culture.
In every self-respecting oral culture we find active bearers of narrative forms (as opposed to passive bearers, who like to listen but not to tell). The most proficient of active bearers don’t just entertain by telling stories – they change and update, adapt their narratives to their audience. Traditional forms are not static or fixed (see Perry-Lord on oral-formulaic theory for an example of how this works, as well as performance theory). A storyteller is not a static figure. Many people can be active bearers – from the skilled storyteller who earns his/her living by telling stories to the humble grandparent whose repertoire is limited to three performances (let’s say, a folktale, a memorate and a joke) which he/she repeats ad nauseum. Active bearers differ from each other. My father had a crowd of listeners assembled around him within 2 minutes of opening his mouth. Not something I could ever aspire to imitate.
In our society, the active bearers have transferred their storytelling activity to the writing medium. Here, as with everything, we find a continuum in the quality of storytelling. But the universal relevance of the topics found in folktales and the cognitive relevance of stable yet slowly changing forms assures, I think, that folktales will continue to be written, published and enjoyed.
I also think that both the radical innovators, the gentle innovators, and the traditionalists among us would do well to respect each other’s differing needs and preferences both as writers and as readers.
Thank you for reading,
Rose Lemberg
@18
“Because really, if what you were saying is true…”
You missed my point. Nothing anyone says is “true.” It is subjective.
“Because really, if what you were saying is true, you would just have to really believe that gravity is a lie and then you would not fall, but float away into a happy land.”
I can think of many “Realities” where if dropped from a cliff I could float away.
I did not say that this universe has physical laws that can be dismissed. But
physical “laws” have changed with knowledge. They will continue to do so.
Yes, when I see a chair, I fully expect it to be solid when I sit on it. But if I had a brain lesion, if the chair were an advanced hologram, if it were beamed out from under me as I sat, then my perception of reality and what I accept as reality would change.
So I stand by the idea that reality is a temporal amalgam of perception. Which is why I prefer the term fantasy. It provides some built in humility. At least for some folk.
Hmm, my post seems to have inspired anger and thoughts (I use the term loosely here) of violence. Whoa. My bad, Paul. So much for discussion.
So, when I was a kid, growing up miles from nowhere in the mountains of Colorado, a group of men gathered. One of the men owned horses he kept corralled about a quarter mile outside of town, next to the river. Something has been scaring his horses at night. This man, and half a dozen others, was convinced it was Bigfoot.
They patrolled the river, wading through the tall August hay, swatting mosquitos, and following the odd tracks in the mud. One of the men swore he had seen the outline of a massive foot. Much too big to be that of any man.
Every weekend, for three weeks, the men gathered to hunt bigfoot. By the third weekend, they had brought more friends, and more guns, and more beer, and a few lousy mutts one of them called his “huntin’ dogs.” More notorious at turning over trashcans in the middle of the night, these dogs did little else but chase rabbits in the tall willows.
The weather turned sour and the horses were no longer bothered. Only one of the men continued his hunt for Bigfoot. I used to look at the mountains to the East. A humble spur of a peak, a sunlit valley. I was sure Bigfoot had moved to those places, flushed out and scared away from town by these men.
The next summer, a blackbear was shot down by the river, about a half mile from the horses. The townsfolk often wondered why Bigfoot lured the animal to the river and to his doom.
Bigfoot is not a nice creature. There aren’t many blackbears left in that neck of the woods. Certainly not enough to waste on covering up the mischief of one crafty Sasquatch. Not many people know this about Bigfoot.
I wish to second the request for less verbal violence!
I also wish to point out that quantum theorists have long put forward a version of “reality is subjective”, as have those who study the brain. When we look at the world, we see what we expect to see. If something happens that is so outside of our expectations as to seem completely unreal, our brains often dismiss it. Now, whether this means that I will float away if dropped off a cliff, I can’t tell you. But it’s an interesting concept.
That was a true story.
“One’s own reality is, by definition, subjective. Accepted reality is simply a form of consensual fantasy.”
Personally I think this concept has some merit. Take creationism for example. Personally I’m a Darwinist and I think creationism is a load of old twaddle. I think (desperately hope) that I’m in the majority. But there are a significant number of people who disagree with me.
If the shift was different, if 99.9% of the population was with me, and it was just a few folk who demanded that creationism was the one true way they would at best be thought of as eccentric kooks, and at worse would be on heavy medication.
But what if it was flipped the other way? What if 99.9% of people were creationists. What would happen to the Darwinists?
So to an extent this does make reality a consensus opinion. As soon as enough people believe a certain narrative that is how we perceive reality.
Gravity, is a much harder case to argue, at least as far as I’m aware, there aren’t many religious arguments oposing gravity. There’s a lot of scientific evidence to support it. I certainly believe in gravity. But (and I’m purely playing devil’s advocate here) I’ve never seen gravity, I studied the physics a bit in high school, but, to be honest, the concept is mostly received wisdom. There could be a more nuanced explanation, in fact there probably is. While I haven’t done the research myself I’m pretty sure there are a fair number of scientific “truths” that have been discredited. The best example I can think of was that up until the 60′s homosexuality was believed to be a mental illness.
Tying that all back to fantasy? I’m going to get tenuous. But I’d argue Fantasy is the projection of an alternative consensus reality. It takes inspiration from ours, but it pushes some of the conceits of our grand narrative of the world. It asks, “oh really?” I think that’s different from science fiction in it’s purest terms, as that extrapolates upon the current narrative, continues those ideas to their (hopefully) logical conclusion. Both are aiming at the same goal – testing the consensus reality – but go about it via different means: fantasy by exploding the consensus, science fiction by stretching/expanding it.
Personally I think that gives fantasy the opportunity to be more subversive, than sf. That’s not to say there aren’t examples of fantastically subversive sf, just that it’s easier to achieve that with fantasy.
As for the overlap between the two genres? Often times I feel the differences are cosmetic. Star Wars, as mentioned above is a great example of that. So maybe, if my theory truly holds any water, these two different approaches to consensus reality are the real difference between the two, and you can stick whatever tropes you’d like on top of them.
Hey, Clint — so was mine.
Good fantasy is like good chocolate. It’s rich and smooth, the darker the better, with just a hint of bitterness to keep things interesting.
Good sci-fi brings fantastic elements into everyday life. Preferably with giant robots or space monsters of some sort.
Althea, I thought it might have been. Up until the part where the unicorn says that only gold from the heart could tame it. Pretty sure most jewelry stores carry Heart’s Gold. I found it hard to believe this particular one did not.
Sorry, that should have read “Alethea”. My bad.
Bigfoot and the Unicorn sounds like a great story title/band name/kids TV show, does it not?
Careful, Michael. Sid and Marty Kroft might be following this thread.
Hahahahahahahaha…
Rose –
1) It wasn’t the old world The Internationale promised to destroy, it was mir nasiljia — world built on violence. A perhaps relevant distinction.
2) I do not believe Nick dismissed all retold tales, but only a certain kind, where innovation occurs only on the surface. I do not think comparing this to oral tradition is entirely fair, since retold fairy tales in the modern world serve a drastically different function — they do not comprise the cultural narrative; this role has been overtaken by other media.
Kathy : first of all, thank you for reading.
Second, I do not think that the Internationale suggested we only destroy the violent parts, and keep the rest. If you want to quote, let’s by all means quote the whole stanza:
ves’ mir nasil’ia my razrushim do osnovan’ia, a zatem ‘all the world of violence we will destroy till the foundation, and then-
my nash, my novyj mir postroim: kto byl nichem, tot stanet vsem “we will build our, new world – [he] who was nothing, will become everything”
It will be very hard for me to read a partial destruction of the existing order into this, especially in view of the binary oppositions present or implied in the text. The total desctruction, as I see it, pertains to past (bourgeois) cultural and societal norms. The communist/socialist program included a reworking (partially successful) of literary norms, themes, and forms. Many a fine dissertation has been written about the topic of this agenda’s partial success.
And if an incomplete destruction of the old order is implied, as you say, then please tell me how this is relevant to the discussion at hand, and let us then talk about it.
As for retold fairytales serving a drastically different function: all literature which is read and discussed serves a cultural function. It might perhaps not be the most in-your-face cultural narrative out there, it is not exclusive or exhaustive, but it is nevertheless a cultural narrative.
My argument was that for Nick, as a revolutionary/reformer writer and reader, innovation needs to be a main component in a narrative in order not to be dismissed by him. My point is that not every narrative needs to be innovative (on the surface or otherwise) in order to be meaningful and relevant to a wide audience.
Thank you.
My argument was that for Nick, as a revolutionary/reformer writer and reader, innovation needs to be a main component in a narrative in order not to be dismissed by him.
Not really. There’s nothing particularly innovative about Lord of the Rings, which I mentioned in my post as a positive example of fantasy that actually problematizes itself.
My point is that not every narrative needs to be innovative (on the surface or otherwise) in order to be meaningful and relevant to a wide audience.
An appeal to democracy? Dangerous game in a society in which a) a plurality of people do not read for pleasure with any regularity and b) the channels of distribution for narrative are dominated by only several very large and vertically integrated firms.
I don’t think I ever said anything about incomplete destruction — but rather, that the past needs to be destroyed because it was based on violence, not because it was old; that is, innovation for the sake of correcting rather than for the sake of innovation.
As far as Nick’s suggestion, I do not think that he advocated for innovation as a main component of stories, but rather for the stories that do something NECESSARY. Sure, there’s function for comfort lit; but he doesn’t have to publish it.
Whazzup, sci/fi fantasy folks –
This is a bit from a short story in progress, set in the near future – I C&Ped from the beginning until the introduction of the sci-fi element:
Ernie was sitting in the Hampton Student Commons, ignoring the textbook opened on the table before him as he stared across the long, bustling room, when Dexter slid onto the seat beside him.
“2:26 PM,” said Dexter
“Huh?” said Ernie.
“That’s the time of day. Thought you might want to know, since she’ll never give it to you.” He groped in his backpack for his notes from his next class.
“What on any possible Earth could she see in Kevin?” Ernie said, tilting his head so he could keep his eyes on Claire. She sat all the way over the commons, with three of her also beautiful friends, near the plasmas and the lacrosse team.
“Look at it like an equation,” said Dexter. “Kevin times family money plus handsome plus charming equals Claire on her back screaming, ‘Uh! Uh! Kevin! Give it to me, Yes!’” Dexter laughed so hard he snorted himself into a coughing fit, and ended up face down on the table, banging his palm.
“You’re such a geek.”
Dexter caught his breath. “You are. Hey, I know who you should ask out.”
“No.”
“You’re perfect for each other.”
“Darth Vader is perfect for Voldemort, but you don’t see ‘em hooking up,” said Ernie, which sent Dexter into another whoop of laughter – he sounded like a bird warning other birds there was a cat around. “Aji’s a bigger nerd than both of us put together, and that’s saying something.”
“I think she’s cute.”
“She dresses like Dr. Who.”
“So, she wears vintage men’s clothes. She likes you, Ernie. I think she’s pretty.” A pack of their fellow A.C.A.S. students crowded past their table – next round of classes started soon.
“How can you tell?” asked Ernie. “Her hair’s in her face all the time, she never wears makeup – yesterday she was wearing a purple top hat.”
“I’m telling you, I think she’s got boobs under those cardigans. And she just might make sure you don’t die a virgin.” Ernie felt the blush creep up his neck – it’s not like he went around telling people – how did they know? He looked up.
Claire was standing in front of him, grinning, and the creeping blush raced into his face, burning under his skin. Her also gorgeous friends stood behind her, looking bored as their gazes flicked off coolly. An outlaw biker gang could not have been more intimidating.
She leaned down and he smelled her body wash, a hint of perfume, and he caught a glimpse of the delicate lace of the bra pushing against her blouse. Her long auburn hair brushed his arm as she reached forward with one creamy white, lightly freckled arm and handed him back the Ferrer’s Applied Chemistry Workbook he’d lent her. “Thank you so much,” she said. “It was a huge help.”
Ernie was going to reply – he was sure of it. The words were in his head, then they seemed to get stuck somewhere around his nose. Then he managed to croak out, “It’s basic stuff, really.”
“Oh, for you, Mr. Science Genius.” She laughed. “It got me through my chem requirement. See you later, if you’re on the hall – I’ll be at Kevin’s.” She turned to go. “I owe you one, big time.” The girls departed, the crowd parting for them like waves before the prow of a ship.
“I’m going to have a boner for a month,” said Dexter.
“She called me ‘genius.’”
“Which technically you are, but a real genius would know he doesn’t have a shot in hell of ever bagging Claire or any of the rest of that pussy posse she walks around with.” He held his hands up and waved his fingers at Ernie as if casting a spell. “Go… talk… to…Aji.”
Neither Claire nor Dexter was kidding – Ernie really was a genius.
He hung out with Aji and Dexter because they were his own age, and he liked them, but Ernie was nearing completion of his masters while they were undergrad sophomores. The workbook he’d loaned Claire was from a course he’d completed when he was thirteen. His entire education was funded by ColdCorp, and upon completion he’d work for them, likely in liaison with the military.
ColdCorp handled a lot of weapons projects.
Wow, is that spacing screwed up or what….
As for retold fairytales serving a drastically different function: all literature which is read and discussed serves a cultural function.
It is trivially true that every element of culture serves some function. This just a shell game you’re setting up now, Rose.
It is also trivially so that the function of, say, the cultural production of Celtic harpers is radically different than, say, the cultural function of a screenwriter of pornography, the author of “serious literature”, a writer of Dragonlance novels, and a pamphleteer working for some large scale encounter-group organization. All of the latter modern productions have different (if occasionally overlapping) functions from one another as well.
The conflation of the cultural function of traditional folk tales, sagas etc. with the function of a writer of genre fiction in modernity is one of the hallmarks of fantatwee.
Not really. There’s nothing particularly innovative about Lord of the Rings, which I mentioned in my post as a positive example of fantasy that actually problematizes itself.
Fair enough.
An appeal to democracy? Dangerous game in a society in which a) a plurality of people do not read for pleasure with any regularity and b) the channels of distribution for narrative are dominated by only several very large and vertically integrated firms.
Not sure what is the point you are making with 1). That we need to be less tolerant of other’s tastes and preferences because there’s only so much grazing ground? I am not writing to a “plurality of people”. It is enough for me to aspire to a small readership who finds my writing relevant. I also make a huge effort to read as widely as I can, and to respect my fellow writers and readers who have different priorities, tastes and aspirations. If it is a “dangerous game” as you say, then so be it.
This is, of course, just my 2 cents. You expressed yourself in your blog, I expressed myself here. It looks like democracy to me.
I don’t think I ever said anything about incomplete destruction — but rather, that the past needs to be destroyed because it was based on violence, not because it was old; that is, innovation for the sake of correcting rather than for the sake of innovation. Yes, I agree with this.
As far as Nick’s suggestion, I do not think that he advocated for innovation as a main component of stories, but rather for the stories that do something NECESSARY. Sure, there’s function for comfort lit; but he doesn’t have to publish it.
“Necessary” is going to be defined differently by different people. For some, comfort is necessary. Emotional resonance is necessary for other people, and innovation for yet other people. The list goes on.
Nick does not have to publish anything. He publishes what appeals to him personally, and his selections for Clarkesworld are excellent. There are enough publications who pick up retold fairytales.
Note that I was not arguing with Nick, nor was I saying that he did not have a point. I was trying to explain to the best of my ability why folktales (retold or traditional) appeal to a wide audience.
When I read Nick’s blog I got the impression he wasn’t against retelling a fairy tale (I remember reading a story which was inspired by Rumplestiltskin) but a story that merely windowdresses an old story. So, why not set Cinderella in the Wild West and merely change the year and location of the story? Does that make it an exciting or good story if all we do is add a cowboy instead of a prince?
Of course you could argue that plays use the same text and put on only a slightly different show over and over again. True. Hamlet is always Hamlet. But it’s a different medium.
I mean, if all we are doing to a story is dressing it a slightly altered suit, does it leave much of an impression on us? Kind of reminds me of the remake of Psycho a few years back. It seemed a pointless exercise.
Angela Carter did good re-tellings of fairy tales, btw. I’m sure there’s other writers who also handle fairy tales very well. I thought what Nick meant was that many times writers take a shortcut and instead of making a retold fairy tale meaty it just falls flat.
And I’ve only read two Snow Whites with vampires. Are there more out there?
I thought the point was pretty clear. A claim that lots of people like something lives or dies on two things: what we mean by lots of people, and what selections of things people are offered.
The widest segment of the population in the US these days are those people who find reading fiction for pleasure tedious or unpleasant or just a sufficiently low priorty that they do not do any. The widest audience doesn’t find any fantasy relevant or meaningful. So appealing to wide audiences — saying that they don’t need the innovative stuff — tends to fall flat. The largest audiences doesn’t need ANY of this stuff, innovative or not.
Further, given that several large firms control both the production and distribution of narratives, the opportunities for aesthetic exploration of any sort of are fairly limited. We’re limited to the relatively small audiences with the traits — free time, extra cash, perhaps a set of formative experiences that mark them as “outsiders”, Web access, etc. – interested in and capable of seeking out material other than the homogenous product created and presented by these firms. Mass culture is designed to maximize profits/market share while minimizing economic uncertainty and unplanned unsold inventory; that is its primary cultural function. Any intrinsic meaning or relevance it may have is concidental (if not necessarily incidental). That’s a warping of the democratic impulse.
This is, of course, just my 2 cents. You expressed yourself in your blog, I expressed myself here. It looks like democracy to me.
Huh? Now I am the one who isn’t sure what point is being made here.
And I’ve only read two Snow Whites with vampires. Are there more out there?
I went over my rejection slips and the archived submissions for CW using Gmail’s search function. It looks like we get a Snow White story every single month, at least. Vampires a couple of times. I suppose this is the influence of Tanith Lee? (It may also be the result of a challenge prompt in a writing workshop — you know, “Write a story about haunted houses and zucchini!” or something like that.)
Tanith Lee? I would have thought it was Neil Gaiman’s “Snow, Glass, Apples” which would be the culprit since it was published more recently.
Any pirate stories in your slush? OK, I’ve got it: I’m e-mailing you a Snow White Vampire-Pirate.
Nick, I think the 2c comment was mostly to point out, again, that I do not have an argument with you. I do not want to argue about your definition of fantatwee, and certainly not about your editorial tastes; that would be very foolish and completely pointless. I do think our arguments are orthogonal.
If I delete the word “wide” per your suggestion and end up with “folktales, retold or otherwise, appeal to (or have) an audience” – will that work for you?
Thanks for reading,
Rose
Nick, I think the 2c comment was mostly to point out, again, that I do not have an argument with you.
Nobody here is having an argument with you, Rose unless you define having and stating a different opinion (or introducing other facts, as both Kathy and I did) into a discussion as an argument.
However, being passive-aggressive is a very good way to provoke an argument. If you wish to ball up your fist, punch yourself in the nose, and then point at me, go right ahead. Your poor behavior will remain your own.
As far as “folktales have an audience”, sure, that would work for me, but again it is only trivially so. Virtually everything has some kind of audience. What of it?
Interesting (and a bit sad) that a conversation about the nature of Fantasy cannot take place without contrasting it to Science Fiction …
Sory about the verbal violence, sometimes my words get the best of me, heh.
“I also wish to point out that quantum theorists have long put forward a version of “reality is subjective”, as have those who study the brain.”
Right, but with the quantum mechanics all scientists go by the micro does not work in the same way as macro-theory. So in a microcosmic level, things are subjective (when studying quarks, for example, the actual study of the quarks changes how they act based on the study, so reality does in fact change towards perception), macrocosmic, not so much.
“When we look at the world, we see what we expect to see. If something happens that is so outside of our expectations as to seem completely unreal, our brains often dismiss it.”
Which is different than the idea of consensual reality- consensual reality is more like the idea of reality (and the laws of reality and society) being a form of mass hysteria, rather than our own subjective reality existing according to what our perceptions filter through.
One is how our brains interpret what we see (which means reality is still reality, our brains are broken filters, in a way) the other is reality is what everyone wishes it to be.
“But what if it was flipped the other way? What if 99.9% of people were creationists. What would happen to the Darwinists?”
Um…you have been watching the news, correct? Creationism has more of a following these days than you would think. Which is disturbing.
But I would posit nothing changes. Creationism is a religious dogma and Evolution is scientific fact. My belief cannot change scientific fact. Which is my point. No matter what we believe, fact stays still, stays permenant.
“Hmm, my post seems to have inspired anger and thoughts (I use the term loosely here) of violence. Whoa. My bad, Paul. So much for discussion.”
Well, I wasn’t ever going to literally hold you over a cliff,
So it was philosophical violence in the form of an angry parable. See, if I would’ve cut out the swearing, used a character for the cliff hanging instead of “you”, discussion would probably have kept happening.
I guess I misread your comments. A lot of times when people talk about consensual reality, or of reality as perceptive, they mean it to even avoid laws of physical reality, or to pretty much claim anything as fact.
For example, one person I know said that he would never die, because he did not believe in death. Everybody else died because they believed in death. Another person said the same of gravity, and another of the history of WW2.
Now, they’re argument was since they believed it to be so, it had to be right to them and I had to acknowledge that they had a right to think false thoughts even though they were harmful and wrong.
I still think that people have a right to educate themselves, rather than believe in falsehoods willingly. I still don’t think they are right- that their belief holds any water at all. Mostly because this kind of thought can lead to dangerous things…and I think that was my point. Willful ignorance in light of the facts is frustrating and dangerous, and all too common these days.