On fantasy and a preference for fantastical fiction

"If more writers didn't write 'fantasy' so self-consciously and follow imagined 'rules' of the genre then the whole thing might not be so hidebound and repetitive. It should be the most creative writing around but is frequently the most conservative."

From an interview with Steph Swainston that I've just posted over on UKSFBN. She also says:

"What I find jarring in fantasy is 'magic'. It's usually a way of systemising lazy plot devices."

It's always a question of subjective taste - horses for courses, each to their own etc. - but I do have to say that over the past few years, the sort of fiction I've most enjoyed reading recently has been exactly that: fantasy in name, but without all the trappings and paraphernalia of magic, or a magical 'system': no spells, rituals, wizards, glowing swords, enchanted artefacts, elves, dwarves, dragons, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

A few examples off the top of my head: China Miéville (Perdido Street Station etc.), K.J. Bishop (The Etched City), Scott Lynch (The Lies of Locke Lamora, Red Seas Under Red Skies), Alan Campbell (Scar Night; which I'm currently reading and thoroughly enjoying), Jeff Vandermeer (Veniss Underground), Jeffrey Ford (The Physiognomy), and indeed, Steph Swainston (The Year of Our War and No Present Like Time)... oh, and yes, I do realise I've just reeled off a list of mainly 'new weird'-type authors. I'm obviously a mainly 'new weird'-type reader.

The reason these books are labelled 'fantasy' is the incredibly rich sense of the fantastic that they're steeped in: exotic settings sometimes utterly unlike our own mundane world, populated by esoteric and idiosyncratic characters and fantastical creatures, or entities with powers and abilities beyond those of your average mortal man; an atmosphere that's strangely alien and weirdly compelling and that opens up huge vistas of imagination to your mind's eye. All the stuff you'd presumably expect to find in the pages of any fantasy novel - and do to varying degrees - but, well, without the sound of dice rolling in the background...

Having said that, there are a number of 'traditional' fantasy authors whose work I do still enjoy - or would undoubtedly still enjoy if I actually had the time to read them - George R.R. Martin, Steven Erikson, Greg R. Keyes, Glen Cook - as well as a few new fantasy authors who are writing in a more traditional style but whose work I nevertheless have found to be very rich and satisfying, such as Joe Abercrombie (The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged, who has a wonderful habit of twisting classic fantasy tropes until they beg for mercy) and Brian Ruckley (Winterbirth, a debut that, to be truthful, could have been enriched by the inclusion of stronger fantastical elements, yes, but promises much for volumes to come).

It all comes down to the quality of the writing, obviously, which in itself is the result of a blend of natural talent and sheer, bloody-minded hard graft; the honing and polishing of prose far beyond the "it'll do" state that seems so commonly acceptable to some. So I think Steph Swainston's point about "lazy plot devices" is especially pertinent. There are a number of fantasy authors - whose names are well know and need not be reeled off here - for whom the grazing of the cash cow seems to be much more important than the exploration of new territories, the uncovering of rich troves of concept and idea, the sheer joy of expressing an unbounded imagination. "It'll do, it's set in the same world, the same characters are back again, it's got lots of magic in it, they'll love it."

But then, perhaps you actually need a fair-sized dollop of that sort of thing to keep the genre viable. If we didn't have the cash-cow-herders churning out their same-old, same-old (to return briefly to one of yesterday's themes) to sell in vast numbers to their legions of adoring fans, then genre sections in bookstores would rapidly shrink, and publishers would lose the little leeway they currently have to bring out the more interesting work alongside the mainstream mass-market stuff.

Or perhaps it's just the way the genre market is structured that naturally lends itself to a gradual, progressive filtering process. You start - as nearly everyone starts - with the obvious, in-yer-face stuff: Tolkien, Eddings, Brooks, Goodkind, Jordan et. al. but then - and this is the important bit - you have a choice:

You can, quite happily, wallow around in the shallows for the rest of your reading life, just grazing on what's put in front of you by the booksellers and bean-counters, then move on to nothing more challenging than whatever comes along from the next batch of imitators.

Or, you can evade the nets of advertising and '3 for 2' promotions and wade a little deeper, guided by the online word-of-mouth of the brave souls who have ventured forth before you, to see what's lurking out there, amongst the reefs and rocks...

Come on in, the deep water's lovely... :)

May 17, 2007 | Filed Under Books | 63 Comments

Steve Wilson's Elves: definitely Different…

Check out My Elves Are Different, a "highly irregular web comic" by Steve Wilson, starring regular protagonists 'Sideburns' (a would-be fantasy author) and 'The Bowler-Hatted Gentleman' (his chum, one assumes).

Very droll indeed.

My personal favourite to-date is this one:

I got the heads-up from Simon Spanton of Gollancz books, and his personal favourite, for some reason, is this one:

Both cartoons are copyright Steve Wilson, and have been pinched without his express permission (sorry Steve! I did try get in touch to ask first, but I checked all four of your websites and couldn't find an email address...)

Edit 09.02: Immortalised in a webcomic! I've arrived..! :D

February 8, 2007 | Filed Under Miscellania | 6 Comments

Ann & Jeff Vandermeer announce New Weird anthology

File the following under 'Eagerly Anticipated'; heads-up via the ever-vigilant Joe Gordon (who, dammit, gets paid to surf t'Internet and find post new stuff on the FP Blog all day, which is why he always seems to find this stuff out first...)

'The New Weird' ed. by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer The New Weird is a forthcoming anthology to be edited by Ann and Ann Vandermeer, is tentatively scheduled for publication in Spring 2008 by Tachyon Publications, and has cover art from the folks at Insect Lab. It brings together the cream of the writers whose work - often through no fault of its own it should probably be noted - have come to be labelled as 'New Weird' since the terms started being bandied around in 2001 or so.

Feast your eyes on the contributors' list: Michael Moorcock, China Miéville, Clive Barker, Jeffrey Ford, Hal Duncan, Jay Lake, K.J. Bishop, Kathe Koja, Leena Krohn, Felix Gilman, Sarah Monette, Steph Swainston and Conrad Williams... and those are just the names (that you can't quite make out on the cover image there) that have been announced so far. There's more to come...

More info on the genesis of the project (plus a handy mini-FAQ to head off the automatic nay-sayers) over at Jeff's blog. And I've dropped the man himself a line to see if he and / or Ann might have time for a few questions for a UKSFBN news piece, so hopefully I'll be able to post that later on.

January 25, 2007 | Filed Under Books | 2 Comments

Quick link-o-rama…

Just a few links of potential interest today, because I've got my head deep in an e-commerce implementation for PS Publishing and haven't got time to get into anything too serious right now...

They sent around my favourite Calvin and Hobbes strip in the gocomics.com daily email on Saturday... which was nice.
Posted on Locus Online a couple of weeks ago, but still well worth checking over: Jeff Vandermeer's Twelve Overlooked Books of 2006.

And it's definitely Award Season again:

Something a bit more substantial when my head's not quite so full of currency conversions and template layout amendments...

January 22, 2007 | Filed Under Books, Comics & GNs | Leave a Comment

Vandermeer on Writing

Author, blogger, raconteur and international playboy buccaneer Jeff Vandermeer has blogged the introduction to what I assume will be his forthcoming bestseller on the art of turning the mere written word into good, publishable, hard-cash earning prose: The Evil Monkey Guide to Creative Writing.

The Vandermeer. Would you buy a used galleon from this man? I wonder though... in amongst the pearls of wisdom on the craft of writing, will The Vandermeer also reveal the true secret of his success? For as well as being a superbly skilled writer, and one blessed with a truly warped and endlessly fascinating imagination to boot, Mr V-- is also a world-class self-publicist. And in an entirely good way, too.

Some folks, who shall remain nameless, seem to think that "Hey, look at me! No, me! Over here! I'm great, you must read my stuff, I demand that you do!" is the way to go. They inevitably fail. Jeff's approach is more along the lines of: "Well, here's what I write, I hope you like it. Oh, and here's a whole bunch of really entertaining and interesting stuff to go along with it. Come along for the ride. But hey, only if you want to. You do? Great! Come on in..."

I'm paraphrasing, yes, but you see the difference?

It's something that any writer who's truly interested in developing more than just a minor presence on the bookshelf (it's amazing how many debut authors seem to think that as soon as they've got that first title in the bookstores that's it, they've made it; it's amazing how many of them are wrong) would be well-advised to observer closely and learn from.

It's really not just about the writing these days, you know. Whether you like it or not, you have to have the marketing (and by that I don't just mean a bit of advertising, a few proofs / ARCs and a couple of press releases; that is such a twentieth-century attitude) to back it up. And who better to spend their valuable, scare time being genuinely enthusiastic and endlessly eager to talk about the good stuff that you do than... you?

But more on that later. In the meantime, go read that intro. Then go read some Jeff Vandermeer. You know you want to.

[Heads-up via the always informative FP Blog]

January 5, 2007 | Filed Under Writing | Leave a Comment