I Rarely Read Fantasy

Marisaw

I used to rather enjoy fantasy, but your blog makes me reluctant to try reading any modern ones.

I’ve always believed that even a fantasy world must have its own internal logic. In fact when I’ve critted fantasy stories here (usually as tit-for-tat), that’s one of the main things I look for. If your experience is representative of today’s fantasy novels, it sounds like that’s not required any more and fantasy writers can get away with any old mixture of monsters and dragons and what-have-you. To me that sounds like laziness.

Stormshine

To me, there’s two types of magic systems in fantasy.

Type 1: The magic has hard, fast rules and the writing sticks to them. The characters may not understand those rules, but they’re always there, and usually revealed by the end. Pretty much anything written by Brandon Sanderson is an example of this (and it’s something he encourages.) When the protagonist beats the villain, it’s because they’ve figured out some key to unlocking the magic.

Type 2: Loose magic. These authors rely on atmosphere and the magical feeling that these fantasy worlds/magic systems create. The stories are usually more character-driven. When the protagonist outsmarts the villain, it’s usually because they overcome some personal obstacle, not because they worked out the puzzle.

One of the reasons why Harry Potter was so popular was that people got sucked into the atmosphere. They wanted to go to Hogwarts.

In my opinion, the problem comes when newer writers don’t commit to one system or another. They make up convoluted rules that feel arbitrary, or which only apply when it’s convenient for the plot, without a straightforward explanation as to why.

Mavalot

There are also fantasy stories that don’t have much magic at all. Perhaps a certain race of sentient creatures that are different than humans and may or may not have special powers. There is even fantasy that really has no magic at all. When you strip it all down - fantasy is based in some kind of alternate world, or has rules that do not apply to our world, often including super natural elements or ideas. Often there is magic - probably most commonly there is - but not always.

Atonalsong

To me, this critique falls under the umbrella of authority. Do you trust the author? This criticism is not really specific to science fiction or fantasy. In these genres, an author has authority when they convince the reader they have full mastery over the world they have built, whether it be because of technological plausibility or the consistency of the rules that govern the fantastical elements novel to their stories.

A more quotidian example of issues with authority is an unreliable narrator, or the reliance on deus ex machina or getting minutia wrong about a character’s job.

I personally find rigid magical systems boring, i.e., there are four elements or you can only cast three spells a day. It feels rather limiting after a couple of hundred pages.

Shotgun

I’m precisely the opposite. I find the modern obsession with “hard magic systems” sucks all the magic out of fantasy. It seems like a lot of readers want fantasy stories where the world and its history is exactly worked out, and the magic is basically indistinguishable from science, but it all seems so dull and mechanical to me. The success of Brandon Sanderson, who is one of the worst writers working today, suggests to me a real lack of imagination in the realm of fantasy these days, compared to the depth of popular work from decades past by writers like Le Guin, Butler, Donaldson, Williams etc.

Luluo

I think your problem isn’t with the Fantasy genre. It’s with soft magic systems. Hard systems appeal to those who need answers (Midichlorians!!!), but for others, it ruins the awe and mystique, as those who hated the Midichlorian explanation will attest to.

I like both. Hard systems like in Sanderson’s books intrigue me, and the limitations increase the stakes. But soft systems like in Tolkien’s books immerse me in a childlike sense of wonder.

Honzo

I think Doug, despite disclaimers has an unjustifiably high opinion of science fiction. Unless, of course, he regards Space Operas, like Star Wars, and time-travel adventures such as The Time Machine as being outside the genre- a perfectly reasonable position, and one I hold myself, but not specified in the OP.
Having said that, I read less and less science fiction of any kind, partly because I have to wade through the space-fantasy drek to find it, and partly because very few of the writers whose stories actually revolve around the science are very good writers. When’s the last time we saw a Niel Stephenson? Might have been Neil Stephenson.
I have given up fantasy, as currently understood, for the most part for similar but not identical reasons. Fantasy is perhaps the worst genre outside of Romance for books that are rehashes of what has gone before, without being informed by a shred of personal experience with the real world. It just doesn’t work for me.
However, I will say that ‘loose magic’ is not the problem. I love ‘soft world building’ in any story not set rock solid in the real world, something whose existence I have significant doubts about. I don’t have to know what, exactly, magic is to understand its role in a story any more than I have to know what gravity is to keep from floating off into space. What I don’t want to see, however, is magic just being so terribly convenient, always available to move the plot in the desired direction. I’m particularly fond of magic that nobody can be sure works, but that’s not found much in fantasy.
I grow increasingly fond of narratives in any genre that are clearly informed by the author’s long and deep observation of people and nature.

Arcyl

I wonder about the reading experience of the author of this blog. They seem to remain stuck at the magazine Sci-Fi era, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury and such. At that point Sci-Fi and Fantasy (Tolkien/Lewis) might have been distinct genres, at least mainstream.

Genres are an arbitrary designation to help the reader find books to buy. Speculative Fiction has evolved, and right now you have books all over the spectrum between predictive Sci-Fi and full sense of wonder fantasy. And, when every possible permutation is possible and popular, dividing the genres is pointless.

In my opinion, this blog could have been better if the author had approached it from the perspective of things that they look for. Obviously, they like what’s called hard Sci-Fi. Maybe a blog about the merits of having hard rules to your technology/magic, and the way it hooks the reader by making them try to solve the mystery on their own.

As it is, the blog sounds too much like “things used to be better, but new writers are lazy”, which isn’t a good approach to it. There’s a lot of audience for Sci-Fi/Fantasy that relies on showing cool stuff rather than teaching the reader fake science.

Marisaw

Yes, that’s the kind of thing I mean. Or a world where several different kinds of monsters exist, any one of which could easily destroy the other, yet it’s never explained why they haven’t done so.

Andread

Can’t stand Sanderson’s work. Never read Harry Potter. Don’t care about the rules of a magic system. I don’t even care if the story has magic. A story set in an alternate world with a good plot and interesting characters suits me just fine

Not knowing where the magic comes from or exactly how it works is just fine for me in a historical-type setting, because there’s a lot they wouldn’t know. There’s a lot we don’t know now, about the brain and such. I’m more interested in things like the cost to the wielder and how the society views those with magical abilities. I’m probably weird, but oh well

Eldurub

I was first exposed to the genre of Fantasy writing through Critique Circle, and soon found myself involved in a long direct message conversation with an author who had given me a one-star rating on my critique for essentially making fun of his writing. In retrospect this was probably not a very nice thing for me to have done, but at the time I felt he was not taking his writing seriously enough to deserve anything more. I expressed my concern that he may have been retaliating because I did not join the fan club of “Yes Men” that writers in this genre often attract. The ensuing back-and-forth conversation did provide him with a much deeper understanding of my perspective, in addition to multiple suggestions on how to improve. It also gave me a better understanding of his approach.

Although I thought it was rather silly at the time, I can appreciate that sometimes it is okay to write an electric sword into your story just because you think it’s a cool thing to do. Taking this approach is kind of liberating, and can have a certain positive effect on breaking writer’s block. In his defense, how many rather impractical things do we do on a day-to-day basis without questioning them? On the other hand, I do stand by my belief that creating a world in which people fly around in spaceships, but yet must make a long pilgrimage in ox carts does require a certain amount of explanation. The fantasy author must work just as hard to suspend disbelief as a writer in any other genre.

Whether one would define it as laziness, or a simple fixation on the fantastic, I have seen more than one writer attempt to create a story out of describing odd creatures and beings. Any old trope could be employed with trolls doing the action instead of people. That is to say, a Fantasy genre writer must put just as much focus on developing the plot as anyone else. Writing a story about a made-up world does not equate to creating your own rules for grammar, form, flow, and plot development.

Unfortunately too many Fantasy genre writers think that they are at liberty to create their own rules for what constitutes good writing.

Jacksavage

Fantasy - no comment.
Sci Fi - I could read a gripping psychological sci fi that taps into basic human fears. Seeking to find such a novel is beyond me. Though, I may give Annihilation a whirl at some point.

I used to read both genres in my early teens. The fascination did not live long. Quickly replaced by spy novels and thrillers.

Honzo

Have you read any Neil Stephenson? Gripping, for sure, very psychological, though not in the ‘psychological horror’ sense.

Jacksavage

Nope. If not in the psychological horror sense, then in what sense?

Wendyg

I think this is an excellent point. There is so many different variations out there that it is impossible for anyone to read them all anyway, so to just wholesale condemn a whole genre based on rarely reading any of the content of that broad genre seems rather generalistic.

Also, putting the ‘science’ in science fiction is often restricted to what the reader knows about science. In one of my series, the use of brain-to-brain interfaces is based on current scientific research in peer-reviewed journals. However, if someone doesn’t know enough neurophysiology, then the snippets that cover how it works will read as ‘hocus-pocus’. Of course, reader’s don’t need to have studied neurophysiology to understand and enjoy the story, nor do they have to know about, say, advanced chemistry or virology to enjoy a story where those are a feature of science – only those that have done so will know how accurate the science in the sci-fi is.

There are also some famous authors who think that sci-fi should only include the science of biology/chemistry/physics (or, sometimes only physics when it gets into space), and yet the sciences aren’t limited by those simplistic divisions even though we talk about sci-fi stories in such generalistic terms.

In the end though, everyone is different and that is why such a wide range of genres and subgenres are popular. Each to their own.

Honzo

It varies, sometimes it’s about the nature of consciousness, epistemology, ‘human nature’ in the context of technological change. It’s horrific in it’s way, but not the mounting suspense pattern of psychological horror. I think you’d like Snow Crash, which is kind of cyber-punk, and his second book, The Diamond Age which deals with something like the weaponization of the Ur-language. The writing itself is always brilliant. A later book deals with themes of social control through phone technology in a more mundane setting. Then he veers off into a massive three-volume romance, in the old fashioned sense, about a mudlark in the 17th century, which isn’t like any of his other books except that it’s brilliant. Then ciphers, and I don’t know what the latest are. My library got them and they disappeared.

Vidyut

I’m not a fan of fantasy myself, but I don’t agree with the reasons, Doug. A lot of science fiction is fantasy plus. I was even more surprised because I consider aliens who interact with humans to be science fantasy - their origins aren’t explained either. But then so is the Hitchhiker’s guide! I don’t see the harm in that.

But then someone else might think microbes that can make people immortal (my premise) is fantasy. Giving them telepathic abilities and etc is fantasy max. I’m also saying we observe the effects but lack the equipment/access to understand them. But then, would it be any less fantasy to construct a machine into which you plug a person and that sends them back in time, etc?

“I don’t know,” is I think one of the most important elements of a scientific attitude. It is when we start inventing myth to explain the unknown that we are in trouble. How did the universe begin? I don’t know. So I don’t think unexplained origins are a bad thing. Particularly when the characters say they don’t know, but they do exist. (actually, it isn’t all that different from fact about humans)

Sci-fi is inherently fantasy. The Expanse, raved about by physicists, can’t explain how that protomolecule thingy works. Much as I love the books and series, they have a half-assed explanation that the voodoo guys made it and there’s counter-voodoo that killed them and… there just are portals… even as they will pour water into a glass at an angle to account for spin gravity (I’m surprised they didn’t extend the idea further to tilt the sets and cameras a bit to create an angular gravity effect on the people…)

I think the rampant wonky world-building is simply a function of the genre being beginner-friendly. People beginning to write perfect scenes before they know what they are doing. That immediately creates that dream-like feeling of irrelevant tangents, the plot being untethered and purposeless, because you don’t have a plot yet, so tether the writing to anything.

But it has a lot of beginners and excited participation compared with the relatively bare sci-fi queue. Sci-fi can feel intimidating. I’ve often got crits by people saying they don’t understand science even as they are critting sci-fi stories and have sci-fi mentioned as stuff they like to read on their profile. And I’m like you don’t have to - anything you need to know should be explained in the book or can be safely ignored if you don’t get it. This isn’t a science exam.

Fantasy can feel like “anything goes” - which may feel easier to achieve for inexperienced writers. I think many writers who feel intimidated by the idea of creating a complex accountable world think they can write a few magic wielders. “Science” intimidates them, but they don’t realise that if they drop the science, they should still be doing all that for fantasy. It is MUCH MUCH HARDER to write a world without a carefully engineered scaffolding of ideas. Whether you do it in your head or on paper or one of those questionnaire thingies or whatever - it still needs to be done for genres with world (frankly, for me, that would be all)

I don’t think there’s something especially bad going on with fantasy (other than the YA overlap - YA womance works great. YA with anything needing world-building is problematic and creates that effect a very flimsy skin-deep world, since it is so inward-focused and averse to world tools like narrative, analysis, outright explanations…). But it isn’t impossible. There are lots of successful writers, and with the reader expectations aren’t too heavy, I suspect it may be profitable to earn to get good.

Not to mention the best stories are rarely single-genre. Mine has elements of myth, psychological thriller, sci-fantasy superheroes, romance…

Honzo

I think that a carefully observed scaffolding is perhaps more important. Ultimately, fantasy is about the ‘real’ world except where it explicitly isn’t. This applies to sci fi, too. The biggest defect in either genre, IMO, as well as in huge fractions of the flood of novels of all genres, is that they aren’t grounded in lived experience. Instead they are built on the constructions of previous authors in the genre. Everything becomes mediated through someone else’s creations, and a few iterations of this process leads to garbage. Writers whose understanding of human beings is filtered through genre fiction and Hollywood are unlikely to have individual insights into how people really function, and thus their character’s actions become distorted and unnatural, or flat and featureless. A fantasy or sci-fi setting just amplifies this problem.

Vidyut

This is a character writing issue - heck it even applies to non-fiction. A part of this may also be a greater number of young writers. They legit don’t have the life experience, maturity or the insight into the world/people in it that comes after a few hard knocks and gives many writers their flavour. As my Aaxyl said about NeoJai “Life hasn’t scribbled on him yet.”

Not saying they shouldn’t write, but more like we can only write what we know. If I were to write about nightlife in the US, I’d do a horrible job of it, because all I know of it is Hollywood. Fantasy lets us imagine a place, but even so, knowing what to fill it with needs some ready library of lived experiences or a lot of work imagining them. Some genres will be easier than others.

I declined to write a book in my thirties thinking I didn’t have the experience to look back with enough wisdom to provide value. I know at least two people in their twenties writing memoirs and I’m like you’ve barely lived yet!