The next step

I sincerely believe that, when a genre or form takes a major leap into a new area, it comes from discontent. Some writer is dissatisfied with the way things are currently being done and writes a book that matches the writer's idea of How It Should Be Done.

Maybe they're sick of the Usual Protagonist. Maybe they're sick of the Usual Situation. Maybe they're sick of Unrealistic Settings. Maybe they think the story is Irrelevant In These Times.

Whatever the cause, the writer does something that satisfies themselves, and so creates a New Thing. At least, that's what used to happen.

But maybe the field has grown so big and so diverse that there is nothing to reject. We can find whatever we want somewhere in the field, and avoid the stuff that doesn't work.

Can we have another New Wave? Is it even possible?

One thing I see possible for the fantasy genre (and I think it's going to happen very soon) is a shift away from medieval-type worlds, where magic is present, but people still drink in smoky, dimly-lit taverns (ever heard of a light spell?), live in castles meant to repel ground attacks (so what happens when a dragon flies by?), knights wear plate armour that is absolutely worthless against magical attacks, and where literacy is widespread, but everyone still write by hand on scrolls... (huh?)

Let's get real here, folks! A world with magic in it would be a lot different from a medieval world...

No other genre is so dependent on a writer's imagination. New ground is broken by the most creative and then often becomes a well-trodden path by those who follow.

Ultimately readers decide where they want to go and who they want to take them there. Judging by sales, a great many prefer the comfort of revisiting the "known" over and over again. As long as they do, writers will oblige.

I noted once on one of the AW boards that in the last decade I've gone from reading hundreds of books a year to a handful. So I'm in no way qualified to talk about the leading lights in SF&F these days.

With that disclaimer out of the way, I'm going to predict that 20 years from now, perhaps on this very board, a consensus will point to Tad Williams' Otherland series as one of the half-century's greatest achievements.

It is an epic fantasy without familiar parameters. To my knowledge, it borrows from nothing. It could almost take place today. Its "magic" is technology that exists in rudimentary form now. I suppose that gives it a bit of a SF flavour.

It's the book that leaped to mind when I read HConn's post. I don't think Williams was necessarily disgruntled with what's being published today; it's more that his imagination knows no bounds and thankfully, he has enough of a track record with his publisher that they gave him free reign to exercise it.

A world with magic in it would be a lot different from a medieval world...

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Very interesting you should say that Ruth. Very interesting indeed....

Let's get real here, folks! A world with magic in it would be a lot different from a medieval world...

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I would think it depends on how prevalent magic is in said world. If everybody knew and used magic, then yes, every tavern would use a light spell instead of being dim and smoky. And if dragons routinely flew the skies, the architects would erect buildings capable of withstanding dragon attacks.

But consider: in most of those fantasy worlds, the populace rarely had contact with wizards and the like. And if they did, they'd either run away in fright, go after them as an angry mob, or revere them as wise people with great powers.

If you had a light spell in every tavern, consider the reaction of the patrons. Are they well-schooled and know the spell is merely a convenience? Or will they fear it, thinking the glowing ball in the middle of the room will curse them and cause their crops to die?

A fantasy novel in which the setting is not medieval and magic is used everyday by everybody? I'd call that contemporary fiction.

A fantasy novel in which the setting is not medieval and magic is used everyday by everybody? I'd call that contemporary fiction.

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You could call that "magical realism" or "urban fantasy", but I don't think I'd call it contemporary fiction. General fiction or Contemporay fiction or whatever you want to call it tends to have a different focus I think than Fantasy. However much character development there is in Fantasy, ultimately the play's the thing (to horribly warp some Shakespeare ;-P). Contermporary fiction seems to mainly be about angsting. Or maybe I've just had poor luck with reading contemporary fiction.

Oops. My bad. Forgot about urban fantasy.

If you had a light spell in every tavern, consider the reaction of the patrons. Are they well-schooled and know the spell is merely a convenience? Or will they fear it, thinking the glowing ball in the middle of the room will curse them and cause their crops to die?

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I couldn't help picturing a lightbulb as I was reading this.

There's always the ambiance factor. Many bars and restaurants are dim. And some junky tavern might prefer that the clientele not look too closely at the condition of the food.

I've never read the book, but all of this lightbulb talk reminds of a YA novel (fairly new, I believe, in all of this Harry Potter light) that centers around a world with no light... _The City of Ember_, maybe? Ember is in the title, I know....

actually, i've been struggling with just this issue. in my two WIPs, i have taken radically different approaches.

Magic is the technology of a fantasy world. this is indisputable. technology is the means by which we exploit the natural laws of the universe. magic in a fantasy world is the means by which people exploit the laws of the universe. ultimately there's no difference between natural and supernatural. in fact, there's no such thing as supernatural. if dragons exist, they exist. they're as real as cows.



in Tolkien's middle earth, magic exists but is no part of people's daily lives, because there aren't enough magic users. (on the other hand, maybe it IS part of daily lives. the elves of lothlorien, e.g, live in a forest kept healthy and safe by galadriel's Ring.)

if wizards are at all common, then some will find employment using their powers to improve the standard of living.

in Harry Potter, wizards do with magic everything we do with technology.

in one book i'm writing, "flawed creation" the prevalence of magic has changed.

the world makes little distinction between magic and technology. the obvious difference is that not everyone can use magic, because it requires enlightenment. however, the people of Babylon used magical devices (and purely scientific) created for them by the enlightened. I, personally couldn't build a TV, but i can use one. similarly, if creating a crystal ball requires a wizard, many people can leanr to operate one.

by the time of the book, the angels have decreed it heretical for humans to use magic. they stamped out the human magic users, and disappeared fromhumans daily life.it helps that my books is very light on magic. the only supernatural creatures i have are angels. magic is generally limited to what we would call paranormal phenomena- telekinesis, telepathy, precognition, pyrokinesis, etc.

in my other book (which has four possible titles. "Delusion", "prophecy', "hero" and "hero(ine)?") low scale magic plays a part in people's daily lives but powerful magic is available only in big cities most people never see in their lives, and couldn't affor to pay for anyway. but the village shaman can provide minor magical assistance.

(for a demonstration of how thin the line between fantasy and skiffy can be, see niven's "the flying sorcerers")

Tolkien referred to the difference between people who use magic and people who find it strange, when the elves don't understand what the hobbits mean by "magic". Because it's part of their lives, it isn't separate from anything else they do.

A world where magic is everyday would certainly be interesting, but I prefer writing about settings where the average guy in the street would be just as freaked to witness magic as in our world. I think the attraction of the standard fantasy world for this (half medieval, half classical, half exotic barbarian - what, it is fantasy) is that your average medieval peasant or Babylonian citizen would take it for granted that magic existed - but "out there" somewhere. Just like the hobbits.

So much to respond to.

One thing I see possible for the fantasy genre (and I think it's going to happen very soon) is a shift away from medieval-type worlds,

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This has already happened. There are lots of non-medieval books out there. Check out Freedom and Necessity by Steven Brust and Emma Bull, or the Age of Unreason series, by Greg Keyes (first book: Newton's Cannon).

where magic is present, but people still drink in smoky, dimly-lit taverns (ever heard of a light spell?),

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This and the snipped part of your post, is part of world-building. In many fantasy worlds, an oil lamp will be preferable to a light spell. And knights in armor will face more swords and axes than magical lightning.

Tad Williams

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I'm reading The Dragonbone Chair, by Tad Williams right now. It's well written, with an interesting world and solid characters, but it's so boring that I'm tempted to set it aside. Only his rep has kept me going as far as I have. If the book doesn't pick up soon, I'm not going to be reading any of his other work.

A fantasy novel in which the setting is not medieval and magic is used everyday by everybody? I'd call that contemporary fiction.

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Did you mean "contemporary fantasy?"

Magic is the technology of a fantasy world.

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It doesn't have to be. I think think this is overly-restrictive. Fantasy "magic" can be much more (or less) than technology.

But I understand your point. To crib from Lawrence Watt-Evans, if the dragon is made by magic, it's fantasy. If it's created by genetic engineering, it's science fiction.

www.watt-evans.com/sfvsfantasy.html

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If you clink on the link (and you should, it's a good article--and short), be sure to also read "Laws of Fantasy."

wizards are basically the same as genetic engineers.

they spend all day in underground labs, muttering things we don't understand and sending adventurers in search of rare herbs, stones, and animals.

then they unleash some new and strange power upon ythe rest of society.

Except that genetic engineers don't have pointy hats and staffs. Or bushy eyebrows, as a rule (though I expect some do).

be sure to also read "Laws of Fantasy."

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Really good stuff. Thanks, HConn.

One of the things that bugs me about much fantasy is that the magic exists in worlds that would not be much different if there were no magic. And I don't mean light spells instead of oil lamps, but something much more fundamental. Magic, even if you give it intrinsic limitations (such as deciding it can't do this or that or making it exact a price from the user) is a power that exceeds ordinary human powers in the same way that a bomb exceeds a handgun--and it's governed entirely by the human will. It therefore always presents the potential for chaos. Why should the wise old wizard serve the king, when he could go out and kick ass and terrorize the populace, or conjure up a castle and turn the milkmaids into sex slaves? The only thing that binds him is his own acceptance of whatever terms and conditions are placed on him. The king he serves has no means of coercing him.

You can come up with various ways to address this, such as magical guilds or or sorcerous bindings or severe brainwashing or some kind of religious setup that involves moral strictures on magic use, but those are measures that derive from the magic users themselves, so the basic problem remains: Why should they cooperate? And what happens if they don't? (The standard Dark Lord or renegade sorcerer doesn't count.) For me, a world in which magic exists is a scary world, a world in which non-magic-users are always potentially under threat from magic-users. This is something that has to have an impact on society. Perhaps the magic-users will dominate the culture--and if so they'll have to have a highly structured organization or else they'll be annihilating each other all the time. Or maybe society as a whole will come up with some way to control them. Or maybe there's some sort of countermeasure that's intrinsic to the world. I've used variations of all these setups in my books, not entirely to my satisfaction.

- Victoria

Well, some of us still write about dragons and wizards and bards.

But I do go into attack from the sky, and in the second book I explain why there is no magic and where the dragon came from.

Victoria, in a discussion on other boards about a "realistic" world of superheroes, one person said that, if superheroes really existed, we'd all be wearing badges identifying which we belonged to.

I suspect the same would be true for most high fantasy wizards. Imagine the loyalty you could command if you could cure diseases or restore someone's youth. IMagine the punishments for betrayal.

But to bring this back to my original point: it's exactly this kind of dissatisfaction that fuels new ideas in the genre. "That's not realistic" is one of the few big insights that make a writer change the course of a genre.

HConn, I think your question is so interesting. Do you think it's a matter of 'the next big thing,' or just a resurgence of the typical publishing cycle?

With so much focus on fantasy in the world of spec lit, perhaps it's time for SF to come around again... maybe the mysterious "slipstream" I keep hearing about? Or "literary" SF?

I certainly don't have the answers, but I think it's interesting to talk about.

I think the question of why mages don't do exactly what they want is rather equivalent to why don't nuclear scientists use their knowledge to hold the world to ransom for what they want? (Outside of James Bond films, that is). In the first place, mages would be human beings, who will be on the same sliding scale of good, bad & indifferent as the rest of us. In the second, there's no automatic reason to assume that magic makes you unbeatable - most magical systems seem to have built-in limitations, even if it's as simple as spellcasting being tiring. And thirdly, a degree of self-regulation of unusual skills seems to be a human trait.

>>Do you think it's a matter of 'the next big thing,' or just a resurgence of the typical publishing cycle?<<

Often a publishing cycle, similar to a fashion cycle, IMO at least. The recent popularity of "new space opera" is an example. It's not so much that it's new, as that it fell out of fashion for a while, and now has returned in a somewhat modernized form.

And don't even get me started on the "New Weird".

- Victoria

Come on, Victoria. Tell us about the New Weird.

Please?

"That's not realistic" is one of the few big insights that make a writer change the course of a genre.

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Okay. I've been thinking more about this, and I have a preliminary list of "Dissatisfactions" that spur writers to force a genre in a new direction:


Dissatisfactions:

1. "That's not realistic." (whether referring to setting or character behavior)

2. "None of these characters are like me."

3. "All these characters are like x. What if they were like y instead?"

4. "This would be a better book if it was more like x." (where "x" is another genre, a classic story, or some other media form that can be blended with the initial genre)

5. "I'm bored with this setting."

6. "Can't they be honest about this?" ("this" being sex, or the effects of violence, or some other aspect of life that has been typically glossed over or avoided in fiction.)


Care to disagree or add to the list?

Keep in mind: I'm only looking for forward-looking changes. Wanting to go back to Howard-esque Conan stories or Golden Age space westerns isn't taking the genre into a new direction.

Or maybe you want to disagree that changes are made by author's dissatisfaction?

What do you think?

I would venture a guess that author dissatisfaction is the primary seed of the kind of change you're talking about.

#'s 1 & 3 are things authors should concern themselves with no matter what they are writing.

#2 smacks of narcissism. Can that propel a genre in a new direction? Possibly, I suppose.

#4 I'm not so crazy about. Seems a little like rehashing old ideas with a different wardrobe. It wouldn't necessarily become the proverbial pig in a dress, but it could if the author wasn't careful.

I'd like to read (or write for that matter) stories that spring from #'s 5 & 6.

#4 was inspired by the paranormal romances I've been hearing about over the last couple years, plus the New Wave movement that tried to marry literary qualities to sf.

(I'm no scholar of sf; I may have mischaracterized either of those two examples.)

I listed #2 because of writers I've heard of who wanted African-American heroes, or fantasy settings based on non-European cultures, and so on.

None of these are mutually exclusive, of course. A single reaction may fall under several categories.

Can you think of any additions to the list?