[Aptorian]

So, I just finished the first book in K.J.Parkers Engineer trilogy and was disappointed as I always am when I read these kinds of novels.

See, while K.J.Parkers novel is called "fantasy" it has absolutly nothing do with what I consider fantasy. When I pick up a book that I see is in the fantasy section, I expect first and foremost "magic". Magic in some form or another. Be that gods, magicians, fairies, what ever. I expect amazing adventures. Exotic environment and mythical animals and if available some interesting intelligent races other than man. I do not expect it to just
be a random kingdom or republic, set in another world EXACTLY LIKE EARTH, with some elaborate a history and some pitched battles and maybe a wizard who is the last of his kind and doesn't have the power of the old ones, but can just barely get by, bla. bla. bla.

I think the problem for me lies in that, Fantasy, in danish is the word for imagination. So when I pick up a fantasy book I don't expect to just be reading medieval fiction set in a place that might aswell be Europe. I want a discworld, or a floating island, I want dragons and monsters, I want magical knights and dark wizards, I want dinosaurs and giants and fucking evil chicken if I can't be spared the agony, anything but just be reading ancient litterature set in a copy of earth.

But I'm guessing this might just be some weird preference of my own, but the likes Robin Hobbs, GRRMs and KJ Parkers worlds don't really deserve to be placed in the main genre of Fantasy if you ask me. Dresden and Hamilton are called Urban fantasy writters. I think that guys like GRRM should be put in a medieval (unimaginative world building 101) sub genre and be shunned by anyone wanting progressive fantasy.

How do you view fantasy and what subgenres do you read?

In before Werthead or someone descends with the handbook of modern fiction. I'm looking for you personal views, not a professional definition off Wikipedia.

[polishgenius]

Anything set in a world not our own (magic not necessary - although if it was futuristic I'd probably consider it sci-fi anyway, currently a moot point because I've never read anything sci-fi that didn't tie into our world that isn't Star Wars, which I don't consider SF anyway...), or anything set in a world that is our own but involves magic (because otherwise it's either alt-history or sci-fi).

You could argue that The Engineer trilogy is alt-world SF, given that there's no magic and plenty of science, but I'm not really sure you could argue that it's anything like Earth. Apart from being far too stylised (in parts it seems a parody of the feudal system), the technologies involved particularly from the big boys are far beyond anything you could consider medieval, especially in an accuracy sense - we could probably make stuff like that now, redundant as it would be, but 100 years ago they might have had trouble.

[Aptorian]

I could make the same generaliztions with sci-fi. In fantasy I expect magic. In fantasy I expect futuristic science.

[Salt-Man Z]

Magic is not required for a novel to be "fantasy".

The best examples I can think of off the top of my head come from Richard Adams. Shardik takes place in a completely-made up land that is richer and more detailed than anything Erikson has come up with, and is about a hunter who follows a giant bear who may or may not be the incarnation of a god. Lots of battles and politics and primitive religion, but no magic. But what other genre could you fit it in? The same goes for Watership Down, which does take place in our world, but is about rabbits, around which Adams has again created a fully-developed society. Thoroughly fantastic, but again, not a lick of magic.

This post has been edited by Salt-Man Z: 09 March 2009 - 09:51 PM

[Puck]

To me, 'Fantasy' means 'other worlds'. Magic or no magic, doesn't matter. Just other worlds. If the story involves something - ANYTHING, a person/place/whatever - from earth, my brain insists on either calling it SF or alternative history.

This post has been edited by Puck: 10 March 2009 - 01:38 AM

[polishgenius]

American Gods is SF to you? Or Buffy? Or Narnia?

That's just odd.

[HoosierDaddy]

I'm with Apt. If it doesn't have magic in it, or a magical element too it, such as a god possibly trapped in a bear... then I don't consider it fantasy.

[Sinisdar Toste]

i agree with the "other worlds" theory of fantasy, but in the trilogy, Age of Misrule, the story clearly fantasy in my mind is set in england. although now i think about it they visit several other worlds so were good there. the magic aspect is something that could be argued for sure, a hunter chasing a god thats possibly a bear. magic? maybe. but then you visit a place like anne mcafferys pern. no magic to speak of, but i still consider it fantasy, not sci fi, even though it is blatantly sci fi in its backgrounds.

[HoosierDaddy]

I'm biased by the God/gods = magic/fairy tale thing, otherwise the entire shelf of "Religion" in my local bookstore would be classified by me as fantasy. How about this, what is the distinction between "high fantasy" and regular "fantasy" and does this play a role in any distinctions?

[Sinisdar Toste]

huh i just hit the wikipedia article for high fantasy and though erikson is mentioned in the list of authors writing high fantasy, he isn't used in any of the examples of typical high fantasy mores. that made me extremely happy

[Chance]

I don't know about the rest of you but for me fantasy is about storytelling, which is why it doesn't always need the same criteria as "litrature" or specific gimicks like is common in SF...

Its about telling a story of something that could not happen in our world...

/Chance...who thinks the engineer trilogy is fantasy just very boring fantasy...

This post has been edited by Chance: 10 March 2009 - 10:07 AM

[polishgenius]

Sinisdar Toste, on Mar 10 2009, 05:31 AM, said:

huh i just hit the wikipedia article for high fantasy and though erikson is mentioned in the list of authors writing high fantasy, he isn't used in any of the examples of typical high fantasy mores. that made me extremely happy

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main...BookOfTheFallen

>_>

[Aptorian]

Good lord that site is shit. Why would anyone go to such lengths to suck out the joy of readinga nd writting?

[Bauchelain the Evil]

I must agree with those that require the magic element to call a book fantasy. Be it in an alternate world or in ours, for me the fantay genre is based on the presence of magic.
For example I wouldn't call A Game of Thrones, which I however loved, fantasy because there was no magic. I would call i more a sort of alternate history.

This post has been edited by Bauchelain the Evil: 10 March 2009 - 06:32 PM

[Tarcanus]

For me, this conversation always comes back to the distinction between SciFi and Fantasy. I don't believe the two should be clumped together, yet can understand why some people believe so. In my opinion, Fantasy deals with magic of some sort and SciFi deals with technology of some sort.

I try not to dwell too much on it since what is technology but a kind of magic?

To combat this, how do I delineate one from the other?

Fantasy:
- possibly medieval setting
- mythological creatures or creatures with similar thematic or symbolic functions
- 'old fashioned' weapons(swords, spears, arrows, etc.)
- 'old fashioned' modes of transport(wagons, horses, etc.)
- magic derived from some mystic source or unexplainable resource

SciFi:
- usually involves space travel and/or the setting is in space(obviously in space, as in, there is obvious mention of planets and/or stars)
- somehow there are robots
- advanced weaponry(lasers, beam weapons)
- advanced modes of transport(spaceships, teleportation, etc.)
- technology derived not from mystical sources, but from tangible resources


Of course, all genres can blur, and I understand that not everything will fall under my umbrellas. It helps to keep me sane, though.

[alt146]

Bauchelain the Evil, on Mar 10 2009, 05:43 PM, said:

I must agree with those that require the magic element to call a book fantasy. Be it in an alternate world or in ours, for me the fantay genre is based on the presence of magic.
For example I wouldn't call A Game of Thrones, which I however loved, because there was no magic. I would call i more a sort of alternate history.

There is magic in aSoIaF - it's just very low key.

Spoiler

The Others, Daeny's dragons and the Red Witch

would be examples.

Anyway I think fantasy is pretty much a story set in any world that is obviously not our own. The main thing I like about fantasy is that it explores characters that are human in nature dealing with situations that a normal person would never be subject to. The explanation of how that world exists and how similar it is to our own determines where in the huge range of fantasy it exists. Still, it's very difficult to say this book is fantasy subgenre xyz not yzx because it's elves are slightly taller.

[Abyss]

Imnsho...
the term 'fantasy' is a handy all-inclusive term that basically covers fiction which includes non-real elements. Technically, any story with elements that are not based on 'reality' amounts to fantasy. John Grisham writes 'fiction'. Turledove's alt-history work (the 'what if the south won the Civil War without dragons or time-travel stuff in it) is still fiction. The second the story includes something that does not otherwise exist, or is set somewhere that does not exist, you're into 'fantasy'.

It's a catch-all. It includes, loosely, high fantasy, dark fantasy, urban fantasy, neo fantasy, animal fantasy, gothic fantasy, supernatural fantasy, YA fantasy, romantic fantasy, erotic fantasy, military fantasy, bubblegum fantasy, bacon fantasy, plant fantasy (plantasy!)...

Btw, most "science fiction" is, still imnsho, actually better described as 'future fantasy' or 'science fantasy' - it's where the science element is the basis for the story, as opposed to just setting, that 'science fiction' really applies. Alastair Reynolds writes science fiction. CS Friedman writes science fantasy. Just to complicate things, Richard Morgan's Kovacs books sit somewhere in between - he doesn't explain the science but he spends a lot of time exploring the impact.

The hard and fast rule for random discussion with mundanes is if its got spaceships or puters it's sci-fi and if its got dragons its fantasy.
But it is really just werdz. What does one call Mieville's Bas-Lag, which includes elements of urban, dark, steampunk and supernatural on another world but in a 'modern' setting? Morgan's The Steel Remains which includes (arguably) interdimensional spaceships?

All of which is to say i define the concept of fantasy VERY loosely.

- Abyss, ...yes, 'bacon fantasy'...

[RodeoRanch]

How do I define fantasy? Poorly.

[Yellow]

Aptorian, on Mar 10 2009, 01:39 PM, said:

Good lord that site is shit. Why would anyone go to such lengths to suck out the joy of readinga nd writting?

The idea really is to have a light-hearted poke at the genre. I quite like the names of the tropes they come up with. Like Ass Pull, Chekhov's Boomerang and The Law of Conservation of Detail.

[stone monkey]

I agree. Knowing how tropes have been used in the past (both incompetently and well) allows one to appreciate their use in the future. I'd argue that for writers the place may be something of a goldmine - not for ideas, they're your own (I would hope), but for ways into a story.

Anyway... Fantasy. Hard to define, but we do all seem to know it when we see it; it's just that we all appear to see it in different places.
How do people feel about Fantasies of History; stories that play with the idea of what could have happened but didn't? Foucault's Pendulum being an example of a good one, The Da Vinci Code an example of a bad one. I love 'em myself, and think they're at least as fantastical as anything considered to be in the realms of traditional sf or fantasy.