[Maud]

if you would have read the essay you would know my biggest problem with fantasy is not even that it has magic I belive I only mention it once. Its the poor quality of the work and a lack of creativity in the genre. I don't necessarily dislike fantasy. I was looking over Seracs first post then I remember he writes Fantasy I read his work and I actually dont have a problem with it.

[Serac]

That's right. Even though fantasy is what i write, there are still things in it I don't really care for. When I read my own work, there are things in it that don't even make sense. (Some of it was so bad I had to rewrite the whole thing to try and make it at least sort of rational.) But I think Mogzy was right in her post too. Maud, for example, might like a taste of rationalism in his work, but other people use it to get away from the rational crap of every day. I like, in fantasy, for there to be something to comprehend, not something I have to rationalize myself. Maud said something about a half-lama prince or something.....that wouldn't roll very well with me. But he did point out that this was his rant, so there it is.

[Evrviglnt]

I think Muad is not so much against fantasy as he is for realism. I went through a similiar period when I was in college - I didn't see the point of reading fiction, much less fantasy, since I didn't think there was anything to learn there. Reading was for learning. Fantasy was for children.

My thoughts have changed. Fantasy offers those authors with great imagination a wide open canvas to color in, the only rules are the ones you make up - but the limit is the threshold of credibility you earn from the reader. You get too fancy and you lose the reader. Its the same with all categories. Still, all storytelling follows the same script, more or less.

Ultimately all stories, regardless of genre, tell the story of characters in transition. If you want your stories complete with orks and river nymphs - fine, they only represent a role, whereas the same story could be told using lawyers and call girls - matters only to the reader how they want a story, told a million times over, to be told to them this time.

Some fantasy authors have cheapened the genre, but that is the case in every genre. There are millions of authors and many more millions of readers - the brutal law of the jungle reigns, generally the weak get sorted out. Muad abhors frivolity. So do I. We just have a different idea of what constitutes frivilous.

[peter_pyne]

Wow, well I wish I could say I read all the comments, but I'm tired and cranky and skipped the last few of them. My general opinion on the whole of it goes thusly: A hallucinating meth-head is scarier than an orc. I've never seen either, but I know one's real and it evokes more emotion. In a few lackluster Dean Koontz books, his alien endings just piss me off. Why did the government hide the kids' death? Aliens. Why did all the people get brainwashed? Aliens. Blah blah blah. Anything is better than the unknown yet all-answering alien solution (using 'alien' to incorporate all of the fantasy character stereotypes as well). I'll take psychic over alien, because we've all had deja-vu, and the like. I'll take telepathy and even sheer coincidence over an alien solution because it's that much more based on things I've done and seen and heard first-hand. Reality is more invigorating than fantasy because it's real.

[Pule]

You know, one of the things about fantasy (Muad said this earlier) is that too much of it sucks. I really like fantasy, but a truly good fantasy story is rare. Has anyone here heard of The Seventh Tower series? Now that is totally original, in so many concepts. The only thing similar between it and the stereotypes is this: magic. But even that has a twist of originality. Anyway, my point is that fantasy can be great if it is written extremely well. Also, I just realized something; my latest fantasy story has none of the stereotypical fantasy creatures. I mean, I may have my final villian in the form of a dragon, but that's only because dragons kick @$$. I mean, there is no way to deny that a fantasy story can be original; anything can. I mean really, isn't that why we write? Its limitless beyond the strict confines of reality. (I feel all philosophical now lol)

[Maud]

But see you didnt come up with the idea of dragons. Fantasy is a borrowed genre. No other genre takes the stero types to such extremes.

Muad'Dib

[Hagetaka]

Oh, that cant be completely true. Ever read a romance novel? And how many character story lines in fiction have been rehashed again and again? And character stereotypes? There is good, bad, and borrowed in every genre.

[Maud]

I cant think of what the populace considers a good book were the charcters are sterotypical. In fantasy that rule does not apply. And no I have never read a romance novel and I dont intenend to. And I never said the sterotypes didnt exist but not in such a wide spread fashion.

Muad'Dib

[BookWhale***]

maud, I still don't get how u can say fantasy is bad, but what ever...

[Maud]

because I like a good orginal book.

[BookWhale***]

how is fantasy unoriginal???

[Maud]

I havent seen an orginal fatnasy book after LOTR

[Pule]

just wait till i publish Kaia lol anyway just check out part one when it is accepted, (hopefully tomorrow). I think that it is very original. Sure, its not a book... at least... not yet...

[Maud]

ya but Im still "shell shocked "and therefore close minded.

[BookWhale***]

maud, I guess you are just very... opinunated?

[Maud]

opinionated? always and for ever.
As JK Rowling says
Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike

[Pule]

Wow, Muad, you're quoting a fantasy writer.

[Arnklit]

There's one thing that puzzles me; you have read a lot of the books that critiques have loved, especially Classics and a lot of the Science-Fiction books that the critiques loved, but from what I hear of your opinion of Fantasy, I sometimes think you must have read only the very worst books.

One thing that should be rectified , you are mixing two genres up when you’re talking about Sci-Fi and Animal Farm in the same sentence. The mainstream Sci-Fi (Hard or Soft) that probably have as big a fan group as Fantasy, does not encompass Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-four, A Clockwork Orange or Brave New World. These are rather of a Political/Dystopia genre, and I think you will find a surprising small amount of technological explanations in them. They are about politics and society NOT science.

I'm not going to go into whether every detail in a book should be explainable (is the Voice in Dune or the telepathic connection Ender shares with bug queen in the end of Ender's Game explainable?).

I think there is and always will be very little difference between Fantasy and Sci-Fi; if you go into a library and pick a random Sci-Fi book and a random Fantasy book down from their booming sections chances are that they both suck. I think both genres will get more and more defined and people will get higher standards when the genres get a bit more settled in; then we can perhaps get rid of some of the terrible Fantasy and Sci-Fi that never should have been published.

I think you should read some good Fantasy Muad: George R. R. Martin, Robin Hobb and Philip Pullman.