Yeah, and then would've yelled at Garion for having done it in the first place.
I liked the story when it was posted in theferret. He wrote "What would Garion say?". Most posters thought Garion would've done the same thing. The major question was "What would Sparhawk have said?"
Ah...having not read either author, I couldn't remember who Novak used to regularly make fun of on that point. I read no fantasy as a child, it was SF or nothing until my early twenties and by then, I had long been warned off of Brooks, Eddings, and Goodkind as talentless hacks.
So true. Just like I never get my work done because, as a LARPer, I can simply use Dominate or rely on the Blood Bond I hold over my co-workers to keep me from having to do anything.
LARPers are waaaaay more intelligent than fantasy writers, and that's really saying something. I mean, fantasy writer chose to write fantasy for a living. Yikes.
Oh, he was an INFLUENTIAL hack, and his story was really quite neat even if his execution sucked dead monkey nipple with a curly straw. I won't argue that.
(It's a really common mistake, in the name. I made it myself for years. I figured you might not actually know without it in front of you)
Actually, I am going to completely disagree with you that "all fantasy since him bears his touch", but for the sake of the argument we can just discuss the fantasy that *is* influenced by him:
Is it the fact that a fantasy writer is influenced by Tolkein that makes them a hack, or just the fact that they're writing fantasy? And if the former, why does being influenced by another writer make someone a hack?
Kingdom Come is great. It's also not what I (or, I'm guessing, the literary community) would call "fantasy." Also, Mark Waid wrote the first three issues of the City of Heroes comic, which were as horrendous as Kingdom Come was good.
Just that they're writing fantasy. There are enough swords, elves, and leggings in the world, thank you very much. There's influence and then there's changing names and adding a breast here and there to the Fellowship and calling it new.
(In case you haven't picked up on this yet, I'm only debating this in a semi-serious, heavily snarky way. I stopped reading fantasy after being a heavy, heavy addict because I saw nothing new. Nothing I've seen since then (short of Exalted and Harry Potter which both have somewhat dubious claims to the name fantasy in the opinions of myself and surely others on both sides) in any medium has caused me to change this opinion. To be fair, I haven't exactly gone looking either because it's just not worth it to me.)
I actually think the literary community would label it fantasy (especially if it was written down rather that illustrated).
I mean, you've got supernaturally powerful beings beyond the ken of man, the world plunged into darkness, the end of all things approaching, great tribulation, a rediscovery of the meaning of the moral structure of the universe, salvation of the world through the personal sacrifice of godlike beings, the hero's journey all over the place, and the restoring of goodness, compassion, light, and order--all of which is done literally, symbolically, and openly, which has always been the purview and the hallmark of fantasy.
In the face of all that, the fact that it doesn't have something with long ears hopping around singing "Tra la lolly, the valley is jolly, hey hey!" doesn't, to my mind, disqualify it from being fantasy.
But the literary community doesn't. It's a comic. It is illustrated. It's in a different section of the library than Lord of the Rings and it's in a different section of the bookstore as Lord of the Rings. Where's the debate here?
BTW, you pretty much described the Bible in that paragraph. The literary community definitely doesn't consider that fantasy, whether they're Christians or not. Also, being that you described the Bible very closely then attributed those things to fantasy, I think your definition of fantasy differs greatly from the literary definition of fantasy.
Let's please not get into a debate about whether all fantastical things are "fantasy." Yes, a spaceship is fantastical. No, it's not "fantasy." Yes, super heroes are fantastical. No, they're not "fantasy."
Hangon hangon hangon, you're defining the literary community as the people who make the shelf-stocking decisions for a commercial establishment? And claiming that fantasy must be a written final product--wouldn't that suggest that a movie script could not be fantasy because it's not a novel or a short story or a poem, and the person who wrote it couldn't be a fantasy writer?
Rather than, say, looking at something like the World Fantasy Awards?
(What the hell do your English professors *do* down there? Invite everyone to a box book store and watch them all ignore the books in favour of using the internet?)
I mean, I don't completely agree with shelf-stocking decisions made by any bookstore, but at that point your "fantasy" category would still cover Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, and the novels in The Crow line, and the post-apocalyptic Liebowitz books, and Alice Borchardt's "werewolves in ancient Rome" romance novels. All of which I would have a little trouble as seeing as rewrites of LotR.
Second, *of course* I'm aware that I'm basically describing the Bible, and the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Tain, and the Odyssey, (that those last three are something Chapters classifies as "Mythology", which is a sub-category of "Fantasy", is another reason I don't take my lit classifications from bookstores) and any other iteration of the hero's journey where the morality of the story is explicitly and openly entwined with the world.
That the elements of fantasy and mythology overlap doesn't mean that what I'm describing isn't fantasy, any more than the fact that mysteries and police reports can overlap, or mainstream fiction and newspaper accounts.
> Let's please not get into a debate about whether all fantastical things > are "fantasy." Yes, a spaceship is fantastical. No, it's not "fantasy." > Yes, super heroes are fantastical. No, they're not "fantasy."
Wasn't planning on getting into such a debate, and am not claiming that all fantastical things are fantasy. (Although if I were, my first question would be what exactly your criteria for fantasy *is*, since even the "is stocked under fantasy in bookstores" doesn't match up with "is just a rehash of LotR".)
I meanwhile, will continue to go with the idea that fantasy's basically the genre in which moral values and abstracts are openly embodied in the setting and the characters, generally ending with the re-establishment of order and good. (The "openly embodied" bit is important. If Sauron hadn't been acknowledged and fought against in a coordinated fashion by yon establishment, and the world as depicted in the novels generally disbelieved in his existence, LotR could quite reasonably have been filed under horror.)
I guess if you're just focusing on the bookstore and ignoring the library comment - and the Dewey Decimal system comment that it entails - you sure got me. English professors "down here" sure don't know what the hell they're doing.
Per the Dewey Decimal System, the Bible is under relgion, not fantasy or even fiction. Mythology is under Arts with symbolism, allegory, and legend, not fantasy or even fiction.
And saying it was illustrated was my way of replying to your "if it was written down" comment. It wasn't written down, it was illustrated, which is one of the hallmarks of a comic book, one of the things that differentiates the genre.
> I guess if you're just focusing on the bookstore > and ignoring the library comment - and the Dewey > Decimal system comment that it entails - you sure > got me.
Okay, check out the Dewey Decimal System. Note how there *is* no classification for fantasy fiction specifically, only ten for literature (based on culture of origin) and seven for fiction (based on language group, not genre)?
So you can't distinguish between what is and isn't fantasy by using the Dewey Decimal System.
But hey, maybe you've got one of those libraries that take the (quite common) solution of having fiction in a separate section, so that various chunks of the 800 section don't take up entire floors. And maybe they split them up by genre; it's not uncommon. Maybe they don't even separate out the hardcovers from the paperbacks, and sacrifice optimized shelf space for keeping genre together.
At that point, libraries will often use the little printed note on the spine of the book--the tiny stuff saying "ACE science fiction" or "HARPER fantasy" to figure which genre it goes into, and you're right back to the bookstore situation, where the fantasy section has Bradbury and The Crow and werewolves finding true love in Ancient Rome (see earlier comment on how these do not appear to be a retelling of LotR).
> Per the Dewey Decimal System, the Bible is under > relgion, not fantasy or even fiction. Mythology is > under Arts with symbolism, allegory, and legend, > not fantasy or even fiction.
Yep. And as I said, just because elements of the fantasy genre can be found in religious texts or mythology, it doesn't mean that said elements don't define the fantasy fiction genre.
> And saying it was illustrated was my way of > replying to your "if it was written down" comment. > It wasn't written down, it was illustrated, which > is one of the hallmarks of a comic book, one of > the things that differentiates the genre.
Oh. Dear. Lord.
Comic books are not a *genre*, any more than movies or short stories. Comic books are a *medium*.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 07:26 pm (UTC)I'm guessing that's a 'yes'.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 07:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 07:45 pm (UTC)Quoting for truth, and great amusement.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 09:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 10:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-29 11:05 pm (UTC)Eddings: 0
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-30 02:03 am (UTC)I liked the story when it was posted in
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-30 03:21 am (UTC)So lucky I didn't write this article. The title would have been "Fantasy writer does something dumb, beyond just writing fantasy."
Eddings? Fire? Wait...
Date: 2007-01-30 01:24 pm (UTC)Re: Eddings? Fire? Wait...
Date: 2007-01-30 01:29 pm (UTC)Re: Eddings? Fire? Wait...
Date: 2007-01-30 01:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-30 03:26 pm (UTC)...no, wait.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-30 03:28 pm (UTC)I am enlightened.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-30 03:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-30 03:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-30 09:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-30 09:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-30 10:55 pm (UTC)(I mean, between Lovecraft and Lewis and Barker and Gaiman and... oh... Mark Waid, I really do feel fantasy writers have contributed something.)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-31 12:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-31 12:58 am (UTC)Seriously. He was a fucking terrible writer, in desperate need of an editor to beat his skull in until he behaved.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-31 01:08 am (UTC)And, dude, pointing out typos? Poor form.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-31 01:21 am (UTC)(It's a really common mistake, in the name. I made it myself for years. I figured you might not actually know without it in front of you)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-31 03:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-31 03:35 am (UTC)Is it the fact that a fantasy writer is influenced by Tolkein that makes them a hack, or just the fact that they're writing fantasy? And if the former, why does being influenced by another writer make someone a hack?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-31 04:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-31 04:50 am (UTC)(In case you haven't picked up on this yet, I'm only debating this in a semi-serious, heavily snarky way. I stopped reading fantasy after being a heavy, heavy addict because I saw nothing new. Nothing I've seen since then (short of Exalted and Harry Potter which both have somewhat dubious claims to the name fantasy in the opinions of myself and surely others on both sides) in any medium has caused me to change this opinion. To be fair, I haven't exactly gone looking either because it's just not worth it to me.)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-31 04:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-31 05:21 am (UTC)I mean, you've got supernaturally powerful beings beyond the ken of man, the world plunged into darkness, the end of all things approaching, great tribulation, a rediscovery of the meaning of the moral structure of the universe, salvation of the world through the personal sacrifice of godlike beings, the hero's journey all over the place, and the restoring of goodness, compassion, light, and order--all of which is done literally, symbolically, and openly, which has always been the purview and the hallmark of fantasy.
In the face of all that, the fact that it doesn't have something with long ears hopping around singing "Tra la lolly, the valley is jolly, hey hey!" doesn't, to my mind, disqualify it from being fantasy.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-31 05:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-31 06:11 am (UTC)BTW, you pretty much described the Bible in that paragraph. The literary community definitely doesn't consider that fantasy, whether they're Christians or not. Also, being that you described the Bible very closely then attributed those things to fantasy, I think your definition of fantasy differs greatly from the literary definition of fantasy.
Let's please not get into a debate about whether all fantastical things are "fantasy." Yes, a spaceship is fantastical. No, it's not "fantasy." Yes, super heroes are fantastical. No, they're not "fantasy."
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-31 12:30 pm (UTC)Rather than, say, looking at something like the World Fantasy Awards?
(What the hell do your English professors *do* down there? Invite everyone to a box book store and watch them all ignore the books in favour of using the internet?)
I mean, I don't completely agree with shelf-stocking decisions made by any bookstore, but at that point your "fantasy" category would still cover Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, and the novels in The Crow line, and the post-apocalyptic Liebowitz books, and Alice Borchardt's "werewolves in ancient Rome" romance novels. All of which I would have a little trouble as seeing as rewrites of LotR.
Second, *of course* I'm aware that I'm basically describing the Bible, and the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Tain, and the Odyssey, (that those last three are something Chapters classifies as "Mythology", which is a sub-category of "Fantasy", is another reason I don't take my lit classifications from bookstores) and any other iteration of the hero's journey where the morality of the story is explicitly and openly entwined with the world.
That the elements of fantasy and mythology overlap doesn't mean that what I'm describing isn't fantasy, any more than the fact that mysteries and police reports can overlap, or mainstream fiction and newspaper accounts.
> Let's please not get into a debate about whether all fantastical things
> are "fantasy." Yes, a spaceship is fantastical. No, it's not "fantasy."
> Yes, super heroes are fantastical. No, they're not "fantasy."
Wasn't planning on getting into such a debate, and am not claiming that all fantastical things are fantasy. (Although if I were, my first question would be what exactly your criteria for fantasy *is*, since even the "is stocked under fantasy in bookstores" doesn't match up with "is just a rehash of LotR".)
I meanwhile, will continue to go with the idea that fantasy's basically the genre in which moral values and abstracts are openly embodied in the setting and the characters, generally ending with the re-establishment of order and good. (The "openly embodied" bit is important. If Sauron hadn't been acknowledged and fought against in a coordinated fashion by yon establishment, and the world as depicted in the novels generally disbelieved in his existence, LotR could quite reasonably have been filed under horror.)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-31 05:32 pm (UTC)I guess if you're just focusing on the bookstore and ignoring the library comment - and the Dewey Decimal system comment that it entails - you sure got me. English professors "down here" sure don't know what the hell they're doing.
Per the Dewey Decimal System, the Bible is under relgion, not fantasy or even fiction. Mythology is under Arts with symbolism, allegory, and legend, not fantasy or even fiction.
And saying it was illustrated was my way of replying to your "if it was written down" comment. It wasn't written down, it was illustrated, which is one of the hallmarks of a comic book, one of the things that differentiates the genre.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-31 06:25 pm (UTC)> and ignoring the library comment - and the Dewey
> Decimal system comment that it entails - you sure
> got me.
Okay, check out the Dewey Decimal System. Note how there *is* no classification for fantasy fiction specifically, only ten for literature (based on culture of origin) and seven for fiction (based on language group, not genre)?
So you can't distinguish between what is and isn't fantasy by using the Dewey Decimal System.
But hey, maybe you've got one of those libraries that take the (quite common) solution of having fiction in a separate section, so that various chunks of the 800 section don't take up entire floors. And maybe they split them up by genre; it's not uncommon. Maybe they don't even separate out the hardcovers from the paperbacks, and sacrifice optimized shelf space for keeping genre together.
At that point, libraries will often use the little printed note on the spine of the book--the tiny stuff saying "ACE science fiction" or "HARPER fantasy" to figure which genre it goes into, and you're right back to the bookstore situation, where the fantasy section has Bradbury and The Crow and werewolves finding true love in Ancient Rome (see earlier comment on how these do not appear to be a retelling of LotR).
> Per the Dewey Decimal System, the Bible is under
> relgion, not fantasy or even fiction. Mythology is
> under Arts with symbolism, allegory, and legend,
> not fantasy or even fiction.
Yep. And as I said, just because elements of the fantasy genre can be found in religious texts or mythology, it doesn't mean that said elements don't define the fantasy fiction genre.
> And saying it was illustrated was my way of
> replying to your "if it was written down" comment.
> It wasn't written down, it was illustrated, which
> is one of the hallmarks of a comic book, one of
> the things that differentiates the genre.
Oh.
Dear.
Lord.
Comic books are not a *genre*, any more than movies or short stories. Comic books are a *medium*.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-31 06:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-31 07:16 pm (UTC)Peace?