Fantasy is probably my favorite genre. It’s a playground for the imagination where one can pretty much do whatever the hell they like. So I really love fantasy, but I hate most fantasy books. Out of all the fantasy I’ve read, for the YA and adult demographics (and that’s dozens upon dozens of fantasy books, mind you), I can list my favorites on one or two hands at most.
“So Mssr. Jay,” you may ask, “Why is fantasy your favorite genre if you can’t stand so much of it?”
Well, Dear Reader, probably because I like what fantasy is supposed to be. Fantasy is supposed to be fantastic. It runs under a lot of other titles, like high fantasy, contemporary fantasy, magical realism, weird fiction, and many others, but all of them have some fantastic element(s) that skirt the boundaries of science and go far beyond the mundane. Whether it’s about a boy and his sly, world-weary djinn (The Bartimaeus Trilogy, by Jonathan Stroud) or a young girl traversing a surreal archipelago where the time of day is determined by location rather than the passage of time itself (Abarat, by Clive Barker), as long as it’s imaginative in some way, I’m thrilled.
What I get sick of with the fantasy genre is how sodding derivative it can become. J.R.R. Tolkien was a great writer. He was a very smart, creative man and he wrote some fantastic books. I adored The Hobbit back in primary school. I couldn’t wait to see Bilbo get Smaug’s treasure. So yes, J.R.R. Tolkien was amazing, but we don’t need another.
I don’t need to have the Fellowship of the Ring given a new coat of paint and slotted into generic Middle-Earth knock-off #24C. That’s stupid. It lacks imagination and creativity. I’ve always been curious as to what sort of person would say “Yes please, I would love another rehash of the stereotypical group consisting of a token elf, dwarf, human, wizard, and some form of Halfling. I never get tired of THAT old chestnut.”
Likewise, I’m having trouble picturing the author who actually sets down and writes that book. There have been dozens, HUNDREDS, of these kinds of things: elves, dwarves, and wizards traveling through a pseudo-medieval
Given the infinity of choices when writing fantasy, why do so many authors pick the road that’s already been traveled, then traveled again, then paved and steam-rolled and turned into a five-lane highway? It’s Fantasy, man! Make something up! It’s difficult yes, but not impossible. Fantasy can be a wonderful, amazing thing, where, literally, entirely new worlds can be crafted from nothing, fresh ideas are everywhere, and even though it sounds like something from an after-school special, the only real limit is your imagination (ugh, I can’t believe I said that).
It’s a bit like watching a friend that you know is really smart fail all his classes in school, or get passed up for a promotion at work. You KNOW he could get it, but he’s just being a lazy git. You want to go over and shake him and tell him to live up to his potential but he just sits there and stares at the wall.
I’ve shuddered inwardly, and outwardly, at the recent deluge of sub-par fantasy that has been battering against bookshelves for the past few years. Eragon, by Christopher Paolini, remains the chief target of my ire, not only for it’s juvenile and atrocious prose style, but for its borderline plagiarism and blatant copy/pasting of the Star Wars plot and Tolkien’s Middle-Earth setting, as well as a dozen ideas cobbled together from other, better authors. I’ll save the lion’s share of my rage for when the latest installment comes out this September though. There’re others too of course, like the Revenge of the Shadow King, which is probably the worst writing I’ve seen outside of my sophomore level creative writing classes, or Grimpow for reasons I’ve already stated before, and more, more always more.
But thankfully, it hasn’t been all bad, and there has been quite a lot of good fantasy for the YA market. Harry’s come and gone, and the world is a better place thanks to him, I think. Clive Barker’s continuing Abarat series, though a bit rough at times, is still plugging along nicely. That clever scamp, Artemis Fowl, continues to concoct schemes, Stephenie Meyer has captured the hearts and minds of teen girls everywhere with her bestselling Twilight series, and many other new and talented authors are putting their collective best feet forward.
Fantasy is definitely my favorite genre. When I write fantasy, I feel very free. It’s like being a kid again, when those cardboard boxes in my garage would become whatever I wanted them too. Good fantasy is imagination unbound, it shows you something new, something unexpected. It gets off the five-lane highway and sets off into the shadowy undergrowth all on its own. It’s the places cartographers indicated on those ancient maps by drawing dragons and other unknown creatures, the place behind the wardrobe, over the ocean, down the rabbit hole, and beyond that.
I just think it’s time to leave the familiar territory behind and move on to someplace new.
