The Hero: 9 things I hate about speculative fiction

I'm a drive-by author. I don't intend to participate in other forums or threads. I am both introverted and overworked, so I don't have the motivation or the time to participate socially here or elsewhere. I understand that some regular LibraryThing participants find it offensive that authors post a promotion thread and then don't participate on the rest of the site. That's fine; there are many things that I find offensive in life, too (I've explained some of them below), so I totally get it. If you hate people like me, just peacefully move on to the next thread. Or, if it will really bring you satisfaction, reply and be angry. I can take it. Better yet, tell me what you -- as a fan of speculative fiction -- don't like about books in this category; I'm interested in what others find distracting or annoying.

Having said that, I'll gladly participate in this thread, since I started it. Instead of a dumb sales pitch for my book, though, I figured I'd make this interesting by explaining the motivating factors behind writing it. I haven't posted this anywhere else, though I likely will put it up on one of my sites at some point.

I used to love fantasy fiction. I was totally enthralled by it, and would stay up late reading until I couldn't keep my eyes open. I can't explain how or when, but at some point I stopped enjoying fantasy in specific and fiction in general. A friend of mine took this as a challenge, and insisted that if I read the first chapter of Harry Potter, I wouldn't be able to stop reading the rest. So I went to the bookstore and picked it up and read the first chapter, and afterward I thought, "This is the dumbest, sappiest, most predictable crap I have ever read." Ten years prior to that., I would have been totally consumed by it, though. What changed? I have no idea. My best theory is that I read so many stories that the formulas and patterns no longer worked for me as a reader, and I could only find enjoyment in increasingly complex or non-standard books.

In 2001, before I abandoned fiction reading, I wrote a book called The Hero. It was kind of bad. Not totally bad, but sort of amateurish and silly, though it did make sense and the characters were interesting, so I don't consider it a complete failure. I was 23 when I wrote it, and that was the best I could do at the time. Now, however, I'm a much better writer, and I find it embarrassing that this is what represents me in the fiction realm. To redeem myself, I dropped most of my ghostwriting and freelancing work for about two years so that I could focus on rewriting The Hero. It's much, much better now, and I am proud to say that I (re)wrote and (re)published this book.

When I decided to rewrite The Hero, I swore that I would avoid all of the things that made me despise fiction. I wanted to write a book that I couldn't hate. It wouldn't be predictable, it wouldn't follow traditional patterns and memes, it wouldn't have a waffley over-poetic beginning, and it would be as real as possible without being boring. Specifically it would not have any of the following:

1. The three-act structure

Introduce the characters, introduce the problem, raise the stakes, the second-act curtain-closer, the hero follows a string to victory, and the protagonists either get married (comedy) or they die (tragedy). /yawn. How many times can you see this pattern played out before you throw the book into the trash and demand something new? Edgar Allan Poe and Italo Calvino were both good at inventing new ways of telling stories, but many of them weren't very entertaining. I admire Calvino's dedication to literary innovation, but none of his stuff really pulled me in. When I read a story, I want to be immersed in it to the point that it's as real as a fond memory or a vivid dream. In order for that to happen, it has to have a more realistic flow. In reality, you don't meet every major character in your life story in the first third of your existence. No major obstacle is overcome through a long period of ignorance followed by amazing serendipity and easy success. In real life, problems are not events; they are processes, and we resolve them by forming counter-processes. We form a plan and use hard work, training, practice, and networking or collaboration to execute on it. We read fantasy to escape, so it shouldn't be a complete reflection of real life, but if you want your readers to think, "Man, I was THERE!" then you have to make it seem like the story really happened. It needs to be more familiar, and less contrived and ordered. The more you can relate to the story, the more immersive it is. A good book should inspire the same suspension of disbelief that a good movie does.

2. A limitless system of magic to cover plot holes

This happens in science fiction just as often as fantasy, and it's made worse by the three-act structure. Nearly every Star Trek: The Next Generation episode involves an increasingly dangerous situation that is resolved in the last five minutes of the show by pulling some fancy new science from out of nowhere. In many instances, you never see that technology in use again in another episode. You'd figure that by season 3, there would be so many crafty solutions in the Enterprise crew's arsenal that nothing could stop them, yet there's always a new mysterious alien that almost kills them for 55 minutes. To deal with this problem, eventually the "prime directive" was given as the reason why alien threats couldn't be instantly neutralized with powerful technology. In good fiction, when the stakes are raised and the situation is grim, it should be the prolonged ingenuity, hard work, and unshakable resolve of the protagonists that saves the day, not some magic pulled directly out of the main character's ass when all of the conventional resources are exhausted. Why doesn't Frodo just ride the eagle over the volcano and drop the ring in as soon as he gets it? Why does Gandalf wait to use his magic until the most tense moment? Why doesn't Pug just conjure up a powerful storm to ruin the kingdom's enemies in Feist's post-Riftwar novels like he did on Kelewan? Why doesn't Hermione use the time-turner to solve every major problem in the Harry Potter series? Why doesn't Glinda tell Dorothy about the power of the ruby slippers when she's in Munchkinland (and why do *shoes* have so much power)? Why doesn't Luke use the Force to push Vader over the edge of Cloud City when his back is to the thin railing? Why does Vader use his physical strength instead of the Force to push the Emperor over the railing on the Tarkin (and why are there open pits everywhere)? Yeah, I know, there are weak explanations for each of these situations, but they seem like cop-outs to me. When there is a true crisis, the people involved will find and adopt the quickest and most direct solution. Ethics and morals lose their influence as the gravity of the crisis increases; to hell with the prime directive, there are lives at stake. When you introduce an extremely powerful magic or technology, you get into an arms race with the crisis. You must raise the stakes even higher to the point that the magic cannot undo it... or you just conveniently ignore the fact that the game-ending solution already exists, and pretend that this is literary fiction for a while. Unfortunately, speculative fiction authors rarely account for that -- they get involved with the pyrotechnics of the moment and don't think about the big picture where these details can undermine the common-sense fundamentals of the story. Even when they do account for the limitations of powerful magic, the story ends up being ridiculously melodramatic. Every system of magic should have clear boundaries and a heavy cost, and should not be able to instantly undo the crisis.

3. Chapters

There have always been ways to divide stories, but they were mostly crafted out of external necessity. A play needs scenery and costume changes. Ancient poetry had to be sung over music. Today, though, we have standardized chapters for no real reason. I trace it back to the Romantic Period, which was the fiction novel renaissance. The sudden popularity of fiction and the advent of the Industrial Era drove innovation in publishing and distribution. Instead of expensive handmade novels for the rich elite, books were published in volumes (for the slightly less rich and elite) or serials (for the growing middle class) to make them available to a wider audience. When the finished book was assembled, each volume became a section or part; each serial became a chapter. This seems to be why we have chapters in late Romantic Era fiction. Non-fiction chapters represent topics; this is different, and still necessary, but in fiction it is a relic from a bygone era. We don't publish in serials anymore, so we don't need chapters. We especially don't need chapter-ending cliffhangers because we don't need to be encouraged to come back to the general store in a few weeks to buy the next installment. So why do authors still write in chapters? Tradition, perhaps, or because they find it easier to outline and plan the book that way. It serves no meaningful purpose to readers.

4. Too much description

In the Romantic Period, most people never travelled more than 10 miles from their birthplace. Therefore, every novel had to describe a setting in excruciating detail so that the world's many shut-ins would know what Industrial Era London or colonial Africa looked like. There were no movies; the only photographs in existence were few, expensive, and of low-quality; and the only way you could hope to learn about other parts of the world was through people who had been there. Obviously this is no longer necessary, so why do authors still postpone the story and create literary distractions with unnecessarily detailed narrative? Additionally (and this is related to several other items in this list), over-describing narrows the reader's control over the story and makes the characters less relatable to a larger percentage of the audience. If I tell you about the elderly mortician whose eye twitches whenever someone mentions the deceased, I've given you enough details to let you draw your own picture. The mortician's behavior and dialogue will give further suggestions about his character without delivering any specifics. Is the mortician male or female? White, black, yellow, red? Tall, short? How old is "elderly" to you? If I tell you that the road ends at a densely-packed high-canopy forest, do I have to tell you what kind of trees they are and if there are leaves on the ground? You're going to fill in the blanks yourself based on your own experiences; I don't have to dictate them to you in my own vision. I can't count the number of times my internal portrait of a character was at odds with an author's detailed description.

5. Living in Tolkien's world

Tolkien spent more than a decade (unintentionally) building the mythology that became Middle Earth. New races, languages, creatures, and cultures are documented in reasonable detail. This is truly a literary accomplishment, though the setting ends up being the focus of the book instead of the story or the characters; I don't like that. Tolkien's work stands as a unique and complex work of art, but this is not how I prefer to read a story. Apparently I'm in the minority, because several authors have made a good living off of epic fantasy megaseries books that borrow the same Tolkien mythology. There's a lack of truly revolutionary fantasy fiction because few or no authors want to put in the decade of research and development to create a unique new epic fantasy world -- or they never realize that it isn't necessary to create a whole world (see item #4). Raymond E. Feist is the worst offender here; he based his world on D&D mythology that he and his friends based on Tolkien. It's two layers of "someone else's world." Tall, pretty elves; ugly dark elves or orcs; burly dwarves; and halflings/hobbits/gnomes are the Central Casting of fantasy stories and MMORPGs. There should have been no place in the post-LOTR world for yet more elf and dwarf stories, but there was. Here we are in the post-Warcraft world where such characters are even more watered-down and ordinary.

6. Invincibility until convenient fallibility

In fantasy novels, the hero is always a perfect fighter right up until the second-act curtain-closer forces him to be vulnerable. Or it's the opposite, where the protagonist is weak until the curtain-closer forces him to suddenly adopt superior skill in order to achieve easy victory. The worst offender of all time isn't a book, it's a movie: Broken Arrow. Christian Slater loses to John Travolta until the story calls for him to win. No extra training, no special advantage, just a change in confidence and the need to win. It almost makes me gag just thinking about it. If the protagonist is a really good fighter, then his ability should not be influenced by the needs of the story. However, I take the position that the main character should be a mediocre or slightly above-average fighter. Each fight, from the first to the last, should be filled with valid and credible chances to get seriously injured or killed.

7. Stupid names

Katniss Everdeen. Really? It sounds like a 5-year-old made it up at a pink plastic tea party. Names can be a distraction, either because they are so ridiculous that you can't help but think about them, or because they are not meaningful enough to be memorable. Seems like a paradox, doesn't it? In a typical novel, how many named characters are there? It was a major hindrance for me when reading Crime and Punishment; each character had three long, foreign names and some of them also had shorter nicknames. It's too much information to keep track of, and while it's interesting from an academic perspective, as a reader it is a barrier to immersion. Think about all of the people you know, and how you refer to them privately. There is "the cute bank teller with the mole on her neck," and "the city cop that gave me a parking ticket," and "the fat IT manager," and "the guy who always wears paisley ties at the office." These people have names; you might know what they are or you might not, but you don't think of them by their given names, do you? When you're telling a story to a friend, do you give detailed names for each character, or do you call them by their short description? Why should fiction storytelling be any different?

8. The rich, white, male nobles save the universe from the classless, dark, evil, sub-humans

Whitewashed stories have no place in the 21st century, except as historical relics. In Tolkien's work, the whiter someone is, the more "good" they are, and the darker someone is, the more "evil" they are. Feist's Riftwar involves a savage Japanese-like race of people invading the good white kingdom of the isles. The only black characters are of the "noble savage" variety, and only play minor roles in the larger story. I think it's perfectly alright to define a specific race or skin color for a character if it is integral to the story, but it usually isn't. Unfortunately when you describe someone's hair or eye colors in ways that can only reasonably represent white people, you unintentionally whitewash a book. Most of the people who live on Earth are not white, but it's near impossible to find speculative fiction that doesn't implicitly or explicitly glorify the Ayrian ideal. Some fantasy authors, like H. P. Lovecraft, are/were open and notorious racists; what would we expect them to write? Star Trek is often held up as a pioneering work of post-racist fiction, but I think that assessment is superficial. In Star Trek, the Klingons and Romulans are entire *races* of beings that are dark-haired, mostly dark-skinned or dark-complexioned, savage, and warlike. How much more racist can you get than that? You're essentially saying that there are some races of human-like creatures that operate normally as human beings, but are totally irredeemable because their racial origins force them to be inherently savage and violent. On the subject of gender, so many books with female protagonists are morality plays that force an uncomfortable political equality ideal on readers while simultaneously undermining the concept of gender equality. The proof of female equality or superiority becomes a theme, and the fact of the protagonist's gender becomes a central issue in the story, rather than a meaningless detail. If gender equality is a known fact, it does not need to be proven or highlighted. Are you preaching a political statement, or telling a good story? You can't have it both ways. The truest political statement on gender equality is the realistic portrayal of a world where it already exists. I believe that there should be more androgynous, racially-neutral heroes; the account of one's actions in the face of crisis should not be forced through the filter of 20th century gender or racial politics. I think that everyone should be able to read a book and relate closely with it not because the protagonists are described to look like them, but because their hopes, dreams, plans, actions, and interactions are inherently relatable to all human beings.

9. The unreasonably evil bad guy vs. the virtuous good guy

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is a perfect example of this problem, though I do admit that I really enjoyed watching it. Sociopaths exist; this is not in dispute. However, I'm tired of reading stories where the antagonist is an unreasonably evil sociopath. Actual sociopaths are not usually outwardly evil, and in real life, people who commit atrocities always have specific motivations (the severely mentally ill aside). Sometimes they are misinformed, misguided, or just plain stupid, but they *do* have reasons for being the bad guys. Culturally this is hard to accept, especially in America. We want to believe that "the terrorists" or "the liberals" or other various groups are out to get us because it is in their nature to destroy.... because, y'know, we're obviously the good guys, and since they are against us, they are the bad guys. We don't want to admit that Osama bin Laden had detailed reasons for executing his plans. That doesn't give relevance to his cause, but it does make him an ordinary human being instead of some chaotic Joker-like character who is determined to watch the world burn. I think that stories that present unreasonable moral dichotomies are culturally harmful. They reinforce the belief that there are invisible and uncontrollable influences called "good" and "evil" that possess people and force them to do some whimsical deity's destructive bidding. The concept of "evil" empowers otherwise "good" people to torture, murder, and exploit their enemies. It validates the belief that it's okay to harm someone, so long as they are deemed "evil." Even worse, the good/evil dichotomy convinces us that there are such things as "good guys." This is dangerous because the true sociopaths are the people who appear the most virtuous, the most kind, the most wonderful; this is part of their act, it's how they are enabled to prey on the weak and the vulnerable, and it's why they are so difficult to arrest or prosecute.

Did you make it this far? Did you agree with any of my points? If so, you might enjoy The Hero, so here's a link to the giveaway:

http://www.librarything.com/er_list.php?sort=quantity&program=giveaway&c...

And here's a link to the book's main page: http://www.librarything.com/work/13504737/book/93963304

Or, you know, you can buy it. The trade paperback is only $12 and the Kindle eBook is $4. If you get the Kindle edition and don't like it, you can return it to Amazon within a reasonable timeframe and get something else.

Hahaha! What a great post! I think with your post you've just proven you are NOT a drive-by author, but if you are, you've just managed to do what no drive-by author has managed so far: you've gotten me interested in your book. And I haven't even read your blurb yet. I'll do that in a moment, and I really hope your book is not only available in kindle format, but also in epub... (I'm a kindle-hater, or rather, a mobi-hater).

I recognize a lot of your points, and I can see why these things would annoy you. Some of them occasionally annoy me too, but a lot of the time, it doesn't change my enjoyment of a book (as long as some criteria are met; if the characters are crap or the story doesn't engage me, of course I won't enjoy the book).
As an aside related to your point 8, I'm reading the Quarters novels by Tanya Huff at the moment, and her gender equality is amazingly refreshing. I've seen other books strive for it, but they always make a fuss about it. Huff doesn't: the genders ARE equal, and since they are, there's no need to mention it in any way. I haven't checked the book against your other points, so I'm sure from your point-of-view it has other infractions, but I really like it.

Ok, read the blurb and I'm convinced: I want to buy your book. As a non-mobi reader and non-American, how do I go about this? I'd very much like an epub, but I haven't been able to find it. I've searched on Kobo, but I get 8923 results with search terms 'hero' and 'anonymous'. And I haven't been able to find a paperback at all, let alone in Europe... Help?

The only point I disagree with is Katniss Everdeen. I love that name and that character and only sorry I didn't think of it before Ms. Collins did. She's the dark side of Bathsheba Everdene.

No, you're not a drive by, and if you don't want to participate, that's fine, it'll just be sad.

I'm going to buy your book.

I decided to make the eBook edition exclusive to Amazon for 90 days to take advantage of their Prime lending library. It's too early to determine if it was effective or not, but I'm leaning towards "probably not." On the 90th day, though I'm going to make it available through B&N's Nook publishing program. I do have a PDF converted from the .mobi (I had some trouble converting to ePub and haven't had the time to look into why the transformation is failing), so if there are no other electronic options available to you, I'll send you the PDF if you're agreeable to writing a review. Doesn't have to be a positive review; if this book sucks, it deserves every 1-star hatchet job it earns.

The series you linked to does sound interesting to me; I might actually try to read it. I have a huge backlog of mostly non-fiction and classic fiction books that I've been trying to read for months or years. Every once in a while, something makes it through all of the distractions. The last one to successfully captivate me was The Game by Neil Strauss. Whether it's true or not (I know someone who knows him, and he insists that it's true), it's a compelling story. I think the beginning should be rewritten because it's too confusing to get directly involved with weird character nicknames without seeing the backstory first. My honest first guess was that Mystery was the author's cat and he was taking it to the vet.

I probably should have listed that as the 10th item in the list -- bad beginnings -- but it's not at all specific to speculative fiction. My favorite book is The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham, but the beginning of it is complete crap. When I gift it to people, I take an xacto knife and cut out the first chapter with the explanation: "That's what his editor should have done." Maugham starts with sappy poetic commentary about how he's got all these "misgivings" about writing the book, and about how things end up for the characters eventually. It should just start at the actual beginning of the story, in chapter 2 when Elliott Templeton calls. At its heart, the book is really about the author's relationship with Elliott, even though the main character is arguably Larry. Beyond that first chapter, it's a work of brilliant first-person narrative with memorable characters.

Bizarrely, Maugham also had a book called The Hero. I had never heard of it when I published my book, but back in 2001/2002, search engines were not nearly as good as they are today, and I didn't find any competing titles. I was really creeped out when I discovered it, though. It's in the public domain now, so it's free, but I haven't read it yet.

The .mobi is all that's available commercially, though this points out a problem that I should solve. Send me an email: jem at jemmatzan.com , and I'll send you a PDF. Will that work?

1. I agree. I really don't like seeing the structure beneath the story. But again, that really is an indication of bad writing. The technique shouldn't be exposed, otherwise I don't like it.

2. I agree. The characters in my book acquire a "magical" device, but they can't make it work. Whenever magic occurs, it is always accidental and/or makes things worse. I did that exactly because of what you describe. A magical arms race is not what I wanted to write.

3. I disagree. I like chapters. It allows breath and space. It makes time or location transitions feel effortless. Chapters are so ubiquitous, they are hardly intrusive to me. I think of them like massive punctuation marks. You could be like Cormac McCarthy and not use proper punctuation, but then everyone wants to talk about the gimmick and not the story.

4. I don't understand this one. "Too much" is completely subjective. I do agree that the best stories leave a lot to the imagination.

5. I never liked Tolkien. I tried. I really did.

6. Again, I think the issue is when this is so obvious. Broken Arrow stunk. Its stinkiness filled the entire movie.

7. I agree. I write middle grade novels and so many of them feature crazy names. To me, the names become the story.

8. Agree 100%.

9. I like my characters to be more subtle too. But at some point in a conflict, the subjectivity of the characters takes hold doesn't it? We all like to think we are the good guy and our opponent is the bad guy. Otherwise, we just wouldn't care who won or who didn't.

Good post and I enjoyed reading it. By the way, we aren't offended by drive-by authors.We are just like you, overworked and not really motivated to weed through spam. I do very little social media. That's all. No one hates you. At least I don't.

I think most of your criticisms are off-base, but specifically:

2. A limitless system of magic to cover plot holes

I am in the middle of a Next Generation marathon right now, and I must say that I find your characterization of the series as having "almost every" episode end with a technological miracle to be somewhat ludicrous. The plot device was used to be sure, and probably overused, but that type of story was decidedly in the minority among the episodes.

5. Living in Tolkien's world

Tolkien popularized this type of fantasy, but he didn't originate it. Do you think that Tolkien should have not written his books because works like the Saga of the Volsungs and the Kalevala had already been written? No fiction is "new".

7. Stupid names

Katniss is named after an edible plant. Naming children after flowers seems to be fairly common. Why is this instance somehow stupid?

8. The rich, white, male nobles save the universe from the classless, dark, evil, sub-humans

You should try reading some of Ursula K. LeGuin's fantasy books.

1> jmatzen – WOW, what a thoughtful post. When I saw the title, I expected a critique of “speculative fiction” as a more tightly defined genre. I write speculative fiction that is not fantasy or science fiction (i.e., alternate futures, dystopian stuff, etc, which is typically called “speculative” because the narrower categories do not fit). There is relatively little written on fiction in my area; however, many of the points you raise can certainly be generalized.

Authors constantly wrestle with the issues you raise. Some of the ideas are a matter of style, taste, preference, or any other ephemeral term that makes sense; some reflect the mysterious workings of the human mind; and some resist any clear understanding.

In my experience, books must have a certain familiarity to the reader. To be human means we share certain social conventions that make a story accessible. I appreciate your search for stories that will immerse you to the point of becoming a “fond memory or a vivid dream.” That type of story will make some readers love your work and drive others over the edge. I want readers to co-construct the story with me. I am intentionally vague, I write minimalistic, and the reader must fill-in parts of the story from his or her personal experience. (In the interest of full-disclosure, my formal training is in counseling and psychotherapy and I like the power of releasing the reader’s imagination.) This approach either works great for the reader or really upsets them. (See the reviews of The Scoloderus Conspiracy to appreciate how dramatically diverse reviews can be for the same book, in the same format.)

I don’t have magic in my stories, and I don’t have technologies that do not exist here and now. I sympathize with your angst over “the five minute fix.” I suspect it reflects the fact that resolution is almost always “the end.” So resolution too soon is a premature ending, resolution taking too long is a tedious ending, and just like Goldilocks, it must be just right and for many people, that would be about five or ten minutes, top.

In my experience, chapters are vital. They reflect the way we process or “chunk” memory. The cognitive psychology folks make a fine living on this reality. If we do not have multiple closure points on a long story, we get lost in it (and not in a good way). Chapters also serve to signal shifts in settings or time. The more important information is, the more we need it broken down to smaller and smaller chunks; hence the numbered instructions for disarming a nuclear weapon.

Too much or too little description is also a profoundly inconclusive science. Some people are very dependent on the author’s imagination and they adopt a passive mind set toward the story and want it to provide everything. Others are more comfortable with a little ambiguity and still others thrive in the storyteller who invites them to make the story happen. I like to demand that no reader can fall asleep while reading my work. Keep that mind awake and engaged!

Every story teaches something. Every written word is a message from one person to another. Our stories reflect insights we have about the world and fiction (every type) has a moral to the story. We use speculative fiction, fantasy, and science fiction to convey stories because people are less defensive toward fiction. After all, it isn't true, is it? We tell children fairy tales to teach them life lessens, we use the pretend, to prepare for the real.

#9 wrote: "Some people are very dependent on the author’s imagination and they adopt a passive mind set toward the story and want it to provide everything. Others are more comfortable with a little ambiguity and still others thrive in the storyteller who invites them to make the story happen. I like to demand that no reader can fall asleep while reading my work. Keep that mind awake and engaged!"

I couldn't agree with you more!

>1 jmatzan: Do you agree with any of my points?

No. :-)

I think you and I have very different values for "too" when it comes to things like "too-exotic names" or "too much description." Like Ellen, the only thing that bugs me about "Katniss Everdeen" as a character name is that I didn't think of it first . . . and I can get happily lost in elaborate, scene-setting description if it's done well.

I think your argument that "there's a lack of truly revolutionary fantasy fiction" because everyone's doing warmed-over Tolkein (#5) is absurd. You may not likewhat (for example) Jim Butcher, Orson Scott Card, Glen Cook, Rick Cook, Charles de Lint, Esther Friesner, Neil Gaiman, Randall Garrett, Laurell K. Hamilton, or Mercedes Lackey are doing . . . but it's not Lord of the Rings with the serial numbers filed off. As far as multi-volume epics go . . . Katherine Kurtz and George R. R. Martin may be plundering English history for plots (hey, it worked for Shakespeare!), but they're leaving Middle Earth alone.

I think your claim that most fantasy and SF traffics -- implicitly or explicitly -- in racism fails for lack of post-1950 examples. Star Trek won't wash because (in the original series) the Romulans are explicitly set up (in "Balance of Terror") as being physically identical to the (peaceful, cerebral) Vulcans . . . rendering their warlike behavior (like that of Imperial Rome, whose culture they echo) a matter of political choice rather than biological programming. When Ronald D. Moore gets hold of the Klingons in Next Generation and Deep Space Nine he does something similar: Their violence and aggressiveness is nurture, not nature: Worf's son Alexander, raised by is human (adoptive) grandparents, is Klingon only in appearance, but Riker, Sisko and Dax are (at various times) fully accepted by pure-blooded Klingons after wholeheartedly embracing their culture.

I'm baffled by your assertion that "it's near impossible to find speculative fiction that doesn't implicitly or explicitly glorify the Aryan ideal." Leaving aside obvious counter-examples like Master Li in Bridge of Birds, Taleswapper in Red Prophet, or Juan Rico in Starship Troopers . . . are dark-haired, dark-eyed heroes really so scarce in speculative fiction? The point of the "Aryan ideal," after all, was that not all white people are created equal.

I don't think your historical arguments in #3 comes close to passing the plausibility test. Chapters, as agreed-upon divisions of a text, go back to the 1220s if you count their use in the Bible. If you want to stick to novels . . . Daniel Defoe used them in Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders around 1720, two generations before the Romantic Era, and a century-and-some before serialization and the sale of already-bound books became the norm.

Finally, while Westerns are famous for having utterly pure good guys and unspeakably evil bad guys, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence -- your go-to example -- isn't an example of it. Liberty Valence, the villain, is a paid thug working for businessmen who'll lose power and influence if the town of Shinbone expands and the (unnamed) territory becomes a state. One of the two heroes shoots a man from ambush, and the other builds his reputation and career on a falsehood. Neither, in other words, is anywhere close to wearing a white hat.

Now, none of that prevents me from being intrigued by a novel I never knew existed before I ran across this thread. Since that was the point of the exercise . . . game, set, and match to you! It's just that (to paraphrase Marge Gunderson from Fargo): "I'm not sure I agree with you a hundred percent on your genre criticism there, Jem . . . "

Speculative fiction is an umbrella term that covers several genres. Basically it is "A story that assumes that something extraordinary is true." Fantasy, science fiction, and horror all fall under this. If something supernatural is the extraordinary thing, then it's a horror story. Star Trek is straight science fiction because the science is the extraordinary thing. Star Wars, on the other hand, is more of a fantasy because the extraordinary thing is The Force, not the futuristic technology that the characters use. George Lucas calls it "science fantasy." Actually, you could argue that Star Wars presents a "technology vs. magic" fantasy scenario, because both the Empire and the Rebel Alliance have constant internal conflicts over which is more powerful and/or appropriate.

Fairy tales get a lot scarier and more dramatic the further back you go. Yes, they do teach lessons, many of which are no longer relevant, and many of which were never relevant. We don't need to fear the old woman in the forest; she is not a witch, she will not eat children, and she has no mystical powers. Fairy tales that teach us that it is good to fear and attack the old woman won't teach us anything useful. Sometimes a kids story is just a story. I don't think there is any deeper meaning behind a lot of myths -- they're "just so" stories meant to explain the unknown. In some instances, myths are meant to absolve people of feelings of guilt or inadequacy.

Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung have a lot of material on this and related subjects, though I bet you already knew that. I thought I would learn a lot about how to write a powerful story by studying their work, but I didn't. Instead I became convinced that we have evolved beyond mythology and archetypes, that the collective unconscious receives new material as often as it distributes old material, and that what made great stories resonate with people in previous eras is no longer powerful. Much like Catholicism, it still works for a lot of people, but it's visibly diminished when compared with previous eras. We're just too informed, too smart, too evolved, too non-religious, too cynical, too well-travelled to really get involved in an old-fashioned story anymore. Look at the insanity of MegaCon, ComicCon, BlizzCon, and DragonCon -- the people who go to those conventions are *involved* in the stories they love. How many of them are books, despite the conventions' origins? Of those, how many are old-style books? Look at popular music. I've seen old footage of teenage girls going absolutely bananas -- screaming, almost as if in horror -- at the sight of Elvis arriving for a concert. Nobody does that for Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga. Certainly they have legions of fans -- more than Elvis did -- and they do cheer and yell and scream, but not *like that*. In Pink Floyd's heyday, people tried to climb up on stage to touch the band; Roger Waters once famously spit on/at a fan who was trying to get close to him on stage. Today he is on a huge tour for The Wall, but no one climbs on stage to get to him, no one is shrieking uncontrollably in completely unfettered joy no matter how much they enjoy the show. After three songs, everyone sits down to watch the concert. It's not because Elvis was super-powered, or because today's pop stars aren't as good as the ones from eras past, or because Roger Waters has lost a step, or because The Wall is no longer relevant -- it's because mythology is dead and people aren't as easily involved anymore. Today people get involved with music through Rock Band, Rocksmith, by making their own music videos, by interacting with the stars through social media, and by sharing playlists and mixes. Do you see what I'm saying? In general, humanity has a need to be more intimately involved with the stories that they consume. Or at least, I think this is the trend.

But preference and tradition are hard to separate, and some people have more of a need to abandon tradition than others. Plato pointed this out some 2300 years ago. There is a book out right now that deals with this from a political perspective, but I can't recall the title.

I do see what you mean regarding those reviews. I also thought that the negative reviews for your book were pretty insightful and not really all that negative when put into perspective. If I were looking for new fiction, I don't think they would turn me off; if anything, I kind of want to try reading it now.

>6 jmatzan: The .mobi is all that's available commercially, though this points out a problem that I should solve. Send me an email: jem at jemmatzan.com , and I'll send you a PDF. Will that work?
Email is underway! But I'd still appreciate it if you could make an announcement here if your book does come out in epub...

By the way, someone mentioned that there are plenty of characters with different hair colors and eye colors, and I'm sure that's true. But in fantasy, it doesn't happen that often in my experience that they have different skin colour. And if they do, that almost always means that they have a less sophisticated and more-in-tune-with-nature society compared to the white city-building society. I'm sure there are exceptions, but I do think this is a trend...

Ah, I just thought of an exception: the black people in The white gryphon by Mercedes Lackey. And I recently read some books by Octavia Butler (Wild seed and following).

12> jmatzen – thank you for your comments.

We appear to disagree a bit on fairy tales. I’ve been profoundly influenced by Bruno Bettelheim and his ground-breaking work The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, additionally, Eric Erickson’s system of therapy and other cognitive-behavioral approaches explore the use of “what if” fantasizing to explore and solve interpersonal issues. Fiction is powerful and we sometimes do not accord it with the transformative power of “the truth.” Along that line of reasoning, any story that lasts a few hundred years must be serving some function that may not be immediately apparent. For example, the wolf consuming granny and her subsequent rescue is not very far removed from childbirth, is it?

Have we evolved beyond mythology and archetypes? I’m not sure that we have. We may have renamed them, but they persist. We all have notions of the idealized self.

While it may be comforting, believing we are too smart (etc., etc.) to really get involved in an old-fashioned story anymore, I am left with this curious belief that every story being told reflects the basic elements of previously-told stories. I’ll leave everyone else to weigh-in on this possibility.

Thank you for taking a look at the reviews. I have a summary of all reviews from all book-seller sites (more than fifty) at my publisher’s website. If you do read one of my books, then reading the reviews by others will be even more entertaining. For example, an lt reviewer wrote and posted to lt and GoodReads, “Military base attacked mysteriously in the night. General missing, possibly dead. Rebels leaving cryptic messages while the military, a genius professor, and the leader of the country try to figure out what to do.” Curiously, there are two generals in the story. Neither is ever missing, injured, or “possibly dead.” The character who is missing – Colonel Hammond - is mentioned, by name and rank, 352 times in the book. Ah, such is the challenge of writing.

Thanks again for your comments.

Dave

Many of your points are valid, but I will pick out my favorite pet peeve; the unusual, ridiculous fabricated names. They distract from the story and oftentimes seem meant to define the character with just that suggestive name.

That's exactly why I don't like them. I have a weird name myself; obviously I am not against weird names in reality. When you're reading a fiction story and struggling to get your imagination engaged in someone else's world, though, weird names are a distraction. They're also hard to remember. I quit reading Crime and Punishment just as Raskolnikov was descending into madness because I was so tired of having to go back and see who the other characters were. Though you could argue that the names were not unique enough, because my real problem was that I couldn't tell them apart -- they all seemed like complicated Russian names to me.

For this reason, most of my characters don't have a name, or they only have one name. Like I mentioned above, this is exactly how you know most people in real life. When I'm telling a story from work, I don't give a bio on each character, I just say ,"My boss, who is from Jersey" and that becomes "the Jersey Boss" if I am mentioning multiple bosses, or just "My Boss" if there is no competition. Sure, he has a name. Probably has three. He even has a title. But the people I'm telling this story to are just going to get confused as they try to listen, understand, imagine, and then keep notes on who each character is. Everyone creates these shortcuts to a certain extent, but it's out of impatience or necessity in a lot of cases. I do it because I love to be as concise and easy to understand as possible (excluding forum posts, apparently). I take it to a new level. In everyday conversations it occasionally sounds like I'm in the mafia and the FBI is monitoring me. "I talked to that *guy*" or "Our friend with the funny shoes will be there," or "don't tell the Field Marshal." Over time, they get shorter. The Field Marshal eventually became "The FM." I actually feel stupid when I have to call someone by their name in their presence. You aren't really a character, in real life or in a story, if you don't have a nickname that exposes you. I learned that from M*A*S*H. If you haven't read the book, you should; I thought I would hate it because Robert Altman said that it was badly written, but I actually loved it.

On a different note, I have been thinking all day about what I said before about "the death of mythology." I stand behind that. There is no more magic; the Internet, computer-generated special effects, instant replay, James Randi, and immersive video games have killed it. There are no more gods or heroes; we have read about their sex scandals and lies and DUI arrests to the point that everyone is dirty. We have seen their mug shots and video of their crying, jilted lovers and their ugly children. We only build up heroes so that we can tear them down and watch them fall, then become enthralled by the underdog story of the defeated hero rebounding to glory. They fall and rebuild until they die of an overdose, or choke on their own alcohol-soaked vomit, or jump off a bridge, or eat a bullet because they just can't take another go-round. Myths and heroes are gone, and they doomed to stay in the past forever. We all know JFK cheated on his wife, but the man's a god, a legend, even his enemies speak reverently about him. Bill Clinton, though, will be associated with cigar cases and semen stains on evening dresses until long after we're all dead. Someday, when his accomplishments are boiled down to a paragraph in a 7th grade history text, Monica Lewinsky will make the cut and Nelson Mandela will not. Even an assassination will not deify Bill Clinton because it will have occurred after the era of mythology has ended. It's too late for all of us. No one will look back on this time and say, "Ah, if only it were like that again," unless the planet dies or civilization is destroyed. Right now we're a toxic mix of people who desperately want to rebuild the myth and magic of the past; and people who look back and see only ignorance, exclusion, and failure in the previous era. Joseph Campbell saw this coming back when he did the The Power of Myth interviews; he lamented the fact that churches don't take their rituals seriously anymore, that they are too familiar and relatable for people who are going to church specifically to get that dose of practiced ancient ritual and mythology. The Catholic church had to change because in the popular consciousness (and in reality throughout history), old time religion in general is no longer the practice of the virtuous; it is the realm of massive-scale child molesters, suicide bombers, plane hijackers, doctor shooters, funeral picketers, and in all other ways enablers for and perpetrators of sociopathic predation and terrorism. To hell with their mythology; it's destroying us.

You know that feeling of, "I've come in at the end, after the glorious beginning and the years of prosperity were gone?" I think this is a very common sentiment, moreso now than ever before, perhaps more in America than anywhere else, but it's always been around. That's your conscience trying to tell you that you are too invested in mythology.

So to the furthest extent possible, everything in The Hero is a fantasy trope turned on its head, sort of like Unforgiven took an honest look back at spaghetti westerns. The things that drive all of the fantasy fiction I've read are exposed to a fatal dose of reality and allowed to suffer and die. The irony is, almost every character in the book is fully committed to traditional mythology, and some are even concerned with "living mythology" -- they think about how to best establish their stories and rituals so that they can communicate a powerful experience that relates to the heroes of old. They want their turn by the hearth to tell their tale and build their legend.

Anyway, I've enjoyed reading everything in this thread so far. I don't want to respond to a lot of it because it isn't my intent to argue, and I really want to know what other people think makes speculative fiction fail (when it fails). I'm shocked that more people aren't offended. In real life, discussions like this usually alienate me because I've spent years thinking about it and putting it into practice, so I have a strong opinion on the subject.

Well...

Well done.

I can "resonate" with most of what you say, Jem, but, "naturally", can't agree with all of it.

I've published a short novel that one of the characters (my "co-author") claims is not science fiction; but, she leaves it to the reader to judge...

I, at first, thought of it as speculative fiction but my best friend (also an author) has called it documentary fiction.

As far as your saying, "I am both introverted and overworked, so I don't have the motivation or the time to participate socially here or elsewhere.", I, too, am introverted and, even though retired, overworked; yet, especially since my novel is so "niche", I've worked very hard to be social...

My theory of building an author platform is to find opportunities to meet people and, hopefully, make friends. If they find out I'm an author, fine. If they find out about my book, cool. If the buy it, wonderful; though, part of my promotion is to give the book away...

I spend many hours in the virtual world Second Life on Book Island and feel it's the best way, right now, for this reclusive author to make friends.

I worked hard, for two years, to find a way to use Facebook, Twitter, and G+ as platforms to extend my visibility---they all have failed me...

LibraryThing is my new and much-loved social outlet---though, I remain deeply introverted and massively overworked.

Clever post! I've given up on most SF/F, after decades of reading, for mostly the same reasons; although I'll read anything some authors such as Ursula K. Le Guin and Neil Gaimon write. My biggest pet peeve for fiction, in general, is your #9--the very, very good vs. the very, very bad. I find that truly boring and try to avoid it at all cost in my own writing. I did enjoy the Harry Potter books, although they could have used a good editor. Voldemort was "pure evil" but we saw how he evolved from an abused child and he grew in power as the series went on. As to Harry, he certainly wasn't the perfect hero. In fact, I would describe the stories as ones in which "the cleverest witch of her generation, saves her male friends' asses, time after time." The characters were flawed, but real; the setting imaginative; and the conclusion satisfying. Were there some long boring bits? Yes, but the story telling worked for me.

I also disagree with the chapters being unnecessary or useful from a craft perspective. Literary/experimental fiction can always fiddle with format to see if it enhances a story. Most people read traditional, straight-forward books...and rarely straight through. I'm reading in bed or at lunch and the logical stopping point is the end of a chapter. It gives me a destination. Having a mini-cliffhanger whets my appetite to come back to the story when I can.

I also hate complicated made up names, but those are in the eyes/ears of the beholder. Katniss irritated me, not because it's made up (it's not) or complicated (it isn't), but because it is hard to pronounce in my head. I kept wanting to call her Catnip. I write in historical fiction and frequently have historical characters with difficult or foreign names. I usually come up with a nickname or short version that family and friends use in casual conversation. My fictional characters have the shortest, easiest to pronounce names common to the era, I can come up with.

Good luck with your book, Jem.

@Marysgirl, have you ever tried Kushiel's dart by Jacqueline Carey? I found her 'bad guy' one of the most believable in fantasy history (for as far as I know it). The bad guy is not evil for the sake of being evil, is in fact not entirely evil at all. Good mixed with bad, and bad only in the eye of the beholder.
For the most human characters I've ever come across in fantasy, I'd go to Robin Hobb (e.g. Assassin's apprentice). The things that happen in her books feel like real life: mistakes are made simply because the characters are fallible, not because they happen to propel the story along in the right direction, if you know what I mean.

zjakkelien, I haven't read much SF/F at all in the last several years, mostly focusing on writing historical fiction and reading non-fiction. But always happy to get good recommendations from these groups. I'll check them out. Thanks!

Point #8 raises concerns shared by many of us. You might want to consider book recommendations from the Carl Brandon Society (carlbrandon.org), which promotes racial and ethnic diversity within SF/F, and the Lambda Literary Foundation (lambdaliterary.org), which promotes LGBT literature, including SF/F.

You might also be very pleasantly surprised by the diversity of writers and stories represented in this year's list of nominees for the Nebula Award (http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/genreville/).

>21 JillShultz:. I had the distinct honor to interview Ursula K. Le Guin several years ago. She told me that almost none of her characters are white, but the publishers always showed them white on the covers.

How often do authors actually race-identify their characters, other than fantasy races? I can't say that I ever have.

#22 > Utterly despicable pandering to prejudice on the part of those publishers...

>23 crtozier: I rarely see specific race identity in SF/F (except for alien/fantasy races), but frequently read descriptions that indicate skin color. Octavia Butler is adept at that. She provides a few details and lets the reader fill in the rest. Maybe because she is African-American, her publishers usually did show people of color on her covers.

I've only read the first three Patternmaster books by Octavia Butler (Wild seed, Mind of my mind, and Clay's ark), and I'm pretty sure that in those books, the main characters are described as being black...

The Devil, by the nature of his habitation, the purest flames and the highest heat being diamond-white, is The Lord of Whiteness.

There is a perception that whitewashing makes for better sales, and wider marketing appeal. I do not know what data this perception is based on.

I just finished Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson, and it reminded me of point two in the list in the first post. The magic in Mistborn has clear limitations and disadvantages. Although magic is used in the solution that saves the day in the end, it is just as much luck, desperation, perseverance, and quick thinking. If not more. And I actually think it makes sense to use magic in a solution when the problem is also inherently magical. Magic is a part of this world, it is a part of the problem, and it is a part of the solution. But it is not everything, it takes hard work to learn, it exacts a price when you use it, and you cannot do everything with it.
And Mistborn has an interesting premise considering this discussion: a thousand years ago, the world needed rescuing by a Hero, but unfortunately, despite all the prophecies, the Hero failed, and now the world sucks.

The only problems I see with the book when I hold it up against the list are 1) it has chapters (which really is not a problem from my point of view) and 2) there could have been a few more women on the good side. And I'm not sure about the three-act-structure, because I don't really understand that one.

What a clever and subtle (really?) way of promoting one's work by jmatzan, and even obtaining a couple of promises to buy. Well, if that's all it takes, I'm game, and I'll be even more subtle by not mentioning my book's name, which should make it sound far more intriguing.

Tolkien's Crime

I have nothing personal against John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, although he was certainly a bit of a snob, didn't think much of Americans, and drove his publisher nearly mad. But the latter trait might be considered a virtue, and the first two can be overlooked.

His writings are quite enjoyable. The Hobbit can be appreciated by both children and adults. The Lord of the Rings is a superior classic—a bit slow-moving perhaps, does less with female characters than might be desired, and fades after the final victory, but worth reading more than once. The Silmarillion is a great piece of creative scholarship, more to be admired than enjoyed, but worth a reading by enthusiasts. And some of Tolkien's minor works are charming.

The early movies aren't anything to write home about, and the Peter Jackson efforts, while loaded with fine imagery, distort the plot and characters for no reason other than to satisfy the producer's ego. We can't blame that on Tolkien, of course.

LotR will probably outlast other fine works of fantasy due to its monumental premise, nothing less than the fate of the world. The Lyonesse trilogy by Jack Vance is perhaps better written, a greater imaginative effort by a far more prolific author, and an easier, more enjoyable read in some ways. But it essentially concerns the fate of individuals and one imaginary archipelago which Atlantis-like descended beneath the waves before our time, leaving behind naught but legends. LotR, though, is in Tolkien's view a part of our world's history.

LotR is somber as well as monumental. Despite its temporary happy ending it is essentially a tragedy, for we know Tolkien's world faces ultimate decline. Lyonesse contains tragedy but the premise of LotR is a tragedy. And tragedies are more memorable than comedies. Check with Shakespeare if you doubt—Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Lear, Macbeth—these stand far above the comedies and the histories.

To get back to our main subject, however—what is Tolkien's crime?
It can be stated it in a word—elves.

That's right, elves. Before Tolkien, elves in recent literature were wee tiny things on the order of Brownies and Leprechauns. Often conflated with Fairies, they could be mischievous, even dangerous., but were not beings of power as with Tolkien.

The Anglo-Saxons took them more seriously, as did most Germanic peoples. In fact, they had a name (names, actually) for them: elf-warrior Alvar, elf-counsel Alfred, elf-friend Alvin, elf-spear Algar, Alger, elf-rule Alfric, Alberich, and others, no doubt. Our Germanic ancestors took their elves seriously. Elf-shot, for instance, could cause disease, weakness, death.

But literature generally forgot the power-elves until Tolkien. Since him, however, the genre of fantasy has not only increased to huge proportions, but you can hardly find a sword-and-sorcery epic that isn't loaded with elves, and they've even invaded the paranormal genre.

It's true that Tolkien built the popularity of other denizens of mythical worlds—dwarves, trolls, dragons, sorcerers—and they've brought along associated creatures, especially witches, whom Tolkien left out, as far as I know, with the exception of a witch-king. But dragons and witches we have long had with us, while dwarves and trolls haven't made pests of themselves to the extent of elves.

By way of a subsidiary crime Tolkien increased the popularity of another fantasy convention—the gadget or gizmo. Rings, primarily, but magic swords and armor also.

Give Tolkien credit, he handles the ring well, making it into something far more insidious than the usual magical device of myth and legend. For him no paltry ten-league boots or cloak of invisibility. No... The One Ring not only allows its wearer amazing control over events—it also controls its user. Pretty good plot device.

One of the early re-imaginings of LotR was Sword of Shannara. In this Tolkien take-off a sword (obviously) is the gizmo. Magic swords are old-hat, of course. It is difficult to think of a mythical hero who wasn't equipped with one, typically named something on the order of Brain-biter (which, I believe, might have belonged to Hereward the Wake, who was less mythical than the typical hero.)

Tolkien's books are rife with named swords, but let's not stop there. Arthur had one, Siegfried had one, Beowulf had one, Charlemagne's buddy Roland had one (and a horn, too,) Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser have them. Anjin-sama of Shogun has his named Oil-seller after it is borrowed by a rather militant Japanese to filet a peaceful (but stubborn) merchant. Lewis Carroll introduces the vorpal blade which goes snicker-snack.

Even Childe Roland has his father's brand which never struck in vain, and when he to the dark tower comes for to rescue Burd Ellen, uses it to whack off the head of nigh about everyone he meets. (And to think all the trouble started over an innocent game of soccer.)

There is reason to think Childe Roland's sword might be named Excalibur. Indeed, scandal would have it that Roland is the son of Guinevere, and has inherited Arthur's sword. The question is, inherited sword not availing, who is Childe Roland's father? Because we know Guinevere had her failings.

Interestingly—to me, if not to you—childe is Anglo-Saxon for heir, and burd is synonymous with bride, but probably going back to birth, meaning of high birth. So the Childe Roland story of kicking a ball and running widdershins around a church is not about children but high-born adults. Just as well, for we wouldn't want some kid running into Elfland and indiscriminately whacking-off heads. If you read the original myth, not Browning's take, you'll also note that Roland is the youngest of the brothers, and I'll bet Ellen is not Roland's sister but some king's youngest daughter, because that's the way faerie tales should work.

But I had better stop with the swords lest this specific gizmo takes over the whole essay. Let us get back to elves, those mystic magical creatures who presently infest almost all fantasy. And since this essay is becoming too long, I'll truncate it.

In brief, I assert there are far too many elves in today's popular literature, and it's all Tolkien's fault.

Therefore, authors, enough with the elves already! They've been overdone.

Well, yes, I posted it to help market the book. But the best way to market anything on social media is to participate in the conversation and offer something interesting. That's what social media is all about, whether you're selling something or not. I said upfront that I wouldn't post beyond this thread, though. That is due to many factors: Lack of time (writing is my day job, my freelance job, and my hobby, so I'm doing, like, 80-hour weeks until June or so), lack of interest in other fiction, and innate ability to say things that upset people on forums and cause trouble. I can avoid the latter if I focus on just one topic, so that's what I've done.

That's a good point about the magic weapons or gizmos. I've always thought of the "magic sword" as a phallic metaphor. This is another fantasy trope that I mercilessly attacked in The Hero. The main character goes through about a half-dozen swords and other weapons throughout the story, and has no particular attachment to any of them. In fact, there is a general lack of heirloom items in the book. The characters who keep mementos and cling to the past are pretty dysfunctional and cause a lot of problems for themselves and others -- kind of like in real life. Fantasy stories are heavily reliant not just on magic as a device, but also "magical thinking" ala religion and new age philosophy. It isn't just the fact of the magic item, it's the belief that the magic item will bestow great power or solve a big problem. Magical thinking is a huge problem in human culture; it's a guilty pleasure that causes all manner of trouble. The appeal of classical fantasy stories is that the magical thinking is validated therein. Someone believed truly enough, or wished hard enough, or was born ugly but special, or whatever -- this is inspiring stuff, in a sugary, shallow, anti-intellectual sort of way.

>DaiAlanye LotR will probably outlast other fine works of fantasy due to its monumental premise, nothing less than the fate of the world.

Ahum. LotR is hardly the only book that involves the fate of the world... Check out just about any other epic fantasy book, and you'll stand a good chance of coming across it...

And one question: after your extensive essay, I still don't know what you have against elves. Would you mind clarifying?

"...after your extensive essay, I still don't know what you have against elves. Would you mind clarifying?"

Perhaps you missed that my essay was intended as humor. But many a true word is spoken in jest, and my main gripe has to do with derivative fiction where the derivation is all too plain. Almost all genre fiction is derivative to some extent, of course—certainly almost every romance (those that meet the standards of the RWA) can probably be accused of deriving from P&P. And that's a good thing, if well done.

Note also that I didn't claim LotR was the only book, fantasy or other, concerned with the fate of the world, but that that aspect, among other factors, would help it outlast others, Specifically, although I consider Lyonesse a better book, it'll be easier to forget than LotR.

Regarding swords, phallic or not, here's a wonderful rant about gimmicks of that type: http://news.ansible.co.uk/plotdev.html

As for "magical thinking." it's built into our culture—helps lying salesmen sell cars, and lying politicians get elected. Why? Because we love to be lied to, or possibly because we believe in a kind of magic that automatically works to assure satisfactory outcomes for good folks like ourselves.

Gotta admit---this is one of the most interesting threads I've found on LibraryThing :-)

An essay that goes with Tolkien's Crime is Why I Hate Romance. I can hardly wait for an excuse to bomb readers with that one.

>33 DaiAlanye:, @@DaiAlanye
Perhaps you missed that my essay was intended as humor. But many a true word is spoken in jest, and my main gripe has to do with derivative fiction where the derivation is all too plain. Almost all genre fiction is derivative to some extent, of course—certainly almost every romance (those that meet the standards of the RWA) can probably be accused of deriving from P&P. And that's a good thing, if well done.

I did notice that you intended to be humorous, but since you posted this in @jmatzan's thread, and alluded to his original post, I assumed you had a point as well, like he did (actually, he had quite a few!). Thanks for clarifying. I think for me the execution is more important than the amount of derivation, although I do enjoy it if an author comes up with something new, or has a new take on something old. Some authors get so taken away with their new thing, however, that they forget the characters or the story. I always think that's such a shame... (by the way, I guess P&P=Pride and prejudice, but wat is RWA?)

>30 DaiAlanye:
LotR will probably outlast other fine works of fantasy due to its monumental premise, nothing less than the fate of the world.

>33 DaiAlanye:
Note also that I didn't claim LotR was the only book, fantasy or other, concerned with the fate of the world, but that that aspect, among other factors, would help it outlast others. Specifically, although I consider Lyonesse a better book, it'll be easier to forget than LotR.

I know you didn't claim it was the only book, but if the fate of the world were such an important factor for being unforgettable, then a lot more books should be able to claim that distinction. I'm not a LotR expert, and I actually haven't read Lyonesse, but I think the fate of the world is either not a factor, or it is one of many. I don't know if there were other books of this scope before LotR, but if not, then perhaps being the first is one of those factors?

>31 jmatzan:, @@jmatzan
innate ability to say things that upset people on forums and cause trouble

You make me curious... What do you say that upsets people so much? Is it accidental or intentional? I'm guessing the first, since you say you want to avoid it...

>You make me curious... What do you say that upsets people so much? Is it accidental or intentional? I'm guessing the first, since you say you want to avoid it...

I'm not a very social person, and I tend to be direct because I hate to be ambiguous. After getting into rather bitter book-related arguments at a few parties, I have decided that I just shouldn't talk about books unless it's one that I wrote. People are very attached to the art that they like, and when you say that you dislike it and have all kinds of well-considered reasons why, it tends to evoke a sense of defensiveness.

Mostly I get into trouble for saying the things that I put into the article I posted here. I've forced myself not to respond to people who dispute any of my opinions in this thread, so that's why it's been nice and civil and open. It's a conscious effort for me, though.

>36 zjakkelien: "…but wat is RWA?"
Romance Writers of America.

"…I think the fate of the world is either not a factor, or it is one of many"
Sure, but important to LoTR, in my opinion. Without that it would have been far less memorable. The immediate story was comedy, since it ended happily for Ranger and the Hobbits. The ultimate end, however, was going to be a tragedy, and tragedies are generally more memorable than comedies. Tolkien brings the journey to a successful conclusion but allows the reader to foresee a pessimistic future.

>The immediate story was comedy, since it ended happily for Ranger and the Hobbits. The ultimate end, however, was going to be a tragedy, and tragedies are generally more memorable than comedies.

On a long enough timeline, *every* story ends in tragedy (in the classical sense). But if we're saying that death defines tragedy, then we have to also say that marriage defines comedy, since that's the classical delineation between the two. I don't think this applies anymore. Marriage is no longer the cultural beginning of a new life. Many modern tragedies don't end in death; they end in extreme failure, which could be perceived as worse than death in some instances.

In The Razor's Edge, the main character (if you can say that Larry is the main character; one could argue that it's Elliott or the narrator/author) does not die or get married at the end. It's by far the best book I've ever read, at least in part because it doesn't fit the classical structure. It's been a major inspiration to me as a writer.

In the long run we will all be dead.

Sounds reasonable, but beloved of pessimists. The vast majority of us live for today and the foreseeable future. It matters not how the universe ends if I can see a reasonable chance for happiness for two or three generations of my descendants.