Tuesday 14 January 2020

My modern fantasy challenge update Part Two

Part one was the nine authors I picked, here's where I talk about the others I've read and some of the conclusions I came to.

The other three authors I finished books by were Mark Lawrence, Adrian Tchaikovsky and NK Jemisin.

Mark Lawrence's The Red Prince was a fun little number, very reminiscent of Flashman - possibly too much. If the book had a weakness, it was that it was very much of the quest travelogue style, and that the world didn't have much to make it stand out vs other fantasy books. Adrian Tchaikovsky's The Wolf and the Tiger hit a lot of my sweet spots - mythic and ancient feeling, interesting magic, plenty of mystery and a strong voice - but I think it maybe moved a little slow for me. NK Jemisin's Dreamblood moved a little fast, but otherwise hit the same sweet spots. In both cases, I expected to like both more than I did - see my recent review of Dreamblood to see exactly what I thought of it - but did like them a lot.

I also tried Staveley, Erikson, Wooding, Rothfuss, Abraham, Hurley, Julia Knight, Batchelder, Bakker and Elliott without finishing any of them. No bad authors there but for whatever reason, none of them kept my attention. Daniel Abraham came closest as I really like his prose but I read The Dragon's Path at a time when I was really over reading the PoVs of blind bigots and sociopaths. I might go back to him one day - hell, might go back to any of them. But between them, and those I read, and a past familiarity with Gaiman and Tad Williams, I've certainly read enough to make some conclusions.

Conclusion 1: I'm a fussy reader who's over completionism.

Some of you might be asking if this is really a revelation to me, but it was. Years of sticking with the same small group of authors, adding to them rarely, meant I stuck with things I really liked and completed and then re-completed. Now, maybe I've changed as well, grown more critical, but there definitely seems to be a correlation between me trying a new author every month and me putting down more books. And probably a causation too. And because I'm used to quitting, and because I'm constantly looking for new authors, finishing series has kinda gone too. I've finished one series since I first had the challenge idea.

I miss completing series. There's a great feeling to it. I deeply envy all the bloggers who seem to be finding books they love every other week. But at the same time, I'm okay with it - if only because not being okay with it would suck. I am what I am, and if I more easily offput by a book's flaws then others, it doesn't mean I love reading any less.

Note - this isn't just new books. I've made a concerted attempt to go back through the genre's history, and the same choosiness applies there. And most of the authors I grew up on, there's now books of theirs I haven't finished either.

Conclusion 2: Fantasy hasn't got that much darker.

When I started this, all the talk seemed to be about Grimdark. This is Grimdark, that is Grimdark, this is why Grimdark is superior, this is why it sucks, and so on. I wasn't entirely sure how I felt about a diet of Grimdark. I had liked Abercrombie's The First Law but found it wore thin at the end. I am greatly intrigued by violence and have a disgusting sense of humour, but need something extra. But in the event, at the end of the challenge and everything else I'm read, I'm still not sure about how I'd feel about a diet of grimdark as I never had it. Given a list of what people saw as the genre's best, I didn't really have to try.

What I did read, both grimdark and non-grimdark, leads to me to believe that the genre's view of life isn't all that much changed from what was written in the 80s and 90s. Yes, it is darker, as is unsurprising in darker times, but by and large writers still believe in heroes defeating villains. The view of hero and villain is more nuanced, more blurred, but by and large they're still hero and villain. The amount of villains who win, and the amount of protagonists who are either villains or truly contemptible, have grown, but they're far from the majority of the genre. We show more pain, but I sometimes think people forgot how much pain was shown. I'd say that as a whole the genre has grown broader, rather than everything going to darkness; which means yes the genre has grown darker as a whole, but there's still plenty of inspirational and light-hearted stories out there.

Conclusion 3: Fantasy is changing but maybe the perception hasn't caught up yet

Speaking of the genre getting broader, I think it has done so in every conceivable way compared to what felt like the mainstream back when I was a boy. We integrate more genres, we plunder more mythologies and histories, we have a more diverse writer base than results in more diverse stories. When you consider the widest possible boundaries of the genre, then Fantasy has something for everyone (unless they absolutely hate all hints of the supernatural) and a lot of the biggest media properties on the planet. I will freely concede that my knowledge of Fantasy as a youngster wasn't as strong as it might be, and give all due praise to the many very different takes on Fantasy that exist in the genre's past, but still the kingdom grows greater.

Yet I arguably didn't get that from the list and judging from the many "It's all Tolkien!" takes I get, I don't always get it from other people. I've already commented on the gender bias I received last time; I feel pretty sure (or hope) that if I did it again I'd receive a wider net of ethnicity. Urban Fantasy was poorly represented on the list, as was YA. Maybe something about what I said and who I am led people to skew their recommendations away from that. But I believe that in some part, a lot of fantasy readers haven't really taken on board everything the genre is now offering yet. That's okay, lag is to be expected, but I'd like to believe that people will be getting more on board with the big offering soon - simply because they'll have more fun.

Conclusion 4: I've gone from all about the Epic Fantasy to all about anything but

Pretty much all of my childhood favourites had something of Epic Fantasy's DNA mixed in, if not wholly made of it. Pratchett, Gaiman and Rankin were the only real exceptions to that rule. Now - allowing for a wooliness about what Epic is - I'm reading a lot more things that are pretty off the beaten track there. More adventure stories, like Novik's Temeraire. More personal scale stories, like Wecker's The Golem and The Djinni or the various crime-fantasy books I've read.

It's not that I've gone off Epic Fantasy as an idea. There's still been plenty of it in my choices. But either the blurb sounds boring, or I'm just not clicking with it while I'm reading it, or I'm getting distracted by other things I'm reading. Why? Has Epic Fantasy changed, or am I fooling myself about my tastes changing? I think that one big part of it is I was always very attracted to the element of myth in Epic Fantasy, and it feels like a lot of it is less about riffing on myth and more on history and D&D and maybe even superheroes. None of these are things I dislike, but maybe without seeing the missing element it doesn't come together for me.

Conclusion 5: My best in modern fantasy is different - what's yours?

If somebody were to ask me to recommend the best books of the last 10 years - or last 14 years to be like my original question - I would definitely have firm opinions by now in a way I didn't then. And quite a few of them would be recommending names that didn't make the list.

The first name that would spring to mind is Max Gladstone, whose Craft series represents to me the absolute finest in terms of the sort of invention we're seeing in Fantasy today. He didn't get a single vote when I asked, but everyone I knows who've read him enjoy his books immensely. Aliette De Bodard and Helene Wecker should have also been on the list.

Also on my recommendation list, albeit published after I started asking would be RJ Barker and Fonda Lee. I'm not sure if I'd recommend R.F. Kuang, whose work I still find very memorable for both good and bad, but I would at least think about it.

I'd probably also recommend a few small press and indie works. The Goddess Project and The Woven Ring were both written by guys I'd consider good friends in Bryan Wigmore and MD Presley respectively, but there's plenty of my good writer friends I didn't give such constant props to. They wrote really, really good fantasies. I also recall being impressed with Lindsay Buroker's The Emperor's Edge, which has remained in the memory for a long time for a casual read - impressed enough to buy a series anthology recently.

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