SF vs. Fantasy - Round 1: FIGHT!

K, this post actually doesn’t pit sf and fantasy against one another. I just really wanted to use that Mortal Kombat reference. Lol

Hello folks,

Happy Monday and welcome back. Today is the second in a series of installments that will be based off of my responses to the books for my science fiction and fantasy readings in the genre class for Seton Hill. Two weeks ago I discussed George R. R. Martin’s “A Game of Thrones.” This week “Game of Thrones” is still on the scene, but the science fiction work “Leviathan Wakes” by James Corey is joining it. Together, the works represent the sources for my comparison of science fiction and fantasy and what readers expect/take from each. Here we go.

NOTE: For the sake of argument, when I refer to fantasy throughout this post, unless otherwise specified, I mean epic fantasy and its similar subgenres.

SF (science fiction) vs. fantasy

How much of a “vs.” is there here? Let’s start with the basics.

The following points are generalized to each genre. Not all works from both may exhibit these qualities.

SF
-futuristic
-rooted in science of some kind
-people have developed new behaviors to adapt to life
-as of yet undeveloped living conditions and technology

Fantasy
-takes place in the past
-contains a magic system of some kind
-people live and behave as they would in the appropriate era
-contains past forms of living conditions and society appropriate to the era it resembles

All right, that’s not all of them, but it’s enough for now. On the surface, the two genres look very different, but what I’ve listed here is what you’d include on a venn diagram. These points can be easily applied to “Leviathan Wakes” and “Game of Thrones” respectively.

“Leviathan Wakes” definitely takes place in the future, which is evident by the technology and the fact that people are living in space. The story is rooted in science. If you took away the space ships and other advances (such as the ability to change the amount of gravity effecting an area), the story falls apart. People have developed new behaviors to adapt to life—such as the gesture of nodding with one's hand brought about by the inability to nod normally while in a space suit. Finally, there are living conditions, such as 0g, that we don’t have today. And there is definitely the feeling of futuristic society. The human civilizations not on Earth rely on the Earth for everything. And I mean everything—water, food, air, etc. If that’s not different, what is? I don’t know about you, but I don’t know what I’d do if I was suddenly thrust into an environment where breathable air wasn’t a given.

Similarly, Thrones exhibits the elements that define fantasy. It takes place in a time that we’d consider the past. There is a magic system (no matter how small/as of yet unexplored). People in Martin’s world live as people would have in the past. High-born individuals do what they must to keep their land and their own safe and empowered, and the characters address one another formally (i.e. “My Lady Mother). Finally, there is no electricity, horses are the main mode of travel, and dueling is commonplace. All of these are symbols of a time not our own.

So yes, Leviathan and Thrones fit within the basic outlines of their genre. That’s good for a surface look, but what about a deeper analysis? Take away these basic elements. What’s left?

-escapist (to whatever degree)
-what people will do in extraordinary (ones we don’t face today) situations
-how people will survive (or not) against impossible odds and how the battle will change them

I would argue that these three elements are present in both sf and fantasy. They are orchestrated in two very different ways for each genre, but they are still there.

-Escapist—both genres offer readers the opportunity to move away from current life and into another world. Whether readers want to move forward or back in time—whether they want to live in a world of science or magic is completely up to them. But the opportunity is basically the same. “Leviathan Wakes” offers its readers the chance to leap forward in time to see what mankind can accomplish and possibly become. Thrones, by contrast, hurls its readers back in time to an era where kings and lords vie for power and dominance in an environment where trust and friendship are a luxury. No matter which you choose, you are still thrust into a world that is not today’s.

-what people will do in extraordinary situations—Eddard Stark (“Game of Thrones”) finds himself in a place to make a difference where the king’s heir is concerned. He tries and fails. Jim Holden (“Leviathan Wakes”) is over and over again given important information that he chooses to broadcast to everyone who is listening. These two men can be considered righteous and both want to bring truth out into the open. Eddard fails. Holden succeeds. That’s not the important part, though. What matters is that the situations are remarkably similar for taking place so many thousands of years apart. Both genres are still about humans and what humans will do.

-facing impossible odds and the changes those odds bring—Daenerys (“Game of Thrones”) sets fire to her beloved, gives him up, and emerges from the flames with dragons. To get there, though, she overcame her brother, faced her fears about becoming more than she was, found her voice, watched her husband die, and was betrayed by the woman who said she’d help save him. Through all of that, I’d still say she came out ahead. Miller (“Leviathan Wakes”) leads a ship that has basically developed the ability to think for itself off of its collision course with Earth. It’s not clear if he survives. He’s not sure if he’ll survive, but he does it anyway. He throws himself into a situation where he might die to save Earth. Both characters faced seemingly insurmountable tasks and find the strength within themselves to succeed.

These points laid out, I don’t think “vs.” applies to the difference between sf and fantasy. Beyond the basics that define the genre, there’s very little difference between the stories, challenges, and characters that inhabit the worlds of both. I’d go so far to argue that they are two ends of the same spectrum.

Now don’t go all crazy on me. They are two separate genres, but maybe there’s a reason they’re lumped together on bookstore shelves. They’re about larger than life people taking on larger than life challenges and finding larger than life solutions.

So why read one? Why like one more than the other? For some I suspect the answer is simply “I like stories about outer space” or “I like stories about magic.” I’m going to dig deeper. Diving into my academic past for a minute, in one of my psychology classes in undergrad we talked about what peoples’ interests say about them. It came up that people who embraced science (either by finding it fascinating or making it their life’s work) were more accepting of change. Similarly, people who were less accepting of science (who favored the humanities majors—English, history, etc.) were more resistant to change.

I’m going to run with this for a second. Hold your fire. If what I’ve just said is supported by research, does it then stand to reason that people who read sf are people who embrace change and are looking for a way to see into the future? Conversely, are people who read fantasy more resistant to change and interested in looking backward in time?

I’m not saying that all people who read sf are eager to advance and that all people who read fantasy want to go back to the horse and buggy. What I am saying is that each genre supplies its readers with something that they need to keep their world stable. Sf offers its readers the opportunity to dream big. It gives people who want it the ability to look forward, see the future, and possibly even gather ideas to make that future a reality. Fantasy, by contrast, lets its readers rest secure in the knowledge that the world isn’t advancing too quickly. It allows people to sit back and forget about the potentially frightening prospects of a universe where inter-stellar travel is possible. These assumptions in mind, people who read both would then be neither overly accepting nor resistant to change.

People read for all sorts of reasons—pleasure, education, class. Books give each person something different. I argue that sf and fantasy don’t so much fill reader expectations as fill readers’ voids. It gives them what cannot be found in everyday life. It eliminates that hole where curiosity, fear, amazement, or desire sits. Whether it's into the hypothetical future or fabricated past they go, readers take comfort from their genre.

See you out of the box,
Caboodle

Author Interview--Jennifer Loring

Hello again,

It’s interview time. This week we have Jennifer Loring—a horror writer. All right, enough from me, let’s here from the interviewee.

About Jennifer
Jennifer Loring has published nearly 30 short stories and poems in various webzines, magazines and anthologies, and has received an honorable mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror for her short story “The Bombay Trash Service.” Jennifer is currently studying for her MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University. She works as an editor for Musa Publishing's YA imprint, Euterpe, and is a member of YALitChat.org.

-What book and/or experience made you want to be a writer?

I started writing when I was about 12. I'd been reading Stephen King since 10 (Misery was my introduction to him), and I knew I wanted to write horror. King is to this day one of my biggest influences. Also, my mother is a writer, so I grew up watching her at a typewriter every night. I would even help her edit some of her work.

-What genre(s) do you write? If more than one, what’s your favorite?

I write horror and dark fantasy primarily. I've dabbled in fantasy and science fiction as well. Horror is my favorite, because exploring the darker emotions can be very cathartic.

-What project(s) are you working on now?

Four short stories that need to be finished, nine short stories and a novella that need to be revised, and of course my first novel. Never mind the giant list of story ideas I haven't even begun to tackle yet!

-Spoilers?

This is part of a scene that comes about halfway through my novel. I've always really liked it.
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"Time no longer exists for me as it does for you. There was a day, a long time ago, when I stopped to watch the flowers blooming on a tree in the forest. I saw the blossoms burst forth as if mere minutes had passed, yet it turns out I had stood in that same spot for a month.” A tiny gasp escaped Blessing’s lips. The sun’s warmth bled away, and a cocoon of frigid air encased her. A shudder, followed by a frenzy of shivering, wracked her entire body like a seizure. As if turned to ice, she could not escape no matter how urgently her body willed it.
“Do you notice how no one sees me? Even when standing still, I can be invisible to others just by wanting it. I can be anywhere I choose, at any time. I am everywhere and nowhere, for the dead travel fast.”
Every hair on Blessing’s body stood on end. She stared down at her hands folded in her lap. “So you really aren’t human.”
“Not in a very long time. It’s harder and harder to remember what it was like. There are many things I cannot remember anymore.” Anastasia turned her face to the sun and closed her eyes. Bathed in tones of peach and gold, her white skin took on an almost natural appearance, and for a moment the girl she must have been so long ago sat there in her place. “But I remember I had a dress once. Just like the sun. My father gave it to me.”
Her lips trembled, but not with grief. What lay beneath them struggled to burst free and, unable to restrain it, her mouth contorted into a scowl. “I hate the sun.”
Anastasia opened her eyes, the eyes into which Blessing swore she’d never fall again, she must never fall, and flames ignited by the sunset or by some unholy inner conflagration danced within them. Then Anastasia stretched her jaws wide, her horrible sucking lamprey mouth full of pearlescent and razor-bladed teeth, as if she would devour the sun itself.
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-For other aspiring writers, any tips?

Take some classes on craft--and the business of writing, for that matter. I've learned more in the past year and a half of grad school than in the previous 13 years (which is how long I've been publishing my short fiction) combined. The rise of self-publishing has unfortunately perpetuated the myth that writing is easy, when it's anything but. You should never stop striving to become better at it.

-What’s your favorite book/genre to read?

It would be impossible to name my favorite book! However, the last three books I've read are House of Leaves, The Passage, and Eyes Everywhere, and I enjoyed all of them very much. I love reading horror, but I'm also a big fan of non-fiction. I get tons of ideas from it.

-What’s your favorite thing you’ve ever written?

That's another tough question. My favorite is probably my short story "The Bombay Trash Service," which earned me an honorable mention in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. My novel is finally shaping up to be something I really like, too.

Want more from Jennifer?

Check out her blog.

Also find Jennifer on twitter and facebook.

Villains are People too?

***REPEAT OF IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT***
On Monday I announced that I changed my blog settings so that anyone (not just account holders) can leave a comment. I wanted to repeat this as this post lends itself a bit better to discussion. Enjoy.

Hello readers,

I wrote an intense villain scene in my thesis the other day (that I’m probably going to have to rewrite), and it got me thinking. What are villains?

The obvious answer is the antagonist—the guy that does everything in his power to make sure the protagonist(s) doesn’t succeed. Is that all, though? Are villains more than simply evil?

I’d argue yes and no.

I know—so helpful.

One of my Seton Hill chats last semester (which one escapes me at the moment) included a lengthy conversation about humanizing villains. Most of my fellow WPFers agreed that it was important to give the villain a good quality to fill out his/her character.

I, being the ever-present devil’s advocate, argued against this idea, siting Lord Voldemort—the world-famous villain of the Harry Potter series. What good quality does Voldemort really possess? He wants to live forever, has demonstrated the ability to kill without remorse, was willing to divide his soul (thus mutilating his body), and, even at the very end when Harry presents every ounce of truth, refuses to acknowledge that he was at all wrong. Aside from all this, he’s deceptive, uncaring, arrogant, and power hungry.

No one countered these points. The overwhelming response to my analysis was that Voldemort was the example to prove the rule. He was one of the few villains with no good qualities.

I took this as a personal victory. I’ve always been able to find examples to prove the opposite of the prevailing theory. I was that student in Spanish class who, when it was explained that the -ar, -er, or -ir at the end of a verb was dropped to conjugate, asked “what about ‘ir’” (translated as to go)? My teacher shook her head at me a lot.

However, on closer examination, I did find a possible good quality in our dear Lord Voldemort.

-His undying devotion to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Toward the end of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” Voldemort says (after the first half of the battle at Hogwarts) that he wishes not to spill anymore wizard blood. In “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” and Deathly Hallows, it is shown, through Harry and Dumbledore’s extensive study of Voldemort’s past, that the young Tom Riddle exhibited great care when handling the items that would become his horcruxes. Note that it was items that had strong connections to the wizarding school that Voldemort used as the hosts for his soul.

As loathed as I am to admit it, the almost love that Voldemort shows for Hogwarts and its founders is moving. If you discount the fact that behind it was a plan to see wizards in a position of ultimate power over muggles and the possessive desire to kill a boy made guilty only by Voldemort’s own actions, he could almost be a hero. (All right, not quite.)

That’s the hitch. Voldemort has this “redeeming quality,” if you will, but it’s only redeeming if you remove all of the evil deeds and motivations that surround it.

So I’d like to amend my earlier statement. Villains should not have “good qualities” but rather the potential of good qualities. If they are too easy to relate to/like, they’re not villains. It’s that element of potential that makes them real but still evil. It’s knowing that there’s a part of them that could make them good but that they choose to ignore it. I don’t want to be able to root for Voldemort’s plan of ultimate destruction. I do want to know that, deep down beneath the layers of horcrux damage, there is a boy who was misunderstood or misguided somewhere. But I want to be able to forget that. I want to hate him—need to hate him. Give me just enough to remember that he could clean up his act but won’t and never will.

Rowling does a very good job of this, and I, for one, can only hope to emulate her.

Does this mean that every villain in history has a “potential redeeming quality?” Probably not. I can’t seem to find one in Darken Rahl—the ruthless D’Haran overlord from Terry Goodkind’s “Wizard’s First Rule.” Maybe he’s the one truly evil villain.

Thoughts? Have something to say about villains you’ve read about or your own villains? I know mine always want more attention—greedy jerks.

Aristocat Lady

***IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT***
I have changed my settings so that anyone may comment (not just account holders). I am sorry I didn't realize this setting was like that a few weeks ago when I held a contest for commenters to win a free ebook. It has been fixed for future reference.
Thank you and onto this Monday's post.

Good Labor Day,

I’d like to address a topic that recently entered my mind. I had a brief conversation recently with a friend who once said to me “I don’t want to be single and end up a cat lady.”

I wondered why she feared so much. I think I’m allergic to cats, but this friend loves cats.

The extended stay I’m currently living in has a cat named Sylvester. Roughly every morning, someone else at the extended stay (who is NOT me) walks down the hallway to get to the lobby where breakfast is served, looks out the window overlooking Sylvester’s food bowl, and sings “Abraham de Lacy, Giuseppe, Casey, Thomas Sylvester the hotel cat.”

For those who don’t know, this is a parody of a catchy little ditty from Disney’s 1970 animated feature “Aristocats.” Put simply, the movie is about a rich woman who has rich cats. Thus, the title is a pun off of aristocrat.

How is this related to my friend? The woman in the movie (Adelaide) is elderly and lives alone with four cats and an under-appreciated butler. Since the butler doesn’t really count, Adelaide is, for all intents and purposes, the cat lady.

A week or so ago, I read a blog post somewhere that detailed what peoples’ Facebook pictures say about them. This person said that a picture of a person with their cat means that said person has a cat obsession, will talk constantly about their cat, will post pictures of their cat, and will even post annoying pictures from that Lolcats app. (This is a summary.) That is exactly the kind of behavior my friend wants to avoid.

And Disney made a movie that condones becoming a cat lady. Since almost every kid in America (and many other countries) grows up watching Disney movies, this is as good as broadcasting “becoming a cat lady is cool” into the sky.

Adelaide lives with four cats. She encourages her cats to sing, play the piano, probably dance, and value manners. She goes so far as to leave everything to her cats in her will. At the end of the movie, Thomas O’Malley becomes part of the family, and Adelaide is insistent that provisions be made for future little ones. She says this while the cats are posing for a family photo. If this isn’t bad enough, she adopts all of O’Malley’s street friends, makes a home for them in the basement, and announces that it is her new foundation for all the alley cats of Paris.

Woman, you have a problem.

I see now why my friend thinks becoming a cat lady is a real possibility. “Aristocats” could literally frighten someone into thinking they’ll grow old and collect house cats. Me, personally, I’d prefer a panther, but those don’t make for terribly good pets.

So if you or anyone you know has gotten to “that point,” it’s time to seriously analyze your future. If there are too many cats in the house to move, sit, eat, go to the bathroom, or any other in-house activity. Think about “Aristocats.” If you start getting music lessons for your cats, YOU’VE GONE TOO FAR!!! Come back.

Thank you for your time. And remember, you're only as much of a cat lady as you want to be.

See you out of the box,
Caboodle

Author Interview--Stephanie Wytovich

Good Friday,

Welcome to another interview. This week we have Stephanie Wytovich with us. She is most known for her poetry, and I will say no more. Take it away, Stephanie.

-What book and/or experience made you want to be a writer?

Novels in general made me want to become a writer. Even as a child, I couldn’t be found without my head in a book, and now it’s very seldom that you’ll run into me without one in my hand, or at least tucked safely away in my purse. I started with poetry and then moved on to prose, and when I look back on it, it’s always been horror. I’m not sure what drew me to it as a child, but as an adult and in terms of poetic and genre influences, I owe a lot of my background to Edgar Allan Poe.

His style of writing, and his portrayal of the gothic has always mesmerized me, and he pulled me into horror with the subtle squawk of a raven because he showed me that while the genre is gruesome, that there’s still a tragic beauty unto it. Personal favorites of mine include, “Ligeia,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Bells”, and “A Dream within a Dream.” I also tip my hat to Sylvia Plath for poems like “Lady Lazarus,” “Fever 103,” “You’re,” “Daddy,” and “The Rival,” for they swept me into the addiction that is the breakdown of the mind, and ever since I started reading them, my prose has grown to introduce character’s with psychological demons and fears.

As for the erotic content of my prose, I am/was highly influenced by Poppy Z. Brite’s Exquisite Corpse. She was able to write something so horrible, but so appealing that you couldn’t help but be drawn in and disgusted at the same time. Everyone wants a good gross out in horror, but my mindset with it is very strategic. I want to turn you on, get you hot as you read the scene, but then slowly have you question and circle around to what you’re reading. When you realize that it’s sex with a corpse, or oral with a severed tongue, it’s not only shocking, but it literally leaves a sick, sour taste in your mouth. That’s the beauty of a good gross out- not just severed limbs and tubs of blood but a mental mind trick as well.

-What genre(s) do you write?

I write Horror and Dark Fantasy, but at times with heavy helpings of Paranormal Romance, although there’s nothing romantic about what goes on in my stories. Love tends to be a perversion to highlight the horror.

-Publication history?

See blog.

-Upcoming publications?

Horrotica Magazine will be publishing my poems “Hysteria” and “Clean Break” this August.

I’m also in the process of putting the final touches on my poetry chapbook, HYSTERIA. It’s a collection of 100+ poems, one of which I collaborated with Mike Arnzen on, and it details the breakdown of the mind in terms of obsessions, fetishes, social stigmas, oddities, and personality defects. It will soon be looking for a home, despite the fact that HYSTERIA lives within each and every one of us.

-For other aspiring writers, any tips?

Write every day, even if it’s only a sentence. It took me three days to write the first sentence to my novel, but damn, it’s a good one if I do say so myself. Also, never throw away your work. You never know when you’re going to need it, even if you only siphon the idea from it.

-What’s your favorite book/genre to read?

I love Horror, and I devour it constantly, but I also read a lot of what I like to call “Addiction Fiction,” or stories about real life horrors. For instance, Ellen Hopkins has put out a number of novels, written in free-verse poetry, that I’ve consumed several times. The same goes for Augusten Burroughs, and James Frey. Since I write psychological horror, I like to delve into novels that detail the breakdown of the mind on as many levels as possible, and this also steers me in the direction of True Crime with novels like Al Carlisle’s I’m Not Guilty. The Development of the Violent Mind: The Case of Ted Bundy.

-What’s your favorite thing you’ve ever written?

I’m quite fond of a lot of the pieces that are going into my poetry collection, HYSTERIA, however the world hasn’t seen most of them yet because they are laying in wake until the right moment. In terms of what I’ve published, I would have to go with “The Necklace” because while it’s short, it hits pretty hard, particularly in the neck region. Look for it here.

About Stephanie
Stephanie M. Wytovich is an Alumni to Seton Hill University where she was a double major in English Literature and Art History. Amongst having numerous publications, the most recent being her poem “When The Dead Wake Up,” she enjoys painting and playing the piano. She is currently attending graduate school to pursue her MFA in Writing Popular Fiction, and is working on a novel. She plans to continue in academia to get her doctorate in Gothic Literature.

Want more from Stephanie?

Check out her blog, which has links to all of her pages and publications. Follow her on Twitter @JustAfterSunset.

Stephanie is the blog editor for Dark River Press. She is also on Facebook and can be found by name on Klout, Goodreads, and Shelfari.

451 Shades of Grey: Fire Doesn't Heal

I need to stop promising content. I’ll get to the rant I said I’d write today at some point. Like last Wednesday, something else came up that took all of my attention. Unlike last Wednesday, however, it’s not something fun.

The new erotic romance trilogy “Fifty Shades of Grey” has taken the book market by storm—selling more paperbacks than you can shake a whole bunch of sticks at. The books chronicle the life of Anastasia Steele (a young twenty-something virgin) who meets the “seductive” Christian Grey (a wealthy older businessman) and proceeds to do all sorts of sexual stuff with him. I am not a fan of these books. Why? I don’t think they are well written, and I don’t dig the plot. Romance isn’t my favorite genre to read, but, if it’s good romance, I’ll make an exception. I’ll never make that exception for Fifty Shades.

My personal feelings about the books aside, the Wearside Women in Need Anti-domestic Abuse Charity is taking their dislike (and I use that term loosely) of the books too far. According to an article from the Huffington Post passed to me through the Seton Hill WPF community, the charity group is planning a bonfire burning of the books this November because they believe its content excuses domestic abuse.

Hello, “Fahrenheit 451.” For those who don’t know, aside from the temperature at which book paper will burn, this is a 1953 dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury. The book tells the story of Guy Montag, a fireman in a future where firefighters start fires—not stop them. In Bradbury’s world, books are a thing of the past—tossed aside in favor of faster forms of entertainment. In addition, authors in this dystopia are locked away for the heinous crime of writing and, thus, making the common man feel inferior or confusing him with controversial content.

Society degrades, people become apathetic, Montag’s personal life is destroyed. The book ends with Montag joining a band of exiled book-lovers and watching his city get bombed.

The moral of the story is…

NEVER BURN BOOKS!!!

Do I believe that burning copies of Fifty Shades will lead to an apocalypse? No, but I do believe that is a path that should not be strayed down.

This aside, what is burning a FICTION erotic romance trilogy really going to accomplish? It’s not going to stop domestic abuse. It’s not going to keep people from getting hurt.

One last point about Fifty Shades and its supposed condoning of domestic abuse—Anastasia Steele “willingly” enters into the contract with Christian Grey, and she could have broken said contract at any time. If she’s really being “abused” then, she asked for the abuse. That’s a far cry from women who are beaten by their significant others. I hate to tell people this, but bondage and sadomasochism turn some people on. Not me, but, hey, live and let live. It happens in the real world, and people like it.

So, I restate my earlier question.

What will burning a FICTION erotic romance trilogy about a young virgin and a wealthy older businessman in which the sexual acts (many of which involve bondage and sadomasochism) are consensual really going to do?

Answer—spark more interest for the book. Translation—nothing to stop domestic violence. If you want to stop abuse, then educate people. Don’t burn a book that has no fault in causing the abuse.

"Game of Thrones" and the Fantasy Genre

Good Monday,

This Monday, as promised last Monday, is all about George R. R. Martin’s “Game of Thrones” the first book in his “A Song of Ice and Fire” series.

Before I begin, though, I’d like to observe a virtual moment of silence for Jerry Nelson, who recently passed away. He was the voice of many beloved characters from my childhood—“Sesame Street’s” The Count and “Fraggle Rock’s” Gobo Fraggle to name just a few. Please, pause with me.

---…---

Thank you

All right, back to business. “Game of Thrones.” It was my first required book for my contemporary sf and fantasy class this semester at Seton Hill, and I didn’t dislike it as much as I thought I would. One of my classmates who had read the book before told me back at residency “You’ll be lost for the first 50 to 100 pages, but after that it starts to pick up and make more sense.” True, at least I found it to be true. I didn’t really understand what was going on until Bran saw the queen and her brother together, which falls between the 50 and 100 page mark. So, when Eddard Stark confronted Cersei about her bastard children, I had an “ahah” moment. It all made sense, which was probably Martin’s intent, and I no longer felt like I’d read several hundred pages of “wtf’s going on here?”

I intend (when I have tons and tons of free time) to read the rest of the series. I want to know what happens.

Moving on to the meat and potatoes of this post. One of the instructor’s prompts was to compare Martin’s fantasy to Tolkien’s. Basically, the following is my post for class on that topic. Here goes.

What genre is this again? All of Martin’s characters are human, and their problems all center on politics. If not for the dyer wolves, the dangers beyond the wall, and Daenerys, the events of “Game of Thrones” could have happened in our world. To compare to Tolkien, try saying the same about “Lord of the Rings.” You can’t do it. “Well, if not for the elves, dwarves, Lady of the Lake, hobbits, wizards, orcs, oh—and by the way—the giant eye that is the ultimate evil—” See what I mean? There are no magical artifacts of power in “Game of Thrones,” and it’s not about the destruction of the dark power that threatens the world.

This brings me to ask what makes “Game of Thrones” fantasy? It’s certainly not the majority of the conflict. There’s Daenerys and the dangers beyond the Wall, but those are minor compared to all of the political conflict. The Starks are good people. The Lannisters are, with the possible exception of Tyrion, bad people. The story is about the people who want to do the right thing against the power-hungry people and how the power-hungry people win. It’s something you could find in many parts of our own history.

So, what does this say for fantasy? Fantasy is one of the “escape genres.” I made that term up just now, and I’m going to define it as “a genre where the reader can escape the real world.” Unless classified in the paranormal section (and sometimes not even then) mystery, romance, young adult, and any other “non-speculative fiction” genre keeps the reader on Earth. “Game of Thrones” takes us off of Earth and dumps us in a world that could have been Earth. Pardon my directness, but what’s the point?

Tolkien introduced the reader to an exotic landscape filled with fantastical species. That, to me, is what fantasy is about. I expect some kind of fantasy in my fantasy. Heck, Maester Luwin says to Bran “But, Bran, no man can teach you magic” (580). And, why can no man teach him magic? Because it doesn’t exist. What kind of fantasy is that? No magic? In reality, there is magic—Bran just doesn’t know it—but its presence, at least in this book, is so small it’s like it’s not even there.

It seems, too, that I’m not the only one that noticed this. Many other epic fantasy authors (David Eddings and Terry Goodkind to name just a couple) stuck with the idea of mythical species and exotic landscapes. Their worlds had political strife and war, but it wasn’t what the stories were about. They were about people with supernatural powers fighting supernatural odds. So, if Martin is so influential, does that mean that readers want political strife as their fantasy? While a good read with wonderful characters and intense conflict, “Game of Thrones” doesn’t give me the imagery of the flaming swords, magical blasts, or even reading of minds that I want from the genre.

If I sound harsh, that is not my intent. I really did enjoy the book, and it is clear to me, as a writer, why Martin is given such high praise for what he has constructed. I praise him too. To keep seven main POV characters straight and to not have them overlap is amazing. My complaints are really opinion based. It’s nothing to do with the telling of the story or the writing. It’s to do with what I want from fantasy and what “Game of Thrones” doesn’t give me.

See you out of the box,
Caboodle

P.S. A few weeks ago, I talked about ”Hazard Yet Forward”, an anthology to help a fellow WPFer battle cancer. I have another one. This time it’s to help the wife of one of my instructors with her own cancer battle. Have a look here. Many thanks!