What Makes for “The New’ in Epic Fantasy?
Since The Gathering Of The Lost was shortlisted for the Gavid Gemmell Legend Award, the whole award process has got me thinking about a number of topics that keep coming up in fora and Q&A. Last week I asked one of the most fundamental questions, i.e. What Makes Fantasy Epic?
In the subsequent discussion we talked about some of the enduring and consistent elements of the (sub)genre, so of course that immediately sparked another question: “What makes an epic fantasy seem new and/or fresh for readers?” I say “and/or” deliberately, because arguably “new” and ‘fresh” are not necessarily the same thing.
Is it enough to change the historical era or cultural paradigms that inform the epic, for example, to qualify as “new”, or does the alteration have to be more far reaching? And is it in fact possible to have anything truly new under the sun (or “Under Heaven” a la Guy Gavriel Kay’s Chinese-informed novel.:) )
Once again, I would love to hear your thoughts.
Hi Helen.
There are new things under the sun, your previous post’s comments illuminated them:
–Accurate and interesting economics (c.f. Dagger and the Coin)
–Point of view (c.f. the First Person Epic in the Spiritwalker Trilogy)
–More Female Protagonists with agency. Yes they have been around since the Empire series by Feist and Wurts, but they have been too uncommon. That’s changing and that’s good. Your series highlights this.
–New and interesting models from history (c.f. the Range of Ghosts series using the Silk Road. Also see N.K. Jemisin)
Hmm, but if epic is about the sweep of events and world-threatening threat, the hero’s journey etc as discussed last week, are these fresh angles on the paradigm or actually new takes on what epic can be. I incline toward the former point of view, because none of these elements are actually “new” in wider storytelling and are also not unknown in epic. For example, Euripides’ “Trojan Women” and the “Blendasagnen” (Blenda and the women of Småland) introduced women into epic a long time ago; first person narration is common in literature and the wider genre; and even economics is not new, eg it is referenced as a social-cultural force in Barbara Hambly’s “Ladies of Mandrigyn” and also an underpinner of power in the Feist/Wurts “Empire’ series. So I am going to be cantankery and argue that these do not represent the “new” but just relatively ‘road less travelled’, and therefore ‘fresh’, angles on the epic form.
But I am very happy to be shouted down. 😉
Paul said to Helen:
“–More Female Protagonists with agency. Yes they have been around since the Empire series by Feist and Wurts, but they have been too uncommon. That’s changing and that’s good. Your series highlights this. ”
Paul – Helen – apropos this – try “Secrets of Jin Shei” and “Embers of Heaven” (Alma Alexander been writing “Chinese-informed” historical fantasy long before Guy Kay but she doesn’t have his Name Recognition…), or the “Changer o fDays” duology (In the US as “Hidden Queen”/ “Changer of Days”, or the YA Worldweavers series. Alma Alexander writes “female protagonists with agency”. ALL OF THE TIME. And has been doing so since the turn of the millennium. If you’re looking at a reading list, consider taking a look at some of those books
You can find out a little more about them at her site – http://www.AlmaAlexander.org
Hi Robert, as you may gather from the post, the idea is more to have a discussion about aspects of epic fantasy rather than to put together a reading list. As it happens, I am acquainted with Alma Alexander and her work through my friend, Mary Victoria, who had a story in Alma’s “River” anthology a year or two back.
Helen
As you know I am just a wee tot in the playpen somewhere in the corner of your garden. I think however that your comment on the ‘road less travelled’ is well made. I would tend to the view that there is very little that is ‘new under the sun’.
I am still fixated on the ‘economic’ arguments, but even these would need in some way to be world changing ? So a story that relates one family’s journey/struggles etc (even if set in a fantasy world) would not fit the definition of ‘epic’ by ANY stretch of the imagination even if it changes their own world? That’s certainly how it appears to me.
Fascinating discussions for someone like me who is just an interested bystander and increasingly avid reader.
Kind regards
Robin
I am glad you are enjoying the discussion, Robin, as well as your delvings into epic. Your economic epic could always feature the collapse of international banking systems that threatens most of the world’s economies with catastrophe, with the nation states being “held up” by the evile banksters to underwrite their life of privilege and power, ostensibly in order to avert the catastrophe. The heroes could fearlessly set out to ensure the banksters in Ye Darke Vaultes of Darknesse were held to account for their wrongdoing…
Great plot, huh? 😉
Brilliant.. perhaps when the Wall of Night series if finished??LOL
R
Oh no, this one is for you to write not me, Robin.:)
What makes epic fantasy fresh for me is seeing something that I don’t expect. But mostly, and I’m sure others may not agree, voice is so important for me. If I read something, and that writer’s voice is right there and I fall for the world and the characters, I can be assured of something fresh. Voice comes with practice and people who practice try new fresh things. Or in my mind, it does.
For instance in Heir of Night – everything about this book felt fresh and new to me. I loved it utterly and recommend it highly to friends who ask me for books to read for younger readers, not because I think it reads young, but because Malian is such an engaging character and I identify with her, and I know younger, newer readers would identify with her more than with say, David Eddings’ characters and books. Some books just don’t age well, even fantasy novels.
In the Heir of Night books, there’s no pretend, no artifice and it doesn’t feel to me, as a reader, that I’m struggling to keep up but there is especially no skimping on world-building and complex layered political and religious shenanigans. And it’s presented to me in a new and fresh way – a cast of characters whom I both like and dislike and trust and distrust.
I like too that Malian speaks like a real person. The dialogue is fresh – this is what should keep any book fresh, be it fantasy or science fiction or whatever.
With NK Jemisin’s books – there’s a quality, I don’t know what to call it, of newness to the experience reading the stuff she writes. It’s her way of looking at the world that translates to the page but again, its voice. I’m sorry, this comment isn’t more meaty or thinky, but really voice. Epic fantasy is an experience of being swept away, of scope. But it’s voice that drives it home.
Wow — thank you, Liz. But also, I agree that voice can give freshness and authenticity even within a classic format. But I really like the idea of a new way of looking things as bringing freshness if not necessarily remaking the model. Have also, overnight, been wondering about the juxtaposition of elements more closely associated with other forms, eg China Mieville’s use of detective noir in The City & the City.
A friend of ours, Mike Carey, who also writes for Orbit and is the author for a variety of comic books could not stop talking about the unusualness of TC&TC. I read it and enjoyed it but felt not as blown away as I expected it to be. I think it’s because the voice felt laboured in places, like it was trying too hard.
More juxtaposition: in The Shining Girls you have a noir crime novel…with a time travelling antagonist. In Natural Causes by James Oswalt you have a crime thriller with bits of supernatural / fantasy. Diana Gabaldon started the time travelling trend all those years ago with her first time traveller novel mixing historical fiction with what is basically a romance and science fiction – I remember her agent talking about how NO ONE wanted to buy this weird book and then, someone bought it as a “we’ll give it a try” and it is hugely popular and has been read by thousands and thousands.
I definitely think too that along with voice, the juxtaposition of genres perhaps, the thing that makes something new is someone prepared to take a chance on trying something just different and quirky enough and then working at it to make it not feel like that’s what they were doing.
Ah, Lauren Beukes — I thought that ‘noir’ angle came in with Zoo City, too. And you’re right about Gabaldon, although there was another book around the same time, The Lady of Hay, that used time shift of some kind in an historical context, but may not have been time travel as such–suspect it all comes back to your point re voice and how the writer puts it together…
Speaking of grimdark, as we were on Twitter, I do sometimes wonder why so many people insist on calling it ‘new’–if one has read Glen Cook or Michael Moorcock’s “The Warhounds & The World’s Pain’ you’ll know there is nothing new, genre-wise, about ‘grimdark.’ Maybe if one goes on long enough, the old always becomes new again?
I think there is an element to that last bit, Helen–things run in cycles. There is evolution but there is a whole lot of cyclical patterns in fiction.
Sword and Sorcery is hot now, for instance, but it was in a dry spell for years. But once, it was THE form of secondary world fantasy. It may yet overtake Epic, but that remains to be seen.
Am I right to think that epic also had quite a dry spell for a while? I am interested in why it is enjoying a resurgence now? (Next Monday’s post perhaps!) Really I just like fantasy and hope there will always be a place for the ‘good’ and the ‘new’, regardless of ‘type.’
Liz
Absolutely agree with your comment about ‘freshness’ and the Wall of Night series..
R
When I think the of notion of ‘new’ or ‘fresh’ in genre writing it brings to mind pop music…stay with me here…when was the last time you heard a really ‘new’ sound in a song? It is *really* hard to compose something entirely original; chances are if you do, it will actually be very weird, perhaps alien and difficult to listen to…but a ‘fresh’ sound, that IS more achievable. The thing is, something fresh is likely to reinvent sounds, styles and elements that are quite familiar. The freshness comes down to *how* those are put together, in a way that is *refeshing* even if not entirely new.
Perhaps the secret of successful genre writing lies in a skillful blending of the *less travelled* elements with a few more familiar elements (preferably not out-and-out cliches) in a way that is beguiling, compelling and entertaining…if a writer tries too hard to be utterly *new* in every aspect of storytelling they risk leaving readers behind. Of course, I trust readers to be able *get* new stuff (I hope I’m one of those readers) but if everything is new, it can make for a disorientating reading (or listening) experience, with no handrail to guide the reader in…
But that said, I really agree with Liz’s comments: if you can get originality into the voice of the characters, then perhaps needing everything else to new is less of an issue. A fresh voice on a well-travelled road can make for a very satisfying read. Stale characters/story do not though, however fresh the world building. Great to have fresh takes in all aspects of a story though…those are the authors who really change a genre, but it doesn’t happen too often (because it is damned hard to do). Very interesting discussion, thanks Helen.
I agree that if one tries to consciously create or make ‘the new’ the result very often falls flat on its face. So perhaps “the new” has to arise organically, in which case striving for authenticity and freshness may provide a surer path–and if one waits to write for a truly original or new idea to come, then one may be waiting a very long time indeed…
Another question your last thoughts on ‘fresh takes on a story’ raise though, is that if a work ‘really changes a genre’ is it still the same genre, or a hybrid with a life of its own? Interesting to ponder…But possibly the way paranormal urban fantasy has spun out of the supernatural horror (vampires etc), fantasy and romance would be one example of a new (sub)genre being created.
Glad you’re enjoying the discussion, Richard.:)