Charlie Jane Anders wrote an interesting polemic on io9 concerning the growing importance of Young Adult literature for the science fiction genre.  The question presented seems to be whether the popularity of Young Adult science fiction is a death knell or a cry of rebirth for a genre that many argue is experiencing a decline, given an arguable dearth of new, successful science fiction writers.

It's been 20 years since Bruce Sterling compared the "mainstream" of science fiction to a fossilizing Politburo. Since that time, the situation has only gotten more dire. People are constantly remarking on the graying of science fiction readership, but statistics seem to be hard to come by. . . .

Meanwhile, young-adult science fiction is exploding. According to John Scalzi, the top 50 young adult science fiction/fantasy bestsellers sold twice as many books as the top 100 adult science fiction/fantasy bestsellers. As we mentioned before, there have been hardcore post-apocalyptic novels for kids and young adults for decades. With more on the way. And with City Of Ember finally being adapted to a (hopefully) major movie, more YA readers than ever will be looking for similar stories.

Ms. Anders's opinion seems to be that we should realize that Science Fiction is not in as dire straits as some have said, and that "we should especially celebrate the awesome potential of YA SF to revitalize the field, and bring new readers to SF concepts."

I can't say that I agree.

In this month's issue of the print magazine Fantasy and Science Fiction, Charles de Lint wrote a short review of Greg Keyes's newest book, The Born Queen, the fourth and final volume of The Kingdom of Thorn and Bone tetralogy (which is now definitely on my must-read list).  Found in the recurring "Books to Look For" section, Mr. De Lint's piece praises Keyes's series as an exemplar of the greatest attraction of fantasy literature:

...[W]hat makes this series so satisfying is how it reclaims the sense of wonder that first attracted many of us to reading fantasy in the first place.  Yes, the plotting is deft and surprising, the characters fully realized, the world fascinating.  But you can say that about a lot of books.  What too many of them lack, however, is that feeling of wonder.  The sense that the world is a bigger, more mysterious, and stranger place than we usually take it to be.

De Lint has hit the nail on the head.  This has always been precisely what I look for when reading a fantasy novel.  I wrote something very similar back in my review of Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself: "Ultimately, for me, the true test of a great fantasy is not whether it can show me great battles or deadly court intrigue, but whether it can impart in me a sense of wonder, a fascination with the mystical arcane."   

The ultimate attraction of fantasy, for me and many others, is indeed the ability of good fantasy writers to instill in the reader this "sense of wonder," whether it comes in the form of wide-eyed awe or as a quiet, smiling whimsy.

Aidan Moher recently commented that he was getting a bit "over-saturated" on fantasy, a feeling I can definitely understand.  Even putting aside personal fatigue, the genre as a whole is in transition right now.  Publishing houses are emphasizing urban fantasy to the extent that epic and high fantasy have been sidelined and newly classified as "traditional" and "old-fashioned."  Authors producing epic fantasy of the type that dominated the marketplace even a few years ago are scrambling just to get published in the current climate. 

Just ask Shawn Speakman, who spent much of this decade conceiving, writing, rewriting, and trying to sell the first novel in a planned trilogy.  His blog is honest and detailed in a very addictive way, and recently I found myself devouring the majority of his archives over the course of a few successive lunch hours.  The post in which he finally announces his intention to stop actively seeking a publisher for his book, Song of the Fell Hammer, would be a sad, disappointing end to a hopeful story without Mr. Speakman's admirable determination to persevere.  Rather than give up, he almost immediately began writing an entirely new, more market-friendly urban fantasy trilogy.  Such perseverance is a prerequisite for a writing life, of course, but genre fiction presents its own unique problem: what do you do when what you want to write most in the world just isn't selling?  Fantasy authors, especially first-timers, face a difficult choice: adapt to the market, or remain unpublished.

Readers face a similar dilemma.  The market for epic fantasy is cornered by a few giants of the genre, the George Martins, Robert Jordans, and Terry Brookses of the world, most of whose work consists of unfinished series.  So many readers looking for good epics are stuck in a holding pattern, digging behind stacks of Laurell K. Hamilton's pornographic rubbish in search of undiscovered high adventure while they await Book 7 (or 5 or 12 or 10) of their favorite doorstop series.

Authors like Joe Abercrombie still manage to write new epic fantasy, albeit it with a snarky, often metafictional twist, but in a noticeably pulpier format.  Abercrombie's trilogy lacks the material trappings of traditional high fantasy; published by Pyr, an imprint of Gollancz, The First Law comes in trade paperback, not hardcover, and the cover art, while eye-catching, is graphic design, not the custom artwork traditionally associated with modern fantasy.  Maps, glossaries, and appendices of any kind are conspicuously absent.  The effort comes off as refreshingly minimalist, but the underlying motive is undeniably minimizing costs. 

These days, having a marketing angle, knowing how to sell your book, seems to be at least as important as the quality of the work itself -- often overtly more so.  But most writers did not study marketing, and as artists their first concern (ideally) should not be mainstream appeal.  The genre fiction marketplace is forcing writers of epic fantasy in particular, unless they have an original idea of Phillip Pullman proportions, to prioritize marketability and to produce work that conforms to current standards of saleability.  I can't help but wonder: is this squeeze on traditional fantasy effectively filtering out what was unworthy anyway, or is it killing the subgenre?  And where is this trend heading?  Will it peak and begin its decline soon, or are we seeing a more long-term shift taking place?

I hope that the good of the new outweighs the bad, that the China Mievilles and Neil Gaimans outpace the writers of penny dreadfuls.  Perhaps it is time for a new sign to go up in the Bard: nymphomaniac vampire detectives to be staked on sight.

Correction: I incorrectly stated that Pyr is an imprint of Gollancz, a publishing house from the UK.  Pyr is, in actuality, an imprint of American publisher Prometheus Books.

Remember that post we put up the other day, the one about a blogger named Bidisha and her entry on The Guardian's Comment Is Free blog about alleged sexism amongst reviewers of fantasy and science fiction ("Speculative Sexism: J.K. Rowling, Scapegoat for a Larger Problem")?

Well, there's a very lively discussion going on over at OF Blog of the Fallen about that very same Guardian article.  Read it here, and don't forget to read the comments.

Bidisha, of The Guardian's Comment is Free, is angry: she feels that the critical press has slighted female authors of speculative fiction, and that the comfort with which critics have torn down J.K. Rowling is part of the problem:

"[B]ut the issue doesn't stop with her. It extends to all female fantasy writers, world-creators and myth-makers. According to the backlash, Rowling is swell for dim kiddies, along with Susan Cooper and Diana Wynne Jones (but none are as good as CS Lewis or Roald Dahl, of course), while Philip Pullman and Philip Reeve are worthy of adult analysis. Critics ignore the tough heroines created by Tamora Pierce and Trudi Canavan, but acclaim Lewis Carroll's creepily pliable Alice, who obediently consumes whatever cupcakes and potions she finds in Wonderland. Darren Shan and Garth Nix are rising stars thanks to the Potter-fuelled fantasy bandwagon, but there's no casual namedropping of female speculative authors Robin Hobb, Mary Gentle or Malorie Blackman, whose Noughts and Crosses is a modern classic."

If Bidisha is referring to the mainstream literary press, then the fact that female writers have been sidelined probably has more to do with the fact that only the most commercially successful, accessible genre fiction even makes it to the review section of your favorite newspaper.  The names "Robin Hobb" and "Joe Abercrombie" produce no results in a search of the New York Times Books section, for instance. 

Mainstream reviews of fantasy fiction in particular are almost always dull to read and filled with the same dull comparisons: Tolkien, Lewis, Carroll, etc.  This is almost certainly due either to a dearth of serious readers of the genre in the ranks of the literary press or to an inexplicable need to dumb down reviews of genre fiction by going light on comparative analysis.  Either way, all the more reason for the amateur genre critics (the Bard included) to start correcting these problems.

The folks over at the Westeros Forums recently had a forum-wide vote to determine their list of the Top Ten Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors (of All Time, apparently).  Aidan Moher of A Dribble of Ink reposted the list, with a short introduction, in an easily digestible format with brief comments by Werthead on each.

The (unannotated) list is as follows:

10.  Frank Herbert

9.  Joe Abercrombie

8. Stephen R. Donaldson

7.  Steven Erikson

6.  China Mieville

5.  Robin Hobb

4.  Gene Wolfe

3.  R. Scott Bakker

2.  J.R.R. Tolkien

1.  George R. R. Martin

The list is an interesting one, not least because of the presence of Joe Abercrombie and even China Mieville.  China Mieville has only been writing novels for about a decade and Joe Abercrombie's first book was published in 2006.  The inclusion of such relative newcomers in an "all-time best," especially one based on popular vote, is somewhat astounding.  The list also suggests a shift in taste in fantasy and science fiction.  Granted, this is one list compiled from the votes of one online forum.  But of the ten authors listed, only one, Tolkien, could really be characterized as epic fantasy in the classic sense.  That is to say, of all the works listed, only The Lord of the Rings follows the classic Hero's Journey archetype to the letter.  The others make it harder on their characters and generally don't promise happy endings.  China Mieville, for instance, has publicly scorned the genre's reliance on the Tolkien style and predictable epic fantasy in general. 

None of this is a bad thing.  All of these authors write important, original, engaging literature, and it is due to their efforts on the genre's behalf that we even have such alternative reading.  Even ten years ago, such a list would probably have been populated primarily by names like Robert Jordan, David Eddings, and Terry Brooks.  The fact that these authors weren't included doesn't lessen their impact, but it does indicate that fantasy is evolving as a genre.  And evolution is a good thing.

We do, however, mourn the fact that Tad Williams' name didn't make the top ten.

Fantasy Book Critic posted a great interview with author Kate Elliott earlier this week.  As with most of their interviews, it's detailed and engaging, with enthusiastic answers from the author.  But most interesting about this interview in particular is what Ms. Elliott has to say about writing as a career and producing work in a reliably timely fashion:

Q: One of the things that most impresses me about you as a writer, is your ability to produce novels at a regular, almost yearly rate. What's your secret?

Kate: Desperation.

On a material level, in terms of earning a living, a person might write and produce because s/he needs the money. I am currently able to write full-time, but I also have a spouse whose work provides lower-cost health insurance for our family. Obviously if I had to work another job and write, I would not be able to write as much.

On a career level, perhaps one is driven to produce regularly in order to maintain the momentum of a building career, or at least not to lose too much momentum. Big gaps between books can hurt shelf life, can cause an author to fall out of the public eye, can hurt sales. In some cases, a big gap between books might throw the much awaited novel of a writer into high relief (e.g. George R. R. Martin's forthcoming fantasy), but it's just as likely to set back a writer's career.

When my children were little--and given that I was home all the time with them--I often wrote in order to get mental space for myself, in my own world where others did not, for five minutes or an hour or two, intrude. Writing at that time was a form of sanity.

In the larger sense, I have difficulty conceiving of existing without writing, so in that sense I write and continue to write because it's like breathing. It's not that I'm desperate to breathe; it's that I have to in order to be alive.

Also, I am aware that we cannot predict what will happen tomorrow: my career or my life could be over next week (although obviously I hope not!), or I could (as I devoutly hope) be churning along still writing and publishing in my 90s like the late Jack Williamson. I have a lot of stories I want to tell, and boy will they be pissed if they don't get their chance to be told. That's desperation.

Elliott is touching on a much larger question here -- the problem of being prolific.  Perhaps more than any other genre, fantasy authors differ greatly in their comparative quantities of work product.  Some authors produce more than two books a year; others take three years to publish a single volume.  Is this difference entirely coincidental and based on personal ability and talent, or is there a ratio between quantity and quality?  Presuming a certain base level of professional ability and talent, can we presume that those authors that publish less frequently generally produce deeper, better works? 

It's interesting that Elliott describes the huge gap between George Martin's last book and his as-yet-unpublished sequel as having a positive marketing effect, given that Martin himself has written at length about what a struggle it has been to complete his forthcoming novel, A Dance With Dragons.

The Spring/Summer 2008 issue of Spectra Pulse Magazine features an article by Scott Lynch titled "Be Thou Familiar, But by No Means Vulgar: The Worst Cliches in Fantasy and Science Fiction." 

A brief look at a subject that could (and most likely has) filled entire doctoral theses, the article nonetheless contains a few worthy chestnuts:

And don't even get me started on Mysterious Mentors who possess the power to blast planets into atoms with a single fart, yet spend all their time wandering in the woods or being uselessly cryptic to the hero when they could just go deal with (Insert Dire Threat to All That is Bright and Wholesome Here) themselves and be back in time for a three-martini lunch. The desire to have it both ways with this sort of character, to withhold vital information or prevent obvious action for the transparent purpose of prolonging a flimsy plot, kills plausibility dead.

A quick, fun read, perfect while eating lunch at one's desk.

The late Robert Jordan (James Oliver Rigney) was just inducted into the South Carolina Academy of Authors Hall of Fame.  Dragonmount has full coverage of the event, including complete video coverage via YouTube. 

In the context of speaking about the author Jordan (as opposed to the man Rigney), Mike Livingston, an English professor at Rigney's alma mater the Citadel, gave a stirring address about the fantasy genre ranging from its origins in medieval epics to The Wheel of Time itself.

Liz Rosenberg had it right when she wrote, in her 2003 review of Christopher Paolini's novel Eragon, that it's difficult to approach the book without certain preconceptions: the author's age is almost impossible to ignore.  The story is old hat to any modern fantasy fan: Paolini began writing Eragon, book one of the Inheritance cycle (of which Eldest is the most recent volume, with Brisingr set for a September 2008 release), when he was 15 years old.  Four years later, in 2003, the novel had been acquired by Knopf and Paolini became a New York Times bestselling author.   Needless to say, I was impressed before I cracked the spine -- thus the problem of preconceptions.

Eragon was published as a work of young adult fiction; as such, it's tempting to judge it by young adult standards.  Add to that the temptation to judge Paolini's abilities according to his age at the series' inception and one finds that the deck is heavily stacked in the author's favor before the reader even turns a page.  Trust me, I was tempted.  I was tempted to lead a proverbial parade in Paolini's favor, praising to the skies his nascent creativity and holding his story up as an example to America's troubled youth: Write!  Create!  Wallow no more in the television's equivocal glow!  But though the reading world may still view Mr. Paolini as a precocious teen, he is now 24 years old, an adult writing a teenager's story.  He still sees himself as a writer of young adult fiction, but his intelligence and the insightful manner in which he has been known to talk about his work demand a more mature critique.  With that in mind, I have chosen to give him no quarter.  I will review his work as an adult reader and as an artistic endeavor now continued by an adult writer, whatever his age may have been at the start.  Though I find Eragon itself to be above all a derivative work, so to speak, it is clear that Paolini's heart is in the right place.

In the spirit of the Bard's ongoing reviews of older works, let's take a look back at the book that gave Potter a run for its middle school money.

io9 has a great list of rules for writers of short stories/fiction.  The list is geared toward science fiction stories, but it could easily be applied to fantasy shorts as well.  For instance, the seventh rule,

Don't confuse your gimmick with your plot. You may have a great idea for a piece of future technology, or some amazing mutation that turns a whole bunch of people into musicvores who survive by eating your memories of rock concerts. Maybe you have the most original basic premise evar -- but that's not your plot. Your plot is how your new widget changes the people in your story, and how it affects their lives. Or what decisions your people make as a result of this new technological breakthrough.

could as easily be applied to magic in a fantasy story.  A cool magical ability does not a plot make.

Seriously.  A while ago, I read a somewhat defensive explanation of the “Slash” genre, which is, as best I understand it, fantasy that involves gay characters.  The author mainly wanted to explain what Slash was not—and it struck me, who cares?  I mean, isn’t this focus on what can and cannot qualify as Slash sort of self defeating?  What, certain books aren’t gay enough, while other books are too gay?  Apparently, even in a genre where wizards, warriors, shapechangers, kings in disguise and even walking and talking trees are equally welcome, “gay” still means outsider and, therefore, requires a separate designation…

Vampires are sort of like blogs: everyone’s got one, but most of them suck.  It’s an easy plot device to fall back on, because it’s accessible; much like Superman, a vampire can do anything.  Greats like Bram Stoker and Anne Rice laid the groundwork by supplying us with a ready made concept of what vampires are; describing one, these days, is about as challenging as describing the color of your socks.  That is, of course, if you choose to rely on stereotypes…

In the spirit of our continuing discussion of genre, Al Robertson writes about popular misconceptions of the differences between fantasy and science fiction over at his blog Allumination.  In response to the argument that fantasy is "innately conservative," focusing solely and often inaccurately on the past, while science fiction is progressive and real, Robertson writes:

Science Fiction can act as propaganda for science, but it cannot honestly lay claim to the realist authority that is innate in science. The fundamental aims of science – the development and propagation of an objectively true, reproducible worldview – are in opposition to the fundamental aims of fiction – the development and propagation of a personally true, unique worldview.

In this context, the claim that SF is superior to Fantasy because it is a more accurate reflection of the potentials and realities of the world is meaningless. Science can seed fiction, but it can’t (by definition) be fiction.

He goes on to bolster the importance of fantasy as a modern art form:

We live in a world where fantastic rhetoric is far more successful than scientific rhetoric. You don’t believe me? Watch some ads. Rooted in Surrealist shock tactics, the language of advertising is built on entirely fantasised imagery that presents individual brands as the kinds of crusading , transcendental superheroes that critics of Fantasy condemn. More broadly, check out modern political rhetoric. There, too, is fantasy; a conscious, ongoing project to present the world as politicians would like it to be, rather than to engage with it as it is.

Robertson concludes that fantasy, even more than sci-fi, is perhaps the more relevant response to the modern situation.  The entire essay is worth reading.

Via SFFWorld.com.