Thanks for your comments. I'm glad that you (Sam and Dave) did enjoy the amusement behind my ranting, the intent of the journal entry.

My chief complaints about the genre:

1. The pervading feeling that technology has stagnated at a level equivalent to the Dark Ages in England for the last few centuries.

2. Most authors use the same stock character types.

3. Most authors tell the same story.

4. There seem to be few authors that can tell that story in one book. Too many trilogies, cycles, and series.

To expand upon each:

1. It's not unreasonable to think that with the discovery and mastery of magic, that magic would be considered a new technology. Therefore, the advances in magic would be considered the advancement in technology. An emphasis on magical means of combat and using allied magical creatures (such as dragons) could push back the development of, say, gunpowder. The technology curve as we see it could slow. However, in most novels imply that the technological curve has been stalled for several hundred years, at the same point in time (the Dark Ages) and at the same geographic location (England or Western Europe).

This is the lack of depth I'm describing here. A majority of novels are set at the same level of technology -- not 17th century Japan, not an American Indian culture, nor in the Stone Age. But the majority of fantasy novels are all set in that same pseudo-medieval European culture.

2. Sam says, "The Lord of the Rings is the same old archetypal hero myth that the Greeks thrive on and the Bible features prominently -- stuff thousands of years older than Tolkien himself." I find no reason to refute this point. What I'm trying to point out is that The Lord of the Rings created the stereotypical elf society and the stereotypical dwarf society that most writers of fantasy fall back upon. Reading novel after novel where the main two "good guy" fantasy races seem to be made with the same cookie-cutter conveys the impression that the only material these authors have used for reference material is The Lord of the Rings or other modern fantasy books who have taken inspiration from TLotR. No attempt is evident that the author had researched the origins of the faerie branch of mythology. Rarely have I found books that dealt with other fantasy races: leprechauns, pixies, gnomes.

3. From my experience, the story most authors tell usually wind up being a variation of the Man versus Man story (of the Five Basic Plots). Occasionally, you get Man versus Himself or Man versus God, but these tend to be rare. By the time I'd finish reading dozens and dozens of novels that tend to wind up the same way, I was suffering from fantasy burnout.

With regard to Science Fiction books, I distinguished that genre from the fantasy genra as being more diverse. By that, I mean there are more novels that I can recall that not only tackle Man vs. Man, Man vs. Himself, Man vs. God, but also Man vs. Machine, and Man vs. Nature.

The "plot synopsis for every fantasy book" that appears on my website could be described as a humorous lampooning of popular literature. Both of you did state that you found the ranting somewhat amusing.

Dropping all spleen-venting sarcasm and the broad generalizations of the fantasy genre I used in the "Fantasy Novel, Schmatasy Novel" rant, I'll let you in on a secret: I really do like fantasy novels. But it's the above three main things that keep me from enjoying the field. Simply put -- there's too much crap out there. I loved Louise Cooper's Time Master trilogy. But after I got done with that, I choked on her seven-book cycle. Salvadore's Dark Elf trilogy (an AD&D novel series) was pretty good. But there's so much more out there that stinks.

At the time I was reading those books, I had over a decade of reading fantasy under my belt, but I was getting burnt out. It seemed that for every ten books out there, maybe two or three were interesting. But there was a big problem with continuing in the fantasy realm. Number

4. The avalanche of trilogies, ongoing series, or four-, seven-, ten-book cycles. I'll have to go into this later this weekend or on Monday. But until the, just a recent experience with book cycles:

I went into a bookstore, found a book that looks good: Book Two of the Fey. Ah, a trilogy, methinks, and here's the other two books. Book Three. Book Four. Nothing on any of the books say anything about how many books there will be total. It could just end when the returns on the book series start piling up. It could end with book four. But there's no Book One in the store, so why bother with it in the first place?

This same thing happened with five or six other "book cycles" I found in the fantasy/sf aisle at a local Borders.

And I didn't want to pick up a completed series of eight books, because that'd mean I'd have to get all eight to get the full story. What if the series started to drag during book three or four?

Geez, I said more than I planned. Shoot me too.

- Faux Pas