Monday is Ancient Geeks Day!
This week: a general discussion of fantasy novels.
We talked about Tolkien last episode, and now we’re on a fantasy roll! We discuss the classic fantasy writers we discovered in our youth: The Arthurian legends, Roger Zelazny, Michael Moorcock, Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Piers Anthony, Poul Anderson, Ursula Leguin, and many more. It was a time when sword and sorcery dominated the genre, but there were lots of other good fantasy stories to be read, too.
Fantasy fiction in the 60s, 70s, and 80s was diverse, exciting, and fun – not just Tolkien imitators, but there were those, too. You’ll hear about the best and worst from this time when fantasy laid down deep roots in geek culture. Plus, we talk about the differences between fantasy and science fiction, and whether those differences even matter. Look for future episodes that discuss these writers in greater depth.
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Are you going to post this column every Monday after your podcast drops?
@MarkedMan:
I sure hope so. With thematic podcasts, I find I tend to put them out of mind if I skip more than a couple of eps for whatever reason. A weekly reminder should get me back on track.
@MarkedMan: I expect so, for the foreseeable future.
Steven, as I said in the open thread before I happened upon this, I’m really enjoying the podcast. So please take these as a suggestion and in no way a complaint: Sometimes you guys assume too much knowledge for someone like me. For instance, you spoke in shorthand about some of the original Star Trek episodes. As someone who watched them many times on reruns in my youth but not much since, the information you gave in passing wasn’t always enough to figure out which episode you were talking about, especially since I don’t remember any of the titles at all.
On a separate note, do you have any particular book you would recommend for starting with Michael Moorcock? Somehow I don’t remember reading anything by him, despite my insatiable appetite for such things since I was 10 or 12.
@MarkedMan:
I noticed that. For that matter, I missed a lot of comic book references here and there about Batman. I expect to be totally lost when it comes to Marvel*.
I don’t really mind. It’s not a history or critique of Sci-Fi, superheroes, and fantasy and whatever else. It’s two guys talking about it.
*Simply put, marvel didn’t exist when I was growing up. though I’ve never read superhero comics, there were plenty of DC characters on TV: Batman and Superman had TV shows, there was The Superfriends on Saturdays, and other cartoons as well. Of marvel I recall The Hulk TV show with Bill Bixby, and a very crudely animated cartoon that showed up from time to time, which I thought was ridiculous (Thor had wings on his shoes). There was a Spiderman cartoon, which was rather dark (or at least I remember it that way), and a Fantastic Four one that was, IMO, lamer than even Superfriends. Nor did I know all these properties were related.
So, all I know about Marvel is pretty much the movies (and not all of them) and the Disney+ shows that came later.
No, no, you’re wrong! 🙂
I think it’s a fundamental mistake to want to draw a line between fantasy and science fiction. It’s like trying to draw a line between “breakfast foods” and “diner fare”. In the end, every attempt to define the categories comes down to marketing labels — SF is what feels like SF, and fantasy is what feels like fantasy, and any attempt to match those sets to objective criteria fails miserably. “If it has magic, it’s fantasy” leads to the absurdity that neither Star Trek nor Star Wars is science fiction. Adding nuance to the definition leads to fractal rabbit-holes, not clarity.
(It doesn’t help that influential early editors like John W. Campbell believed devoutly in psi, and therefore pigeonholed it as science fiction and not fantasy. We’ve been stuck with that silliness ever since.)
@MarkedMan: You raise an excellent point, and one that I plan to start rectifying with our next record (which will be classic Doctor Who, at least in part).
I already was thinking a bit about this, and then several comments from various places have confirmed the need!
We are definitely still learning. And I very much appreciate you listening and for the constructive feedback!
@MarkedMan: In re: Moorcock, I will need Tom to weigh in, as that is an area of deficiency for me.
@DrDaveT: Totally fair!
@DrDaveT:
I literally engaged in flame wars over this in a message board in the early years of this century (is the internet that old?)
So there’s Kathy’s Hard and Fast Rule: Fantasy is anything that does not intend to be realistic that Kathy doesn’t like.
But that would get people calling me at all hours to classify their entertainment.
So, there’s this one: It’s fantasy if the rules don’t apply equally to all.
This barely allows Star Wars to be science fiction.
What I mean is in Sci-Fi you don’t have a natural law that works one way for the good guys and another for the bad guys, or that only the bad guys can use (not that only the bad guys will use, please note), or viceversa. The rules apply to all equally.
The thing is this, and I think I’ve mentioned this before: I couldn’t get interested enough in Lord of the Rings to read it. I saw the first movie and didn’t care for it; I didn’t even care what happened next.
Then around the time of the movie’s premiere, my grandmother passed away. At the shiva I swear dozens of people wanted my opinion on the movie and how it compared to the book. When I said I hadn’t read the book, a lot thought I was being aloof. Not a single person believed me.
And there’s the whole medievalist setting. It bothers me for some reason, even in historical movies set in such times (like The Name of the Rose, which was pretty good).
Many thanks for the very constructive criticism! We’ll strive to be less cryptically referential, assuming too much prior knowledge.
As for the Elric series, the first book is called, shockingly, Elric of Melnibone. It’s a complete novel, as is the last novel. In between are collections of short stories and novellas which do cleave to a particular timeline. Here is that sequence, focusing on the original novels:
Elric of Melnibone
Sailor On The Seas Of Fate
The Weird of the White Wolf
The Vanishing Tower
The Bane of the Black Sword
Stormbringer
Later, Moorcock wrote books that he inserted among these. I’d skip those for now. They’re not as good as the original six books, and they’re also non-essential for following Elric from being the conflicted emperor of the Dragon Isle to…But that would be giving it away.
Enjoy!
@Ancient Geeks: Thanks!
@Kathy:
Yabbut.
Consider Randall Garrett’s “Lord Darcy” mysteries. Law-like magic, much more reproducible and systematic than the unreliable “science” in that universe. Law of Contagion, Law of Symmetry, PhD in Thaumaturgy… by your rules this is science fiction and not fantasy, but no one who has read them would agree. Or Lyndon Hardy’s Master of the Five Magics, with similar schtick. And, of course, by that rule Star Wars is fantasy — which is consistent and logical, but wrong.
It doesn’t help that actual “hard SF” only exists in homeopathic quantities. No faster-than-light travel, no psychic powers, no superintelligent AI, no time travel, no Universal Translator… it’s a very small subgenre. And pretty clearly not what SF is about.
@DrDaveT:
Can’t consider what I haven’t read… But the TV show The Librarians is kind of like that.
It’s hard to make all-ecompassing rules to classify literature, because you’ll always find exceptions. Unless you invoke the Manny Rubin Principle: It is what I say it is.
Now, that’s a great example: it depends on the definition of hard SF. Me, I define it as when the science and/or tech is an essential part of the story (and there will be plenty of exceptions). So, I’d classify all of Niven’s SF as hard, even if there are hyperdrives, smoke rings, ring worlds, and even universal translators.
The definition is problematics, it’s late, and I’m supposed to be working. So let me clarify that the science and/or tech also has to play a role in the story. Like Psychohistory in Foundation. And no doubt there’ll be myriad exceptions.
@DrDaveT: Randall Garrett was a friend of the family. I’m very grateful he’s still remembered.
@DrDaveT: I consider both ruleful magic of the type you describe as magic, not “science” in any sense. A good chunk of fantasy fiction has systematized magic, and a gigantic percentage of fantasy role playing games are very systematic. All magic, in the sense that they’re made up mumbo-jumbo.
I tend to prefer magic that’s not as clearly worked out. I like that it’s mysterious what Gandalf can actually do, or how he does it. Same again for Thulsa Doom in the Conan stories, and Ningauble and Sheelba in the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser stories. It just seems more magical if it’s not as mechanistic. Plus, it gives the author a lot more literary license to write an interesting story, instead of worrying whether the characters are following The Rules As Set Down.
Invocation magic also works for me. Elric is usually asking for help from the Lords of Chaos (specifically, his patron Arioch), the Beast Lords, or the Elemental Lords. They can be fickle, and therefore unreliable. Makes for much more interesting situations than, “I cast Magic Missile!”
A general comment that I will repeat with the next episode:
If you are not already familiar with Eric Walker’s Great Science Fiction and Fantasy website, I cannot recommend it highly enough. He talks at length about what makes great literature, then tries to focus his attention on the fraction of F&SF that qualifies. (Hint: Robert Heinlein doesn’t make the cut. I happen to disagree with Eric about that, but it gives you a sense for how high the bar is.)
Here is Eric’s list of 5-star SF&F authors, of whom you mentioned only two in your podcast:
Baum, L. Frank – Oz
Borges, Jorge Luis – one thick volume’s worth of short stories (many not strictly “speculative” fiction, but all of subtle and complex genius)
Bramah, Ernest – Kai Lung
Cabell, Branch – the Biography
Calvino, Italo – a variety of delights, often comic in tone
Carroll, Lewis – Alice (twice)
Dunsany, Lord – the grand master, likely never to be equalled, with a host of works (mostly cameo short stories, but also novels, plays, poetry)
Eddison, E. R. – Ouroboros/Zimiamvia
Harrison, M. John – a literally amazing oeuvre of both sf and fantasy
Lafferty, R. A. – a true original, prolific, with deep method in his apparent madness
Peake, Mervyn – Gormenghast
Tolkien, J. R. R. – The Lord of the Rings and Middle Earth in general
Vance, Jack – a prolific ironist of masterly style
There are many, many more mentioned and discussed at the site, but those are who he considers the cream of the crop.
Now a different kind of comment…
We are of similar age, so I was struck by how different our exposure to fantasy literature was.
I started with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe at a very young age (5? 6?) and only learned later that there were other Narnia books. By fifth grade, the school library and the public library had introduced me to John Christopher, and I read his fantasy series after I’d read the Tripods trilogy and The Lotus Caves. That’s also about when I hit A Wrinkle in Time et sequelae, and an obscure fantasy work that I rather liked called The Light Maze, by Joan North.
At age 11, I tore through The Hobbit and TLotR, and was hooked for life. I also found the remaining Narnia books, and started looking for similar works. I had absolutely no patience with authors who ripped off the form but not the substance of Tolkien — David Eddings, Terry Brooks, etc. I had more luck finding good SF, but the fantasy works that I read and enjoyed were:
Randall Garrett’s “Lord Darcy” stories
Anything by Avram Davidson
Reg Bretnor’s “Papa Schimmelhorn” stories
Anything by Theodore Sturgeon
(Those are mostly short stories — My father subscribed to the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction…)
Anything by Ray Bradbury
Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea series
Richard Adams, Watership Down
In college, I got into
Steven Brust’s Vlad Taltos books
Glen Cook’s “Black Company” novels
Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land (yes, it’s fantasy)
Adult Le Guin, such as The Lathe of Heaven
Roger Zelazny
All the Jack Vance I could find — especially the Lyonesse trilogy
I never did get around to reading Moorcock or Stephen R. Donaldson or Conan; it wasn’t the kind of fantasy I was interested in. I sickened of Piers Anthony quickly. So I have a rather different take on what the fantasy landscape was like in the 70s.