As quite a number of people have asked about where they can get the book, I felt I should mention here that it is available as a Kindle Ebook from Amazon in several countries and also from the A&C Black website. Thanks.
For me, I see the basis of all modern S&S to be “The Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the Jeweler,” by Lord Dunsany. It contains everything a good S&S story should have, in about 5 pages, and obviously inspired everyone from love Lovecraft to Leiber, from Howard to Smith, and so on.
Well said. I think people like to think the books they read first were the originators of some of these tropes and never look back further. I keep reaching back to older and older influences of influences, ad nauseam. I've read at least a few stories from each of the authors you mentioned (C.L. Moore,Fritz Lieber, ect) and back to Lord Dunsany and more. It amazed me how much an author could fit into a book that would be considered a novella at this point; the broken sword really brought it to light for me. even a short story can accomplish so much in less than 100 pages. Current fantasy seems bloated by comparison; just trying to fill a page count.
Exactly. I keep explaining to young readers that the books they're growing dissatisfied with are big and in endless series for commercial not artistic reasons.
Alan Moore says the same thing about fantasy being stale, and his new fantasy book it's a response to that: "The Great When". Informative video as always!
Thanks. Re Mr Moore, he is saying that- but it is the first volume in a series and it has to be said looks more (Moore?) commercial than his previous efforts....or at least that's how it's being presented. Let's hope for the best!
Really enjoyed this and learned a lot. Eddings got me into fantasy in my early teens. I loved his stuff at the time and still have a nostalgic affection for Belgariad and Mallorean. On the theme of your talk, I vividly remember standing in the book shop as a teenager looking at fantasy stuff wondering how every story needs at least three books to tell it haha. I've been reading some Moorecock recently on your advice. Thoroughly enjoying it. Cheers.
I recently read the Belgariad earlier this year and thought it was a brilliant time. It’s genuinely one of the funniest and most uplifting fantasy series I’ve ever read.
Thanks for a fascinating bit of literary history, Steve. I largely agree with you on the excessive bloat of some fantasy series: in my estimation 'The Wheel of Time' is one of the worst culprits, but with it now becoming a TV series it will continue to sell! However, I think there are some writers that can make a trilogy work. Jack Vance for one, with his Lyonnesse books.
@@MostlyAnOutsider I'm reading The Dragon Reborn right now. I started the series years ago, but stopped after the first book. It just didn't resonate with me. But after seeing the series (which they made a valiant effort at, but ultimately flubbed) I took it up again. I think it's aimed more at a teen/young adult audience, which is why the writing is sort of meh. What bugs me about it is how so much of the story line grows simply from Rand and the others being pigheaded and selfish. Had they decided "yeah, we should work together for the good of everyone" it could be finished in one or two books. Instead we get "Rand, I'm pretty sure you're this legendary dude reborn, and you and your buddies need to work with us to save the world." "No, I don't want to do that!" (runs off, the rest give chase) Just once I'd like to see a young protagonist accept responsibility.
China Mieville wrote tons of singletons in the late 90s/ early 2000s. In fact, in his entire corpus I believe there is one set of three interlinked. He also falls pretty far away from standard sword and sorcery, though.
Exactly, he's Fantasy in a broader sense. His models are more Peake, M John Harrison and Kafka I'd say. That's my main issue with him as a writer, he's good, but you can see his influences a mile off. I have been thinking of revisiting his work, though, as it's been years since I've read any...
@@outlawbookselleroriginal His influences are obvious, yes. But as a stylist, he's a very talented fella, and so perhaps surpasses his own heroes as a writer...
@@spencerburke I'll have to disagree with you there- Mieville has nothing like Harrison's breadth or subtlety and cannot match him tonally. The critical consensus is against your view, but then subjectivity is truth and we all have our own faves.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Fair enough. I haven't read so much Harrison, so I cannot really compare. But I would say that China is a far better stylist than the hugely influential Lovecraft, for example.
I don't read a lot of fantasy myself, and tend to agree with much of what you've said. I'm a great fan of Classical Mythology (currently rereading Rouse's Odyssey transl.), I love Lord Dunsany, enjoy some Robert E. Howard, have tried a bit of Moorcock, and appreciate a good deal of Tolkien, to whom I don't think you're quite fair here. I can see where you're coming from on Lord of the Rings. If you have any interest in seeing some strengths of his not on display in that book, though, I'd strongly recommend trying The Children of Húrin. As far as writing a demonic character, for my money, Glaurung falls no lower in quality than Arioch. (If you have read the book, I'd be very interested what your reaction to it was.) I'd also like to quote at some length from Tolkien's Lay of Leithian, where the elf-maiden Lúthien has just offered herself up to Morgoth, the Dark Lord before Sauron. Morgoth's answer: 'Why should ye not in our fate share Of woe and travail? Or should I spare To slender limb and body frail Breaking torment? Of what avail Here dost thou deem thy babbling song And foolish laughter? Minstrels strong Are at my call. Yet I will give A brief respite, a while to live, A little while, though purchased dear, To Lúthien, the fair and clear, A pretty toy for idle hour. In slothful gardens many a flower Like thee the amorous gods are used Honey-sweet to kiss, and cast then bruised, Their fragrance loosing, under feet. But here we seldom find such sweet Amid our labours long and hard, From godlike idleness debarred. And who would not taste the honey-sweet Lying to lips, or crush with feet The soft cool tissue of pale flowers, Eating like gods the dragging hours? A! Curse the Gods! O hunger dire, O blinding thirst's unending fire! One moment shall ye cease, and slake Your sting with morsel here I take!" For me, the lust, pride, and scorn of this passage all come across as fully three-dimensional and believable, notwithstanding all the poetic expression involved. With that said, I do think the fantasy genre has lost immensely through attempting to imitate Tolkien. I've bounced straight off all the modern stuff I've tried. Edit: Forgot to mention Clark Ashton Smith. Wonderful poet and storyteller.
Yes, I like Smith too. I can appreciate the aspects of Tolkien you cite- I'm more concerned with the size of his works, particularly LOTR and how it (inadvertently, I admit) influenced the slew of dross we've encountered since 1977- but this is the fault of publishers and writers willing to sacrifice aesthetics for commerce and readers willing to go along with them. You're clearly a serious student of the literary aspects of Tolkien. Kudos to you.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Yes, that book casts a long shadow, for better or worse. You're also clearly well-read, with a deep level of insight into the history of Sword & Sorcery as well as Scifi (which is an area where I still have a lot to learn, and have found your channel helpful in that). This video reminds me that I may have to go back and read some Moorcock again, as it's been a number of years since I picked up a collection of Elric stories. The ones I did read still stand out in my mind pretty vividly.
Big series or no, there are writers who are doing incredible work with deconstruction in mind for the fantasy genre. Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen and Bakker's Second Apocalypse are prime examples, both with strong allusions to Conan and with major departures from Howard's and Tolkien's mould. Those two are experts of anthropology/archaeology and philosophy respectively, and each book is a feast. As for singletons, Guy Gavriel Kay still manages to write very compelling ones in the fantasy genre, though they are "historical fantasy" or "historical fiction with a quarter turn". I would love more standalones, but the pressure to sell one book and make it three is very real. Increasingly I see the same in SF today. In general, fantasy worlds are vast labours of love for their writer's. They spend years working on them, and for fans of the genre, worldbuilding is part of the joy. We love material culture and deep time, immortals who've seen the shape of history, trade networks and the power structures and economic trends that come from a species of magic.
Yes, I've read Malazan, the first volume was included in my Fantasy book- though it would be nice to see more people enthusing about his best and most radical book, 'Revolvo', which is a step toward Burroughs and Cronenberg.
Really interesting video! I knew that Tolkien's LOTR was split into three books for financial/publishing/binding reasons but it had never crossed my mind before to consider The Three Musketeers as being proto-sword and sorcery. TTM was one of my favourite books when I was young, such that I read it several times. Also, I now realize that it must've hugely influenced my writing as I now write historical fiction (albeit with a speculative slant). Thank you!
Thanks. What you'll find on this channel that differs to others is the historical/contextual/ professional publishing-bookselling angles that others don't cover- this is due to my work background in bookselling and as a writer. Stick with me and watch more, plenty here!
Thanks for this. I'm not really a fantasy fan, largely because of the sameness you mention. I've always wanted to find standalone fantasy, as it's not the genre but the genre's 'packaging', if you will, which has put me off. As such, your recommendations are a huge help!
I think if you stick with the stuff I cite, you'll enjoy it. For the SF reader, it's not really very necessary to read S&S published after the late 70s as more or less all of it is comfort reading rather than discomfort reading -which to me is what SF is.
@@outlawbookselleroriginalI'd to point out that what made Robert E. Howard's Conan truly sword and sorcery is that it was a union of historical drama, mythology, Lovecraft horror, and at time swashbuckling and western adventure. Conan was also used to explore themes such as Barbarian life vs civilization, the hypocrisy of civilization and how civilizations can collapse inwards due to decadence. Conan had brawn and brains, was a natural born leader and can speak many languages, a thing he picked up during his travels. Later writers only saw Conan fighting monsters and saving women and copied those instead of digging deeper into the world building and the themes and characteristics of Conan.
@@markmunroe-hz8rf Well yes. I've read all the original Conan material- started on it back in the 70s. The other writers? Apart from Poul Anderson, I never bothered, no need...
60’s and 70’s fantasy really hits different. The 80’s and 90’s have some great fantasy gems here and there as well. A lot of the popular modern epic fantasy series bore the hell out of me though and feel like the exact same stories being told over and over again.
Exactly. The ONLY way S&S could be refreshed now is to return to singletons -which publishers simply will not buy- and to invert everything. But M John Harrison, Moorcock and others did that decades ago. It's just comfort reading now for fans of formula.
I generally agree with you (I too was reading fantasy in the early 1970s); but I will say this: Despite all of the hundreds (thousands?) of Tolkien "trilogy" 'imitators", I have not found one who I think did the job as well as Tolkien. I don't know how long ago you read The Lord of the Rings, but perhaps you should give it another go now. Tolkien's world is more of a low magic epic fantasy than you describe (and at times is quite dark), and some of the 'bad guys' like Shelob, the Balrog, Saruman, Wormtongue, etc., are more chilling than perhaps you are remembering. Even the Nazgul and the Barrow Wights are quite terrifying.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Maybe if you had read him when the books first came out (and before there were any imitators) it would appear much more original to you, and you would find him far less less pedestrian.
@@captainnolan5062 -You have a fair point: I think we're all affected by personal context. Having said that, I still enjoy Peake, Dunsany, Eddison and Cabel. I think for me it's Tolkien's prose style - he's very slight on descriptive writing, I find, but he is growing on me as I age.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal That is an interesting comment, because I have heard from many of 'today's' readers that Tolkien does too much descriptive writing for them (in fact I love his descriptive passages). Perhaps today's readers are too conditioned by videos, video games and iPhones, and they demand action at the expense of description. I will take a look at Gormenghast again and compare the descriptive writing. I am glad that Tolkien is growing on you. I don't yet know much about you, having only watched two videos and looked at your biography on Amazon, but your self-described sobriquet "Outlaw" leads me to believe that, perhaps in part, you rebel against The Lord of the Rings because it is so popular (I could be wrong). By the way, thanks for pointing out "The Compleat Traveller in Black." I just ordered it on Amazon (it is one that has escaped me all these years), as well as the Penguin Beowulf in prose.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Tolkien certainly grew on me as I aged. Even though I've owned multiple editions of the trilogy, it took years to get through Fellowship. My introduction to Fantasy was through Elric of Melnibone, then the rest of the Champion Eternal books. Those books really captured my imagination when I first read them in the early 80's. I found Tolkien to be a slog, though when I finally "got" Tolkien some years back, I wondered why I found his work to be a slog. Ultimately I think it''s because my favorite fantasy books from guys like Moorcock, Vance, Leiber, Zelazny, were shorter and they understood that world building is only dressing for the stage the main characters inhabit. Tolkien was as interested in the world building as the story. Then we had younger readers who really loved that detailed world building and decided to take it to the nth degree and that's how we ended up with Jordan and Sanderson and 10 volume series full of unneeded bloat. I just don't have time to read that many doorstopper's. Re-reading Moorcock now, and find his work still enthralls me even though I'm far more conscious of the flaws in some of it.
Other astounding fantasy novels that don't get discussed enough: The Weirdstone of Brisengamen by Alan Garner Faerie Tale by Raymond Feist Windmaster's Bane by Tom Deitz Hart's Hope by Orson Scott Card
There is a video about 'Magician' on the channel, but 'Fairie Tale' has always been the Feist no-one seems to know: when it came out in the UK, I hosted Feist for an event in a bookshop. No-one ever seemed to care about it (but then it was a singleton, not part of a series, which seems to throw the average Fantasy fan). Garner I respect but have never enjoyed reading- he's clever, but I find his style awkward and the Card, as you say, is little-known too.
Mention should be made of Karl Edward Wagner's Kane saga from the second half of the 1970s, which consists of several short stories and novellas. for the short story "Two Suns Setting" he received the BFA Award in 1977. Kane is a Conan-like dark anti-hero character. Although it is only a small but sharp output (the few books have around 150- 160 pages) the Kane books helped reinvigorate the S&S subgenre, providing some interesting variations to a category that had previously been moribund. The series is marked by a propensity toward supernatural adversaries, a tendency that seems to portend Wagner's later move to horror.
@@outlawbookselleroriginalI would like to add that I'm working on a sword and sorcery tales mixed with elements of spaghetti westerns. I want to try my own variation of the genre.
Great recap on the origins of Fantasy! It's funny how many of the writers you mentioned I first knew as SF authors who, I presumed, did Fantasy 'on the side' so to speak. Vance, Lieber, Poul Anderson, Moorcock, they all wrote SF novels with 'spaceships and planets', and in some cases their Fantasy seemed tinged with SF(Vance, mostly). So I guess the genre borders are a bit hazy, at least to me. Always liked it that way, too! I was a big Tolkien fan when I read him; nowadays I'm not sure if I'd be quite so enthusiastic, but I still think LOTR is an outstanding piece of work. Loved The Silmarillion as well. I've heard it said that Tolkien wanted to create a mythology specific to Britain. Maybe that's why his characters seem like archetypes, as mythology is a way of bringing archetypes 'into the light', so to speak(yeah, I'm a die-hard Jungian...) It's sad to see this obsession with serialization; things were far more simple and objective before this. It's become a curse on genre cinema, as well, and is partly to blame for the current crisis in superhero movies. They started giving way too much emphasis in setting up the multiple sequels to a movie, to the detriment of the individual films. Maybe that's also an issue with these YA Fantasy trilogies(I wouldn't know; won't touch the stuff...)
Most of the classic S&S authors did it 'on the side' in magazines like 'Unknown' during the Golden Age, 'Weird Tales' prior to the Golden Age and through it, in 'Science Fantasy' in the UK (for Moorcock). I'm a Jungian too - and on this front you should def read 'Mythago Wood' by Holdstock. Yes, the series mentality dilutes everything down to stagnant flat ale in the end.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Mythago Wood, ok! I'll be sure to check It out. BTW, forgot to mention that my copy of LOTR was a single volume, with those bible-thin sheets of paper. I don't recall who published It, but I bought It around 1977 in London.
@@luiznogueira1579 Hardcover or paperback? If t was a hardcover, that sounds like one of the Unwin deluxe editions. All Uk editions were Unwin until around 1990
I'm a fantasy reader from way back in the 70s. Still have most of them too. Some of my all-time favorites include: - The Eternal Champion (not just Elric, but Hawkmoon, Corum, Erekose...all the incarnations) - The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever (mainly the first trilogy...he started to lose his way in the 2nd trilogy) - The Sword of Shannara (probably because it's one of the first non-LOTR fantasies I ever read) - The Narnia Chronicles - The Oz series (starting with The Wizard of Oz) - Conan (nobody can beat Howard) - Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser - The Belgariad - The Deryni Chronicles - The Once and Future King Anything more recent than Tad Williams' "Memory, Sorrow and Thorn" is a gamble whether it'll be any good or not.
Interesting, for Moorcock, Howard and Lieber are in a different tradition to Tolkien and his imitators like Brooks. Nice to see Kurtz mentioned. The 80s series you mention were staples of my bookselling life in the 80s, happy memories.
I went straight from Lord of the Rings/Hobbit to Moorcock and found him much more my style, immediately bounced off Eddings. Enjoyed the original Feist trilogy, but left after the follow-up Prince of Blood. I did enjoy his novel Faerie Tale, more in the vein of Holdstock's Mythago Wood. I didn't read any of Brooks' Shannara but did enjoy the first of the Landover novels, despite not knowing it was part of a series. To be fair, it may not have been when I read it. I've recently gone back to read some of the others and have enjoyed them a lot, a nice mix of light and dark and quite unusual as far as Fantasy novels go. Started Donaldson's The One Tree in my teens and didn't get very far, lesson learned that you can't just jump in anywhere. I did the read the first two trilogies a decade or so ago and liked them quite a bit. Still haven't risked the third. Also enjoyed his Gap series. I skipped Jordan completely, apart from some Conan pastiches, Martin, apart from his southern vampire novel. As well as Goodkind / Bradley / Hobb / Sanderson etc. I find it a lot harder to commit to a series of a dozen or more doorstops. It's not how I want to enjoy fantasy. I do like Tanith Lee and Sheri S. Tepper.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I should have said that Lloyd Alexander and John Christopher came before Tolkien, which came from the library/school library. I don't like to miss those out as they were great books. I also encountered Robert E. Howard quite early thanks to some Sphere Conan paperbacks at a car boot sale, and remember having a friend at school who also read Howard. I didn't read Edgar Rice Burroughs until I was eighteen, after reading Moorcock's Warrior of Mars, then Clark Ashton Smith/Lovecraft/Leiber and all the other weird tales authors.
A video on my fave Sword & Sorcery will come, but in the meantime, keep an eye on my unfolding '100 Must Read Fantasy Novels' series and my book of the same name. Please subscribe if you haven't already! Thanks for yr kind comments.
I totally agree. The list goes on: Stephen Brust's Jhereg series for one, and to a lesser degree the Thieves' World anthologies, etc. They are just serial cash cows that stymie the authors' imagination. Before too long they are one-trick ponies who've delivered one book twelve or twenty times. I'll likely not read the next Martin book, as I've lost interest after so many years of waiting. I was never a fan of Thomas Covenant or the Belgariad series. Too much Deus ex Machina. I never believed that the characters were ever in any jeopardy. Singletons, though; and short stories; there's no guarantee that things will turn out well for the protagonist. Fun video. And thank you. It's refreshing to hear that others have the same opinion as I do, give or take.
A fairly recent fantasy writer I've gotten into in the last few years is Steven Brust who is influenced by Dumas. Any thoughts about his books? I really rate him.
I can't say I have, though I have sold his work- the fact is that pretty much all S&S writers are influenced by Dumas, who obviously was the swordplay kind re 'The Three Mustekeers' and its sequels - 'The Encyclopedia of Fantasy' concurs with this view too. I very, very rarely read contemporary S&S as I find it does nothing for me - but if more of the current writers would take risks and write singletons to break and remake the mould, I'd get interested - however, I don't think there's a mass market publisher trading who would publish a singleton: there was one about 10 years ago - can't think of the author name- but it was someone better known writing one psuedonymously as an experiment. It clearly failed, as no other books appeared. I think this is the sole example this century in the UK of this. I'm much the same re SF series with exceptions like Gibson, Dave Hutchinson a few others. My approach if I do try Fantasy is to read volume one then quit, as the whole formula (1 - setup, 2- quest, 3-resolution) thing drives me mad with boredom! Expan on why you like Brust, be interested to hear more...
@@outlawbookselleroriginal The novels are very well written, quite funny at times, the hero is an antihero, a sort of magician mafioso in telepathic link with his small dragon that helps him out in his various capers. They are quite political at times and the back story of the world and characters is given out in each novel a little at a time. Brust has Hungarian ancestry and this is used in the novels as well. The novels are written out of sequence which adds to the mystery, too.
@@richardbrown8966 This all sounds promising- taking things out of internal chronology is one mark of a sophisticated writer...I shall get back to you...cheers!
Brust is heavily influenced by Dumas. In fact the Phoenix Guards (one of his best) is a straight up pastiche of The Three Musketeers set within the context of his Taltos series. I used to sell Brust as "The best fantasy writer you've never heard of." He's a fantastic writer in the vein of Roger Zelazny (and closer to his style than either of Zelanazny's more popular acolytes Neil Gaiman and George RR Martin) though he can also be a bit difficult to get into if you start in the wrong place. The big issue is that he sort of throws you in the deep end and its easy to get lost in all of the weird names he uses for things and the fact that he never explicitly comes out and says things other writers would consider very important (like the fact that the Dragaerans are basically elves though they always refer to themselves as humans). I'd recommend reading Jhereg first. I'd also add that he's hardly "contemporary". He started in the mid to late eighties and feels like he's working in a much earlier idiom.
I'd be interested in your take on Karl Edward Wagner's unusual S&S character (I hesitate to say "hero", or even "anti-hero" ... a term the author rejected) the cursed immortal Kane. The books (3 novels and 2 short story collections) are very collectible, often to the tune of hundreds of £'s or even more for signed copies. Karl was a horror anthologist/author too, so this underscores his fantasy writing style. I like them for their ominous foreshadowing, sometimes Lovecraftian cosmic horror themes, sometimes understated 'horror-in-the-moment' observations, but also the Nietzscherian iconoclastic philosophy, and amoral central character who might be just as likely to annihilate a city if it stands in his way, or save an orphaned child for no apparent reason.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal The short stories are usually recommended as the best starting point, my favourites are in the 3 story collection "Death Angel's Shadow" (available at sensible prices on Kindle).
@@huwprofitt8250 -How are you watching it, Huw? Is it Sky? I know it's been on Sky Arts Italia, so I much check for a bluray date as that's my usual gambit.
No, it's SF, as it does not really involve magic (the supernatural) but instead science (the natural) which becomes more apparent in the Long Sun books. What do I make of it? Ambitious, clever, but sometimes Emperor's New Clothes, but that's Wolfe, a concealer of intent.
A writer one absolutely never hears of or has heard about is George Foy - not even sure what he's doing now, probably spends his time sailing and working on boats? The Shift is an amazing, beautifully written piece of fiction in the cyber/punk genre - his non-fiction works are also something to check out. GEORGE MICHELSEN FOY is the author of Zero Decibels: The Quest for Absolute Silence, and twelve critically acclaimed novels. He is the recipient of a National Endowment of the Art fellowship in fiction. His novel Art & Practice of Explosion came second in Foreword magazine's 2001 Novel of the Year contest, and The Shift was a finalist for the Philip K. Dick prize. His articles, reviews, and stories have been published by Rolling Stone, The Boston Globe, Harper's, The New York Times, and Men's Journal, among others, and has been an investigative reporter, writer, and/or editor for BusinessWeek, The International Herald Tribune, and The Cape Cod Register. He was educated at the Sorbonne, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Bennington College. He teaches creative writing at New York University. He is married with two children, and divides his time between coastal Massachusetts and New York
In the early 1990s, I wrote a fanzine article which was never published, as for practical reasons with production, the issue was abandoned. The article was entitled "The Death of SF" and in it, I argued that the genre had run out of steam, that there was little or no original work appearing and that there was a new professional slickness standard that on the surface, gave the appearance of literature where there was none. The vast majority of new SF writers appearing between 1990 and 2010 on both sides of the Atlantic had short careers in terms of professionally published books: many of them never caught on commercially and incoming readers, browbeaten as they are by generations of hype and canonisation of the likes of 'the Big Three' ensure that most new readers ended up reading what was old and a smattering of the current flavour of the month- just look at how long Banks, Hamilton and Reynolds have been established bestsellers in the UK, for example. Many of these 1990-2010 writers have never had their work reissued after initial publication in book form. Once first printings sold through, they were relegated to being out of print, print on demand and or ebooked. Foy is one of many who fell by the wayside in this sense. I think this says a lot about the readership, but also about the true state of the genre after the late 1980s, when evolution and revolution slowed to a crawl, in line with the decelleration o creativity in culture generally. This is the legacy and culture of Postmodernism.
Wow. Thank you for the detailed explanation. It sums it up very succinctly. I think also, as you've mentioned on numerous occasions, that readers must support their bookstores in order for writers to have better success.
Dang and Chucks and Curse upon the Internet! I seem to be unable to find this "Gerald of Jerreri" by Catherine Elmore? It is always tricky to transcribe the spoken word. Any way to perhaps recieve the authors name in text? Edit: OH some more luck with another search engine, I found the name "Jirel of Joiry" by Catherine Lucille Moore!
There's a video about CL Moore on the channel in which I show her books. If I put author names in text in descriptions, guess what happens: people don't watch the videos, just use the text as a list. Apologies. Any time you're struggling, post a question, I'll answer.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Thank you very much! It is always refreshing to go back and find the authors who made the trial of time, today it is an ocean of nothing-special
I didn't mention him, no, though he did come to commercial success in that timeframe, but inasmuch as he was a Fantasy writer, his work was very much satire. Personally, I never liked his work-despite his cleverness- as I found his sense of humour rather adolescent at times and I think he and Adams (probably inadvertently) did much to damage any serious reputation SFF might have had in the 80s and beyond.
At the moment, I have no plans whatsoever to read any Genre Fantasy published recently, I'm afraid - it just holds no interest for me now, as I feel S&S/High Fantasy are totally played out, relying so much as they do on the multivolume formula, the same old tropes and symbols. Fantasy is total different to SF in its underlying philosophy- and increasingly so as time goes on- and as a genre form it simply reinvents rather than doing anything new, being bound to anachronism as it is. I know this may sound closed-minded, but one can't read everything and I feel there are far, far more interesting things going on in general fiction and SF- and even then they are struggling to innovate. Fantasy for me is very much an historical and contextual interest in terms of its relationship to SF in publishing- there will be more on the channel about this aspect, as Fantasy publishing, by being linked to SF publishing for reasons that are quite simply less and less valid as the years go by, has gone enormous harm to SF publishing. I am about to start work, however, on minor revisions to '100 Must Read Fantasy Novels', since I'm reclaiming the rights to the book and aiming to reissue it, redefining it as an historical overview of 20th Century Fantasy and adding much additional material about the genre's relationship to SF. Watch this space...
Joe Abercrombie has published 3 rather well received singletons in between his two trilogies (haha). Best Served Cold, The Heroes, Red Country. Not the same I know as some of the characters featured are legacy characters from his First Law trilogy.
Yeah, I sell them all the time in work. The trilogy was enough for me, but he's more than a cut above most of what's out there in S&S land these days...
Thanks. It's impossible the understand why commercial Fantasy has been in such a poor state of ever-declining imagination and pure formula without this knowledge...it wasn't always that way!
Fantasy singletons of the past decade? Of course any type of fantasy can be published by the small presses but from big publishers: Silvia Moreno-Garcia, KJ Parker, Garth Nix, Alix E Harrow, Catherynne M Valente, Saladin Ahmed, Jo Walton, Naomi Novik, Jeannette Ng, Zen Cho, Brian Catling and recently RF Kuang have published singleton fantasies. Maybe Adrian Tchaikovsky? I'm sure if I scanned recent releases from the big publishers I could find at least several more. I think it probably helps that Kuang had established herself with a hugely successful trilogy and Garth Nix has been popular a long time (another commenter mentioned Kay and McKillip). I guess Madelline Miller and Susanna Clarke were working outside the fantasy publishing world but things are changing enough that I see those writers are blurbing on category fantasy and science fiction books and sometimes they're up for SFF awards. Clarke is married to Colin Greenland so she wouldn't be a snob about SFF. I'd also add that DAW as early as the 70s liked to get authors to write series and apparently EC Tubb was kind of a gold standard for this. But I think they usually worked as standalone books too. I think the are still successful young adult single fantasy novels. I recently saw Josiah Bancroft say his editor kept trying to pressure him into another series but he never wants to write another series again, so his next book will likely be a singleton. I really enjoyed your guides years ago and happy to discover this channel. Will that horror guide ever happen? I would love to see it.
What I'd say about the contemporary authors you cite as authors of singletons: First of all, I'm primarily speaking here about how Tolkien's success led to publishers requesting copyist high fantasy trilogies which then turned into endless sagas a la Brooks (and say Sanderson as an example from recent years). I'd also say that of the authors you cite, most of these are not S&W or High Fantasy (and the difference really between these sub-subgenres is minimal), but are writing other types of fantasy - also, almost all of them have primarily written series -Nix, Novik, Catling (despite a long career in avant-garde performance art and writing). Moreno-Garcia does seem to be a true exception. I would say that Fantasy has diversified enormously in the last few years, but that the predominant model is series based and this is down to the fact that publishers want series. These books are mostly written as series for commercial and nor aesthetic reasons. If you look at many- if not most - of the acclaimed non-S&S fantasies in the period before 1977, the vast majority of them are singletons. It's clear that the vast majority of Fantasy writers only get to write singletons if their publishers get a successful series out of them first. And this has spread increasingly into SF, with generally disastrous consequences for SF as a vital, artistic, innovative form, which it needs to be to be good SF. Fantasy, relying more on anachronism and tradition because of its totally different philosophical base doesn't need to be as innovative as SF. SF is Modern, Fantasy is archaic. My real challenge to the reader here is to find recent S&S/High Fantasy writers who have produced singletons in these areas and managed to get the m published commercially. This basically doesn't happen. To be fair, it hardly ever did- but the likes of Anderson, Vance at al did this, or were published as serials in genre magazines. DAW of course -despite the charm and iconography of the books themselves- generally produced formulaic books in both SF & Fantasy since DAW himself was a Golden Age relic. Ultimately, what I'm saying is that one of the fundamental artistic problems with Fantasy is its series obsession, which has long been publisher driven and since 1977, increasingly so. Very pleased to hear you enjoyed my books, great to hear that. The Horror one will probably never happen, I'm afraid. Thanks for your thoughtful comments and observations!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Good points. I think it's perhaps even more notable that Silvia Moreno-Garcia has managed to genre hop after each book. I recently saw her shelved in the mainstream section, including her vampire book. Would you make a video about the perhaps even more bleak state of short fiction from major publishers? The Year's Best anthologies have mostly disappeared from Waterstones and short SFF that is considered for publicly voted awards is dominated by online sites that get shared on social media and some think that favors increasingly frivolous short stories. I'm afraid a lot of worthy short fiction will not get collected into book form. Small Beer Press is a small press but they're one of the few SFF publishers with a serious commitment to short fiction.
I think there are actually quite a few fantasy singletons still published - for example look at the work of Patricia A. McKillip or Guy Gavriel Kay, both of whom started their careers with trilogies but later wrote many singletons. I believe the nominee lists for World Fantasy Awards and Mythopoeic Awards will reveal many others. And if you're willing to count linked series of novels that take place in one fantasy world, then there truly are a great number published regularly. That said, of course I do agree that there are far too many bloated trilogies these days.
What I'd say, Frank, is that working in the book trade for the last 38 years and keeping a close watch on this, there have been fewer and fewer Sword & Sorecery singletons published since the late 70s and after the early 90s, none except for ones by authors like Kay & McKillip - and interestingly these are writers whose careers go back to the 80s and before (Kay of course worked on extant Tolkien manuscripts in the 70s. Obviously, I'm speaking of the UK here and there are many novels of all kinds issued in the USA that do not get published over here (ever). In fact, I keep hoping for correspondents here to point some out, but so far I hear of none (though would love to!). Clearly, there are many singleton novels that get nominated for the WFA, but they are not Sword & Sorcery (or even High Fantasy - and as 'The Encyclopedia of Fantasy' points out, this is a virtually meaningless distinction). I must take a look at the Mythopoeic listings though, as it's been some time...thanks for your comments!
With Kay’s work as he moved on from the series his work transitioned from being fantasy, (with some history mixed in) to historical fiction (with some fantasy mixed in). Not a negative thing. It seems like he had to change genres to be able to publish what he wanted. Of course the success of his early work empowered him to make this move.
I did read somewhere that LOTR was intended as a SF novel, after a conversation with Cs Lewis. I read Donaldson when I was at school... 9 volumes it was crazy.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal something about the idea of gondor and mordor being on a different planet such as venus or Mount doom being the sun and sauron the interplanetary tyrant.
@@jonswift6173 -Well, if he'd gone that way, yes, that would have tipped it over...but given his deep love of the Nordic and Old English, that clearly won out
LotR was never intended as a science fiction novel. Perhaps you're thinking of the agreement Tolkien and Lewis made that one of them would write a time travel story and the other space travel? This resulted in Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet and its two sequels, while Tolkien started but abandoned a time travel story, The Lost Road (from which some ideas were later re-used as the also-abandoned The Notion Club Papers).
@@stevenklinden ah yes... Possibly. I just remember hearing about it on the radio ages ago. I was always struck by the idea of mordor as having a different planetary feel with its barrenness and rocks.
Tolkien has always been overrated- Moorcock and Leiber agreed with this, though I have softened towards his work in the last couple of years. Again, I'm more interested in the phenomenon of JRRT than the actual work, which is atypical of Sword & Sorcery and has done much indirectly through copyists to destroy the original hard and fast school.
I would disagree that The Lord of The Ring is a single book. The table of contents list six books, in other words a serial. I agree that Fantasy became bloated. I Robert E. Howard before Tolkien. The short Heroic Fantasy is more enjoyable.
Re LOTR: Yes, but that is a device to indicate 'book' as in the Biblical sense, as in scrolls or individual parts. LOTR was conceived and written as a single book, but was produced as a three volume novel due to the problems with (1) marketing such a large novel and (2) the unreliability of binding techniques at that time. And yep, short Heroic is more enjoyable, agreed.
Carrie on , you said. A large seres of fantasy books influenced by the films. But to be honest I read the Silmariliun when it first came out. That was the end to me reading fantasy.
There is an energy and a dynamism to mid 70s S&S. These guys didn't waste time listing endless descriptions of locations or food. Or spend pages giving each character (ostensibly.named John) a lengthy monologue. You have the protagonist with a clear goal who gets on with it. I want to capture this energy. The problem is that things now are written with the writer envisioning the adaptations. And I get so bored of it.
There's quite a bit of innovation happening in fantasy currently, but the aggressive expansion of subgenres by big box booksellers and publishing houses means it's much harder to place and track across a wider spectrum that could be called fantasy. Things seem so locked within the strict confines of post-60s sword and sorcery because anything that doesn't fall within the medieval, western European confines of so-called "high fantasy" is quickly shunted into an existing subgenre or a new one is coined by marketing departments. Hard-edged realism? "Dark/Low Fantasy". Fantastical setting with early modern society? "Steampunk". Fantastical setting with contemporary society? "Urban fantasy" Vance-ian Dying Earth fantasy? "Post-apocalypse". Right now there is a lot of ferment going on around fantastical worlds drawn from Near Eastern and Far Eastern cultures such that I'm dead certain "Asian Fantasy" will be the next big marketable subgenre to show up on aisle labels.
Yes, it's a shame that Fantasy in the popular imagination is synonymous with S&S and its close relative High Fantasy - as a genre, it's broader than SF and Realism, I'd say.
Not only did Tolkien not invent Swords and Sorcery, he also did not write it. His novels are more in the Epic Fantasy subgenre (and not in the Heroic Fantasy / Sword and Sorcery subgenre).
These are subgenres, of course, not distinct genres. I refer again to Clute and Grant. The point I'm making is that in the commercial world of Fantasy fiction -what most people think of when they see the label 'Fantasy', there is very little reader distinction, at least initially. I've seen and spoken to thousands of Fantasy readers of the last four decades and what is clear is that they mostly want the same old thing- overlong, repetitive, cliched material - with little knowledge of the early history of Fantasy as a popular form. And of course I'm regarded as enough of an authority to have had a book published on the genre by Bloomsbury, J K Rowling's publishers, so you're making a point of knowledge to the deeply initiated here. Regarding JRRT and S&S, even Tolkien has a massive picaresque element (that which is de rigeur and a marker of S&S) in the shape of Hobbits, so again the distinction is a minor one.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal It is interesting that in your video "Top 10 Classic Fantasy (Sword and Sorcery)", you begin by defining Swords and Sorcery as opposed to Epic Fantasy and you then exclude Tolkien from the video. In essence, you made my point for me in that video (i.e. that: Not only did Tolkien not invent Swords and Sorcery, he also did not write it. His novels are more in the Epic Fantasy subgenre (and not in the Heroic Fantasy / Sword and Sorcery subgenre) .
@@captainnolan5062 I think everyone knows that S&S and epic fantasy are different subgenres and Robert E Howard was one of the founders of the former and Tolkien the founder of the latter. It´s hardly a new idea.
High Fantasy/Epic Fantasy is more about the quest to save the world from a dark evil; whereas Sword and Sorcery books are about the main character adventuring for his own benefit, or perhaps to save an individual (i.e. they are not out to save the world). They are different sub-genres of Fantasy.
I am of course aware of this and have been for decades. However, Clute & Grant, in 'The Encyclopedia of Fantasy' (THE world authority on the subject) state that the difference between the two is often negligible when the tropes and symbols are given full consideration. The fundamental difference is between Chivalric and Picaresque, to refer to the originating forms- and 'Don Quixote' conflated, deconstructed and revealed both for what they are centuries ago.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal When I reread the first page and a half of Don Quixote, what struck me was the passage that Quixote likes from Feliciano de Silva: " The reason for your unreasonable treatment of my reason so enfeebles my reason that I have reason to complain of your beauty." It so reminded me of Tolkien's passage from the beginning of the Lord of the Rings: "I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve" that it can not be an accident. Both passages are of similar length and rhythm, both are intentionally confusing, and both are at the beginning of novels of a journey. Both journeys are about a gentleman (Don Quixote and Frodo Baggins [four syllables in each name]) accompanied by their man-servant (Sancho Panza and Samwise Gamgee [four syllables in each name]). I expect that Tolkien inserted this on purpose as an allusion to Cervantes novel. Your thoughts?
@@captainnolan5062 I'm sure Tolkien would have been familiar with Cervantes- it's such an important taproot text for anyone wanting to understand the evolution of modern fictional forms out of the cauldron of story- and a great read too!
As someone who does enjoy fantasy more than sf, I do agree that the series format can be excessive. One of the big authors of the genre Brandon Sanderson has written 2 trilogies, many standalones and is soon to release the 5th book of his main series. Its just way too much and makes me not want to read it all. Writing standalones or a single trilogy seems like the best way of writing fantasy imo
Artistically, singletons, the dyptich or -at worst- the trilogy is the way to go. But this hasn't mattered in Fantasy since 1977, when it came to be about money rather than literary quality. This underlines the fundamental difference between the SF and Fantasy readerships- the former (until very recently) favoured singletons or closed series, since SF is built upon the new rather than the anachronistic. Fantasy - at least in the narrow sense of Sword & Sorcery/High Fantasy (these days conflated as 'Epic Fantasy' to avoid confusion with the marketplace-dominant Romantasy) - has strangely become the least imaginative genre due to the endless repetition of the same old tropes.
So, watching your newer video on this concept , while walking in Wales, got me to thinking about how modernism is both a sustaining as well as stunting influence on these genre fictions that you're discussing. To begin with, just the concept of genre fiction is post-industrial. It's a way of focusing on the specific flavors and attributes to mass produce it, and best market it, to a public looking for a specific flavor. Your central conceit of the novum is inherently modern: an idea or technology can change the world- but perhaps the greatest mark of the modern is the post-enlightenment, post industrialist reliance upon reason that seems to point to any imaginative fiction as being counter to reason, or outside of reason, and therefore not serious, not worthy of praise, and (strangely) not novum inspiring. The Moderne literary world at the turn of the century saw all "imaginative fiction" or "romance" (as it was still called) as inherently atavistic and therefore counter to progress, therefore contrary to the modern ideas of societal advancement through reason and industry. Since science fiction grew out of the planetary romance the two genres have been tied by their origins, and painted with a broad brush, suffering the stigma of every fantastical work having to prove itself on some level before it could be accepted for its inherent literary merit. So, I kind of understand the bastardization / ghettoization of both SF and other fantastic literatures, and how this mindset would by necessity lump in atavistic fantastic tales of the supernatural and need to give them their own title heading such as "horror". The fact that over commercialization and overproduction- both the products of a very modern industrial mindset toward writing- would spell the death of progress and innovation in fantasy and subsequently science fiction seems both ironic and inevitable. Does that make sense?
I think the 'market' aspect can be overstressed, but it plays a big part in perception and limits. I've said elsewhere that Horror is NOT a genre perse, but a marketing category - wach my videos on this in the Genre Theory strand, but you have a sophisticated understanding of all this, no doubt. The next video in the series will take it further!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Thanks, I know I missed one of my points, but it had been such a long roll that there was no going back and sifting till I found it. Although one of the points *was* that genre is more about marketing, or assigned after the fact. Glad it made sense without the missing bits.
@@waltera13 -I don't think that 'genre is more about marketing', actually, though it's played a huge part in what people think about genre, as the way it's used as a mere label doesn't actually go any way toward defining genre, just hinting at possible definitions and (importantly) boundaries. As for 'assigned after the fact', well yes, once the work is completed, then people apply a label to it, though of course the creator will usually have a firm idea of what the genre of a work is. But for me genre in fiction is about looking at what fiction is, how it has evolved and in doing so, how it has reflected the narrative of civilisation - so you could say broadly that Fantasy is the past (anachronistic), Realism is the consensus and SF is the acceptance of changes that might occur in our post-Enlightenment project. I think the strength of this tripartite view of fiction genres is that they are connected but do not have fuzzy edges- though when we look at Science Fantasy as typical of the argument 'the exception that proves the rule' it'll be pretty interesting. Thanks as always for your thought-provoking comments!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal No worries. This medium is 'less than ideal' for exchanging theses, and I'm pontificating on your nickel anyway. Thanks for the great vids and hey, just found some John Crowley today" the Deep" - any words?
@@waltera13 -You pontificate away, no problem. Crowley has been a mixed experience for me and I'm planning to re-read some. I loved his novel 'Beasts', but I found 'The Deep' and 'Engine Summer' difficult. He's quite verbose and indirect, but I think the fact that I owned his works in some of the most hideous paperback editions you've ever seen didn't help. I think bad experiences with his writing were me, not him.
I thought I hated Fantasy lit until I read The Dying Earth. Currently reading a Guy Gavriel Kay book and finishing it basically only due to sunk cost fallacy. Most times I dip into the genre I have the feeling of watching a puppet show for children. Which do you think is a more dread influence, these big money grab "sagas" or the boom in YA?
Well, you have to be VERY selective with Fantasy and basically stick to stuff published before 1977 (other than authors working before that year who continued, like Moorcock) - as you're finding. Overall, the more 'dread influence' is the endless sagas - as I say in my video on The Artifical Fantasy Trilogy since 1977, these are constructed purely for commercial reasons this way, which is why you never see Sword & Sorcery singletons anymore after 77. This damage is long done, however. At the moment, though, the low-quality prose and lack of imagination shown by female authors moving from YA into Fantasy is having a swift and devastating effect not only on Fantasy but on SF publishing - the whole industry is being dragged down into the mush. It's heartbreaking to see and I see it daily. Unfortunately, SF publishing has done itself no favours by excessively focusing on identity politics (as if gender and race issues were anything new in SF when they started to be explored extensively and intelligently in the 1960s) and on downgrading literary SF in favour of formulaic space opera. A video on all this will come.
I read Kay's 'Sailing to Sarantium' book and hated it. Then I read his 'Tigana', only because it was a gift, and loved it. So he must be all over the place.
I think sci Fi is a genre on its own and recently while organizing calibre saw to my annoyance that every sci fi book i had also had the tag fantasy... I removed fixed all the tags lol
To a degree, yes, but not so much over Heroic Fantasy - Lewis, like fellow Inkling Tolkien, was an outsider in the world of genre publishing, not coming from the magazine culture of Howard et al. Instead, he came more directly -at least in theory, since Narnia references 'The Snow Queen' - from an older European tradition, but interestingly twisted away from his Nordic- flavoured predecessors like WIlliam Morri because of his heavy Christian allegory in Narnia, which sits uncomfortably in the Sword & Sorcery tradition.
I, too, lament the fact that singletons are seldom published. Unfortunately, it is easier (once an author has invented a character and a world) for them to continue to write books in the same world, rather than invent a new character and a new world for every book.
Obviously. But far less satisfying aesthetically. This is why SF - and often general fiction - actually have greater imaginative sweep at times than Fantasy. My videos in the 'Elements of SF' delve into this, the idea of conceptual breakthrough at the climax of SF singletons being key to the importance of SF. The amount of series SF published now- with similarly diminishing returns as that supplied by unending Fantasy sequences - is purely down to the Fantasy model since 77: it's easier and panders commercially to the fundamentally unimaginative reader.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Perhaps I will try my hand at writing a singleton Fantasy book (at least the fact that it is a singleton would be a novelty these days). I will check out your 'Elements of SF' video. I went ahead and subscribed to your channel. What themes in Fantasy do you wish were explored more?
@@captainnolan5062 I think the problem now would actually be getting it published. There was one a few years back, written by a writer established in another genre using a pseudonym, but it was never revealed who this was (and I can't for the life of me recall the book title). It was partially an experiment, which had it been commercially successful, might have spawned sequels. But now, authors are contracted for trilogies but of course even if volume one sells, then it's unclear until second volume sales are in (or not) if it's been successful except in runaway sales cases (I know an SF writer whose successive trilogy volumes underperformed against the predecessors, which led to the end of his deal). The 'three strikes and you're out' clause is now depressingly common in all areas of fiction. Themes? I'll admit I don't think about it much, as I'm more SF oriented and I do feel that all of the arts are in crisis re fresh ideas. An upcoming video 'Hauntology & SF' will cover this next month.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I will stay tuned (I signed up for notifications) for next month's video 'Hauntology & SF'. These days, the book could be self published if no publishing house is interested, so I am not worried about that. I am more interested in what kind of book you would want to read (what kind of a 'fresh' take on the genre you would like to see).
I hate trilogies. So arbitrary. Everything has to be a trilogy. There is absolutely no reason for it. Just tell a complete story, thanks. Another annoyance is writers returning to the same well over and over again, the same characters, even when the story has already reached a satisfying and natural conclusion.
Well that's exactly what I mean by 'artificial'. The popularity of such things only shows the lack of imagination in the readers who are theoretically seeking imaginative writing-when what they really want is soap opera familiarity!
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As quite a number of people have asked about where they can get the book, I felt I should mention here that it is available as a Kindle Ebook from Amazon in several countries and also from the A&C Black website. Thanks.
Moorcock's Corum stories really were formative fantasy for me. So much of the imagery in my head when I write my own books comes from there.
I read Corum last year and loved it. Maybe even more than the Elric Saga.
Elric is the more iconic hero, but Corum is Moorcock's best work.
For me, I see the basis of all modern S&S to be “The Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the Jeweler,” by Lord Dunsany. It contains everything a good S&S story should have, in about 5 pages, and obviously inspired everyone from love Lovecraft to Leiber, from Howard to Smith, and so on.
Interesting to think of Dumas as an originator. The Three Musketeers and its follow-ups are my favorite series of all time.
Well said. I think people like to think the books they read first were the originators of some of these tropes and never look back further. I keep reaching back to older and older influences of influences, ad nauseam. I've read at least a few stories from each of the authors you mentioned (C.L. Moore,Fritz Lieber, ect) and back to Lord Dunsany and more. It amazed me how much an author could fit into a book that would be considered a novella at this point; the broken sword really brought it to light for me. even a short story can accomplish so much in less than 100 pages. Current fantasy seems bloated by comparison; just trying to fill a page count.
Exactly. I keep explaining to young readers that the books they're growing dissatisfied with are big and in endless series for commercial not artistic reasons.
Alan Moore says the same thing about fantasy being stale, and his new fantasy book it's a response to that: "The Great When". Informative video as always!
Thanks. Re Mr Moore, he is saying that- but it is the first volume in a series and it has to be said looks more (Moore?) commercial than his previous efforts....or at least that's how it's being presented. Let's hope for the best!
Really enjoyed this and learned a lot. Eddings got me into fantasy in my early teens. I loved his stuff at the time and still have a nostalgic affection for Belgariad and Mallorean. On the theme of your talk, I vividly remember standing in the book shop as a teenager looking at fantasy stuff wondering how every story needs at least three books to tell it haha. I've been reading some Moorecock recently on your advice. Thoroughly enjoying it. Cheers.
Thanks Barrie, more on Fantasy to come, glad to have you on board!
I recently read the Belgariad earlier this year and thought it was a brilliant time. It’s genuinely one of the funniest and most uplifting fantasy series I’ve ever read.
Thanks for a fascinating bit of literary history, Steve. I largely agree with you on the excessive bloat of some fantasy series: in my estimation 'The Wheel of Time' is one of the worst culprits, but with it now becoming a TV series it will continue to sell! However, I think there are some writers that can make a trilogy work. Jack Vance for one, with his Lyonnesse books.
Yes, Vance was master of the form! Wheel of Time is probably THE cardinal example of the overblown Fantasy sequence, almost archetypal!
@@MostlyAnOutsider I'm reading The Dragon Reborn right now. I started the series years ago, but stopped after the first book. It just didn't resonate with me. But after seeing the series (which they made a valiant effort at, but ultimately flubbed) I took it up again. I think it's aimed more at a teen/young adult audience, which is why the writing is sort of meh. What bugs me about it is how so much of the story line grows simply from Rand and the others being pigheaded and selfish. Had they decided "yeah, we should work together for the good of everyone" it could be finished in one or two books. Instead we get "Rand, I'm pretty sure you're this legendary dude reborn, and you and your buddies need to work with us to save the world."
"No, I don't want to do that!" (runs off, the rest give chase)
Just once I'd like to see a young protagonist accept responsibility.
China Mieville wrote tons of singletons in the late 90s/ early 2000s. In fact, in his entire corpus I believe there is one set of three interlinked. He also falls pretty far away from standard sword and sorcery, though.
Exactly, he's Fantasy in a broader sense. His models are more Peake, M John Harrison and Kafka I'd say. That's my main issue with him as a writer, he's good, but you can see his influences a mile off. I have been thinking of revisiting his work, though, as it's been years since I've read any...
@@outlawbookselleroriginal His influences are obvious, yes. But as a stylist, he's a very talented fella, and so perhaps surpasses his own heroes as a writer...
@@spencerburke I'll have to disagree with you there- Mieville has nothing like Harrison's breadth or subtlety and cannot match him tonally. The critical consensus is against your view, but then subjectivity is truth and we all have our own faves.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Fair enough. I haven't read so much Harrison, so I cannot really compare. But I would say that China is a far better stylist than the hugely influential Lovecraft, for example.
@@spencerburke Agreed.
I don't read a lot of fantasy myself, and tend to agree with much of what you've said. I'm a great fan of Classical Mythology (currently rereading Rouse's Odyssey transl.), I love Lord Dunsany, enjoy some Robert E. Howard, have tried a bit of Moorcock, and appreciate a good deal of Tolkien, to whom I don't think you're quite fair here.
I can see where you're coming from on Lord of the Rings. If you have any interest in seeing some strengths of his not on display in that book, though, I'd strongly recommend trying The Children of Húrin. As far as writing a demonic character, for my money, Glaurung falls no lower in quality than Arioch. (If you have read the book, I'd be very interested what your reaction to it was.)
I'd also like to quote at some length from Tolkien's Lay of Leithian, where the elf-maiden Lúthien has just offered herself up to Morgoth, the Dark Lord before Sauron. Morgoth's answer:
'Why should ye not in our fate share
Of woe and travail? Or should I spare
To slender limb and body frail
Breaking torment? Of what avail
Here dost thou deem thy babbling song
And foolish laughter? Minstrels strong
Are at my call. Yet I will give
A brief respite, a while to live,
A little while, though purchased dear,
To Lúthien, the fair and clear,
A pretty toy for idle hour.
In slothful gardens many a flower
Like thee the amorous gods are used
Honey-sweet to kiss, and cast then bruised,
Their fragrance loosing, under feet.
But here we seldom find such sweet
Amid our labours long and hard,
From godlike idleness debarred.
And who would not taste the honey-sweet
Lying to lips, or crush with feet
The soft cool tissue of pale flowers,
Eating like gods the dragging hours?
A! Curse the Gods! O hunger dire,
O blinding thirst's unending fire!
One moment shall ye cease, and slake
Your sting with morsel here I take!"
For me, the lust, pride, and scorn of this passage all come across as fully three-dimensional and believable, notwithstanding all the poetic expression involved.
With that said, I do think the fantasy genre has lost immensely through attempting to imitate Tolkien. I've bounced straight off all the modern stuff I've tried.
Edit: Forgot to mention Clark Ashton Smith. Wonderful poet and storyteller.
Yes, I like Smith too. I can appreciate the aspects of Tolkien you cite- I'm more concerned with the size of his works, particularly LOTR and how it (inadvertently, I admit) influenced the slew of dross we've encountered since 1977- but this is the fault of publishers and writers willing to sacrifice aesthetics for commerce and readers willing to go along with them. You're clearly a serious student of the literary aspects of Tolkien. Kudos to you.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Yes, that book casts a long shadow, for better or worse.
You're also clearly well-read, with a deep level of insight into the history of Sword & Sorcery as well as Scifi (which is an area where I still have a lot to learn, and have found your channel helpful in that).
This video reminds me that I may have to go back and read some Moorcock again, as it's been a number of years since I picked up a collection of Elric stories. The ones I did read still stand out in my mind pretty vividly.
Big series or no, there are writers who are doing incredible work with deconstruction in mind for the fantasy genre. Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen and Bakker's Second Apocalypse are prime examples, both with strong allusions to Conan and with major departures from Howard's and Tolkien's mould. Those two are experts of anthropology/archaeology and philosophy respectively, and each book is a feast.
As for singletons, Guy Gavriel Kay still manages to write very compelling ones in the fantasy genre, though they are "historical fantasy" or "historical fiction with a quarter turn". I would love more standalones, but the pressure to sell one book and make it three is very real. Increasingly I see the same in SF today.
In general, fantasy worlds are vast labours of love for their writer's. They spend years working on them, and for fans of the genre, worldbuilding is part of the joy. We love material culture and deep time, immortals who've seen the shape of history, trade networks and the power structures and economic trends that come from a species of magic.
Yes, I've read Malazan, the first volume was included in my Fantasy book- though it would be nice to see more people enthusing about his best and most radical book, 'Revolvo', which is a step toward Burroughs and Cronenberg.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I will have to read this! Thank you
Really interesting video! I knew that Tolkien's LOTR was split into three books for financial/publishing/binding reasons but it had never crossed my mind before to consider The Three Musketeers as being proto-sword and sorcery. TTM was one of my favourite books when I was young, such that I read it several times. Also, I now realize that it must've hugely influenced my writing as I now write historical fiction (albeit with a speculative slant). Thank you!
Thanks. What you'll find on this channel that differs to others is the historical/contextual/ professional publishing-bookselling angles that others don't cover- this is due to my work background in bookselling and as a writer. Stick with me and watch more, plenty here!
Thanks for this. I'm not really a fantasy fan, largely because of the sameness you mention. I've always wanted to find standalone fantasy, as it's not the genre but the genre's 'packaging', if you will, which has put me off. As such, your recommendations are a huge help!
I think if you stick with the stuff I cite, you'll enjoy it. For the SF reader, it's not really very necessary to read S&S published after the late 70s as more or less all of it is comfort reading rather than discomfort reading -which to me is what SF is.
@@outlawbookselleroriginalI'd to point out that what made Robert E. Howard's Conan truly sword and sorcery is that it was a union of historical drama, mythology, Lovecraft horror, and at time swashbuckling and western adventure.
Conan was also used to explore themes such as Barbarian life vs civilization, the hypocrisy of civilization and how civilizations can collapse inwards due to decadence.
Conan had brawn and brains, was a natural born leader and can speak many languages, a thing he picked up during his travels.
Later writers only saw Conan fighting monsters and saving women and copied those instead of digging deeper into the world building and the themes and characteristics of Conan.
@@markmunroe-hz8rf Well yes. I've read all the original Conan material- started on it back in the 70s. The other writers? Apart from Poul Anderson, I never bothered, no need...
@@outlawbookselleroriginal what's your take on Conan?
60’s and 70’s fantasy really hits different. The 80’s and 90’s have some great fantasy gems here and there as well. A lot of the popular modern epic fantasy series bore the hell out of me though and feel like the exact same stories being told over and over again.
Exactly. The ONLY way S&S could be refreshed now is to return to singletons -which publishers simply will not buy- and to invert everything. But M John Harrison, Moorcock and others did that decades ago. It's just comfort reading now for fans of formula.
I generally agree with you (I too was reading fantasy in the early 1970s); but I will say this: Despite all of the hundreds (thousands?) of Tolkien "trilogy" 'imitators", I have not found one who I think did the job as well as Tolkien. I don't know how long ago you read The Lord of the Rings, but perhaps you should give it another go now. Tolkien's world is more of a low magic epic fantasy than you describe (and at times is quite dark), and some of the 'bad guys' like Shelob, the Balrog, Saruman, Wormtongue, etc., are more chilling than perhaps you are remembering. Even the Nazgul and the Barrow Wights are quite terrifying.
Reread 'Fellowship' this year. I enjoy Tolkien more as I age, but still find him pedestrian at times, though I admire the breadth of conception.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Maybe if you had read him when the books first came out (and before there were any imitators) it would appear much more original to you, and you would find him far less less pedestrian.
@@captainnolan5062 -You have a fair point: I think we're all affected by personal context. Having said that, I still enjoy Peake, Dunsany, Eddison and Cabel. I think for me it's Tolkien's prose style - he's very slight on descriptive writing, I find, but he is growing on me as I age.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal That is an interesting comment, because I have heard from many of 'today's' readers that Tolkien does too much descriptive writing for them (in fact I love his descriptive passages). Perhaps today's readers are too conditioned by videos, video games and iPhones, and they demand action at the expense of description. I will take a look at Gormenghast again and compare the descriptive writing. I am glad that Tolkien is growing on you. I don't yet know much about you, having only watched two videos and looked at your biography on Amazon, but your self-described sobriquet "Outlaw" leads me to believe that, perhaps in part, you rebel against The Lord of the Rings because it is so popular (I could be wrong). By the way, thanks for pointing out "The Compleat Traveller in Black." I just ordered it on Amazon (it is one that has escaped me all these years), as well as the Penguin Beowulf in prose.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Tolkien certainly grew on me as I aged. Even though I've owned multiple editions of the trilogy, it took years to get through Fellowship. My introduction to Fantasy was through Elric of Melnibone, then the rest of the Champion Eternal books. Those books really captured my imagination when I first read them in the early 80's. I found Tolkien to be a slog, though when I finally "got" Tolkien some years back, I wondered why I found his work to be a slog. Ultimately I think it''s because my favorite fantasy books from guys like Moorcock, Vance, Leiber, Zelazny, were shorter and they understood that world building is only dressing for the stage the main characters inhabit. Tolkien was as interested in the world building as the story. Then we had younger readers who really loved that detailed world building and decided to take it to the nth degree and that's how we ended up with Jordan and Sanderson and 10 volume series full of unneeded bloat. I just don't have time to read that many doorstopper's. Re-reading Moorcock now, and find his work still enthralls me even though I'm far more conscious of the flaws in some of it.
Other astounding fantasy novels that don't get discussed enough:
The Weirdstone of Brisengamen by Alan Garner
Faerie Tale by Raymond Feist
Windmaster's Bane by Tom Deitz
Hart's Hope by Orson Scott Card
There is a video about 'Magician' on the channel, but 'Fairie Tale' has always been the Feist no-one seems to know: when it came out in the UK, I hosted Feist for an event in a bookshop. No-one ever seemed to care about it (but then it was a singleton, not part of a series, which seems to throw the average Fantasy fan). Garner I respect but have never enjoyed reading- he's clever, but I find his style awkward and the Card, as you say, is little-known too.
Mention should be made of Karl Edward Wagner's Kane saga from the second half of the 1970s, which consists of several short stories and novellas. for the short story "Two Suns Setting" he received the BFA Award in 1977. Kane is a Conan-like dark anti-hero character. Although it is only a small but sharp output (the few books have around 150- 160 pages) the Kane books helped reinvigorate the S&S subgenre, providing some interesting variations to a category that had previously been moribund. The series is marked by a propensity toward supernatural adversaries, a tendency that seems to portend Wagner's later move to horror.
Wagner has been mentioned to me re this video and my Top 10 S&S video many times and I'm in agreement.
@@outlawbookselleroriginalI would like to add that I'm working on a sword and sorcery tales mixed with elements of spaghetti westerns. I want to try my own variation of the genre.
Interesting to note that even Dumas couldn't resist writing three 'Three Musketeer' books (a trilogy of sorts).
Well yes, and his influence upon S&S often goes unremarked as I'm sure you've noticed!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Unfortunately yes, his influence on S&S does go unremarked, which is a shame.
Great recap on the origins of Fantasy! It's funny how many of the writers you mentioned I first knew as SF authors who, I presumed, did Fantasy 'on the side' so to speak. Vance, Lieber, Poul Anderson, Moorcock, they all wrote SF novels with 'spaceships and planets', and in some cases their Fantasy seemed tinged with SF(Vance, mostly). So I guess the genre borders are a bit hazy, at least to me. Always liked it that way, too!
I was a big Tolkien fan when I read him; nowadays I'm not sure if I'd be quite so enthusiastic, but I still think LOTR is an outstanding piece of work. Loved The Silmarillion as well. I've heard it said that Tolkien wanted to create a mythology specific to Britain. Maybe that's why his characters seem like archetypes, as mythology is a way of bringing archetypes 'into the light', so to speak(yeah, I'm a die-hard Jungian...)
It's sad to see this obsession with serialization; things were far more simple and objective before this. It's become a curse on genre cinema, as well, and is partly to blame for the current crisis in superhero movies. They started giving way too much emphasis in setting up the multiple sequels to a movie, to the detriment of the individual films. Maybe that's also an issue with these YA Fantasy trilogies(I wouldn't know; won't touch the stuff...)
Most of the classic S&S authors did it 'on the side' in magazines like 'Unknown' during the Golden Age, 'Weird Tales' prior to the Golden Age and through it, in 'Science Fantasy' in the UK (for Moorcock). I'm a Jungian too - and on this front you should def read 'Mythago Wood' by Holdstock. Yes, the series mentality dilutes everything down to stagnant flat ale in the end.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Mythago Wood, ok! I'll be sure to check It out. BTW, forgot to mention that my copy of LOTR was a single volume, with those bible-thin sheets of paper. I don't recall who published It, but I bought It around 1977 in London.
@@luiznogueira1579 Hardcover or paperback? If t was a hardcover, that sounds like one of the Unwin deluxe editions. All Uk editions were Unwin until around 1990
@@outlawbookselleroriginal It's a paperback, by Unwin like you said(just checked)
I'm a fantasy reader from way back in the 70s. Still have most of them too. Some of my all-time favorites include:
- The Eternal Champion (not just Elric, but Hawkmoon, Corum, Erekose...all the incarnations)
- The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever (mainly the first trilogy...he started to lose his way in the 2nd trilogy)
- The Sword of Shannara (probably because it's one of the first non-LOTR fantasies I ever read)
- The Narnia Chronicles
- The Oz series (starting with The Wizard of Oz)
- Conan (nobody can beat Howard)
- Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
- The Belgariad
- The Deryni Chronicles
- The Once and Future King
Anything more recent than Tad Williams' "Memory, Sorrow and Thorn" is a gamble whether it'll be any good or not.
Interesting, for Moorcock, Howard and Lieber are in a different tradition to Tolkien and his imitators like Brooks. Nice to see Kurtz mentioned. The 80s series you mention were staples of my bookselling life in the 80s, happy memories.
With Eddings' "Mallorean" being the prime example of the genre eating itself, as it's essentially a rewrite of his own Belgariad.
You forgot the Chronicles of Prydain.
I went straight from Lord of the Rings/Hobbit to Moorcock and found him much more my style, immediately bounced off Eddings. Enjoyed the original Feist trilogy, but left after the follow-up Prince of Blood. I did enjoy his novel Faerie Tale, more in the vein of Holdstock's Mythago Wood.
I didn't read any of Brooks' Shannara but did enjoy the first of the Landover novels, despite not knowing it was part of a series. To be fair, it may not have been when I read it. I've recently gone back to read some of the others and have enjoyed them a lot, a nice mix of light and dark and quite unusual as far as Fantasy novels go.
Started Donaldson's The One Tree in my teens and didn't get very far, lesson learned that you can't just jump in anywhere. I did the read the first two trilogies a decade or so ago and liked them quite a bit. Still haven't risked the third. Also enjoyed his Gap series.
I skipped Jordan completely, apart from some Conan pastiches, Martin, apart from his southern vampire novel. As well as Goodkind / Bradley / Hobb / Sanderson etc. I find it a lot harder to commit to a series of a dozen or more doorstops. It's not how I want to enjoy fantasy.
I do like Tanith Lee and Sheri S. Tepper.
For me it's the authors I cite in my Top 10 Sword & Sorcery video and very few others!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I should have said that Lloyd Alexander and John Christopher came before Tolkien, which came from the library/school library. I don't like to miss those out as they were great books.
I also encountered Robert E. Howard quite early thanks to some Sphere Conan paperbacks at a car boot sale, and remember having a friend at school who also read Howard.
I didn't read Edgar Rice Burroughs until I was eighteen, after reading Moorcock's Warrior of Mars, then Clark Ashton Smith/Lovecraft/Leiber and all the other weird tales authors.
Really glad I found this channel. New sub.
Many thanks for joining!
Great video. Well done. Some nice insights here. You should put a recommended list in there as well!
A video on my fave Sword & Sorcery will come, but in the meantime, keep an eye on my unfolding '100 Must Read Fantasy Novels' series and my book of the same name. Please subscribe if you haven't already! Thanks for yr kind comments.
I totally agree.
The list goes on: Stephen Brust's Jhereg series for one, and to a lesser degree the Thieves' World anthologies, etc. They are just serial cash cows that stymie the authors' imagination. Before too long they are one-trick ponies who've delivered one book twelve or twenty times. I'll likely not read the next Martin book, as I've lost interest after so many years of waiting.
I was never a fan of Thomas Covenant or the Belgariad series. Too much Deus ex Machina. I never believed that the characters were ever in any jeopardy. Singletons, though; and short stories; there's no guarantee that things will turn out well for the protagonist.
Fun video. And thank you. It's refreshing to hear that others have the same opinion as I do, give or take.
Small nit: the young people of the late 60s weren't tired of the baby boomers - they WERE the baby boomers (like ourselves).
A fairly recent fantasy writer I've gotten into in the last few years is Steven Brust who is influenced by Dumas. Any thoughts about his books? I really rate him.
I can't say I have, though I have sold his work- the fact is that pretty much all S&S writers are influenced by Dumas, who obviously was the swordplay kind re 'The Three Mustekeers' and its sequels - 'The Encyclopedia of Fantasy' concurs with this view too. I very, very rarely read contemporary S&S as I find it does nothing for me - but if more of the current writers would take risks and write singletons to break and remake the mould, I'd get interested - however, I don't think there's a mass market publisher trading who would publish a singleton: there was one about 10 years ago - can't think of the author name- but it was someone better known writing one psuedonymously as an experiment. It clearly failed, as no other books appeared. I think this is the sole example this century in the UK of this. I'm much the same re SF series with exceptions like Gibson, Dave Hutchinson a few others. My approach if I do try Fantasy is to read volume one then quit, as the whole formula (1 - setup, 2- quest, 3-resolution) thing drives me mad with boredom! Expan on why you like Brust, be interested to hear more...
@@outlawbookselleroriginal The novels are very well written, quite funny at times, the hero is an antihero, a sort of magician mafioso in telepathic link with his small dragon that helps him out in his various capers. They are quite political at times and the back story of the world and characters is given out in each novel a little at a time. Brust has Hungarian ancestry and this is used in the novels as well. The novels are written out of sequence which adds to the mystery, too.
@@richardbrown8966 This all sounds promising- taking things out of internal chronology is one mark of a sophisticated writer...I shall get back to you...cheers!
Brust is heavily influenced by Dumas. In fact the Phoenix Guards (one of his best) is a straight up pastiche of The Three Musketeers set within the context of his Taltos series.
I used to sell Brust as "The best fantasy writer you've never heard of." He's a fantastic writer in the vein of Roger Zelazny (and closer to his style than either of Zelanazny's more popular acolytes Neil Gaiman and George RR Martin) though he can also be a bit difficult to get into if you start in the wrong place. The big issue is that he sort of throws you in the deep end and its easy to get lost in all of the weird names he uses for things and the fact that he never explicitly comes out and says things other writers would consider very important (like the fact that the Dragaerans are basically elves though they always refer to themselves as humans). I'd recommend reading Jhereg first. I'd also add that he's hardly "contemporary". He started in the mid to late eighties and feels like he's working in a much earlier idiom.
@@joncarroll2040 "Phoenix Guards" sounds like good fun, thanks. Off to amazon to load up the TBR!
I'd be interested in your take on Karl Edward Wagner's unusual S&S character (I hesitate to say "hero", or even "anti-hero" ... a term the author rejected) the cursed immortal Kane. The books (3 novels and 2 short story collections) are very collectible, often to the tune of hundreds of £'s or even more for signed copies. Karl was a horror anthologist/author too, so this underscores his fantasy writing style. I like them for their ominous foreshadowing, sometimes Lovecraftian cosmic horror themes, sometimes understated 'horror-in-the-moment' observations, but also the Nietzscherian iconoclastic philosophy, and amoral central character who might be just as likely to annihilate a city if it stands in his way, or save an orphaned child for no apparent reason.
People keep mentioning Wagner to me so I need to revisit- it's been a long time since rock and roll as they say.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal The short stories are usually recommended as the best starting point, my favourites are in the 3 story collection "Death Angel's Shadow" (available at sensible prices on Kindle).
Really enjoyed this. I notice in the background you have the set of encyclopedias from the World of Wildlife.
Yep, delivered weekly to my door when I was a kid, 20p an issue. It took many years for the whole set to build up. Happy days.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Likewise, collected by my mum for me. Currently watching series 5 of Gomorrah.
@@huwprofitt8250 -How are you watching it, Huw? Is it Sky? I know it's been on Sky Arts Italia, so I much check for a bluray date as that's my usual gambit.
I give a like for Arnie Schwarzenburger :)
I can't argue with that!
Do you consider Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun to be fantasy? What do you make of it?
No, it's SF, as it does not really involve magic (the supernatural) but instead science (the natural) which becomes more apparent in the Long Sun books. What do I make of it? Ambitious, clever, but sometimes Emperor's New Clothes, but that's Wolfe, a concealer of intent.
A writer one absolutely never hears of or has heard about is George Foy - not even sure what he's doing now, probably spends his time sailing and working on boats?
The Shift is an amazing, beautifully written piece of fiction in the cyber/punk genre - his non-fiction works are also something to check out.
GEORGE MICHELSEN FOY is the author of Zero Decibels: The Quest for Absolute Silence, and twelve critically acclaimed novels. He is the recipient of a National Endowment of the Art fellowship in fiction. His novel Art & Practice of Explosion came second in Foreword magazine's 2001 Novel of the Year contest, and The Shift was a finalist for the Philip K. Dick prize. His articles, reviews, and stories have been published by Rolling Stone, The Boston Globe, Harper's, The New York Times, and Men's Journal, among others, and has been an investigative reporter, writer, and/or editor for BusinessWeek, The International Herald Tribune, and The Cape Cod Register. He was educated at the Sorbonne, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Bennington College. He teaches creative writing at New York University. He is married with two children, and divides his time between coastal Massachusetts and New York
In the early 1990s, I wrote a fanzine article which was never published, as for practical reasons with production, the issue was abandoned. The article was entitled "The Death of SF" and in it, I argued that the genre had run out of steam, that there was little or no original work appearing and that there was a new professional slickness standard that on the surface, gave the appearance of literature where there was none.
The vast majority of new SF writers appearing between 1990 and 2010 on both sides of the Atlantic had short careers in terms of professionally published books: many of them never caught on commercially and incoming readers, browbeaten as they are by generations of hype and canonisation of the likes of 'the Big Three' ensure that most new readers ended up reading what was old and a smattering of the current flavour of the month- just look at how long Banks, Hamilton and Reynolds have been established bestsellers in the UK, for example.
Many of these 1990-2010 writers have never had their work reissued after initial publication in book form. Once first printings sold through, they were relegated to being out of print, print on demand and or ebooked.
Foy is one of many who fell by the wayside in this sense. I think this says a lot about the readership, but also about the true state of the genre after the late 1980s, when evolution and revolution slowed to a crawl, in line with the decelleration o creativity in culture generally. This is the legacy and culture of Postmodernism.
Wow. Thank you for the detailed explanation. It sums it up very succinctly.
I think also, as you've mentioned on numerous occasions, that readers must support their bookstores in order for writers to have better success.
Dang and Chucks and Curse upon the Internet! I seem to be unable to find this "Gerald of Jerreri" by Catherine Elmore? It is always tricky to transcribe the spoken word. Any way to perhaps recieve the authors name in text?
Edit: OH some more luck with another search engine, I found the name "Jirel of Joiry" by Catherine Lucille Moore!
There's a video about CL Moore on the channel in which I show her books. If I put author names in text in descriptions, guess what happens: people don't watch the videos, just use the text as a list. Apologies. Any time you're struggling, post a question, I'll answer.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Thank you very much! It is always refreshing to go back and find the authors who made the trial of time, today it is an ocean of nothing-special
@@gendor5199 You're not wrong there!!!
I'm curious why you didn't mention Terry Pratchett. Or did you and I missed it?
I didn't mention him, no, though he did come to commercial success in that timeframe, but inasmuch as he was a Fantasy writer, his work was very much satire. Personally, I never liked his work-despite his cleverness- as I found his sense of humour rather adolescent at times and I think he and Adams (probably inadvertently) did much to damage any serious reputation SFF might have had in the 80s and beyond.
I did, however, quite enjoy RK Morgan's fantasy/sf trilogy that starts with The Steel Breeze. Curious to hear your thoughts on that.
At the moment, I have no plans whatsoever to read any Genre Fantasy published recently, I'm afraid - it just holds no interest for me now, as I feel S&S/High Fantasy are totally played out, relying so much as they do on the multivolume formula, the same old tropes and symbols. Fantasy is total different to SF in its underlying philosophy- and increasingly so as time goes on- and as a genre form it simply reinvents rather than doing anything new, being bound to anachronism as it is. I know this may sound closed-minded, but one can't read everything and I feel there are far, far more interesting things going on in general fiction and SF- and even then they are struggling to innovate. Fantasy for me is very much an historical and contextual interest in terms of its relationship to SF in publishing- there will be more on the channel about this aspect, as Fantasy publishing, by being linked to SF publishing for reasons that are quite simply less and less valid as the years go by, has gone enormous harm to SF publishing.
I am about to start work, however, on minor revisions to '100 Must Read Fantasy Novels', since I'm reclaiming the rights to the book and aiming to reissue it, redefining it as an historical overview of 20th Century Fantasy and adding much additional material about the genre's relationship to SF. Watch this space...
Joe Abercrombie has published 3 rather well received singletons in between his two trilogies (haha). Best Served Cold, The Heroes, Red Country. Not the same I know as some of the characters featured are legacy characters from his First Law trilogy.
Yeah, I sell them all the time in work. The trilogy was enough for me, but he's more than a cut above most of what's out there in S&S land these days...
This was a very interesting talk
Thanks. It's impossible the understand why commercial Fantasy has been in such a poor state of ever-declining imagination and pure formula without this knowledge...it wasn't always that way!
Fantasy singletons of the past decade? Of course any type of fantasy can be published by the small presses but from big publishers: Silvia Moreno-Garcia, KJ Parker, Garth Nix, Alix E Harrow, Catherynne M Valente, Saladin Ahmed, Jo Walton, Naomi Novik, Jeannette Ng, Zen Cho, Brian Catling and recently RF Kuang have published singleton fantasies. Maybe Adrian Tchaikovsky?
I'm sure if I scanned recent releases from the big publishers I could find at least several more. I think it probably helps that Kuang had established herself with a hugely successful trilogy and Garth Nix has been popular a long time (another commenter mentioned Kay and McKillip).
I guess Madelline Miller and Susanna Clarke were working outside the fantasy publishing world but things are changing enough that I see those writers are blurbing on category fantasy and science fiction books and sometimes they're up for SFF awards. Clarke is married to Colin Greenland so she wouldn't be a snob about SFF.
I'd also add that DAW as early as the 70s liked to get authors to write series and apparently EC Tubb was kind of a gold standard for this. But I think they usually worked as standalone books too.
I think the are still successful young adult single fantasy novels. I recently saw Josiah Bancroft say his editor kept trying to pressure him into another series but he never wants to write another series again, so his next book will likely be a singleton.
I really enjoyed your guides years ago and happy to discover this channel. Will that horror guide ever happen? I would love to see it.
What I'd say about the contemporary authors you cite as authors of singletons:
First of all, I'm primarily speaking here about how Tolkien's success led to publishers requesting copyist high fantasy trilogies which then turned into endless sagas a la Brooks (and say Sanderson as an example from recent years).
I'd also say that of the authors you cite, most of these are not S&W or High Fantasy (and the difference really between these sub-subgenres is minimal), but are writing other types of fantasy - also, almost all of them have primarily written series -Nix, Novik, Catling (despite a long career in avant-garde performance art and writing). Moreno-Garcia does seem to be a true exception. I would say that Fantasy has diversified enormously in the last few years, but that the predominant model is series based and this is down to the fact that publishers want series. These books are mostly written as series for commercial and nor aesthetic reasons.
If you look at many- if not most - of the acclaimed non-S&S fantasies in the period before 1977, the vast majority of them are singletons.
It's clear that the vast majority of Fantasy writers only get to write singletons if their publishers get a successful series out of them first. And this has spread increasingly into SF, with generally disastrous consequences for SF as a vital, artistic, innovative form, which it needs to be to be good SF. Fantasy, relying more on anachronism and tradition because of its totally different philosophical base doesn't need to be as innovative as SF. SF is Modern, Fantasy is archaic.
My real challenge to the reader here is to find recent S&S/High Fantasy writers who have produced singletons in these areas and managed to get the m published commercially. This basically doesn't happen. To be fair, it hardly ever did- but the likes of Anderson, Vance at al did this, or were published as serials in genre magazines. DAW of course -despite the charm and iconography of the books themselves- generally produced formulaic books in both SF & Fantasy since DAW himself was a Golden Age relic. Ultimately, what I'm saying is that one of the fundamental artistic problems with Fantasy is its series obsession, which has long been publisher driven and since 1977, increasingly so.
Very pleased to hear you enjoyed my books, great to hear that. The Horror one will probably never happen, I'm afraid. Thanks for your thoughtful comments and observations!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Good points. I think it's perhaps even more notable that Silvia Moreno-Garcia has managed to genre hop after each book. I recently saw her shelved in the mainstream section, including her vampire book.
Would you make a video about the perhaps even more bleak state of short fiction from major publishers? The Year's Best anthologies have mostly disappeared from Waterstones and short SFF that is considered for publicly voted awards is dominated by online sites that get shared on social media and some think that favors increasingly frivolous short stories. I'm afraid a lot of worthy short fiction will not get collected into book form. Small Beer Press is a small press but they're one of the few SFF publishers with a serious commitment to short fiction.
I think there are actually quite a few fantasy singletons still published - for example look at the work of Patricia A. McKillip or Guy Gavriel Kay, both of whom started their careers with trilogies but later wrote many singletons. I believe the nominee lists for World Fantasy Awards and Mythopoeic Awards will reveal many others. And if you're willing to count linked series of novels that take place in one fantasy world, then there truly are a great number published regularly.
That said, of course I do agree that there are far too many bloated trilogies these days.
What I'd say, Frank, is that working in the book trade for the last 38 years and keeping a close watch on this, there have been fewer and fewer Sword & Sorecery singletons published since the late 70s and after the early 90s, none except for ones by authors like Kay & McKillip - and interestingly these are writers whose careers go back to the 80s and before (Kay of course worked on extant Tolkien manuscripts in the 70s. Obviously, I'm speaking of the UK here and there are many novels of all kinds issued in the USA that do not get published over here (ever).
In fact, I keep hoping for correspondents here to point some out, but so far I hear of none (though would love to!). Clearly, there are many singleton novels that get nominated for the WFA, but they are not Sword & Sorcery (or even High Fantasy - and as 'The Encyclopedia of Fantasy' points out, this is a virtually meaningless distinction). I must take a look at the Mythopoeic listings though, as it's been some time...thanks for your comments!
With Kay’s work as he moved on from the series his work transitioned from being fantasy, (with some history mixed in) to historical fiction (with some fantasy mixed in). Not a negative thing. It seems like he had to change genres to be able to publish what he wanted. Of course the success of his early work empowered him to make this move.
I did read somewhere that LOTR was intended as a SF novel, after a conversation with Cs Lewis. I read Donaldson when I was at school... 9 volumes it was crazy.
Well, I don;t think it has any novum in it that would tip it into SF, but I'd like to hear more about that!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal something about the idea of gondor and mordor being on a different planet such as venus or Mount doom being the sun and sauron the interplanetary tyrant.
@@jonswift6173 -Well, if he'd gone that way, yes, that would have tipped it over...but given his deep love of the Nordic and Old English, that clearly won out
LotR was never intended as a science fiction novel. Perhaps you're thinking of the agreement Tolkien and Lewis made that one of them would write a time travel story and the other space travel? This resulted in Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet and its two sequels, while Tolkien started but abandoned a time travel story, The Lost Road (from which some ideas were later re-used as the also-abandoned The Notion Club Papers).
@@stevenklinden ah yes... Possibly. I just remember hearing about it on the radio ages ago. I was always struck by the idea of mordor as having a different planetary feel with its barrenness and rocks.
Wow. Couldn't agree more about Tolkien.
Tolkien has always been overrated- Moorcock and Leiber agreed with this, though I have softened towards his work in the last couple of years. Again, I'm more interested in the phenomenon of JRRT than the actual work, which is atypical of Sword & Sorcery and has done much indirectly through copyists to destroy the original hard and fast school.
I would disagree that The Lord of The Ring is a single book. The table of contents list six books, in other words a serial.
I agree that Fantasy became bloated. I Robert E. Howard before Tolkien. The short Heroic Fantasy is more enjoyable.
Re LOTR: Yes, but that is a device to indicate 'book' as in the Biblical sense, as in scrolls or individual parts. LOTR was conceived and written as a single book, but was produced as a three volume novel due to the problems with (1) marketing such a large novel and (2) the unreliability of binding techniques at that time.
And yep, short Heroic is more enjoyable, agreed.
Carrie on , you said. A large seres of fantasy books influenced by the films.
But to be honest I read the Silmariliun when it first came out. That was the end to me reading fantasy.
Yes, Carri On was played by Charles Hawtrey, I recall, her mother depicted as a religious fanatic by Kenneth Williams.... :-)
There is an energy and a dynamism to mid 70s S&S. These guys didn't waste time listing endless descriptions of locations or food. Or spend pages giving each character (ostensibly.named John) a lengthy monologue. You have the protagonist with a clear goal who gets on with it. I want to capture this energy.
The problem is that things now are written with the writer envisioning the adaptations. And I get so bored of it.
It's also that publishers think everyone wants 'value for money' - bloated repetition as opposed to sharp style.
Totally agree.
There's quite a bit of innovation happening in fantasy currently, but the aggressive expansion of subgenres by big box booksellers and publishing houses means it's much harder to place and track across a wider spectrum that could be called fantasy. Things seem so locked within the strict confines of post-60s sword and sorcery because anything that doesn't fall within the medieval, western European confines of so-called "high fantasy" is quickly shunted into an existing subgenre or a new one is coined by marketing departments. Hard-edged realism? "Dark/Low Fantasy". Fantastical setting with early modern society? "Steampunk". Fantastical setting with contemporary society? "Urban fantasy" Vance-ian Dying Earth fantasy? "Post-apocalypse". Right now there is a lot of ferment going on around fantastical worlds drawn from Near Eastern and Far Eastern cultures such that I'm dead certain "Asian Fantasy" will be the next big marketable subgenre to show up on aisle labels.
Yes, it's a shame that Fantasy in the popular imagination is synonymous with S&S and its close relative High Fantasy - as a genre, it's broader than SF and Realism, I'd say.
Not only did Tolkien not invent Swords and Sorcery, he also did not write it. His novels are more in the Epic Fantasy subgenre (and not in the Heroic Fantasy / Sword and Sorcery subgenre).
These are subgenres, of course, not distinct genres. I refer again to Clute and Grant. The point I'm making is that in the commercial world of Fantasy fiction -what most people think of when they see the label 'Fantasy', there is very little reader distinction, at least initially. I've seen and spoken to thousands of Fantasy readers of the last four decades and what is clear is that they mostly want the same old thing- overlong, repetitive, cliched material - with little knowledge of the early history of Fantasy as a popular form. And of course I'm regarded as enough of an authority to have had a book published on the genre by Bloomsbury, J K Rowling's publishers, so you're making a point of knowledge to the deeply initiated here.
Regarding JRRT and S&S, even Tolkien has a massive picaresque element (that which is de rigeur and a marker of S&S) in the shape of Hobbits, so again the distinction is a minor one.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal It is interesting that in your video "Top 10 Classic Fantasy (Sword and Sorcery)", you begin by defining Swords and Sorcery as opposed to Epic Fantasy and you then exclude Tolkien from the video. In essence, you made my point for me in that video (i.e. that: Not only did Tolkien not invent Swords and Sorcery, he also did not write it. His novels are more in the Epic Fantasy subgenre (and not in the Heroic Fantasy / Sword and Sorcery subgenre) .
@@captainnolan5062 I think everyone knows that S&S and epic fantasy are different subgenres and Robert E Howard was one of the founders of the former and Tolkien the founder of the latter. It´s hardly a new idea.
@@hypatia4754 I wouldn't be so sure that "everyone knows."
I love to hear your take on the new sword and sorcery Lord of a Shattered Land by Howard Andrew Jones. Im reading it right now and quite enjoying it.
Highly unlikely to read it if I'm honest Matthew, I've basically given up reading new Fantasy for the time being, but I'll take a look.
High Fantasy/Epic Fantasy is more about the quest to save the world from a dark evil; whereas Sword and Sorcery books are about the main character adventuring for his own benefit, or perhaps to save an individual (i.e. they are not out to save the world). They are different sub-genres of Fantasy.
I am of course aware of this and have been for decades. However, Clute & Grant, in 'The Encyclopedia of Fantasy' (THE world authority on the subject) state that the difference between the two is often negligible when the tropes and symbols are given full consideration. The fundamental difference is between Chivalric and Picaresque, to refer to the originating forms- and 'Don Quixote' conflated, deconstructed and revealed both for what they are centuries ago.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal When I reread the first page and a half of Don Quixote, what struck me was the passage that Quixote likes from Feliciano de Silva: " The reason for your unreasonable treatment of my reason so enfeebles my reason that I have reason to complain of your beauty." It so reminded me of Tolkien's passage from the beginning of the Lord of the Rings: "I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve" that it can not be an accident. Both passages are of similar length and rhythm, both are intentionally confusing, and both are at the beginning of novels of a journey. Both journeys are about a gentleman (Don Quixote and Frodo Baggins [four syllables in each name]) accompanied by their man-servant (Sancho Panza and Samwise Gamgee [four syllables in each name]). I expect that Tolkien inserted this on purpose as an allusion to Cervantes novel. Your thoughts?
@@captainnolan5062 I'm sure Tolkien would have been familiar with Cervantes- it's such an important taproot text for anyone wanting to understand the evolution of modern fictional forms out of the cauldron of story- and a great read too!
As someone who does enjoy fantasy more than sf, I do agree that the series format can be excessive. One of the big authors of the genre Brandon Sanderson has written 2 trilogies, many standalones and is soon to release the 5th book of his main series. Its just way too much and makes me not want to read it all. Writing standalones or a single trilogy seems like the best way of writing fantasy imo
Artistically, singletons, the dyptich or -at worst- the trilogy is the way to go. But this hasn't mattered in Fantasy since 1977, when it came to be about money rather than literary quality. This underlines the fundamental difference between the SF and Fantasy readerships- the former (until very recently) favoured singletons or closed series, since SF is built upon the new rather than the anachronistic. Fantasy - at least in the narrow sense of Sword & Sorcery/High Fantasy (these days conflated as 'Epic Fantasy' to avoid confusion with the marketplace-dominant Romantasy) - has strangely become the least imaginative genre due to the endless repetition of the same old tropes.
So, watching your newer video on this concept , while walking in Wales, got me to thinking about how modernism is both a sustaining as well as stunting influence on these genre fictions that you're discussing.
To begin with, just the concept of genre fiction is post-industrial. It's a way of focusing on the specific flavors and attributes to mass produce it, and best market it, to a public looking for a specific flavor.
Your central conceit of the novum is inherently modern: an idea or technology can change the world- but perhaps the greatest mark of the modern is the post-enlightenment, post industrialist reliance upon reason that seems to point to any imaginative fiction as being counter to reason, or outside of reason, and therefore not serious, not worthy of praise, and (strangely) not novum inspiring.
The Moderne literary world at the turn of the century saw all "imaginative fiction" or "romance" (as it was still called) as inherently atavistic and therefore counter to progress, therefore contrary to the modern ideas of societal advancement through reason and industry.
Since science fiction grew out of the planetary romance the two genres have been tied by their origins, and painted with a broad brush, suffering the stigma of every fantastical work having to prove itself on some level before it could be accepted for its inherent literary merit. So, I kind of understand the bastardization / ghettoization of both SF and other fantastic literatures, and how this mindset would by necessity lump in atavistic fantastic tales of the supernatural and need to give them their own title heading such as "horror".
The fact that over commercialization and overproduction- both the products of a very modern industrial mindset toward writing- would spell the death of progress and innovation in fantasy and subsequently science fiction seems both ironic and inevitable.
Does that make sense?
I think the 'market' aspect can be overstressed, but it plays a big part in perception and limits. I've said elsewhere that Horror is NOT a genre perse, but a marketing category - wach my videos on this in the Genre Theory strand, but you have a sophisticated understanding of all this, no doubt. The next video in the series will take it further!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Thanks, I know I missed one of my points, but it had been such a long roll that there was no going back and sifting till I found it. Although one of the points *was* that genre is more about marketing, or assigned after the fact. Glad it made sense without the missing bits.
@@waltera13 -I don't think that 'genre is more about marketing', actually, though it's played a huge part in what people think about genre, as the way it's used as a mere label doesn't actually go any way toward defining genre, just hinting at possible definitions and (importantly) boundaries. As for 'assigned after the fact', well yes, once the work is completed, then people apply a label to it, though of course the creator will usually have a firm idea of what the genre of a work is. But for me genre in fiction is about looking at what fiction is, how it has evolved and in doing so, how it has reflected the narrative of civilisation - so you could say broadly that Fantasy is the past (anachronistic), Realism is the consensus and SF is the acceptance of changes that might occur in our post-Enlightenment project. I think the strength of this tripartite view of fiction genres is that they are connected but do not have fuzzy edges- though when we look at Science Fantasy as typical of the argument 'the exception that proves the rule' it'll be pretty interesting. Thanks as always for your thought-provoking comments!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal No worries. This medium is 'less than ideal' for exchanging theses, and I'm pontificating on your nickel anyway. Thanks for the great vids and hey, just found some John Crowley today" the Deep" - any words?
@@waltera13 -You pontificate away, no problem. Crowley has been a mixed experience for me and I'm planning to re-read some. I loved his novel 'Beasts', but I found 'The Deep' and 'Engine Summer' difficult. He's quite verbose and indirect, but I think the fact that I owned his works in some of the most hideous paperback editions you've ever seen didn't help. I think bad experiences with his writing were me, not him.
A new gym that you should miss out on is called spine of the night. I agree the modern sword and sorcery is severely lacking
I'll take a look. thanks!
I thought I hated Fantasy lit until I read The Dying Earth. Currently reading a Guy Gavriel Kay book and finishing it basically only due to sunk cost fallacy. Most times I dip into the genre I have the feeling of watching a puppet show for children.
Which do you think is a more dread influence, these big money grab "sagas" or the boom in YA?
Well, you have to be VERY selective with Fantasy and basically stick to stuff published before 1977 (other than authors working before that year who continued, like Moorcock) - as you're finding. Overall, the more 'dread influence' is the endless sagas - as I say in my video on The Artifical Fantasy Trilogy since 1977, these are constructed purely for commercial reasons this way, which is why you never see Sword & Sorcery singletons anymore after 77. This damage is long done, however. At the moment, though, the low-quality prose and lack of imagination shown by female authors moving from YA into Fantasy is having a swift and devastating effect not only on Fantasy but on SF publishing - the whole industry is being dragged down into the mush. It's heartbreaking to see and I see it daily. Unfortunately, SF publishing has done itself no favours by excessively focusing on identity politics (as if gender and race issues were anything new in SF when they started to be explored extensively and intelligently in the 1960s) and on downgrading literary SF in favour of formulaic space opera. A video on all this will come.
I read Kay's 'Sailing to Sarantium' book and hated it. Then I read his 'Tigana', only because it was a gift, and loved it. So he must be all over the place.
I think sci Fi is a genre on its own and recently while organizing calibre saw to my annoyance that every sci fi book i had also had the tag fantasy... I removed fixed all the tags lol
SF & Fantasy are indeed very distinct as I detail in my video series 'The Elements of Science Fiction' -check it out.
I know youcant cover every author but Cs Lewis s narnia must have been an influencer
To a degree, yes, but not so much over Heroic Fantasy - Lewis, like fellow Inkling Tolkien, was an outsider in the world of genre publishing, not coming from the magazine culture of Howard et al. Instead, he came more directly -at least in theory, since Narnia references 'The Snow Queen' - from an older European tradition, but interestingly twisted away from his Nordic- flavoured predecessors like WIlliam Morri because of his heavy Christian allegory in Narnia, which sits uncomfortably in the Sword & Sorcery tradition.
I, too, lament the fact that singletons are seldom published. Unfortunately, it is easier (once an author has invented a character and a world) for them to continue to write books in the same world, rather than invent a new character and a new world for every book.
Obviously. But far less satisfying aesthetically. This is why SF - and often general fiction - actually have greater imaginative sweep at times than Fantasy. My videos in the 'Elements of SF' delve into this, the idea of conceptual breakthrough at the climax of SF singletons being key to the importance of SF. The amount of series SF published now- with similarly diminishing returns as that supplied by unending Fantasy sequences - is purely down to the Fantasy model since 77: it's easier and panders commercially to the fundamentally unimaginative reader.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Perhaps I will try my hand at writing a singleton Fantasy book (at least the fact that it is a singleton would be a novelty these days). I will check out your 'Elements of SF' video. I went ahead and subscribed to your channel. What themes in Fantasy do you wish were explored more?
@@captainnolan5062 I think the problem now would actually be getting it published. There was one a few years back, written by a writer established in another genre using a pseudonym, but it was never revealed who this was (and I can't for the life of me recall the book title). It was partially an experiment, which had it been commercially successful, might have spawned sequels. But now, authors are contracted for trilogies but of course even if volume one sells, then it's unclear until second volume sales are in (or not) if it's been successful except in runaway sales cases (I know an SF writer whose successive trilogy volumes underperformed against the predecessors, which led to the end of his deal). The 'three strikes and you're out' clause is now depressingly common in all areas of fiction. Themes? I'll admit I don't think about it much, as I'm more SF oriented and I do feel that all of the arts are in crisis re fresh ideas. An upcoming video 'Hauntology & SF' will cover this next month.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I will stay tuned (I signed up for notifications) for next month's video 'Hauntology & SF'. These days, the book could be self published if no publishing house is interested, so I am not worried about that. I am more interested in what kind of book you would want to read (what kind of a 'fresh' take on the genre you would like to see).
I hate trilogies. So arbitrary. Everything has to be a trilogy. There is absolutely no reason for it. Just tell a complete story, thanks.
Another annoyance is writers returning to the same well over and over again, the same characters, even when the story has already reached a satisfying and natural conclusion.
Well that's exactly what I mean by 'artificial'. The popularity of such things only shows the lack of imagination in the readers who are theoretically seeking imaginative writing-when what they really want is soap opera familiarity!