Saturday 28 August 2010

From the Comments: Complex Inferiority

Seventy or so comments in, the discussion over my post on Thursday, entitled Inferior Fantasy, has finally leveled out - which isn't to say there weren't cogent arguments being made throughout, only that they were rather lost, rather sadly lost, in the great vengeance and furious anger of the aftermath of my suggestion that perhaps a genre we all hold dear could be... better.

And rather than simply stirring the hornet's nest up all over again, I'll accept my share of responsibility for that. I don't have a world of time to labour over the blog posts I write: firstly, foremostly, I blog because I enjoy blogging. I blog about speculative fiction in particular because I love speculative fiction - primarily fantasy. I had thought eight months of news and reviews and the inherently opinionated (and often rather snarky) commentary I've offered up to you all would have been an ample assertion of my credentials in that regard. As per the note I originally concluded on, I'm "a dyed-in-the-wool fan of the form," the form here being fantasy, and so I took it as a given that people wouldn't automatically assume I'd somehow turned on them - them, and a genre they love, as evidenced by the fact they'd come to TSS to read about it in the first place.

Evidently, I couldn't have been more wrong. Almost immediately, despite my attempts to couch the difficult question I had hoped to ask in assurances that it was a question, not - not by a long shot - a statement, a flood of readers chimed in to tell me, in essence, what a back-stabbing ass I had turned out to be. In and of itself, that wasn't entirely unexpected (though the particular people who did so did take me aback); I understood going in that for many, the notion that fantasy falls short in some respects would be a hot-button topic. I hadn't, admittedly, expected that those readers who disagreed would do so with such vitriol. Beginning with an anonymous commenter - never something, I'll admit, that sits well with me, though it's something I allow because not every reader has an account with Blogger, and most such commenters have the good grace to sign their contributions to the discussion in lieu - beginning with an anonymous commenter, then, the backlash: "all told," anon asserted, "this is a spectacularly dumb conversation."

I disagree. Strenuously. As did many of the other commenters, among them Vector Reviews editor Martin Lewis, Mike Johnstone, Eric M. Edwards, Joe Abercrombie, Mark Charan Newton, solarbridge, Jeff Vandermeer - who, needless to say, I've clashed with in the past - and Robert Jackson Bennett. Some of whom have taken the conversation I'd attempted to have to their own blogs - away, and wisely so, I would say, from the wilful misinterpretation thereof that had overpowered it here on TSS. Not all of the above agreed with me, of course; some did, certainly, but before someone accuses me of taking things out of context, let me be clear: I'm not saying that they did. But they did engage with the question, rather than, as I joked in the original article, losing their lunch.

But let's put all that to one side.

Celine Kiernan, author of The Poison Throne, and Paul Charles Smith of Empty Your Heart of Its Mortal Dream - both of whom I have a great deal of respect for - as well as several others I'm surely forgetting, agreed with anon. Various commenters iterated much the same sentiment.

Amanda Rutter of Floor-to-Ceiling Books dismissed my question thus: "This blog post was ill-conceived, IMO."

Gav of NextRead stopped by to say "Sorry but this is really a load of bollocks."

Isn't constructive criticism a fine thing? And those comments, though it pains me to say so, were among the more considered non-responses to Inferior Fantasy.

Alex, for instance, asserted: "Sounds like you've had some time off, read something more mainstream and supposedly a bit more highbrow, and have come back thinking you're hot shit and Fantasy's a load of rubbish. LOL."

The Evil Hat simply called it as he (she? Sorry) saw it: "Fantasy is inherently inferior? Bull. Shit."

All of which came from... where? Search me. In the original post, in fact, I contradict the very (offensive) sentiment I've been accused of issuing: "Don't for a minute think I'm asserting that fantasy is an inherently inferior genre of fiction. That's borderline bigotry, and... utterly repugnant to me." Perhaps as the day wore on and my hackles were raised by understandably defensive readers (or commenters, I should say; I'm not entirely convinced all those who commented had actually read the article itself) whole sole goal seemed to be misconstrue my position and indeed my intent - the better to tell it like it is, one presumes - I responded in the heat of the moment, and talked myself, as is all too often my way, into ever-decreasing circles that I might reframe the debate before it became completely sidelined by the shitstorm which had resulted from the mere suggestion that, as fantasy fans, should we not demand more from our genre of choice rather than heralding good fiction as great fiction?

...and breathe.

Yet the perception - that I believed for a second that fantasy was inferior - proved pervasive. Weirdmage asked, "If you really think Speculative Fiction is an inferior genre, why start a blog about it?" while LEC took after Alex's tactic, wondering "Are you trying to become the Literary Scotsman, Niall?"

Let me stop for just a second to say: no. I have none of the delusions of grandeur, as if blogging about literary fiction - so called - would somehow grant me such grandeur, that so many commenters seem to assume. I blog as the speculative Scotsman for two reasons. One, because I'm Scottish, and two, because I adore speculative fiction (and by extension fantasy) in all its forms. In film, in literature, in video games, in comic books - wherever there's speculative fiction, you can be sure there's at least one Scotsman determined to adore it.

Anyway.

I fully accept that I could have taken more time to raise the issue in question, and more care in doing so. As Ran asserted, "You've put your thumb on the scale with the specific comparisons and the definitions you provided, Niall," and yes, I surely did; guilty as charged. Perhaps Brandon Sanderson's almost universally acclaimed new fantasy isn't the equivalent of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. China Mieville or Guy Gavriel Kay would have been better contenders, authors I'd happily pitch against the best of literary fiction with the expectation they stand up to any such comparison, or at the least put up a hell of a fight. But I had a point to make - a question to ask, I should say - and a simple way to make it. I could take more time and more care composing everything that goes up here on TSS - except that I only have so much time to spend. To paraphrase Joe Abercrombie, I spiked a few definitions to fit my argument.

Isn't that the way of things, though? Isn't that every academic argument in a nutshell right there? Selecting the evidence that reinforces your assertion all the while dismissing the evidence which does not?

But I won't make too much of a fuss about that point, Ran's point. I could have substituted Brandon Sanderson for Ian McDonald and crafted my argument more carefully to compensate. My point, I hasten to add, would (in my view) still stand. Ian McDonald is awesome, but how many Ian McDonalds are there in this field? Five? Ten? Wouldn't it be nice if there were more authors of that caliber, that ambition, to point to?

Some, I suspect, will take that paragraph as a tacit admission that I wrinkle my nose at the thought of... let's say new Mark Charan Newton. To which accusation I would ask, how did you enjoy Mark Charan Newton week? For myself, I had a hell of a time. I don't need for every fantasy novel I read to be academically and intellectually remarkable. I don't demand that all of fantasy must suddenly devote its attention entire to impressing notoriously hard-to-please critics. That's not what I want from the genre by any stretch. I understand that what matters most of all, in terms of the experience of reading, is that, as @NextRead put it, we have a good time. I had a good time with The Way of Kings (more on which later, and elsewhere, in fact). But is having a good time truly all that matters? In a vacuum, that kind of argument might fly. As one genre among many, however, and as a staunch supporter of that genre with high hopes that it be less often on the receiving end of snooty, derisory and dismissive attitudes, the likes of which we're constantly complaining about across the blogosphere, I want twenty Ian McDonalds where I've suggested there might be ten, as it stands. I want a hundred Ian McDonalds, damn it. And how is that such a horrendous thing to hope for?

I made this very argument on Twitter the other evening, in fact, in (woefully restrictive) increments of 140 characters. Salvaged and re-appropriated from amidst a flurry of often spiteful, condescending responses, then:

"So let's have another go at this. I love fantasy; let's begin with that. I love speculative fiction as a whole, but in particular, my bag is fantasy. Thus, I want others to love fantasy. But the market for the genre is not what it could be, because, I think, it gets a bad rap. People - mainstream critics, literary fiction aficionados, bookstore buyers and so on - seem to think fantasy is a bit childish, a bit "below" them. They view the genre in the same light as they do comic books, video games... the same way people (now proven wrongheaded) used to view cinema, television and crime fiction. Which isn't to say those forms of storytelling are inferior either - they're not. Within reason, no one form of anything is. But snobbery.

"Snobbery prevails. Critics decry fantasy as juvenile. They're wrong - of course. Categorically, they can't say an entire genre is juvenile based on one or two or even ten instances of it. Those instances may indeed be juvenile, but they are not in and of themselves representative of the genre. But one wonders. What are these critics reading that's made it so easy for them to dismiss fantasy according to their prejudices? They're reading fantasy that isn't representative of the best the genre has to offer, clearly. Sit even the snootiest critic down with The Dervish House or The City and The City and their views would surely be untenable.

"But reviewers - 'gatekeepers,' as Mark has it - don't, as a rule, pick and choose what they devote their energies to. They're given a couple of books to review, books that someone, somewhere has decided are sure to be a big deal; books which certain somebodies have intuited are likely to be what these critics' respective audiences want to hear about. These sorts of decisions are made based on buzz, hype, the strength (or perceived strength) of such and such an author's back-catalogue.

"And so, my point. I feel like fantasy fans (myself included) are so enthusiastic about the form that we will champion, and so help to create that buzz, that hype, just about anything we enjoy. For instance, The Black Prism, or The Way of Kings. Both of which are very fine reads, in their way (and here we're getting subjective - there's no getting around that that I can see), but not, I would argue, the genre figureheads they're made out to be. And so snooty critics sit down with The Black Prism, say, thinking, 'this is the best fantasy has to offer?' And no, it isn't. But we portray it as if it were. And they read it under the presumption that it is. Snotty mainstream critics everywhere have their preconceptions reinforced, fantasy at large suffers - insofar as it doesn't benefit - and who do we have to blame but ourselves? If we're to hope fantasy will one day be respected in the way we respect it, the way we love it, we need to be more careful, more reserved, with our praise. We need to set the bar for what is truly great in fantasy that much higher."

Which reiteration of the argument I'd hoped to pose earlier in the day met with some interesting debate - but I'm digressing already. Had I thought to substitute Brandon Sanderson for Ian McDonald, I wonder, would the initial majority of responses have been any less outraged? Did I, as @Murf61 suggested on Twitter that night, write a post without thinking about the consequences? No. I don't believe I did. The knee-jerk defensiveness it met with, however, the siege mentality Martin has talked about on Everything is Nice, was not among the consequences I'd considered in the writing of Inferior Fantasy. Cara is bang on the money insofar as saying I hit a raw nerve with the offending article, but was it thus, as she further asserted, "the wrong subject for discussion"? Are we simply to hold our tongues when it comes to debating difficult subjects?

I dearly hope not. From the very depths of my soul, I hope that isn't the case.

In any event, I find my own appetite for such debate completely and utterly deflated after all the fuss that followed. After the thousands of words I've written on the subject, or rather around the subject, defending and reframing the particulars of my argument rather than addressing the very things I'd imagined it might lead to - which as of now, it has (thank the dead) - I'm spent.

Which isn't to say the issue is dead in the water, as so many would no doubt like it to be. Several authors and erstwhile bloggers have picked up the torch to offer their own thoughts on the matter, many of whom have made the point I'd aimed to make more elegantly than I could have hoped to. So. I refer you to the following:

On the Orbit blog, Robert Jackson Bennett, author of Mr Shivers and The Company Man, forthcoming from that esteemed publisher, gives us a piece he thinks might land him "neck-deep in shit." Probably, Robert... probably! In any case, it's called On Content, Execution and the Future of Genre. It's here, and it's highly recommended reading.

Robert has also been blogging about the merits of eating babies, and not entirely coincidentally, I suspect. I haven't meant to eat any babies, honest I haven't!

Over on Everything is Nice, meanwhile, Vector Reviews editor Martin Lewis gives us Inferiority Complex, which begins with a rebuttal I'm sure many of you will disagree with - "Yesterday Niall Alexander put forward a reasonable point of view... needless to say, everybody lost their lunch" - but goes on to make an alluring argument of the comparative mess I gave you in the first instance. That's here.

On Speculative Horizons, which I'm such a fan of I'll link to given the slightest inclination, thank you very much, James puts his $0.02 into the hat as part of his Friday Links post. Not to worry, James: I'll still be here when the dust settles! Whether anyone else will be, well, that remains to be seen...

And please, if you haven't already, do take the time to read through (the more cogent) comments, in which the likes of Jeff Vandermeer, Joe Abercrombie, Mark Charan Newton, Sam Sykes and Celine Kiernan have made their diverse opinions plain. Just look at all the pretty authors! :)

I'd also urge you to check out the comments from E. M. Edwards and Mike Johnstone in particular, each of whom appears to agree with me - to differing extents - but irregardless engage with the issue in exactly the way I'd hoped more readers would. In fact, let me conclude this already ridiculously-overlong rebuttal with a quote from that latter's thoughts on the matter:

"I think Niall is in fact asking a very relevant and important question that has implications for a wide range of issues related to speculative fiction. Moreover, I think he's coming at the issue from an honest and searching perspective, one that ultimately bears directly on the possible function(s) and significance of reviewing -- or, criticism.

"Thus, this discussion is not in any way "spectacularly dumb" or "bollocks" or "Bull. Shit."

"The question of quality in speculative fiction compared to literary fiction is definitely a fair one. Above, Sam Sykes writes, "Art exists to comment on humanity," and he's right in a broad sense. However, this statement also suggests that, in effect, all Art can be judged based on this broad criterion.

"Regardless of genre (or marketing category), works of speculative and literary fiction are equally Art, broadly considered. Even more specifically, the predominant form in both is the novel, and so we have a further broad, common criterion of judgment for assessing the quality of each (i.e., a novel is a novel, whether it's sword-and-sorcery fantasy or [a literary chronicle of middle-aged men having affairs]).

"In this light, Niall's discussion has a great deal of merit.

"It has merit because there are objective, concrete measures of "quality" for literary art and then for prose narratives in the form of novels. As Niall mentions, these measures are in part "technical," or matters of craft: grammar, paragraphing; dialogue; plotting; description, exposition; point of view; consistency of characterisation and in the setting; genre conventions/tropes, and so forth. These measures are also in part "artistic" (let's say): style, voice; metaphor, allegory, simile; rhythm and sound patterns; layered meanings, and so forth. Together, these technical and artistic measures make up a novel's "comment on humanity," whether that novel involves sorcerers and dragons, spaceships with FTL capability, or real places and times such as New York City or the antebellum era in the southern US.

"Based on these objective, concrete measures, much speculative fiction, unfortunately, does fall short on "quality" in comparison to much literary fiction. As written art, speculative fiction generally is simply not very good.

"Yet when it is very good, it is the equal of the best literary fiction out there, past and present."

Fucking spot on, Mike. Well said.

Thank you and good day.

20 comments:

  1. Excuse me Niall, I agreed with this part of anon's reply

    'This is only true if you decide that "fantasy" excludes: Kelly Link, John Crowley, Susanna Clarke, Karen Russell, George Saunders, Salman Rushdie, Neil Gaiman, Michael Cisco, Caitlin Kiernan, Jeffrey Ford, Michael Chabon, Gene Wolfe, Connie Willis, Jay Lake and a host of others.

    So, if you define "fantasy" as "guys with swords on quests," then maybe. But that's a bit like defining "literary fiction" as "guys who have affairs." And, if that's the case, then I'd rather read more of the "guys with swords on quest" authors than the "guys who have affairs" authors.'

    Which is why I asked you not to take the personal stuff personally and thereby throw the discussion stuff out the window. Because be doing so you were derailing your own points.

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  2. Fair point, Celine - didn't mean to misrepresent you.

    It's a tough sell, though, not taking personal stuff personally, as you say. I've honestly tried not to. Then again, this is the internet, where accountability has been on holiday since 1999.

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  3. the internet, where accountability has been on holiday since 1999

    LOL! It sure has. I recently read a definition of it as 'a megaphone for every lunatic and an audience for them to shout at'

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  4. Sounds pretty much spot on. God, where did it all go wrong? Probably... right around fifteen years ago, when a friend and I started a fansite for The X-Files. :P

    Of course, the sad fact of things is that for every lunatic whose mania wins over an audience, there are thoughtful people saying thoughtful things (not to imply I'm one such person) whose thoughts are lost in the deafening roar of the megaphone in everyone's ear.

    Which is kind of why I'm not so keen on anonymous commenters. At least when you've signed your name to a statement there's some suggestion of potential redress. What Anon #1 said in response to Inferior Fantasy, the thing you agreed with - as per your quote above - was of course a perfectly valid argument, and one I'd have happily tackled had it not ended on such an insulting and dismissive note. If it was such a spectacularly dumb conversation, why was whoever it was behind the guise of non-accountability bothering to have it in the first place?

    Anyway.

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  5. Quoting the first six words of my first comment leaves out the three chunky paragraphs of reasoned content that followed, not to mention my next comment where I admitted I was talking about the genre in general, not really your post. (And it is a he)

    Anyway:

    "And so, my point. I feel like fantasy fans (myself included) are so enthusiastic about the form that we will champion, and so help to create that buzz, that hype, just about anything we enjoy. For instance, The Black Prism, or The Way of Kings. Both of which are very fine reads, in their way (and here we're getting subjective - there's no getting around that that I can see), but not, I would argue, the genre figureheads they're made out to be."

    I think that there's a good chance that this is, in part, exactly why fantasy is so looked down upon, but I don't think it's something that can ever change. As you said, those are the 'big' things, and big and best rarely coincide (especially if you are talking about best in an intelligence, rather than entertainment, sense). Something like The City and The City was (justly) appreciated, but by virtue of being what it was, it could never have been the next big thing. That's unfortunate, but even if 20% of the genre were Mieville's equivalent (and I'll admit I'm drooling a tad at the thought), I still doubt that any of them would be the ones making the bestseller lists or the headlines. Hell, the same is true for nongenre. I spent the last month or so travelling. Whenever I went into an airport bookstore (you know, the kind with one shelf of bestsellers and a magazine rack), I didn't see a single work of Literature on it. Why expect genre fans en masse to be any more discerning?

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  6. Damn it, got sidetracked and never finished my first sentence. Meant it to say "Quoting the first six words of my first comment...is rather misleading."

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  7. You know, Niall... I thought you made a legitimate point. Unfortunately, by the time I found the discussion (more writing than reading blogs lately, go me), it was deep in the hole, and I couldn't keep up.

    Statistically, though, it's reasonable, as you noted, and I think that if you crunched the numbers for any given year, that would prove itself out.

    I'm talking literary quality, the flow of words, the language, as well as the solidity of the plot.

    GGK's "Under Heaven" was lush and brilliant, and I would put it up against anything that came out in lit fic this year.

    As an aspiring novelist (yes, me and 10 mil others), I *do* think about the quality of my work on a structural scale, on how my English teacher would grade it - as well as the fantastic elements that make it unique.

    I do think it's okay to want both, and for both to be of high quality. And it's not a big deal if it's not, mind you. Plenty of questionable quality romance novels and chick lit sells, and you wouldn't put those up against Neil Gaiman or GRRM either.

    You're ahead of the curve. Seriously. See what happens next year, when HBO makes sword and sorcery a household concept, like they did with the Sopranos and the NJ mafia.

    There will be a lot of converts to the genre, and Martin's literary style is not remotely lacking. And those converts, due to Martin's pace, are going to seek other authors, and they could arguably want a higher calibre speculative fiction.

    I don't see a problem, I see an inspiration for those of us still yet undiscovered - and a market that will appreciate a higher quality effort.

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  8. Hullo Hat. Again, misleading is the last thing I'd meant to be, but this beast of a rebuttal was long enough as was: reproducing every relevant comment in full would have killed it stone dead. With the shorter comments, I did just that; you made a reasoned argument, as you have here, which added no small amount to the discussion, engaged with the very question so few of the initial repondents did, and I'm grateful to you for that.

    In fact, I don't think you're an evil hat at all.

    As to the meat of your comment on this article. You wrote:

    "I think that there's a good chance that this is, in part, exactly why fantasy is so looked down upon, but I don't think it's something that can ever change. As you said, those are the 'big' things, and big and best rarely coincide..."

    See, I like to think that that can change; that we can approach a level of maturity as an audience, as a pool of enthusiastic fans of a particular genre, where we can better represent - to the mainstream, as well as to one another - the difference between a good bit of fun (The Black Prism) and a truly great and worthy work of speculative fiction (The City and The City) which would speak to the larger market: to critics, literary fiction readers, bookstore buyers, the lot. I think it's a crime, for instance, that crime fiction blogs and their readers took so little notice of The City and The City, which was a crime novel with speculative elements rather than the other way around, yet because we've so thoroughly possessed China Mieville, given his earlier efforts - championed him as a genre figurehead, as I said - those without an interest in our particular flavour of fiction simply overlooked it.

    In the last post, someone commented to the effect that books like The Black Prism are essentially speculative fiction's thrillers. Wholeheartedly, I agree, which I why I gladly admitted my mistake in comparing Brandon Sanderson to David Mitchell. Thrillers have their place, as does The Black Prism, The Way of Kings, and so on, but you don't often see thrillers represented as prime examples of literary fiction at its finest. The Da Vinci Code, say; no-one was pushing that as the latest Great American Novel. It was fluff, a bit of fun, and I'm all for fun, fluffy or otherwise. That differential simply isn't clear enough in terms of speculative fiction, though - in my opinion.

    Perhaps we need to draw a line in the sand. Where we have here a genre with an array of facets so dissimilar to one another that there's no small amount of dissonance (in that The City and The City can be considered speculative fiction in the same breath as The Black Prism), I believe we could better represent that the books in question are not somehow the same thing.

    One last thing: big and best, as you say, Hat, coincide only rarely. But from time to time, the stars align - my experience with The Hunger Games over the past few weeks has made a resouding impression on me in that regard.

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  9. Also this, from Bill's comment:

    "You're ahead of the curve. Seriously. See what happens next year, when HBO makes sword and sorcery a household concept, like they did with the Sopranos and the NJ mafia."

    We can only hope! I couldn't be more excited to see A Game of Thones in glorious HD if I tried.

    But will it stand as an argument for the merits of speculative fiction? I wonder. Did Battlestar Galactic win sci-fi many fans? Or did those people who watched it, those viewers who came to Battlestar thinking ill of the genre in general, simply dismiss it as an oddity? Has Caprica, a great speculative show by all accounts, entice any new eyes to our cause?

    Perhaps Caprica is a poor example - it's a crying shame, but no bugger's even watching it. Even that, though... what does that say? Maybe this is a losing battle we're fighting from beginning to end.

    Damn, but I hope it isn't...

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  10. Niall, please check your email from me!

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  11. I'd comment more at length about the particulars, perhaps be a bit more sympathetic with your aims and intentions, if I hadn't already seen several iterations of this debate and if I hadn't already begun to shift over to that viewpoint that questions the validity of binary divisions of works, especially when said literary divisions are not very well-grounded in national cultures and their dynamics.

    Must be a sign of burnout, I suppose.

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  12. Niall, BSG isn't the same. Here's why. From what I understand, the books were adaptations of the story created for television. And Caprica is just a sequel to BSG.

    Game of Thrones is the opposite. And while I'm a huge fan of Tolkien and all he did, I do believe that Martin is far more accessible to the modern reader.

    The curve suggests that media success from a popular novel creates more interest in the novel itself, and then the genre as an offshoot. I hate to mention Twilight, but what about the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?

    And those were movies. Not series. Not series done by HBO, who has trumped every other network in this sort of arena.

    There's going to be a lot of interest in the genre, alot of people going (as they do now), "What can I read until A Dance with Dragons comes out?" - and I think it's perfectly okay to suggest that fantasy literature better be prepared to be up to snuff.

    As a writer, I believe next year will present a raised bar for the genre, and not only do I find that inspiring - in a way, I'm rather thankful.

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  13. As I've said on Twitter and as you've quoted and as you'll see in my latest blog post I'm all about finding things that I enjoy.

    What comes across is that out of the two you seem to want to read 'creamier' fiction which is great. Sing and shout about what you find and share them. But all you've managed so far is make some strange sweeping derogatory arguments that really don't stand up when compared to reality.

    It might have made more sense to narrow your targets and use better examples but I'm with Larry I don't think you can set the two things off against each other.

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  14. "But all you've managed so far is make some strange sweeping derogatory arguments that really don't stand up when compared to reality."

    You're entitled to your perspective, Gav, of course. Understand, though, that people disagree with you on this - as many do as don't, all told.

    On the other hand:

    "It might have made more sense to narrow your targets and use better examples"

    Agreed. As I've said.

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  15. Bill ---

    "And those were movies. Not series. Not series done by HBO, who has trumped every other network in this sort of arena."

    I'm with you on this, Bill, heart and soul. I don't doubt HBO will do A Game of Thrones justice - the question is whether this adaptation will go the way of The Sopranos (which addressed an already popular genre in the mafia narrative) or John From Cincinnati (which despite coming with the highest creative prestige, sadly didn't do the same for surfer stories).

    But I'm just playing devil's advocate here. If A Game of Thrones can ignite some mainstream passion in fantasy, similar to how - now I think of a better example - The Lord of the Rings films did, I'll be a jolly Scotsman indeed.

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  16. PART ONE

    First of all, thanks, Niall, for quoting from my comment in the discussion of your Inferior Fantasy post. I truly appreciate it. For the record, I do agree with you -- I was simply trying to add further weight to the argument, so to speak.

    An important issue that I see in your posts, especially here, bears highlighting I think. In your Twitter quotation, you write, "If we're to hope fantasy will one day be respected in the way we respect it, ... we need to be more careful, more reserved, with our praise. We need to set the bar for what is truly great in fantasy that much higher."

    You're quite right. Moreover, this point leads to a potentially uncomfortable, maybe inflammatory, question:

    If fans of speculative fiction, and let's say fantasy in particular (because that's your bag, as you say), bear some responsibility in misrepresenting what constitutes the "best" of the genre to the non-genre world out there, what then of reviewers and critic?

    True, many reviewers and critics of speculative fiction are also, if not first and foremost, fans (especially in the blogosphere). So, by "reviewers and critics," I want to mean those who present themselves as such, professionally or non-professionally.

    Jeff VanderMeer, in one of his comments to your Inferior Fantasy post, lamented the fact that, in his view, much speculative fiction is "dead" at the "paragraph or sentence level," which for him is the "micro-level" part of fiction that really makes it "come alive."

    If, as you suggest, speculative fiction readers, fans, and let's say reviewers/critics should be more "careful" and "reserved with their judgement, I would argue that such care and consideration needs to involve greater attention to, appreciation of, and insight about the "paragraph or sentence level" of the works of speculative fiction. To set the bar higher for the genre, more must be asked of it at this level, and there needs to be more willingness to identify when the genre falls short at this level.

    Cont'd ...

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  17. PART TWO

    Yet there's also a "macro-level" that reviewers/critics could attend to in an effort to demonstrate and assert the importance and quality of the best speculative fiction novels. This macro-level relates to what Sam Sykes wrote in a comment for the Inferior Fantasy post: "Art," he observed, "exists to comment on humanity. If it says nothing new, then it is a poor book."

    What, for instance, does fantasy have to say about the human condition? What does it tell us about ourselves, about the state of our world today (or yesterday)? What is the relevance of a specific novel to our understanding of humanity?

    Of course, not every single work of speculative fiction, or every novel for that matter, must offer a comment upon humanity. As mentioned in the discussion for the Inferior Fantasy post, some fiction aims primarily to be "entertainment," and by doing so definitely has its own worth. As well, works that seek to be not much more than entertainment can be given a deeper significance by reviewers/critics, and so be assigned a different (maybe unintended?) kind of worth.

    Still, I would offer that Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings has such a large number of fans and a fairly well established cultural significance because it tells a story that makes a memorable, complex, substantial, resonant "comment on humanity." It is a comment that continues to unfold with new readers and readings of the book(s).

    I would also offer that Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series has achieved such acclaim because it, too, is constructing a memorable, complex, substantial, resonant "comment on humanity." This comment, I think, is at least in part very much about power -- political, personal, local, national, global, racial, economic, religious, supernatural, gender, and so forth. When the series is finished, I hope we will see readings and discussions of the novels that take into consideration the historical period(s) in which they were written, from the late 1990s onward.

    Conversely, to sum up (I swear!), I propose that Jordan's Wheel of Time series would make for an excellent -- and certainly contentious -- case study for all of these issues.

    On one hand, its fans are, well, fanatic about it, vociferously defending it against any criticism. They are certainly a key reason for its long-running commercial success, and such success could imply to non-genre readers, perhaps, that the series represents one of the touchstones of modern fantasy.

    On the other hand, one could observe that this fanaticism and success seem to be out of proportion to the actual quality of the books at the "paragraph and sentence level." (Adam Roberts has recently done a brilliant job cataloguing the bad writing in the WoT books.) If the books are (by some estimates) so poorly written, how did they become bestsellers, and what role did fans/readers and reviewers/critics play in their financial and supposedly artistic success? What have been the consequences of WoT's success for fantasy, in terms of what else is published, bought, read, lauded, and so forth?

    Right, 'nuff said out of me. :-)

    http://travel-by-thought.blogspot.com

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  18. [Hmm. Happened again .... Read this part first, then the one above!]

    PART ONE

    First of all, thanks, Niall, for quoting from my comment in the discussion of your Inferior Fantasy post. I truly appreciate it. For the record, I do agree with you -- I was simply trying to add further weight to the argument, so to speak.

    An important issue that I see in your posts, especially here, bears highlighting I think. In your Twitter quotation, you write, "If we're to hope fantasy will one day be respected in the way we respect it, ... we need to be more careful, more reserved, with our praise. We need to set the bar for what is truly great in fantasy that much higher."

    You're quite right. Moreover, this point leads to a potentially uncomfortable, maybe inflammatory, question:

    If fans of speculative fiction, and let's say fantasy in particular (because that's your bag, as you say), bear some responsibility in misrepresenting what constitutes the "best" of the genre to the non-genre world out there, what then of reviewers and critic?

    True, many reviewers and critics of speculative fiction are also, if not first and foremost, fans (especially in the blogosphere). So, by "reviewers and critics," I want to mean those who present themselves as such, professionally or non-professionally.

    Jeff VanderMeer, in one of his comments to your Inferior Fantasy post, lamented the fact that, in his view, much speculative fiction is "dead" at the "paragraph or sentence level," which for him is the "micro-level" part of fiction that really makes it "come alive."

    If, as you suggest, speculative fiction readers, fans, and let's say reviewers/critics should be more "careful" and "reserved with their judgement, I would argue that such care and consideration needs to involve greater attention to, appreciation of, and insight about the "paragraph or sentence level" of the works of speculative fiction. To set the bar higher for the genre, more must be asked of it at this level, and there needs to be more willingness to identify when the genre falls short at this level.

    Cont'd ... (see above!)

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  19. Well done, Niall. I do think you were brave to raise a point that you knew wouldn't be popular - and I think the tone of some of the responses suggests that it was a conversation worth having. Painful, perhaps, but healthy. Certainly, I've found it useful ... I hadn't really thought through my silly little statistical point, or really, my reactions to the the books I couldn't finish. I feel that this debate though, and the intelligent points in the comments and on other blogs, have helped shape the wider argument into something coherent and useful.

    Your point about reviews and the expectations they might raise in other readers is valid. I'm already a fan of SFF, but - I feel bad for name-checking the book in this context - I've had my 'Black Prism moment' - I've gone out and paid a lot of money for hardbacks of new releases that have been raved and raved about - getting 5 star reviews by respected genre bloggers on Amazon - and then I've hardly been able to read them because the writing has been mediocre at best, or bad at worst.

    The post on Everything is Nice, and Robert Bennett's piece on the Orbit blog are spot on. It isn't really about fantasy vs non-fantasy - it's more about well executed books vs poorly executed books, and about thinking about what the book is actually tying to do, and judging it against that. I think that's the only way to get fair, helpful and accurate reviews?

    Mike Johnston says: "On the other hand, one could observe that this fanaticism and success seem to be out of proportion to the actual quality of the books at the "paragraph and sentence level.""

    This is an interesting point. People can read/watch 'trash' (I'm using that in a fond sense), and know it's trash, and yet still adore it. (I read all of the Twilight saga ... gobbled it up.) I think there is a very valid place in the world for this sort of fiction. It obviously reaches something deep inside us. It triggers one heck of an emotional response (hence the fanaticism - and defensiveness). The escapism and entertainment of commercial fiction has worth, and shouldn't be sniffed at. Life can be pretty shitty, and it's nice to curl up with a fun, gentle book.

    I do think though, that reviewers/bloggers should be clear what sort of book they are talking about, and judge it on those merits. If a book is touted as the next big thing in SFF but the actual technical level of the writing isn't up to scratch, then this should be pointed out - not glossed over because the book was fun.

    Anyway, I'm just rehashing what other people have already said better :)

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  20. Poor Mike - every time he tries to comment Blogger eats the first part of his argument up!Here's the thing I got in my inbox.

    ***

    [Hmm. Happened again .... Read this part first, then the one above!]

    PART ONE

    First of all, thanks, Niall, for quoting from my comment in the discussion of your Inferior Fantasy post. I truly appreciate it. For the record, I do agree with you -- I was simply trying to add further weight to the argument, so to speak.

    An important issue that I see in your posts, especially here, bears highlighting I think. In your Twitter quotation, you write, "If we're to hope fantasy will one day be respected in the way we respect it, ... we need to be more careful, more reserved, with our praise. We need to set the bar for what is truly great in fantasy that much higher."

    You're quite right. Moreover, this point leads to a potentially uncomfortable, maybe inflammatory, question:

    If fans of speculative fiction, and let's say fantasy in particular (because that's your bag, as you say), bear some responsibility in misrepresenting what constitutes the "best" of the genre to the non-genre world out there, what then of reviewers and critic?

    True, many reviewers and critics of speculative fiction are also, if not first and foremost, fans (especially in the blogosphere). So, by "reviewers and critics," I want to mean those who present themselves as such, professionally or non-professionally.

    Jeff VanderMeer, in one of his comments to your Inferior Fantasy post, lamented the fact that, in his view, much speculative fiction is "dead" at the "paragraph or sentence level," which for him is the "micro-level" part of fiction that really makes it "come alive."

    If, as you suggest, speculative fiction readers, fans, and let's say reviewers/critics should be more "careful" and "reserved with their judgement, I would argue that such care and consideration needs to involve greater attention to, appreciation of, and insight about the "paragraph or sentence level" of the works of speculative fiction. To set the bar higher for the genre, more must be asked of it at this level, and there needs to be more willingness to identify when the genre falls short at this level.

    Cont'd ... (see above!)

    ReplyDelete