The erasure of high fantasy and space/planetary adventure

In one of the more recent rounds of the perenniel "women don't write..." discussion came this post by Foz Meadows discussing a Waterstones (British book chain) guide to fantasy and SF that listed 9 women in 113 authors.  This was related to a discussion of Juliet McKenna's about the invisibility of women in epic fantasy, and how very unlikely it was that any women would be included on display tables of "like George RR Martin".

Of course it's complete nonsense to say that women don't write epic fantasy, or fantasy like George RR Martin, and that was easily and immediately rebutted by various lists popping up.  This is pretty much business as usual in this discussion.

What interested me was the sub-genres listed on the pamphlet:

• Space Opera
• Hard Science Fiction
• Time travel, steampunk and alternate history
• Military science fiction
• Near future and future noir
• Classic science fiction
• Heroic, epic and high fantasy fiction
• Urban fantasy
• Classic fantasy
• Comedy science fiction & fantasy

Now although I've read and enjoyed books in every one of these sub-genres, the vast majority of books I read fall into two sub-genres: space/planetary adventure, and high fantasy.

So, high fantasy is actually listed in the "Heroic, epic and high fantasy fiction" group, but a quick scan of the books and authors reveals a great mass of epic fantasy and a couple of outliers.  The Lies of Locke Lamora is what I think of as 'caper fantasy', in the vein of Fritz Leiber, but also appears to cross into the epic fantasy genre.  Scar Night appears to be a secondary world angels novel, and is also called 'epic fantasy' on the back cover blurb of book two of the series.

So every single book listed appears to be fat, multi-volume epic fantasy.  Some of it is gritty epic fantasy and some of it is heroic epic fantasy, and technically all of it is high fantasy since 'high fantasy' just means 'secondary world fantasy'.  Yet high fantasy is clearly listed here as a third point along with "Heroic, epic" because 'high fantasy' also stands for 'secondary world fantasy that is not epic and not comedic'.

And by that definition there are no high fantasy books on this list.  Hell, there are no standalone books on this list.  There is no room made for Robin McKinley.  No space for Patricia McKillip.  Because 'secondary world fantasy that is not epic or comedic' is apparently not a genre needing any representatives, despite high fantasy most often being that rare place where the 'numinous' resides.

Space/planetary adventure doesn't even rate a mention.  Space/planetary adventure is not space opera.  Troy Horan's stiffbacked search for a job, and attempts to solve the problem of a trade in intelligent animals, does not even come close to space opera's usual themes.  Do Melissa Scott's SF books fall into the "space opera" category?  I don't think so.

The closest I could find to my favourite sub-genres came under "Classic fantasy" and "Classic science fiction", and obviously a new book is going to find it difficult to fit itself into "books that helped form and influence modern fantasy fiction".

I read a fair whack of epic fantasy back in the day.  I only very very rarely pick it up now.  Space opera is fun, but I love space/planetary adventure more.  And a lot of my favourite female authors may as well not exist if their sub-genres are not considered worth reading.  [Much as this booklet not only fails to list female urban fantasy authors, but doesn't even mention paranormal romance.]

Is it a coincidence that the sub-genres not listed have a strong showing of women?  Not to mention that books by women are often pushed out of the epic genre by narrowing the definition of epic to equal 'fat, gritty fantasy'?  Or is this erasure of the sub-genres something that comes along with the dominance of series books, which epic fantasy and space opera are far more inclined to indulge in?

The lack of space/planetary adventure cuts out almost all my favourite science fiction novels.    The erasure of high fantasy means no The Last Unicorn on this list.  No The Blue Sword.  No Forgotten Beasts of Eld.  Books I would take over every single fat fantasy series out there.

For me, these sub-genres are the heart of SFF, not something to be left off the list.

The Pyramids of London - Cover reveal and genre questions

I've been looking forward to this cover for quite a while!  Another gorgeous Julie Dillon piece that I'm totally going to have to have as a print on my wall.

In a world where lightning sustained the Roman Empire, and Egypt's vampiric god-kings spread their influence through medicine and good weather, tiny Prytennia's fortunes are rising with the ships that have made her undisputed ruler of the air.

But the peace of recent decades is under threat.  Rome's automaton-driven wealth is waning along with the supply of their power crystals, while Sweden uses fear of Rome to add to her Protectorates.  And Prytennia is under attack from the wind itself.  Relentless daily attacks destroy crops, buildings, and lives, and neither the weather vampires nor Prytennia's Trifold Goddess have been able to find a way to stop them.

With events so grand scouring the horizon, the deaths of Eiliff and Aedric Tenning raise little interest.  The official verdict is accident: two careless automaton crafters, killed by their own construct.

Nothing could convince the Tenning children, or Aedric's sister Arianne, that the deaths were anything but murder.  They will stop at nothing to uncover what really happened.

Not even if, to follow the first clue, Aunt Arianne must sell herself to a vampire.

Here's the full image.  It's my first wrap-around cover (which I wanted because I wanted that sweep of city with the pyramids rising above it).

The genre of this one is going to be super tricky and I imagine a lot of people will pick it up thinking it's one thing and find it's another.  A lot of my books feature both adult and child POV characters, and this is no exception, swapping between Eluned (at the front in the picture) who is fifteen, and Arianne, who is in her thirties.  I don't consider it YA because it doesn't involve moving from childhood to adulthood in any particular way.

It's also not Steampunk, in that it's not a Victorian setting, and does not use Victorian clothing or social mores, but the tech level is similar.  It's both fantasy and science fiction, since the main plot of the series revolves around awakened gods and scientific change.  It is certainly alt-world, in that it started with our world and then had increasing points of divergence - and it's involving such an enormous amount of research, even if all I can research is the starting points before the divergence - so I'm going to think of it as alt world kitchen sink.

The release date will maybe be at the end of this year (all that research is slowing me down, although I'm collecting some lovely books like one which is maps of London through history).  If not this year, then early next year.  It's very hard to tell since I'll be overseas from August - November and expect that will impact my output rather significantly!

Travelling Fantasy Roundtable : Part 15 : Shades of Fantasy

Part 15 of the Travelling Fantasy Round Table, our roaming discussion on aspects of fantasy literature, is up at Deborah J Ross' blog. This month we're discussing the whole range of fantasy - from grim, to gritty. ;)

Travelling Fantasy Roundtable : Part 14 : The Difference Between Fantasy and Science Fiction

Part 14 of the Travelling Fantasy Round Table, our roaming discussion on aspects of fantasy literature, is up at Valjeanne Jeffer's blog. This month we're talking about the difference between fantasy and science fiction.

Portal-keeping

I don't usually indulge in the rah-rah-down with gatekeepers blah-de-blah which so many people associate with self-publishing.  Trade publishing has brought me many good books and I hope that it continues to do so.

But.

Reading this discussion about portal fantasy on Rachel Manija Brown's livejournal has made me at least briefly pick up the pom-poms and start cheering.  Ms Brown starts the post out with:

Yesterday there was a fascinating discussion of portal fantasy, in which a character from our world is transported to another world. The classic example of this is Narnia. I can’t link to the post, because it was filtered (the “portal fantasy” discussion was in the comments) but I offered to make a public post on the subject. I invite the participants to copy their comments to it.

There was a Sirens panel in which five agents, who were discussing their slush piles, mentioned that they were getting quite a few portal fantasy submissions. Two of them said those made up about a quarter of their total YA fantasy submissions.

I said, "This intrigues me, because I haven't seen a single one in the last ten years. Is it that editors aren't buying them? Did you pick any up?"

The agents replied that none of them had even requested a full manuscript for a single portal fantasy.

They explained that portal fantasies tend to have no stakes because they're not connected enough to our world. While in theory, a portal fantasy could have the fate of both our world and the other world at stake, in practice, the story is usually just about the fantasy world. The fate of the real world is not affected by the events of the story, and there is no reason for readers to care what happens to a fantasy world.

One agent remarked that if the protagonist didn't fall through the portal, there would be no story.

And, of course, I was thinking Stray.  I never submitted Stray to any publishers or agents, not because it was portal fantasy, but because it was in diary format, deliberately rambly, and written originally in blog form.

I had no idea that the biggest bar against it was that it was portal fantasy.

An entire sub-genre.  A sub-genre which is the basis for some of the most popular and enduring stories we have (from Narnia to Oz).  And both levels of 'gatekeepers' were automatically not interested, had declared the sub-genre dead - and not told anyone.

I've had plenty of opportunity to fully appreciate the frustrations of the submission-go-round, and I'm so glad that this particular bullet is one I dodged.

The Touchstone Trilogy remains my most popular story.  People read it end to end, and start over.  I had one reader tell me it got her into reading science fiction.  She went on from me to McCaffrey!

So, yeah, rah rah self-publishing.  Here's to having multiple options, to that internet-wide hole in the fence beside that gate.

Sour Cream & Chives Fantasy vs Cheese & Onion Fantasy

The last six months or so I've repeatedly stumbled across an ongoing debate which could be roughly summarised as "gritty fantasy vs heroic fantasy".  Gritty fantasy has been called "nihilistic", while heroic fantasy (more by implication than direct statement) has been cast in the light of shallow wish fulfilment, an old-fashioned kind of fantasy which the genre has 'matured' away from.

Gritty fantasy can be roughly defined as minimal-magic books dealing with the harsher aspects of conflict, where the protagonists are not necessarily likeable, admirable, or 'good'.

Heroic fantasy at its most straightforward is The Hero(ine) vs The Evil.  Magic is strongly present in these novels, making clearer just who The Evil is, often with (as Diana Wynne Jones pointed out in The Tough Guide to Fantasyland) helpful Colour-Coding.

My reactions to these debates has generally been:

- Gritty fantasy is supposed to be something new?
- Gritty fantasy still reads like fantasy to me - we're not going to run out of new sub-genre seats on the fantasy bus.
- It doesn't help to suggest that non-gritty fantasy is somehow immature.
- There are a lot more than two sub-genres in fantasy.

For the most part I've regarded the whole debate with slight bemusement, the same as I would if I found page after blog-page devoted to how Sour Cream & Chives chips are the one true chip, while Cheese & Onion chips are mere pretenders to the deep-fried potato world - or how only kids eat Sour Cream & Chives, and educated folk prefer Cheese & Onion.

And of course I can't help but apply the debate to my own novels, which certainly don't fit the definition of gritty, but don't match that definition of heroic fantasy either (Salt & Vinegar fantasy!).  My books are very high in the magic quotient, and my heroines are generally likeable (I hope), but I'm not falling conveniently into this gritty v heroic argument.

One of my favourite reader reviews for Champion, from the inestimable Chich, says:

Aside from the main character—and you probably know this only because you are in her head—there are no good guys or bad guys. Instead, there are a group of powerful people, everyone with their own agenda trying to impose their will over the rest. But seriously, at one point or another, you have reason to doubt the motives behind anyone's actions. Maybe because this other series I was reading, where the bad guys were so very evil, I kept trying to find someone to blame—to hate. However, much as it happens to the characters in the book, most situations could be looked at from different perspectives and with enough reasons for their actions, instead of anger, the most you can feel for some characters is pity.

When I'm writing, I tend to write about people, not good guys and bad guys.  I don't write massively detailed back stories for every single person who trots across the page, but if they do something, I need to have some vague idea why they're doing it.  "Because they're evil" isn't a very useful motive.

I don't tend to regard the vast majority of people as awful monsters.  I tend to regard most people as a variable combination of kind and petty, operating under a straightforward system of enlightened self-interest.  They'll be helpful or indifferent toward you, unless their own interests are in some way impacted, and then they start making moral decisions.  But in increasingly extreme situations, self-interest and circumstances can lead people into becoming 'evil'.

Champion does have a kind of evil lurking behind everything (Champion's world is actually my fantasy version of a genetic engineering makes monsters which kill you Frankenstein story), but almost everyone is acting in their own self-interest, or the interest of the country they're loyal to.  Stained Glass Monsters is about the process of becoming evil (or not), and how the small choices you make while trying to do whatever you must, can dramatically change what other choices you have to make, and how you're regarded.  Medair, of course, gives us two sides and then hopelessly muddies them, and adds to that a second question of how 'good' Medair's side was - the Ibisian invasion is undoubtedly an evil, but it takes Medair a tremendously long time to recognise that the utopian Palladian Empire she constantly mourns is the result of the systematic invasion of an entire continent.

Gritty?  Heroic?  Neither?  Not real fantasy?  Bleh.  Silly argument.  Fantasy is an infinitely adaptable genre, and we all have our own flavour preference.