I think the key word in your previous comment is “feels”. The simple fact is that no fantasy set in a European medieval setting in which religion does not play any significant role in both events and the protagonist’s perspective can reasonably be considered “grounded in history”. There is no getting around that basic historical reality. The limits of the genre’s imagination are shown by the reluctance of fantasy authors to write outside the European setting if they are so determined to avoid dealing with historical Christianity since it is so easily done.

Tolkien was, as you said, quite well versed in myth, particularly the Old English and Norse epics, and those myths and sagas informed his writing to a great degree.

Abercrombie, on the other hand, feels more grounded in history because there is so much going on that loosely parallels history, especially the sacking of Constantinople and the encroachment of the Ottoman Turks into southeastern Europe.

Matt

1. Allegations of text speak novels being the next thing to destroy us all.

At the risk of sounding silly myself, I think this is a silly complaint! Textspeak invades every part of society. It is in television and online you can’t help expecting it. There are typos in the comments in this thread, which is what textspeak often originates from. It’s hardly damaging the ability of the people responding here to understand the meaning of those comments, though.

Further, there IS a book that address this already. I consider it fantasy– perhaps some wouldn’t– and it’s called Riddley Walker. Russell Hoban counts, I guess, as a science fiction author, but this is a book about people who haven’t written in a long time starting to write again. It starts off clunky and as the narrator gets the hang of writing words down, things get added (like punctuation). It’s a fascinating story that I liked quite a lot- and will probably be rereading after all this exciting debate, though I must surely finish Fall of Hyperion, first!- and deals with exactly the kind of perversion of language and culture that is totally natural.

Resisting the acknowledgement of modern technology and lifestyles heavily limits our ability to write modern fantasy. If you pride yourself on how un-internet-savvy you are, how can you accurately represent the awe and heartbreaking joy of seeing a real forest in a fantasy world for the first time? I say bring on the textspeak, because it will give us more reason to cherish the gorgeous prose. Pretending it doesn’t exist won’t make it go away, but sharing our sorrow over a lost cultural pinnacle– that might just convince some readers that they want to live their lives differently.

2. Magic in Lord of the Rings.

I REALLY want to agree with Light in the Black on this one. Not only is Lord of the Rings a story about the loss of something wonderful– an inexorable, unstoppable loss– it’s about how people who are not all that magical or special can still make it through the kinds of challenges left for them by the magical world.

Basically, I’d say that wanting good fiction is enough of a goal in and of itself. Every genre has its gems and ghouls!

Probably a whole lot of people did a pile on, without even reading the books first. It was this pile on that got me to pull the books out of the pile that the nice UPS and Fed Ex people are always bringing around from the publishers. I read the first one, and then immediately the others. I am not saying I liked these books. That’s not the point. I respected these books, which is the point, for their courage and daring. They are also just as well if not better written as about 90 percent of what gets published in genre, and that includes some of the people who piled on the firstest with the mostest. No one was going to forgive this woman for not doing the McCaffrery dragon bonding thing. If there be dragons and a protagonist, first law of fantasy fiction is they bond!

This isn’t the first or last time I’ve seen this happen.

Love, C.

A fine, fine response. From now on, I’m just going to quote you.

Greg,

Interesting point. A couple of comments.

One, I don’t think Leo is arguing that REH didn’t have a wide range as an author, and wasn’t capable of creating a variety of heroes. Rather, I think he’s arguing that Howard was gifted in creating classic heroes, and that Abercrombie is incapable of it.

Second, it’s pretty clear from the onset in the Bran Mak Morn stories that doom is inevitable, and that men of honor are left with little recourse. You understand pretty quickly what Bran Mak Morn is capable of, and what kind of guy he is. Brutal, yes, spiteful, perhaps. But you get what you sign up for.

What Leo seems really bitter about in Abercrombie’s books is that ultimately you DON’T get what you expect from the hero. As he’s said elsewhere, Leo enjoyed the first few books in the FIRST LAW trilogy but felt betrayed by the ending. It was a violation of what he expected.

> I don’t mean to say that Abercrombie is a ball of laughs all the time, but he
> does inject a fair amount of dark humor into the proceedings. He also comes at
> fantasy from a more historical perspective as far as the milieu is concerned.

Really? Pretty bold statement considering Tolkien’s grounding in Old English myth (particularly Beowulf, in which he was quite an expert).

But I’m not nearly as familiar with Abercrombie. Can you clarify this for me? How does Abercrombie have “a more historical perspective” in your eyes? Do you mean his setting is not as mythic, more grounded in history, than Middle Earth? Or something else?