Fantasy is a setting not a genre!
garfangle
fiction, deals with a global conflict in which typically a hero
(coming of age) or group of heroes battle an evil
force/being/wizard/lord/demon et al with the stakes of
realm/nation/globe/universe in the balance. A fair share of the
novels stretch into trilogies or longer (think R.Jordan) in order to
encapsulate the struggle. Of course, much of the themes have been
taken from Tolkien/CS Lewis or mythology where the world technology is
magical medieval for those set in European-style backgrounds.
However, my complaint is not that these books are successful or
enjoyable, but that fantasy seems to restrict itself to these
archtypes as if it were a genre like mystery or horror. Whereas
mystery novels must deal with solving a crime and horror novels must
delve into the supernatural or mystic, a novel set in a dungeons &
dragons backdrop does not have to revolve around resolving an epic
struggle of good v. evil. Though there are a few exceptions, like
Piers Anthony's Xanth series which is mainly comedic though it doesn't
have a resolution either, most authors do not deviate from the script
and typecast their characters to boot.
One could view fantasy novels in a different light though. Instead
think of them as alternate universe stories w/ magic settings. There
could be novels that run the gamut from a mushy inter-species romance
to a Huck Finn/Catcher in the Rye coming of age story w/o epic
conflict of a troll youth to a supernatural tale of elven equivalent
of vampires to an Oprah-style novel of a young dwarf wife's trevails
w/ her abusive miner husband. What I am getting at is that fantasy
should be recast not as a genre that must have similar themes among
them, but as a broad storybase which can encompass any theme as any
other fiction novel does just different. Science fiction often does
this, though it too gets trapped into stereotypes of space
faring/exploring, cyberpunk, alien encounters, colonization, and
time-traveling. Though science fiction is a bit more restrictive in
that it mostly assumes our human presence as its history, whereas
fantasy could be devoid of humans entirely.
Ciao.
Joel Rosenberg
> However, my complaint is not that these books are successful or
> enjoyable, but that fantasy seems to restrict itself to these
> archtypes as if it were a genre like mystery or horror. Whereas
> mystery novels must deal with solving a crime and horror novels must
> delve into the supernatural or mystic, a novel set in a dungeons &
> dragons backdrop does not have to revolve around resolving an epic
> struggle of good v. evil.
Oh, absolutely -- me, I'm finding the stuff along the periphery of the
epic struggle more interesting to write, in part because it's more
flexible.
(Ray Feist and I are putting the final touches on Murder in La Mut,
for example, which takes place in a fairly out-of-the way place during
the first Riftwar, and which can't -- for obvious reasons -- change
any of the details of the whole great struggle going on, but where
what happens is of great importance to the poor slobs whose heads are
on the chopping block.)
So: sure.
Chris
> Though science fiction is a bit more restrictive in
> that it mostly assumes our human presence as its history, whereas
> fantasy could be devoid of humans entirely.
Examples of books that are devoid of humans entirely? Not being sarcastic,
but it sounds interesting. I'd be curious how one maintains human interest
and still tells a compelling story.
chris
Dan Goodman
garf...@hotmail.com says...
> It seems that the preponderence of all fantasy, esp. high/epic fantasy
> fiction, deals with a global conflict in which typically a hero
> (coming of age) or group of heroes battle an evil
> force/being/wizard/lord/demon et al with the stakes of
> realm/nation/globe/universe in the balance. A fair share of the
> novels stretch into trilogies or longer (think R.Jordan) in order to
> encapsulate the struggle. Of course, much of the themes have been
> taken from Tolkien/CS Lewis or mythology where the world technology is
> magical medieval for those set in European-style backgrounds.
>
> However, my complaint is not that these books are successful or
> enjoyable, but that fantasy seems to restrict itself to these
> archtypes as if it were a genre like mystery or horror. Whereas
> mystery novels must deal with solving a crime and horror novels must
> delve into the supernatural or mystic, a novel set in a dungeons &
> dragons backdrop
And fantasy is definitely not limited to THAT.
Have you read any of Lord Dunsany's short stories? Any of Fritz Leiber's
non-heroic fantasy?
Any fantasy set in our time and place? There's a lot of it available.
--
Dan Goodman
dsg...@visi.com
Dan Goodman
chri...@hotmail.com says...
By having interesting characters who aren't human.
Robert Sawyer -- I think the title is _Farseer_. John Brunner, _The
Crucible of Time_. All I can recall at the moment.
--
Dan Goodman
dsg...@visi.com
Eric Walker
>It seems that the preponderence of all fantasy, esp. high/epic
>fantasy fiction, deals with a global conflict in which
>typically a hero (coming of age) or group of heroes battle an
>evil force/being/wizard/lord/demon et al with the stakes of
>realm/nation/globe/universe in the balance. A fair share of
>the novels stretch into trilogies or longer (think R.Jordan) in
>order to encapsulate the struggle.
[...]
>However, my complaint is not that these books are successful or
>enjoyable, but that fantasy seems to restrict itself to these
>archtypes as if it were a genre like mystery or horror.
Who hoo! Lists'R'Us Central hasn't had such a rich opening in
*ages*! The list that follows is so long that I'd best put my
comments up here at the head.
1. You have been looking in all the wrong places. On the list
that follows, all I have left off is Tolkien's "Middle Earth"
books and Cook's "Black Company" and "Dread Empire" books (some
of which might not be as described anyway, but I wanted to be
conservative); of those included, the only ones remotely close
to your description (if my memory is not failing me and I wasn't
in too much of a rush) are Hodgell's "Jamethiel" books. (I also
omitted Zelazny's "Amber," but only because it could be argued
to be more science fiction than fantasy--if you disagree,
consider it included.)
2. The books listed are by *no* means of equal quality, but I
don't believe there is one in the list that is not at least a
pretty decent book, and most are, I think, good to excellent.
3. These are all fantasy books, unless one classes R.A.
Lafferty's works as science fiction.
4. This is by no means "the Western Canon" of fantasy, but if
you are unfamiliar with a significant fraction of the list, I
would say that you are not fully up to speed on fantasy fiction.
5. With some trepidation, I have put an asterisk next to those
authors I think especially rewarding reading; that being a
go/no-go decision, it's a dicey risk, but what the heck . . . .
OK, Anton, drum roll please:
Adams, Richard:
Watership Down
Shardik
Aldiss, Brian:
The Malacia Tapestry
Andrews, Allen:
The Pig Plantagenet
Castle Crespin
Arnason, Eleanor:
The Sword Smith
Attanasio, A.A.:
The Dragon and the Unicorn
The Eagle and the Sword
The Wolf and the Crown<
The Perilous Order
The Serpent and the Grail
Wyvern
Kingdom of the Grail
Barth, John:
Chimera
* Bauer, Steven:
Satyrday
* Baum, L. Frank:
14 Oz books
many others
* Beagle, Peter:
A Fine and Private Place
The Last Unicorn
The Innkeeper's Song
Giant Bones
Tamsin
Bell, Douglas:
Mojo and the Pickle Jar
* Bellairs, John:
The Face in the Frost
The Pedant and the Shuffly
Benary-Isbert, Margot:
The Wicked Enchantment
Billias, Stephen:
The Quest for the 36
The American Book of the Dead
Bisson, Terry:
Talking Man
* Blaylock, James:
The Elfin Ship
The Disappearing Dwarf
The Stone Giant
Land of Dreams
The Last Coin
The Magic Spectacles<
The Paper Grail
Night Relics
Winter Tides
All the Bells on Earth
The Rainy Season
* Bramah, Ernest:
The Wallet of Kai Lung
Kai Lung's Golden Hours
Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat
The Return of Kai Lung<
Kai Lung Beneath the Mulberry Tree
Kai Lung:
Brunner, John:
The Traveler in Black
Byatt, A.S.:
The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye
* Cabell, James Branch:
Figures of Earth
The Silver Stallion
The Music from Behind the Moon
The Way of Ecben
The White Robe
Domnei
Jurgen
The High Place
Something About Eve
The Cords of Vanity
The Cream of the Jest
Hamlet Had an Uncle
The King Was in His Counting House
The First Gentleman of America
There Were Two Pirates
The Devil's Own Dear Son
Smirt
Smith
Smire
* Calvino, Italo:
The Baron in the Trees
The Cloven Viscount
The Non-Existent Knight
Invisible Cities
The Castle of Crossed Destinies
Card, Orson Scott:
Hart's Hope
Seventh Son
Red Prophet
Prentice Alvin
Alvin Journeyman
Heartfire
Carlyon, Richard:
The Dark Lord of Pengersick
* Carroll, Jonathan:
The Land of Laughs
Voice of Our Shadow
Black Cocktail
Bones of the Moon
Sleeping in Flame
A Child Across the Sky
From the Teeth of Angels
Outside the Dog Museum
After Silence
The Panic Hand
Kissing the Beehive
The Marriage of Sticks
The Wooden Sea
* Carroll, Lewis:
Alice in Wonderland
Through the Looking-Glass
The Hunting of the Snark
Chambers, Robert W.:
The King in Yellow
Charnas, Suzy McKee:
Dorothea Dreams
Cherryh, C.J.:
Rusalka
Chernevog
Yvgenie
The Dreamstone
The Tree of Swords and Jewels
Fortress in the Eye of Time
Fortress of Eagles
Fortress of Owls
Fortress of Dragons
* Chesterton, G.K.:
The Man Who Was Thursday
Clayton, Jo:
Drinker of Souls
Blue Magic
A Gathering of Stones
Wild Magic
Wildfire
The Magic Wars
Cook, Glen:
("Dread Empire" and "Black Company" series omitted)
Sweet Silver Blues
Bitter Gold Hearts
Cold Copper Tears
Old Tin Sorrows
Dread Brass Shadows
Red Iron Nights
Deadly Quicksilver Lies
Petty Pewter Gods
Faded Steel Heat
The Swordbearer
The Tower of Fear
Cook, Hugh:
The "Chronicles of an Age of Darkness" Books (10?)
Cooper, Louise:
Mirage
Crawford, F. Marion:
Khaled
Crowley, John:
Little, Big
Aegypt
Love and Sleep
Daemonomania
Dalkey, Kara:
Euryale
* Davidson, Avram:
Ursus of Ultima Thule
The Enquiries of Doctor Eszterhazy
The Island Under the Earth
Peregrine: Primus
Peregrine: Secundus
The Phoenix and the Mirror
Virgil in Averno
DeMarinis, Rick:
Cinder
Dexter, Susan:
The Wizard's Shadow
The Prince of Ill Luck
The Wind-Witch
The True Knight
Duncan, Dave:
The Reaver Road
The Hunter's Haunt
***** Dunsany, Lord:
The Gods of Pegana
Time and the Gods
The Sword of Welleran
A Dreamer's Tales
The Book of Wonder
Fifty-One Tales
Tales of Wonder
Tales of Three Hemispheres
Ghosts of the Heaviside Layer and Other Fantasms
The Man Who Ate the Phoenix
The Chronicles of Rodrigues<
The King of Elfland's Daughter
The Charwoman's Shadow
The Blessing of Pan
The Curse of the Wise Woman
My Talks With Dean Spanley
The Strange Journeys of Colonel Polders
* Eddison, E.R.:
The Worm Ouroboros
Mistress of Mistresses
A Fish Dinner in Memison
The Mezentian Gate
Eisenstein, Phyllis:
Sorcerer's Son
The Crystal Palace
* Finney, Charles:
The Circus of Dr. Lao
The Unholy City
The Magician Out of Manchuria
The Ghosts of Manacle
Friesner, Esther:
Mustapha and His Wise Dog
New York by Knight
Druid's Blood
Yesterday We Saw Mermaids
Gaiman, Neil:
Stardust
Good Omens- The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter,
Witch (and probably anything else)
Gentle, Mary:
Rats and Gargoyles
Scholars and Soldiers
Gilliland, Alexis:
Wizenbeak
The Shadow Shaia
Lord of the Troll Bats
Goldstein, Lisa:
The Red Magician
Dark Cities Underground
* Grahame, Kenneth:
The Wind in the Willows
Grant, Richard:
Tex and Molly in the Afterlife
(and probably more)
Gray, Nicholas Stuart:
Grimbold's Other World
Green, Simon:
Blue Moon Rising
Blood and Honor
Down Among the Dead Men
Shadows Fall
Hanratty, Peter:
The Last Knight of Albion
The Book of Mordred
Hickman, Stephen:
The Lemurian Stone
Hoban, Russell:
The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz
(possibly more)
Hodgell, P.C.:
(OK, these are close to the edge)
God Stalk
Dark of the Moon
Seeker's Mask
Blood and Ivory
Bones
Hodgson, William Hope:
The Night Land
The House on the Borderland
Carnacki the Ghost-Finder
Hood, Daniel:
Fanuilh
Wizard's Heir
Beggar's Banquet
Scales of Justice
Houarner, Gerard Daniel:
The Bard of Sorcery
Hughart, Barry:
Bridge of Birds
The Story of the Stone
Eight Skilled Gentlemen
Karr, Phyllis Ann:
At Amberleaf Fair
Wildraith's Last Battle
Kathryns, G.A.:
The Borders of Life
Killus, James:
(marginal)
The Book of Shadows
King, Stephen:
The Eyes of the Dragon
* Lafferty, R.A.:
everything, _in excelsis_ (unless you think it "science
fiction")
Lee, Tanith:
Dark Castle, White Horse
Kill the Dead
Cyrion
Night's Master
Death's Master
Delusion's Master
Delerium's Mistress
Night's Sorceries
The Book of the Damned
The Book of the Beast
The Book of the Dead
The Book of the Mad
Faces Under Water
St. Fire
Black Unicorn
Gold Unicorn
Red Unicorn
LeGuin, Ursula K.:
A Wizard of Earthsea
The Tombs of Atuan
The Farthest Shore
Leiber, Fritz:
Two Sought Adventure
Lindholm, Megan:
Wizard of the Pigeons
Lindsay, David:
A Voyage to Arcturus
Lupoff, Richard:
Sword of the Demon
Lustbader, Eric Van:
The Sunset Warrior
Shallows of Night
Dai-San
Beneath an Opal Moon
MacAvoy, R.A.:
Damiano
Damiano's Lute
Raphael
Lens of the World
King of the Dead
The Belly of the Wolf
MacDonald, George:
Phantastes
Lillith
Machen, Arthur:
(OK, they're more nearly horror than fantasy)
The Great God Pan
The Three Imposters
The House of Souls
The Hill of Dreams
Mayhar, Ardath:
The Seekers of Shar-Nun
How the Gods Wove in Kyrannon
McKillip, Patricia:
The Throme of the Erril of Sherill
The Forgotten Beasts of Eld
Riddlemaster of Hed
Heir of Sea and Fire
Harpist in the Wind
The Changeling Sea
The Sorceress and the Cygnet
The Cygnet and the Firebird
The Book of Atrix Wolfe
Winter Rose
Song for the Basilisk
McKinley, Robin:
The Door in the Hedge
Beauty
Rose Daughter
The Outlaws of Sherwood
* Millhauser, Steven:
In the Realm of Morpheus
In the Penny Arcade
The Barnum Museum
Little Kingdoms
The Knife Thrower and other stories
Enchanted Night
Milne, A.A.:
Winnie-the-Pooh
The House at Pooh Corner
* Mirrlees, Hope:
Lud-in-the-Mist
Monaco, Richard:
Parsival, a Knight's Tale
The Grail War
The Final Quest
Blood and Dreams
Moorcock, Michael:
Gloriana
the Von Bek books
Morris, William:
The Glittering Plain
The Wood Beyond the World
The Well at the World's End
The Water of the Wondrous Isles
The Sundering Flood
Mujica Lainez, Manuel:
The Wandering Unicorn
Myers, John Myers:
Silverlock
The Moon's Fire-Eating Daughter
Nichols, Ruth:
Song of the Pearl
* O'Brien, Flann:
The Third Policeman
At Swim-Two-Birds
The Dalkey Archive
Orr, A.:
The World in Amber
The Ice King's Palace
* Peake, Mervyn:
Titus Groan
Gormenghast
Titus Alone
Boy in Darkness
Mr. Pye
Pearson, Edward:
Chamiel
Powers, Tim:
The Drawing of the Dark
The Anubis Gates
Last Call
Expiration Date
Earthquake Weather
Declare
Pratchett, Terry:
everything (more than just the Diskworld)
Pratt, Fletcher:
The Blue Star
The Well of the Unicorn
The Land of Unreason
Price, E. Hoffman:
The Devil Wives of Li-Fong
The Jade Enchantress
* Read, Herbert:
The Green Child
Ruff, Matt:
The Fool on the Hill
(_Sewer, Gas, and Electric_ I think of as science fiction)
Rushdie, Salman:
Haroun and the Sea of Stories
Russell, Sean:
Beneath the Vaulted Hills
The Compass of the Soul
(and very likely more)
Salmonson, Jessica Amanda:
The Disfavored Hero (aka Tomoe Gozen, though under that name,
somewhat cut up by the publisher)
The Golden Naginata
Thousand Shrine Warrior
Ou Lu Khen & the Beautiful Madwoman
Scarborough, Elizabeth:
The Unicorn Creed
The Harem of Aman Akbar
Shea, Michael:
Nifft the Lean
The Mines of Behemoth
The A'Rak
Sherman, Delia:
Through a Brazen Mirror
The Porcelain Dove
Shetterly, Will:
Cats Have No Lord
Witch Blood
Shinn, Sharon:
The Shape-Changer's Wife
Silas, A.E.:
The Panorama Egg
Smith, Thorne:
Topper
The Stray Lamb
The Night Life of the Gods
Rain in the Doorway
Stableford, Brian:
The Last Days at the Edge of the World
Stevermer, Caroline:
A College of Magics
Stewart, Sean:
Resurrection Man
Galveston
(and probably most or all others)
Stoddard, James:
The High House
The False House
Thompson, Ruth Plumly:
19 Oz books
* Tinniswood, Peter:
The Stirk of Stirk
* Tolkien, J.R.R.:
(LotR omitted)
Smith of Wootton Major
Farmer Giles of Ham
Poems and Stories
* Vance, Jack:
The Dying Earth
The Eyes of the Overworld
Rhialto the Marvelous
Cugel's Saga
Suldrun's Garden
The Green Pearl
Madouc
Wangerin, Walter:
The Book of the Dun Cow
The Book of Sorrows
Warner, Sylvia Townsend:
Lolly Willowes
Kingdoms of Elfin
Wellman, Manly Wade:
John the Balladeer
The Old Gods Waken
After Dark
The Lost and the Lurking
The Hanging Stones
The Voice of the Mountain
Wells, Martha:
Wheel of the Infinite
The Death of the Necromancer
The Element of Fire
Werfel, Franz:
Star of the Unborn (pseudo-science-fiction fantasy)
White, T.H.:
The Elephant and the Kangaroo
Mistress Masham's Repose
The Sword in the Stone
The Queen of Air and Darkness
The Ill-Made Knight
The Candle in the Wind
The Book of Merlyn
Willey, Elizabeth:
The Well-Favored Man
A Sorceror and a Gentleman
The Price of Blood and Honor
* Williams, Charles:
Many Dimensions
War In Heaven
Descent into Hell
The Greater Trumps
The Place Of The Lion
Shadows of Ecstasy
All Hallows' Eve
* Wolfe, Gene:
Peace
The Devil in a Forest
Soldier in the Mist
Soldier of Arete
* Woolf, Virginia:
Orlando
Wrede, Patricia:
Dealing with Dragons
Searching for Dragons
Calling on Dragons
Talking to Dragons
Mairelon the Magician
Magician's Ward
Snow White and Rose Red
Wright, Austin Tappan:
Islandia
Wright, Grahame:
Jog Rummage
Zelazny, Roger:
A Night in the Lonesome October
{list end}
*That* ought to hold you for a bit . . . .
--
Cordially,
Eric Walker, webmaster
Great Science-Fiction & Fantasy Works
http://owlcroft.com/sfandf
jere7my tho?rpe
Chris <chri...@hotmail.com> wrote:
*Examples of books that are devoid of humans entirely?
The kids seem to like them -- the _Circle of Light_ series (IIRC),
the _Redwall_ series, _The Book of the Dun Cow_ (which isn't really a
kid's book), _Watership Down_ (very nearly humanless, and echo my
comment above).
----j7y
--
*********************************** <*> ***********************************
jere7my tho?rpe / 734-769-0913 "Oh, yeah. Old guys becoming pandas --
c/o kesh...@umich.edu _that's_ the future." Mike Nelson, MST3K
Robert Carnegie
_Silmarillion_. Arguably. It may not be everyone's favourite
but it's a fantasy. Humans do enter later, and of course most
of the characters who are officially not human are close enough
to be mistaken for the same, and also to raid our closet for
clothes if they needed to.
Science f. of course has plenty of all non-human stories, too,
or stories where the humans are off-stage or, while not incidental
to the plot, peripheral to the main cast. They start on another
planet and stay there; they don't need to stick to the human p.o.v.
I'm thinking of a lot of F. M. Busby short stories, a bunch of
James White too, come to think of it...
I was about to assert that _fantasy_ without humanoid characters
was _rare_, then I realised I'm fixating on Humanoid Extruded
Fantasy Product and overlooking a shedload of talking animal books:
Watership Down, Redwall, etc., etc. Although even such as these
(I haven't read either) often are more anthropomorphic than they
ought to be. Let's not even start on Beatrix Potter. Animals
in fairy-stories - Aesop -
I guess that you _do_ have a point.
Nancy Lebovitz
Eric Walker <ra...@owlcroft.com> wrote:
>
>3. These are all fantasy books, unless one classes R.A.
>Lafferty's works as science fiction.
I'd count almost all of Lafferty's work as science fiction, though
admittedly very weird science fiction, and his assumption that
Catholicism is true makes the question more difficult. Do the
demons in _Past Master_ (the ones who move into the Programmed
Mechanical People) make the story fantasy?
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com www.nancybuttons.com
Nancy Lebovitz
garfangle <garf...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>It seems that the preponderence of all fantasy, esp. high/epic fantasy
>fiction, deals with a global conflict in which typically a hero
>(coming of age) or group of heroes battle an evil
>force/being/wizard/lord/demon et al with the stakes of
>realm/nation/globe/universe in the balance. A fair share of the
>novels stretch into trilogies or longer (think R.Jordan) in order to
>encapsulate the struggle. Of course, much of the themes have been
>taken from Tolkien/CS Lewis or mythology where the world technology is
>magical medieval for those set in European-style backgrounds.
Oddly enough, you've even excluded one of the basic types of fantasy:
heroic fantasy. The prototypical heroic fantasy story is about a warrior
who goes about fighting monsters. The stakes are his or her own life,
or perhaps his own life plus a few people that he or she is protecting.
As your comment about trilogies+ implies, this sort of story is of
much more managable length--it's frequently done at less-than-novel
wordcounts.
Some classic examples: Howard's Conan, Brackett's Jirel of Joiry,
Lieber's Fahfrd and the Gray Mouser.
Bruce Hollebone
>
> Examples of books that are devoid of humans entirely? Not
> being sarcastic, but it sounds interesting. I'd be curious
> how one maintains human interest and still tells a
> compelling story.
Watership Down?
--
Kind Regards,
Bruce.
Lonnie Courtney Clay
> On 24 Oct 2001 17:19:58 -0700, garfangle wrote:
> Who hoo! Lists'R'Us Central hasn't had such a rich opening in
> *ages*! The list that follows is so long that I'd best put my
> comments up here at the head.
>
> *That* ought to hold you for a bit . . . .
**************************************************************************
It was a good list too! I recognize many of the books and appreciate
the ones I missed. Thanks for the list and I bookmarked your site.
Keep it up!
LCC
Randy Money
One majorly substantial list.
One not mentioned that I keep hearing about, Greer Gilman's _Moonwise_.
Then there's all the H. P. Lovecraft fantasy: "The Dream Quest of
Unknown Kadath" being perhaps the culmination of his Dunsanian period.
Also, mention of the following...
> Mujica Lainez, Manuel:
> The Wandering Unicorn
Reminded me of _One Hundred Years of Solitude_ by Gabriel Garcia
Marquez. Which, along with mention of Chesterton, in turn reminded me of
Jorge Luis Borges' collections of stories; much of his collected works
can be called fantasy. Really, the whole Latin American Magical Realism
thing is a branch off the fantasy tree.
Then there's what Terri Windling refers to as "interstitial" works,
those works that fall inbetween genres (usually, in this instance,
between sf and fantasy, fantasy and horror, romance and fantasy, etc.).
A fair amount of the writing by Michael Moorcock, M. John Harrison and,
more recently, China Mieville falls into this catagory.
Garfangle: If you're really serious, go check out the last ten to
fifteen years of _The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror_ edited by Windling
and Ellen Datlow. The stories in those volumes are far broader than what
you describe as current fantasy. More importantly, if you prefer novels
to short stories, Windling's introductions to each volume include lists
of fantasy novels, story collections and anthologies published in its
year that should more than hold you.
Randy M.
Chris
at was not so much lack of human beings, but avoiding being human beings in
another guise. Maybe it's largely inescapable, but of the books listed that
I have read Watership Down and such, which I read when I was young, they
generally seem to be about humans in the guise of animals... at the very
least they don't seem particularly inhuman in any but their most external
qualities-- when they aren't being directly allegorical.
chris
Taki Kogoma
to rec.arts.sf.written decree...
Discounting the workmen digging up Sandleford Warren, Lucy, her dad,
and the doctor.
_Tales From Watership Down_ is human-free, IIRC...
Gym "Trying to remember if Tad Williams' _Tailchaser's Song_ had any
humans..." Quirk
--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk | "I'll get a life when someone
(Known to some as Taki Kogoma) | demonstrates that it would be
quirk @ swcp.com | superior to what I have now."
Veteran of the '91 sf-lovers re-org. | -- Gym Quirk
Brenda W. Clough
Chris wrote:
WATERSHIP DOWN. THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS.
Brenda
--
What do you do with a secret?
Whisper it in a desert at high noon.
Lock it up and bury the key.
Tell the nation on prime-time TV.
Choose a door . . .
Doors of Death and Life
by Brenda W. Clough
http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda
Tor Books
ISBN 0-312-87064-7
Brian McGuinness
> time-traveling. Though science fiction is a bit more restrictive in
> that it mostly assumes our human presence as its history, whereas
> fantasy could be devoid of humans entirely.
Science fiction stories could be devoid of humans entirely, as well.
For example, you could have a story set entirely in an alien
civilization. Just give them plausible motives and interesting
problems to solve. They might encounter another alien civilization
with a different psychology.
--- Brian
James Nicoll
Brenda W. Clough <clo...@erols.com> wrote:
>
>Chris wrote:
>
>> garfangle addressed rec.arts.sf.written and spake thusly:
>>
>> > Though science fiction is a bit more restrictive in
>> > that it mostly assumes our human presence as its history, whereas
>> > fantasy could be devoid of humans entirely.
>>
>> Examples of books that are devoid of humans entirely? Not being sarcastic,
>> but it sounds interesting. I'd be curious how one maintains human interest
>> and still tells a compelling story.
>>
>
>WATERSHIP DOWN. THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS.
>
>Brenda
>
day in both _Albedo_ and _Kevin and Kell_.
Many of Egan's books use nonhuman (in the biological sense)
characters.
"Cabin Boy" uses non-humans as the main characters although I
think a human shows up.
Are any of the Chanur book Tully-free? I must admit I found them
dull and didn't finish any but the first.
Kenneth Moen
brian.b.m...@lmco.com (Brian McGuinness) wrote:
Right - for example "The Bug Wars" by Robert Asprin - a heck of a good
read.
Ken
Eric Walker
[...]
>. . . Greer Gilman's _Moonwise_ . . . .
>
>. . . the H. P. Lovecraft fantasy: "The Dream Quest of Unknown
>Kadath" . . . .
>. . . _One Hundred Years of Solitude_ by Gabriel Garcia
>Marquez.
>. . . Jorge Luis Borges' collections of stories . . . .
>. . . writing by Michael Moorcock, M. John Harrison and,
>more recently, China Mieville . . . .
Which is why I have a sweatshirt emblazoned with "So Many Books,
So Little Time" . . . .
They're all on my list to find and read, save that last clump of
three, whom I have explored fairly well. (I know I have read
the Lovecraft too, back when it was a Ballantine release, but
can scarcely recall it now.)
Eric Walker
>In article <enfsjbjypebsgpbz...@news.cis.dfn.de>,
>Eric Walker <ra...@owlcroft.com> wrote:
>
>>3. These are all fantasy books, unless one classes R.A.
>>Lafferty's works as science fiction.
>
>I'd count almost all of Lafferty's work as science fiction,
>though admittedly very weird science fiction, and his
>assumption that Catholicism is true makes the question more
>difficult. Do the demons in _Past Master_ (the ones who move
>into the Programmed Mechanical People) make the story fantasy?
It is, I suppose, a matter of viewpoint. I would imagine that
to a fully believing Roman Catholic, Lafferty's works are
"science fiction" (by my standard of definition) because they
involve descriptions of how the universe really works; to all
others, they are fantasy because they not only don't describe
how the universe really works, they don't even describe how it
might work. (That presumes that those who are not fully
believing Roman Catholics have alternative beliefs, and so
perhaps excludes agnostics.)
I generally class fiction with theological elements as fantasy,
to the extent that we need any such classifications; Charles
Williams pops to mind, though, for example, _Many Dimensions_ is
virtually a straight science-fiction tale, save that the
talisman of power has Divine power (yet works in a more or less
mechanical, impersonal way, like a device).
Eric Walker
[...]
>. . . and I must take issue with the subject line. fantasy is
>not a setting, it is a way of looking at things.
I'm glad someone has finally addressed the subject-line issue.
My inclination is to more or less agree with Citizen Wittman,
but, to make discussion meaningful, I suppose we need to fall
back on the old Jules Feiffer line, "Let us define our terms."
"Setting" probably doesn't need too much work, but what, as
precisely as we can state it, do we mean by a "genre"? There, I
would think, is where the crux lies.
My ability to contribute to a definition is limited because my
knowledge of what we usually call "genres" is limited--
speculative fiction and some crime fiction, and that's it.
Even so, only looking at crime fiction (which, just to muddy the
waters, is also often called mystery fiction or detective
fiction), we see several pretty distinct sub-genres. Not being
an expert, I quote one, Dilys Winn, author of _Murder Ink_, a
fine reference: "I recognize five basic mystery categories: the
Cozy, the Paranoid, the Romantic, the Vicious, the Analytical."
(To that list she appends the comment "This leaves me no place
for Rex Stout, but never mind; he really deserves a category
unto himself.")
What do tales as diverse as those which would fit those
categories (we need not have them defined exactly here--the
scope of their differences is clearly implied) have in common?
Then we turn back to speculative fiction and ask what tales
based on nanotech have in common with tales based on unicorns.
Those questions can, and I expect will, provoke interesting
observations, but the only one I venture here myself is that
they do not seem to have any kind of "setting" in common.
Nancy Lebovitz
Eric Walker <ra...@owlcroft.com> wrote:
>
>I generally class fiction with theological elements as fantasy,
>to the extent that we need any such classifications; Charles
>Williams pops to mind, though, for example, _Many Dimensions_ is
>virtually a straight science-fiction tale, save that the
>talisman of power has Divine power (yet works in a more or less
>mechanical, impersonal way, like a device).
Afaik, Charles' Williams novels always had elements which went
beyond standard Christianity, or perhaps sideways to it. Didn't
he call them "occult thrillers"?
Would a normal [1] science fiction novel which was consistant with
Catholicism (in other words, one good solid otherwise inexplicable
miracle and maybe a few marginal cases of possible divine intervention)
be fantasy? Maybe technically, but it wouldn't feel like fantasy to
me even though I'm not a Catholic.
Lafferty's novel's may be science fiction or they may be fantasy
or they may be in between, but they are assuredly not normal.
Mary K. Kuhner
>Examples of books that are devoid of humans entirely? Not being sarcastic,
>but it sounds interesting. I'd be curious how one maintains human interest
>and still tells a compelling story.
Cherryh's fifth hani novel, _Chanur's Legacy_, has its only human character
completely offstage throughout the entire story. One character thinks warmly
of him from time to time, but that's it.
Even in the previous books, he was never the viewpoint character, and is
fairly enigmatic.
The hani are not Cherryh's least anthropomorphic aliens, by a long shot,
but it's a different story than it would be with humans in the main roles.
I think I could happily read a novel set among Vinge's Tines or Spiders,
and in fact might prefer it that way. I found myself skimming large hunks
of _Deepness_ about two-thirds of the way through in order to get back
to the Spiders.
It's probably true that good viewpoint-character aliens have to be somewhat
anthropomorphic, to be sympathetic, but they don't have to be completely
human, and there are some books to prove it.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Michael Grosberg
Of course, much of the themes have been
> taken from Tolkien/CS Lewis or mythology where the world technology is
> magical medieval for those set in European-style backgrounds.
This is something I really don't understand. Here you have a genre in
which you can write about anything, invent a setting as fanciful and
imaginitive as you like, and 95% of the books take place in a
medieval-technology earthlike world.
Take some books by Borges or Calvino and you'll find so many inventive
settings and situations - a single page of Calvino's Invisible cities
has more imagination in it than the whole Belgariad. Borges wrote a
short story that takes place in an endless library. I mean' why even
base your story on a planet? Why not a ringworld? or a hundred
mile-high tower? You don't even have to make the physics work. It's
easy! and nobody, save pratchet, does it.
> However, my complaint is not that these books are successful or
> enjoyable, but that fantasy seems to restrict itself to these
> archtypes as if it were a genre like mystery or horror.
Again, right on the spot. The term I heard that describes fantasy or
SF is "Meta-Genre". You can write a book that conforms to any other
genre - Romance, or detective novel or western - within a meta-genre.
Why do they all write the same tolkien-influenced crap? because it
sells.
Eric Walker
[...]
>Why do they all write the same tolkien-influenced crap?
But which "they" are we referring to here? Did you see the
laundry list of fantasy novels *not* matching that description
posted to this thread not long ago? Was it not long enough?
Now granted, there really is a "they" who do indeed write what
one could not unreasonably call "the same tolkien-influenced
crap": you can find that crap all over the shelves in generalist
bookstores, and you're right--it's because it sells.
But in specialist bookstores, you will find that wealth of
other, almost always better, stuff suggested by the list I
mentioned. (Which, for fairness and clarity, I should say that
I posted.)
If you go into MegaMallBooks, you won't find much Trollope or
Chekov or Austen, or any quality mainstream author not currently
"hot" for some goofy PR reason. You *will* find lots and lots
of the current "best-seller" authors who are grinding out
mechanical crap. Why should the available fantasy selections
there follow different rules?
Moral: don't waste time looking in all the wrong places. Look
in bookstores specializing in s.f. (and thus, invariably, run by
real human beings with an interest in and knowledge of the
field).
Eric Walker
[...]
>Afaik, Charles' Williams novels always had elements which went
>beyond standard Christianity, or perhaps sideways to it. Didn't
>he call them "occult thrillers"?
Yes and yes. "Sideways": that's a good word. His beliefs were,
I think, a touch unorthodox (as he was).
>Would a normal * science fiction novel which was consistant
>with Catholicism (in other words, one good solid otherwise
>inexplicable miracle and maybe a few marginal cases of possible
>divine intervention) be fantasy? Maybe technically, but it
>wouldn't feel like fantasy to me even though I'm not a
>Catholic.
(* Didn't find the note referenced in the original text, so
omitted the bracketed number to avoid confusion with my own
footnote; I do hope you just forgot it, so I can feel I'm not
the only one who occasionally does that.)
I think it would to me. My division is that impersonal forces
make science fiction and personal forces--gods, demons, laws
responding to morality[1]--make fantasy. As we all well know,
opinions on the topic, ah, vary a trifle.
>Lafferty's novel's may be science fiction or they may be
>fantasy or they may be in between, but they are assuredly not
>normal.
*That's* for sure!
<TOUT>
More can be found at--
http://owlcroft.com/sfandf/AUTHORS/RALafferty.html
</TOUT>
[1] Where we take it that "morality" is a judgment by sapient
entities, whether supernatural or human, so that such laws are
not "impersonal."
Nancy Lebovitz
>
>[...]
>
>>Afaik, Charles' Williams novels always had elements which went
>>beyond standard Christianity, or perhaps sideways to it. Didn't
>>he call them "occult thrillers"?
>
>Yes and yes. "Sideways": that's a good word. His beliefs were,
>I think, a touch unorthodox (as he was).
>
take on other peoples' pain)--I was talking about the devices in
his stories--you mentioned the cube of original time/space/matter
in _Many Dimensions_. The method of achieving immortality by
sublimating (?) desire in _Shadows of Ecstasy_ would be another.
The Grail in _War in Heaven_ would be a marginal case--the magical/
miraculous Grail is part of Christian legend, but I don't know whether
Williams' Grail is the standard model.
>>Would a normal * science fiction novel which was consistant
>>with Catholicism (in other words, one good solid otherwise
>>inexplicable miracle and maybe a few marginal cases of possible
>>divine intervention) be fantasy? Maybe technically, but it
>>wouldn't feel like fantasy to me even though I'm not a
>>Catholic.
>
>(* Didn't find the note referenced in the original text, so
>omitted the bracketed number to avoid confusion with my own
>footnote; I do hope you just forgot it, so I can feel I'm not
>the only one who occasionally does that.)
>
>I think it would to me. My division is that impersonal forces
>make science fiction and personal forces--gods, demons, laws
>responding to morality[1]--make fantasy. As we all well know,
>opinions on the topic, ah, vary a trifle.
Indeed, and I suspect that the boundary between personal and
impersonal is more than a little blurry.
The comment below was supposed to be a footnote.
>>Lafferty's novel's may be science fiction or they may be
>>fantasy or they may be in between, but they are assuredly not
>>normal.
>
>*That's* for sure!
>
>[1] Where we take it that "morality" is a judgment by sapient
>entities, whether supernatural or human, so that such laws are
>not "impersonal."
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com www.nancybuttons.com
Jordan S. Bassior
>This is something I really don't understand. Here you have a genre in
>which you can write about anything, invent a setting as fanciful and
>imaginitive as you like, and 95% of the books take place in a
>medieval-technology earthlike world.
Lack of imagination, IMO.
Tolkien was a giant and he invented a new epic form. Most writers are nowhere
near as imaginative, and they simply rewrite his epic. They even copy details
which are not essential to Tolkien's epic -- for instance, have you noticed how
much fantasy assumes a late medieval to mid-18th century tech world (sans
gunpowder and add magic)? That's not _necessary_ -- other levels of technology,
whether higher or lower, would work equally well.
They also blindly copy Tolkien's anti-industrial attitudes, which in my opinion
were the _weakest_ point of his universe (because they are also anti-rational).
How many fantasy novels have you read where the protagonists are deliberately
_trying_ to _advance_ technology, and thus improve their understanding of the
universe or better the lot of their people, as opposed to the zillions in which
Machines Are Evil Because the Dark Lord Uses Them?
>I mean' why even
>base your story on a planet? Why not a ringworld? or a hundred
>mile-high tower? You don't even have to make the physics work. It's
>easy! and nobody, save pratchet, does it.
Terry Pratchett, in my opinion, is a truly great fantasy writer. Incidentally,
he's also one of the few to be basically pro-technology -- sure he's done Evil
Cursed Magic or Magitech stories (_Holy Wood_, _Equal Rites_), but he also
firmly believes that its' a _good_ thing that we've progressed into the Century
of the Fruitbat ;-)
(a note here: in terms of a fantasy universe, technology _can_ and usually
_does_ include systematically applied magic).
>Again, right on the spot. The term I heard that describes fantasy or
>SF is "Meta-Genre". You can write a book that conforms to any other
>genre - Romance, or detective novel or western - within a meta-genre.
>Why do they all write the same tolkien-influenced crap? because it sells.
Well, they don't "all" do it. You mentioned Pratchett already; I know two
authors who have done fantasy detective series; and one (Turtledove) who is
busily doing fantasy versions of the American Civil War and World War Two.
But far too many _do_ just blindly copy Tolkien, so you're at least half-right
there.
--
Sincerely Yours,
Jordan
--
Doug
> In article <Xns9144B1229...@207.126.101.100>,
> Chris <chri...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> *Examples of books that are devoid of humans entirely?
>
> The kids seem to like them -- the _Circle of Light_ series (IIRC),
> the _Redwall_ series, _The Book of the Dun Cow_ (which isn't really a
> kid's book), _Watership Down_ (very nearly humanless, and echo my
> comment above).
The Wind in the Willows. There are probably tons of these kinds of
anthropomorphic tales. The Fuzzies, I think they're called. (Not to
be confused with Piper's Fuzzies.) Plus things like Elfquest and
Disney films like The Lion King.
I know I've read lots of short stories that don't have human
characters. Can't recall a single title at the moment, though.
And I'm drawing a blank as to the title of the film about a lone
proto-human apeman on a walkabout. What was that called?
Doug
--
Moviedogs v3.0: your favorite dogs in your favorite films:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/1910
Spike, Tiggy & Panda's Pug-A-Rama:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/1910
Julie Pascal
"garfangle" <garf...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:48ef815c.0110...@posting.google.com...
(...)
> However, my complaint is not that these books are successful or
> enjoyable, but that fantasy seems to restrict itself to these
> mystery novels must deal with solving a crime and horror novels must
> delve into the supernatural or mystic, a novel set in a dungeons &
> dragons backdrop does not have to revolve around resolving an epic
> struggle of good v. evil. (...)
Wrede's _Marelon the Magician_ and _Magician's Ward_ (just
pulled back off of my shelf for a re-read) do not deal with the
epic struggle of good vs. evil. _Old Nathan_, which is
available in the Baen free library online is also not about that
epic struggle. Lois Bujold's novels _Spirit Ring_ involves a
struggle much more limited in scope...they aren't trying to save
the world...and her just published _Curse of Chalion_ has a bit
more of the atmosphere, dealing with the heirs to the throne, but
again, it is not an epic struggle to save the world.
They aren't any of them in a "dungeons & dragons" backdrop
though.
I don't tend to read fantasy, but these are what I've read
lately and they don't conform to a "high fantasy" epic
struggle of good vs. evil at all.
--Julie
Vlatko Juric-Kokic
>Gym "Trying to remember if Tad Williams' _Tailchaser's Song_ had any
> humans..." Quirk
Nope. AFAIK. It's been a while since I read it.
vlatko
--
_Neither Fish Nor Fowl_
http://www.webart.hr/nrnm/eng/
http://www.michaelswanwick.com/
vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr
jere7my tho?rpe
tr...@cinci.rr.com (Doug) wrote:
*The Wind in the Willows. There are probably tons of these kinds of
*anthropomorphic tales. The Fuzzies, I think they're called.
In high school, a teacher referred to them as fables.
----j7y
--
*********************************** <*> ***********************************
jere7my tho?rpe / 734-769-0913 "Oh, yeah. Old guys becoming pandas --
c/o kesh...@umich.edu _that's_ the future." Mike Nelson, MST3K
jere7my tho?rpe
jsba...@aol.com (Jordan S. Bassior) wrote:
*Michael Grosberg said:
*>This is something I really don't understand. Here you have a genre in
*>which you can write about anything, invent a setting as fanciful and
*>imaginitive as you like, and 95% of the books take place in a
*>medieval-technology earthlike world.
*
*Lack of imagination, IMO.
More like market forces. The teeming masses who buy Extruded
Fantasy Product _want_ to buy books set in a medieval-fantasy earthlike
world. It's familiar; it's a genre with plenty of shorthand. Most
Western folk grow up knowing about knights and King Arthur and Robin
Hood and so on, and loads of them know about Tolkien and D&D and Narnia.
It doesn't need much of an introduction, the way a fantasy set in
Mesopotamia or Crete would.
Robert Carnegie
> In article <enfsjbjypebsgpbz...@news.cis.dfn.de>,
> Eric Walker <ra...@owlcroft.com> wrote:
> >
> >I generally class fiction with theological elements as fantasy,
> >to the extent that we need any such classifications; Charles
> >Williams pops to mind, though, for example, _Many Dimensions_ is
> >virtually a straight science-fiction tale, save that the
> >talisman of power has Divine power (yet works in a more or less
> >mechanical, impersonal way, like a device).
>
> Afaik, Charles' Williams novels always had elements which went
> beyond standard Christianity, or perhaps sideways to it. Didn't
> he call them "occult thrillers"?
>
> Would a normal [1] science fiction novel which was consistant with
> Catholicism (in other words, one good solid otherwise inexplicable
> miracle and maybe a few marginal cases of possible divine intervention)
> be fantasy? Maybe technically, but it wouldn't feel like fantasy to
> me even though I'm not a Catholic.
May I ask, do Katherine Kurtz's "Deryni" fantasies do anything for you?
Lots of more-or-less-Catholicism, which for me played like fantasy.
And the magic-sensitives can actually _feel_ God.
(According to Diane Duane, so can Star Trek's Vulcans - all the time.)
A while since I actually opened one of the Deryni books so I don't
know if they'd do much for me now, though. Golden age of sf, dig?
Nancy Lebovitz
of them, wasn't entranced, and decided that I already knew that bigotry
was bad and didn't need to read novels where that was the primary point.
Unfortunately, this means that I can't say whether I thought the
(near?) Catholicism seems like a fantastic element.
Nancy Lebovitz
jere7my tho?rpe <kesh...@umich.edu> wrote:
>In article <20011025185544...@mb-cs.aol.com>,
> jsba...@aol.com (Jordan S. Bassior) wrote:
>
>*Michael Grosberg said:
>*>This is something I really don't understand. Here you have a genre in
>*>which you can write about anything, invent a setting as fanciful and
>*>imaginitive as you like, and 95% of the books take place in a
>*>medieval-technology earthlike world.
>*
>*Lack of imagination, IMO.
>
> More like market forces. The teeming masses who buy Extruded
>Fantasy Product _want_ to buy books set in a medieval-fantasy earthlike
>world. It's familiar; it's a genre with plenty of shorthand. Most
>Western folk grow up knowing about knights and King Arthur and Robin
>Hood and so on, and loads of them know about Tolkien and D&D and Narnia.
>It doesn't need much of an introduction, the way a fantasy set in
>Mesopotamia or Crete would.
>
writers who like medieval tech/earthlike world/big quest fantasy
themselves and have a natural inclination to write it.
Bruce Hollebone
>> Examples of books that are devoid of humans entirely? Not
>> being sarcastic, but it sounds interesting. I'd be curious
>> how one maintains human interest and still tells a
>> compelling story.
>
> WATERSHIP DOWN. THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS.
(Plague Dogs, also by Richard Adams)
I also gave half your answer upthread, but there is a contrarian
view of this as well. These books are just another example of
humans in costume. They may look like animals, but they
think like humans. This is especially true of The Wind in the
Willows, less true of the Adams books (I don't think a human
community could work socially as the rabbits do).
Are there any stories that use "realistic" animals as viewpoint
characters? I vaguely recall a ?del Ray? short about a dog
sniffing around a community some time after a catastrophe,
probably a nucelar exchange. No plot to speak of, it was just a
travelogue.
--
Kind Regards,
Bruce.
Nancy Lebovitz
Bruce Hollebone <bone...@newsguy.com> wrote:
>>
>> WATERSHIP DOWN. THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS.
>
>(Plague Dogs, also by Richard Adams)
>
>I also gave half your answer upthread, but there is a contrarian
>view of this as well. These books are just another example of
>humans in costume. They may look like animals, but they
>think like humans. This is especially true of The Wind in the
>Willows, less true of the Adams books (I don't think a human
>community could work socially as the rabbits do).
>
>Are there any stories that use "realistic" animals as viewpoint
>characters? I vaguely recall a ?del Ray? short about a dog
>sniffing around a community some time after a catastrophe,
>probably a nucelar exchange. No plot to speak of, it was just a
>travelogue.
I don't know which way you'd count _Cats in Cyberspace_ by Beth
Hilgartner. The cats (presumably) have more symbolic intelligence
than real cats would, but they don't seem exactly like humans,
either.
I highly recommend the book if you're in the mood for something
light-hearted. Two cats decide that they don't get enough attention
if their humans have to work outside the home, and raise money by
playing the stock market.....
Randy Money
>
> On Thu, 25 Oct 2001 10:51:25 -0400, Randy Money wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >. . . Greer Gilman's _Moonwise_ . . . .
> >
> >. . . the H. P. Lovecraft fantasy: "The Dream Quest of Unknown
> >Kadath" . . . .
>
> >. . . _One Hundred Years of Solitude_ by Gabriel Garcia
> >Marquez.
>
> >. . . Jorge Luis Borges' collections of stories . . . .
>
> >. . . writing by Michael Moorcock, M. John Harrison and,
> >more recently, China Mieville . . . .
>
> Which is why I have a sweatshirt emblazoned with "So Many Books,
> So Little Time" . . . .
Me, too. My wife saw it and decided it was fitting.
> They're all on my list to find and read, save that last clump of
> three, whom I have explored fairly well. (I know I have read
> the Lovecraft too, back when it was a Ballantine release, but
> can scarcely recall it now.)
The last clump is waiting for me to get to and finish _Gormanghast_. For
some reason I feel I need to have read Peake in order to (as fully as
possible) appreciate their work.
That may be so much baloney, but it's how I think.
Randy M.
Sea Wasp
> Are there any stories that use "realistic" animals as viewpoint
> characters? I vaguely recall a ?del Ray? short about a dog
> sniffing around a community some time after a catastrophe,
> probably a nucelar exchange. No plot to speak of, it was just a
> travelogue.
ADF did something like this with "The Empire of T'ang Lang", whose
viewpoint character is left for the reader to figure out; if you're
familiar with the creature in question it seems an accurate portrayal
if you were to assume that it was in fact intelligent enough to think.
--
Sea Wasp http://www.wizvax.net/seawasp/index.htm
/^\
;;; _Morgantown: The Jason Wood Chronicles_, at
http://www.hyperbooks.com/catalog/20040.html
lal_truckee
<LIST CLIPPED>
> {list end}
>
> *That* ought to hold you for a bit . . . .
>
I have one observation, one comment, and one question.
I observe, this list consists in books that I also would call "Fantasy"
with no discernible overlap with books that I would call SF.
I comment, this list serves as adequate counter argument to those who
put forward the specious argument that Fantasy and SF are inseparable.
I ask, if a complete stranger can make such a list consistent with my
personal categorizations, why can't Fantasy and SF be shelved in
separate sections so those inclined can more easily locate books that
might interest them?
Sea Wasp
Because it has NEVER been the contention that it's impossible to
assemble *A* list of books that everyone, or virtually everyone, will
agree is one or the other.
It HAS been the contention that it is not possible to make a
COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF ALL BOOKS THAT ARE SPECULATIVE FICTION and sort
them ALL into one of those categories in such a way that virtually no
one will argue with your choices.
Yes, you can get 90% agreement; 90% of the time 90% of the people
will agree that you've chosen correctly FOR ANY GIVEN, RANDOMLY CHOSEN
BOOK.
However, that last 10% will kill you.
Pern and Darkover are a couple of perennially-raised Problem Book
Series; some people say that Pern is CLEARLY fantasy, others that it's
CLEARLY SF, and others sit on the fence.
When you come up with a way to sort these books out that engenders no
argument, THEN you have come up with your sufficient counterexample.
Mike Schilling
>
> Bruce Hollebone wrote:
>
> > Are there any stories that use "realistic" animals as viewpoint
> > characters? I vaguely recall a ?del Ray? short about a dog
> > sniffing around a community some time after a catastrophe,
> > probably a nucelar exchange. No plot to speak of, it was just a
> > travelogue.
>
> ADF did something like this with "The Empire of T'ang Lang", whose
> viewpoint character is left for the reader to figure out; if you're
> familiar with the creature in question it seems an accurate portrayal
> if you were to assume that it was in fact intelligent enough to think.
>
Fritz Lieber's wonderful "Space-time for Springers" is told from the pov
of a kitten.
There's a golden age story about The People vs. The Giants which ends by
metaphorically comparing The People to a kind of animal and then
explaining that it isn't just a metaphor. Can't recall the author or
title; the main character was named Shrack(?).
Randy Money
Because the shelvers, most of whom don't read sf, would have trouble
telling the difference? (So you'd probably end up with what you've
already got, anyway.)
Because, for all that there's a list of works identifiable as science
fiction and another list of works identifiable as fantasy, there's a
third list of works which are not readily identifiable as either?
Because there is a point where such catagorization serves no useful
purpose?
Just some thoughts.
Randy M.
Martin Leslie Leuschen
: When you come up with a way to sort these books out that engenders no
: argument, THEN you have come up with your sufficient counterexample.
"Fantasy," "Sci Fi," and "Children of inter-genre marriages".
:)
Would help with the Mystery CoIGMs too, methinks.
Regards,
martinl
Lee DeRaud
wrote:
>On 25 Oct 2001, Brenda W. Clough wrote:
>
>>> Examples of books that are devoid of humans entirely? Not
>>> being sarcastic, but it sounds interesting. I'd be curious
>>> how one maintains human interest and still tells a
>>> compelling story.
>>
>> WATERSHIP DOWN. THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS.
>
>(Plague Dogs, also by Richard Adams)
Neither Adams book is devoid of humans - they're not 'on-screen' a
lot, but they're there, and they have a definite effect on how the
'real' characters behave:
In WD, there's the rabbit colony that has a somewhat sick symbiosis
with the local farmer - they get much better food than usual and
nobody talks about the silver strangling things out on the paths.
And IIRC, the dogs in PD *definitely* remember their original
master(s).
Lee
Brenda W. Clough
Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
Good god, I must mention this to my cat.
Brenda
--
What do you do with a secret?
Whisper it in a desert at high noon.
Lock it up and bury the key.
Tell the nation on prime-time TV.
Choose a door . . .
Doors of Death and Life
by Brenda W. Clough
http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda
Tor Books
ISBN 0-312-87064-7
Bruce Hollebone
>>
>> why can't
>> Fantasy and SF be shelved in separate sections so those
>> inclined can more easily locate books that might interest
>> them?
... and Randy Money answered:
[three good reasons snipped]
My Favorite Reason: Because to do so would be a spoiler?
For example: Inversions by I. M. Banks
--
Kind Regards,
Bruce.
Sea Wasp
>
> Sea Wasp (sea...@wizvax.net) wrote:
>
> : When you come up with a way to sort these books out that engenders no
> : argument, THEN you have come up with your sufficient counterexample.
>
> "Fantasy," "Sci Fi," and "Children of inter-genre marriages".
Yeah, if you can get agreement on the CoIGM category.
Fred Galvin
> Are there any stories that use "realistic" animals as viewpoint
> characters?
How do you classify Kafka's stories like "The Burrow" and
"Investigations of a Dog"? Are they sf?
> I vaguely recall a ?del Ray? short about a dog sniffing around a
> community some time after a catastrophe, probably a nucelar
> exchange. No plot to speak of, it was just a travelogue.
Lester del Rey, "The Keepers of the House".
Doug
> In article <db01bae.01102...@posting.google.com>,
> tr...@cinci.rr.com (Doug) wrote:
>
> *The Wind in the Willows. There are probably tons of these kinds of
> *anthropomorphic tales. The Fuzzies, I think they're called.
>
> In high school, a teacher referred to them as fables.
Is the Wind in the Willows considered the same sort of story as
Aesop's? I haven't heard that, before, and on first blush I don't
think it's accurate.
Eric Walker
[...]
>The last clump [Moorcock, Harrison, Mieville] is waiting for me
>to get to and finish _Gormanghast_. For some reason I feel I
>need to have read Peake in order to (as fully as possible)
>appreciate their work.
>
>That may be so much baloney, but it's how I think.
I, at least, do not at all think it baloney. Mieville
explicitly acknowledges Peake, and I daresay the others would,
or may have somewhere. (Come to think of it, I believe Moorcock
was pretty explicit about _Gloriana_.)
I'm not sure it's important to read Peake _first_, but it is
important to read him if those others are of interest to one.
--
Cordially,
Eric Walker, webmaster
Great Science-Fiction & Fantasy Works
http://owlcroft.com/sfandf
Konrad Gaertner
> Are there any stories that use "realistic" animals as viewpoint
> characters? I vaguely recall a ?del Ray? short about a dog
> sniffing around a community some time after a catastrophe,
> probably a nucelar exchange. No plot to speak of, it was just a
> travelogue.
Carole Nelson Douglas' Midnight Louie series (marketed as mystery)
where much of the narration is by a cat, though of questionable
realism. And though I haven't it yet, there may be some good examples
in the _Midnight Louie's Pet Detectives_ anthology.
I believe Douglas Adams gave us a few mouse and dolphin POVs.
And there's Duane's Cat Wizards series (_The Book of Night With Moon_
and _To Visit the Queen_). tBoNWM deserves honorable mention for
introducing me to Pratchett's _The Unadulterated Cat_ (no cat POVs,
but still a must-read).
--KG
Nancy Lebovitz
Brenda W. Clough <clo...@erols.com> wrote:
>Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
>
>> I don't know which way you'd count _Cats in Cyberspace_ by Beth
>> Hilgartner. The cats (presumably) have more symbolic intelligence
>> than real cats would, but they don't seem exactly like humans,
>> either.
>>
>> I highly recommend the book if you're in the mood for something
>> light-hearted. Two cats decide that they don't get enough attention
>> if their humans have to work outside the home, and raise money by
>> playing the stock market.....
>
I've tried, but I can't say that it's worked especially well in this
household.
Eric Walker
[...]
>Because it has NEVER been the contention that it's impossible
>to assemble *A* list of books that everyone, or virtually
>everyone, will agree is one or the other.
>
>It HAS been the contention that it is not possible to make a
>COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF ALL BOOKS THAT ARE SPECULATIVE FICTION
>and sort them ALL into one of those categories in such a way
>that virtually no one will argue with your choices.
>
>Yes, you can get 90% agreement; 90% of the time 90% of the
>people will agree that you've chosen correctly FOR ANY GIVEN,
>RANDOMLY CHOSEN BOOK.
>
>However, that last 10% will kill you.
>
>Pern and Darkover are a couple of perennially-raised Problem
>Book Series; some people say that Pern is CLEARLY fantasy,
>others that it's CLEARLY SF, and others sit on the fence.
>
>When you come up with a way to sort these books out that
>engenders no argument, THEN you have come up with your
>sufficient counterexample.
While one might quibble with the 90/10 ratio--I suspect the odd
ones out are fewer--the thrust of those remarks is on target.
One can, of course, make a perfectly tidy sorting by
establishing sufficiently clear and exact definitions of
criteria: but that only transfers the argument from the books to
the criteria. Still, as we have several times seen in this
forum over the months and years, such, ah, discussions can be
interesting and possibly fruitful, provided one takes them as an
opportunity to spring-clean one's opinions, not as a mortal
combat. (But of course, we *never* do that here anyway.)
jere7my tho?rpe
*Is the Wind in the Willows considered the same sort of story as
*Aesop's? I haven't heard that, before, and on first blush I don't
*think it's accurate.
Dictionary.com says: "A usually short narrative making an edifying
or cautionary point and often employing as characters animals that speak
and act like humans." So you're probably right -- "fable" seems to be
narrower than "a story with animals standing in for humans," unless it's
one of those definition drift sorts of things. It's possible that _Wind
in the Willows_, _Animal Farm_, _Watership Down_, and _The Dun Cow_
could be considered fables under that definition, though, depending on
how broadly you define "edifying or cautionary point."
Brenda W. Clough
Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
Do you let your cats surf the Net?
Dan Goodman
> Eric Walker wrote:
>
> <LIST CLIPPED>
>
>
> > {list end}
> >
> > *That* ought to hold you for a bit . . . .
> >
>
>
> I have one observation, one comment, and one question.
>
> I observe, this list consists in books that I also would call "Fantasy"
> with no discernible overlap with books that I would call SF.
Please note that in the name of this newsgroup, "sf" stands for
"speculative fiction" -- which includes science fiction, fantasy,
supernatural horror, technothrillers on Wednesdays, and magic realism on
prime-numbered days of the month.
> I comment, this list serves as adequate counter argument to those who
> put forward the specious argument that Fantasy and SF are inseparable.
>
> I ask, if a complete stranger can make such a list consistent with my
> personal categorizations, why can't Fantasy and SF be shelved in
> separate sections so those inclined can more easily locate books that
> might interest them?
For the same reason most can openers aren't made to be operated by
lefthanded people. They're way outnumbered by people who are interested
in both science fiction and fantasy; and by people whose taste sometimes
includes stories which might be classified as either. (If it has
spaceships it's science fiction; if it has elves it's fantasy -- if it
has both, it's a judgement call.)
--
Dan Goodman
dsg...@visi.com
Michael Grosberg
> Michael Grosberg said:
> >Again, right on the spot. The term I heard that describes fantasy or
> >SF is "Meta-Genre". You can write a book that conforms to any other
> >genre - Romance, or detective novel or western - within a meta-genre.
> >Why do they all write the same tolkien-influenced crap? because it sells.
>
> Well, they don't "all" do it. You mentioned Pratchett already; I know two
> authors who have done fantasy detective series; and one (Turtledove) who is
> busily doing fantasy versions of the American Civil War and World War Two.
>
> But far too many _do_ just blindly copy Tolkien, so you're at least half-right
> there.
actually what I meant was "All of those EFP writers". I didn't mean
all of the Fantasy writers. Why didn't I actually write it? Cause I'm
very, very, lazy :-)
There's no need to try and find examples of non-Tolienesqe fantasy.
There's tons and tons of it, and a lot of it is very good, though they
all still suffer from a certain lack of imagination IMO - fantasy
should in principle be a lot weirder and more free than SF but in
reality, SF produces situations that are much more bizarre and
creative than fantasy.
Anyway I noticed that books that stray too far from the norm aren't
even recognized as fantasy by some people. I know people who think
Amber is SF because of the parallel world element, or that the Anubis
Gates is SF because there's time travel, or that Metropolitan isn't
fantasy because the magic there is called plasm and they have
technology.
Jordan S. Bassior
>Yes, you can get 90% agreement; 90% of the time 90% of the people
>will agree that you've chosen correctly FOR ANY GIVEN, RANDOMLY CHOSEN
>BOOK.
>
> However, that last 10% will kill you.
A lot of Lovecraft is in that category, btw.
F'rinstance, is "Dreams in the Witch-House" fantasy, horror, or science
fiction?
--
Sincerely Yours,
Jordan
--
Sea Wasp
Even more on the edge for me would be "The Shunned House".
Eric Walker
[...]
>Anyway I noticed that books that stray too far from the norm
>aren't even recognized as fantasy by some people. I know people
>who think Amber is SF because of the parallel world element, or
>that the Anubis Gates is SF because there's time travel, or
>that Metropolitan isn't fantasy because the magic there is
>called plasm and they have technology.
The question of what works are fantasy and what science fiction,
and how they differ, is of course at the hub of this whole
thread, and roughly, oh, 9,736 others in the not too long ago.
No discussion of that sort gets any forrader a'tall until it
focuses, in detail, with reasons and reasoning, on the exact
criteria.
Not me, not today anyway. Been there, done that, got the
T-shirt.
Nancy Lebovitz
Brenda W. Clough <clo...@erols.com> wrote:
>Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
>> In article <3BD9AAF9...@erols.com>,
>> Brenda W. Clough <clo...@erols.com> wrote:
>> >Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
>> >
>> >> I don't know which way you'd count _Cats in Cyberspace_ by Beth
>> >> Hilgartner. The cats (presumably) have more symbolic intelligence
>> >> than real cats would, but they don't seem exactly like humans,
>> >> either.
>> >>
>> >> I highly recommend the book if you're in the mood for something
>> >> light-hearted. Two cats decide that they don't get enough attention
>> >> if their humans have to work outside the home, and raise money by
>> >> playing the stock market.....
>> >
>> >Good god, I must mention this to my cat.
>>
>> I've tried, but I can't say that it's worked especially well in this
>> household.
>
>Do you let your cats surf the Net?
>
how the cats want it and much of what drives the story. The cats get on-line
if the computer's been carelessly left on-line.
Doug
> In article <db01bae.01102...@posting.google.com>,
> tr...@cinci.rr.com (Doug) wrote:
>
> *Is the Wind in the Willows considered the same sort of story as
> *Aesop's? I haven't heard that, before, and on first blush I don't
> *think it's accurate.
>
> Dictionary.com says: "A usually short narrative making an edifying
> or cautionary point and often employing as characters animals that speak
> and act like humans." So you're probably right -- "fable" seems to be
> narrower than "a story with animals standing in for humans," unless it's
> one of those definition drift sorts of things. It's possible that _Wind
> in the Willows_, _Animal Farm_, _Watership Down_, and _The Dun Cow_
> could be considered fables under that definition, though, depending on
> how broadly you define "edifying or cautionary point."
Yeah, Aesop and similar fables usually have that tagline, "...and the
moral of the story is..."
Not to say that Animal Farm doesn't have a moral, but I think fables
like The Fox and the Grapes and the Cricket and the Grasshopper tend
to be more teaching stories for kids. There's probably some sort of
folklore connection, too, but they seem qualitatively different from
fairy tales like Little Red Riding Hood.
I'll have to give some thought, though, as to what the specific
differences might be; until then, I'll just have to invoke the "I know
it when I see it" clause of genre-typing. :)
Nancy Lebovitz
Michael Grosberg <preac...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>There's no need to try and find examples of non-Tolienesqe fantasy.
>There's tons and tons of it, and a lot of it is very good, though they
>all still suffer from a certain lack of imagination IMO - fantasy
>should in principle be a lot weirder and more free than SF but in
>reality, SF produces situations that are much more bizarre and
>creative than fantasy.
Fantasy just has people rattling around the confines of their imaginations
--and if there's a need to find a paying audiance, then it's further
limited to imagination that might be shared by a significant number
of people.
Science fiction gets an input from science, and science is doing its
best to learn about the real world--a realm that isn't limited by
the human imagination.
Bruce Hollebone
news:Pine.LNX.4.21.01102...@titania.math.ukans.edu:
Thank you. My collection wasn't at hand when I wrote this.
Kind Regards,
Bruce.
Bruce Hollebone
news:fj7jttcsd0viahcud...@4ax.com:
> Neither Adams book is devoid of humans - they're not 'on-screen' a
> lot, but they're there, and they have a definite effect on how the
> 'real' characters behave:
> In WD, there's the rabbit colony that has a somewhat sick symbiosis
> with the local farmer - they get much better food than usual and
> nobody talks about the silver strangling things out on the paths.
> And IIRC, the dogs in PD *definitely* remember their original
> master(s).
This is literally true. It is true, however, more for Plague Dogs.
Watership Down is different. The rabbits do not interact with humans as
thinking beings. No rabbit comminicates with a person. Humanity is a
catastrophe, not a character. So, allow me to weasel out of this by saying
while humans are literally in WD, figuratively, they are not.
Besides, Ia Ia Ia Ia, I can't hear you.
Kind Regards,
Bruce.
Vlatko Juric-Kokic
>And I'm drawing a blank as to the title of the film about a lone
>proto-human apeman on a walkabout. What was that called?
Quest for Fire? By ... Anaud? Jean-Jacques Anaud? Claude Anaud? The
guy who directed _Black and White in Colour_.
Not a single word spoken in the film.
vlatko
--
_Neither Fish Nor Fowl_
http://www.webart.hr/nrnm/eng/
http://www.michaelswanwick.com/
vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr
Charles R Martin
> On 25 Oct 2001 16:28:47 -0700, tr...@cinci.rr.com (Doug) wrote:
>
> >And I'm drawing a blank as to the title of the film about a lone
> >proto-human apeman on a walkabout. What was that called?
>
> Quest for Fire? By ... Anaud? Jean-Jacques Anaud? Claude Anaud? The
> guy who directed _Black and White in Colour_.
>
> Not a single word spoken in the film.
Not true -- they're chattering all the time. Oh, it's not in any
known _language_ ....
I saw "Caveman" -- with Ringo Starr, Barbara Bach, and Shelly ??? the
blonde from Cheers -- shortly after. It _also_ has (almost nothing)
in any known language, but it's _much_ funnier.
("Oool?" "Ooooooool!")
--
Our enemies are never villains in their own eyes, but that does not make them
less dangerous. Appeasement, however, nearly always makes them more so.
-- Don Dixon
______________________________________________________________________________
Charles R (Charlie) Martin Broomfield, CO 40N 105W
Garrett Wollman
Charles R Martin <crma...@indra.com> wrote:
>Not true -- they're chattering all the time. Oh, it's not in any
>known _language_ ....
To bring us vaguely-sorta-back on-topic, how about /Codex
Seraphinianus/?
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | O Siem / We are all family / O Siem / We're all the same
wol...@lcs.mit.edu | O Siem / The fires of freedom
Opinions not those of| Dance in the burning flame
MIT, LCS, CRS, or NSA| - Susan Aglukark and Chad Irschick
Robert Carnegie
No, but scientific understanding of the world _is_ partly limited
by human imagination. For us to prove that the world is made so,
we must first imagine that the world _might_ be made so. Granted,
though, there are things in nature that we might not have imagined
if we hadn't seen them in nature.
(On the other hand, things have been imagined to be in nature
that weren't there at all; lemmings' famous and quite fictitious
suicidal behaviour, the Elephants' Graveyard.)
And of course fiction, even sf, almost has to be about people,
directly or indirectly (unusual "people" in _Toy Story_ and
_Antz_) - a star blowing up without inhabited planets wouldn't
make a novel - and despite advances in neurology, etc, we mostly
set about understanding people in non-scientific ways.
Who was it who claimed that "For sale, child's cot, never used",
amounted to a six-word novel? Or something like that, and something
like the text. A quick Google drew blanks.
Robert Carnegie
> On 25 Oct 2001, Brenda W. Clough wrote:
>
> > WATERSHIP DOWN. THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS.
>
> (Plague Dogs, also by Richard Adams)
>
> I also gave half your answer upthread, but there is a contrarian
> view of this as well. These books are just another example of
> humans in costume. They may look like animals, but they
> think like humans. This is especially true of The Wind in the
> Willows, less true of the Adams books (I don't think a human
> community could work socially as the rabbits do).
If the animals wear clothes it's a bad sign - Wind in the Willows,
Beatrix Potter, Rupert Bear - I think Winnie the Pooh didn't,
I could be wrong? ;-)
> Are there any stories that use "realistic" animals as viewpoint
> characters? I vaguely recall a ?del Ray? short about a dog
> sniffing around a community some time after a catastrophe,
> probably a nucelar exchange. No plot to speak of, it was just a
> travelogue.
James White "The Conspirators" in _The Aliens Among Us_.
As a side-effect of interstellar travel, the starship's cat
and laboratory animals evolve intelligence and telepathy
and plot their escape before the lab animals are used in
experiments. It's _kind_ of realistic...
Ahasuerus
> garfangle addressed rec.arts.sf.written and spake thusly:
> [snip-snip]
>> Though science fiction is a bit more restrictive in
>> that it mostly assumes our human presence as its history, whereas
>> fantasy could be devoid of humans entirely.
>
> Examples of books that are devoid of humans entirely? [snip]
_The Sun Destroyers_ (Ace, 1973) by Ross Rocklynne, aka Ross Louis
Rocklin. There are no humans in the four novellas (originally published
between 1940 and 1951) comprising the book.
--
Ahasuerus
Ahasuerus
> Oddly enough, you've even excluded one of the basic types of fantasy:
> heroic fantasy. [snip]
>
> Some classic examples: Howard's Conan, Brackett's Jirel of Joiry,
> Lieber's Fahfrd and the Gray Mouser.
*Brackett's* Jirel of Joiry? Are you sure you were not thinking of C.L.
Moore's Eric John Stark? :-)
--
Ahasuerus
Nancy Lebovitz
Kevin J. Maroney
wrote:
> Yes, you can get 90% agreement; 90% of the time 90% of the people
>will agree that you've chosen correctly FOR ANY GIVEN, RANDOMLY CHOSEN
>BOOK.
>
> However, that last 10% will kill you.
Lucius Shepard's first novel, _Green Eyes_, derives a significant deal
of its narrative force from the tension between fantasy tropes and sf
tropes, and in the end it is irresolvable whether the Other World in
the novel is amenable to scientific explanation or not. (Shepard has
returned to this basic question a few times since.) Accordingly, I
believe it to be absolutely unclassifiable as either sf or fantasy.
--
Kevin J. Maroney | k...@panix.com
Games are my entire waking life.
John Andrew Fairhurst
says...
> (If it has
> spaceships it's science fiction; if it has elves it's fantasy -- if it
> has both, it's a judgement call.)
>
Okay, I'm probably going to regret this.
Are there any stories out there that do have elves & spaceships, or is
this just a thematic comment?
--
John Fairhurst
In Association with Amazon worldwide:
http://www.johnsbooks.co.uk/Books/Masterworks/
Classic Science Fiction & Fantasy Releases to Dec 01
John Andrew Fairhurst
> Are any of the Chanur book Tully-free? I must admit I found them
> dull and didn't finish any but the first.
>
IIRC the trilogy about the niece doesn't have too much of Tully in it.
Although _Cuckoo's Egg_ is told from the perspective of the human boy,
he's not being bought up in a human civilisation.
I *love* CJ's aliens :-)
--
John Fairhurst
In Association with Amazon worldwide:
http://www.johnsbooks.co.uk/Books/CJCherryh/
CJ Cherryh's Alliance/Union Universe
John Andrew Fairhurst
> Do you let your cats surf the Net?
>
There was a beautiful story in the morning paper this week. Apparently a
woman was entering her weekly shopping into her store's on-line ordering
system and left the keyboard unattended for a while before coming back to
finish processing the order. She failed to notice that her cat had been
wandering over the keyboard until the order turned up, complete with 450
tins of cat food...
--
John Fairhurst
In Association with Amazon worldwide:
John Andrew Fairhurst
preac...@hotmail.com says...
> I know people who think
> Amber is SF because of the parallel world element,
>
the term science fantasy was effectively invented for the Amber
chronicles IMO. It's not the parallel worlds that make me think this.
It's basically the way that Corwin's family manipulate the reality around
them that should make it fantasy but it's described in a rather science
fictiony way.
Peter Bruells
> In article <MPG.1643b148f...@news.visi.com>, dsg...@visi.com
> says...
>> (If it has spaceships it's science fiction; if it has elves it's
>> fantasy -- if it has both, it's a judgement call.)
> Okay, I'm probably going to regret this.
> Are there any stories out there that do have elves & spaceships, or
> is this just a thematic comment?
Do Yoda's ears count?
Jo Walton
Jo...@johnsbooks.co.uk "John Andrew Fairhurst" writes:
> In article <MPG.1643b148f...@news.visi.com>, dsg...@visi.com
> says...
> > (If it has
> > spaceships it's science fiction; if it has elves it's fantasy -- if it
> > has both, it's a judgement call.)
> >
>
> Okay, I'm probably going to regret this.
>
> Are there any stories out there that do have elves & spaceships, or is
> this just a thematic comment?
Julian May's _The Many Coloured Land_ is all that immediately leaps to
mind.
--
Jo J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
I kissed a kif at Kefk
*THE KING'S PEACE* out now *THE KING'S NAME* out in November from Tor.
Sample Chapters, Map, Poems, & stuff at http://www.bluejo.demon.co.uk
Fred Galvin
> Okay, I'm probably going to regret this.
>
> Are there any stories out there that do have elves & spaceships, or is
> this just a thematic comment?
Damn it, I read that story. Alien conquest of earth foiled by elves.
Wish I could remember who wrote it.
RRO
article <MPG.1644e1c6a...@news.compuserve.com>, John Andrew
Fairhurst <Jo...@johnsbooks.co.uk> wrote:
>Okay, I'm probably going to regret this.
>Are there any stories out there that do have elves & spaceships, or is
>this just a thematic comment?
You might want to try _The Iron Dragon's Daughter_ by Michael
Swanwick. I don't think you'll regret it.
aRJay
Fairhurst <Jo...@johnsbooks.co.uk> writes
>In article <c21d3ba0.01102...@posting.google.com>,
>preac...@hotmail.com says...
>> I know people who think
>> Amber is SF because of the parallel world element,
>>
>
>the term science fantasy was effectively invented for the Amber
>chronicles IMO. It's not the parallel worlds that make me think this.
>It's basically the way that Corwin's family manipulate the reality around
>them that should make it fantasy but it's described in a rather science
>fictiony way.
I think one of the best science fictional elements in the original Amber
books is Corwins approach to the problem of gunpowder not working in
Amber.
--
aRJay
"In this great and creatorless universe, where so much beautiful has
come to be out of the chance interactions of the basic properties of
matter, it seems so important that we love one another,"
- Lucy Kemnitzer
Eric Walker
I'm not taking an oath, but I'm fairly sure it was Poul
Anderson. The Alfar, something like that? Couldn't stand the
touch of iron? (Had to conceal that from the aliens.)
Can't get the title though, even if that's a bingo . . . .
Eric Walker
[...]
>Okay, I'm probably going to regret this.
>
>Are there any stories out there that do have elves &
>spaceships, or is this just a thematic comment?
Not a cigar, but sorta close:
_The Elfin Airship_ by James Blaylock.
Doug
> Vlatko Juric-Kokic <vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr> writes:
>
> > On 25 Oct 2001 16:28:47 -0700, tr...@cinci.rr.com (Doug) wrote:
> >
> > >And I'm drawing a blank as to the title of the film about a lone
> > >proto-human apeman on a walkabout. What was that called?
> >
> > Quest for Fire? By ... Anaud? Jean-Jacques Anaud? Claude Anaud? The
> > guy who directed _Black and White in Colour_.
> >
> > Not a single word spoken in the film.
>
> Not true -- they're chattering all the time. Oh, it's not in any
> known _language_ ....
>
> I saw "Caveman" -- with Ringo Starr, Barbara Bach, and Shelly ??? the
> blonde from Cheers -- shortly after. It _also_ has (almost nothing)
> in any known language, but it's _much_ funnier.
>
> ("Oool?" "Ooooooool!")
Love the campfire scene.
I found the one I was thinking of, btw. It's called Missing Link.
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0095646
Old Toby
>
> In article <MPG.1643b148f...@news.visi.com>, dsg...@visi.com
> says...
> > (If it has
> > spaceships it's science fiction; if it has elves it's fantasy -- if it
> > has both, it's a judgement call.)
> >
>
> Okay, I'm probably going to regret this.
>
> Are there any stories out there that do have elves & spaceships, or is
> this just a thematic comment?
Hundreds, literally.
It's just that most of them call the Light Elves "Vulcans" and
the Dark Elves "Romulans" ;-)
Old Toby
Least Known Dog on the Net
Martin Wisse
>It seems that the preponderence of all fantasy, esp. high/epic fantasy
>fiction, deals with a global conflict in which typically a hero
>(coming of age) or group of heroes battle an evil
>force/being/wizard/lord/demon et al with the stakes of
>realm/nation/globe/universe in the balance. A fair share of the
>novels stretch into trilogies or longer (think R.Jordan) in order to
>encapsulate the struggle. Of course, much of the themes have been
>taken from Tolkien/CS Lewis or mythology where the world technology is
>magical medieval for those set in European-style backgrounds.
Actually, what you're describing is but part of fantasy, a highly
succesful subgenre, but only a subgenre nonetheless. We usually call it
"high fantasy" or "epic fantasy" or for those of us with less then
goodwill towards it, "extruded fantasy product" to refer to the more
generic examples of it.
>However, my complaint is not that these books are successful or
>enjoyable, but that fantasy seems to restrict itself to these
>archtypes as if it were a genre like mystery or horror. Whereas
>mystery novels must deal with solving a crime and horror novels must
>delve into the supernatural or mystic, a novel set in a dungeons &
>dragons backdrop does not have to revolve around resolving an epic
>struggle of good v. evil. Though there are a few exceptions, like
>Piers Anthony's Xanth series which is mainly comedic though it doesn't
>have a resolution either, most authors do not deviate from the script
>and typecast their characters to boot.
I think you're very much confused and mistaken about all three genres
here.
Horror does not revolve around the supernatural or mystic at all, it
revolves around scaring, shocking people, to put it simplisitcally.
this can be done by invoking supernatural menaces, yes, but can also be
done by more mundane means: psycho serial killers and the like...
The mystery genre is far more then just solving crimes too.
As for fantasy, I just think you're not well read enough in the genre.
Seems to me you've mostly read the more succesful Tolkien followers.
Also, I think you're confusing "genre" with "formula".
>One could view fantasy novels in a different light though. Instead
>think of them as alternate universe stories w/ magic settings. There
>could be novels that run the gamut from a mushy inter-species romance
>to a Huck Finn/Catcher in the Rye coming of age story w/o epic
>conflict of a troll youth to a supernatural tale of elven equivalent
>of vampires to an Oprah-style novel of a young dwarf wife's trevails
>w/ her abusive miner husband. What I am getting at is that fantasy
>should be recast not as a genre that must have similar themes among
>them, but as a broad storybase which can encompass any theme as any
>other fiction novel does just different. Science fiction often does
>this, though it too gets trapped into stereotypes of space
>faring/exploring, cyberpunk, alien encounters, colonization, and
>time-traveling. Though science fiction is a bit more restrictive in
>that it mostly assumes our human presence as its history, whereas
>fantasy could be devoid of humans entirely.
Fortunately, fantasy already is far broader a genre then you think and
you have just been unlucky in what you read. Take a look at the list
Eric Walker produced for you...
Incidently, as others have pointed out, science fiction doesn't have to
deal with humans at all...
Martin Wisse
--
[How to kill and humiliate the Draka]
"Oh, Lord. The Draka vs. Ally McBeal. I think we have a winner..."
John Schilling, rasfw
Nancy Lebovitz
John Andrew Fairhurst <Jo...@johnsbooks.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <MPG.1643b148f...@news.visi.com>, dsg...@visi.com
>says...
>> (If it has
>> spaceships it's science fiction; if it has elves it's fantasy -- if it
>> has both, it's a judgement call.)
>>
>
>Okay, I'm probably going to regret this.
>
>Are there any stories out there that do have elves & spaceships, or is
>this just a thematic comment?
There are a couple of science fiction novels which have very elf-life
humans: tall, thin, charismatic, powerful, mysterious....Bujold's
_Cetaganda_ is one, and Poul Anderson has another among his later
works--I can't remember the title, but his Lunarians meet the same
elf specs.
Lois Tilton
> Are there any stories out there that do have elves & spaceships, or is
> this just a thematic comment?
I have one in the sff.net anthology BONES OF THE WORLD.
--
LT
James Nicoll
>says...
>> (If it has
>> spaceships it's science fiction; if it has elves it's fantasy -- if it
>> has both, it's a judgement call.)
>
>Okay, I'm probably going to regret this.
>
>Are there any stories out there that do have elves & spaceships, or is
>this just a thematic comment?
One of William Tenn's short stories has a fellow abducted by
Little People, who turn out
SPOILERS
to be aliens impatient for vile humanity to wipe itself out,
so they are giving us the gift of technologies which will provide
the humans getting it a short term benefit at the cost of eventual
extinction for the race. Clearly labelled as such, because they
know it won't make a difference.
David Johnston
>
> In article <MPG.1643b148f...@news.visi.com>, dsg...@visi.com
> says...
> > (If it has
> > spaceships it's science fiction; if it has elves it's fantasy -- if it
> > has both, it's a judgement call.)
> >
>
> Okay, I'm probably going to regret this.
>
> Are there any stories out there that do have elves & spaceships, or is
> this just a thematic comment?
> --
Elfquest has elves and spaceships. The Liaden from Agent of Chaos are basicly
just elves with the serial numbers scratched off.
Nancy Lebovitz
It's called "Will You Walk a Little Faster?" and it's reprinted in
NESFA's recent collection _Here Comes Civilization_.
<http://www.nesfa.org/press/Books/Tenn-2.html>
Taki Kogoma
to rec.arts.sf.written decree...
Somehow, I suspect that the House of Feanor'd fit in better on
Romulus...
--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk | "I'll get a life when someone
(Known to some as Taki Kogoma) | demonstrates that it would be
quirk @ swcp.com | superior to what I have now."
Veteran of the '91 sf-lovers re-org. | -- Gym Quirk
Taki Kogoma
to rec.arts.sf.written decree...
>bone...@newsguy.com (Bruce Hollebone) wrote in message
>news:<Xns914666CDB140Bbo...@209.155.56.90>...
>> On 25 Oct 2001, Brenda W. Clough wrote:
>> > WATERSHIP DOWN. THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS.
>>
>> (Plague Dogs, also by Richard Adams)
>>
>> I also gave half your answer upthread, but there is a contrarian
>> view of this as well. These books are just another example of
>> humans in costume. They may look like animals, but they
>> think like humans. This is especially true of The Wind in the
>> Willows, less true of the Adams books (I don't think a human
>> community could work socially as the rabbits do).
>
>If the animals wear clothes it's a bad sign - Wind in the Willows,
>Beatrix Potter, Rupert Bear - I think Winnie the Pooh didn't,
>I could be wrong? ;-)
If I recall the original, no.
However, Disney gave him that red shirt.
Gym "Of course, Christopher Robin excludes Pooh from consideration
anyway." Quirk
Martin Wisse
>Charles R Martin <crma...@indra.com> wrote in message news:<m38zdwc...@localhost.localdomain>...
>> Vlatko Juric-Kokic <vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr> writes:
>>
>> > On 25 Oct 2001 16:28:47 -0700, tr...@cinci.rr.com (Doug) wrote:
>> >
>> > >And I'm drawing a blank as to the title of the film about a lone
>> > >proto-human apeman on a walkabout. What was that called?
>> >
>> > Quest for Fire? By ... Anaud? Jean-Jacques Anaud? Claude Anaud? The
>> > guy who directed _Black and White in Colour_.
>> >
>> > Not a single word spoken in the film.
>>
>> Not true -- they're chattering all the time. Oh, it's not in any
>> known _language_ ....
>>
>> I saw "Caveman" -- with Ringo Starr, Barbara Bach, and Shelly ??? the
>> blonde from Cheers -- shortly after. It _also_ has (almost nothing)
>> in any known language, but it's _much_ funnier.
>>
>> ("Oool?" "Ooooooool!")
>
>
>Love the campfire scene.
>
>I found the one I was thinking of, btw. It's called Missing Link.
You *are* the Missing Link, goodbye.
Martin Wisse
--
"So sex dwarf is terrorizing the city in a giant
robotic suit constructed from your alien technology?"
"Thank you for the excellent recap"
-Goats: 03-feb-2000
Keith Morrison
> > (If it has
> > spaceships it's science fiction; if it has elves it's fantasy -- if it
> > has both, it's a judgement call.)
> >
>
> Okay, I'm probably going to regret this.
>
> Are there any stories out there that do have elves & spaceships, or is
> this just a thematic comment?
What's the definition of elves? Humanoid folks with an ancient
civilization, generally seen as wiser (or claiming they are) than
humans, having some sort of mystical power? Oh, and pointed ears?
I think the common term for them in SF is "Vulcans".
--
Keith