Fantasy I-F dead?
Marshall T. Vandegrift
I've been working on a full-length fantasy I-F game, but have been wondering
how well it would be received.
It seems that lately I've seen a number people calling just about *any*
fantasy setting cliched. While my setting is non-generic, it's definately not
as original as, say, So Far's.
So, what do other players think: would you be interested seeing a new fantasy
I-F game, or is the market for that pretty glutted?
----------
Marshall T. Vandegrift (ma...@DONT.intrlink.SPAM.com.ME) (You know the drill.)
"Even in laughter, the heart is sorrowful." --Proverbs 14:13
Neil K.
ma...@DONT.intrlink.SPAM.com.ME (Marshall T. Vandegrift) wrote:
> So, what do other players think: would you be interested seeing a new fantasy
> I-F game, or is the market for that pretty glutted?
Perhaps that depends, in part, on how you define "fantasy." I think most
people around here seem to have developed fearsome allergies to dwarves
and elves and other elements associated with your usual pseudo-mediaeval
Tolkien/D&D fantasy. Partly because it's become such a tired cliche and
partly because writing in that genre often seems appallingly cheesy. Dunno
why. So Far, despite being sort of a fantasy (what else do you call it?
sf-fantasy?) is noted by a marked absence of orcs, trolls, dungeons, phony
thee-n-thou speke and other elements of that variety of fantasy.
- Neil K.
--
t e l a computer consulting + design * Vancouver, BC, Canada
web: http://www.tela.bc.ca/tela/ * email: tela @ tela.bc.ca
Magnus Olsson
In article <69au6e$q...@snews1.zippo.com>,
Marshall T. Vandegrift <ma...@DONT.intrlink.SPAM.com.ME> wrote:
>I've been working on a full-length fantasy I-F game, but have been wondering
>how well it would be received.
>
>It seems that lately I've seen a number people calling just about *any*
>fantasy setting cliched.
Those people are, IMAO, being silly.
OK, I can understand that they are tired of generic fantasy games. They
may not even like fantasy in the first place. But they're in a very
grave danger of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
>While my setting is non-generic, it's definately not
>as original as, say, So Far's.
I think setting is overrated. If the rest of the game is uninteresting,
well, then people may blame their lack of interest on the setting.
If the rest of the game *is* interesting, then that should outweigh
even the most hackeneyed setting. You'll just have to provide a "hook"
early on to draw even the fantasy-saturated people into the story.
Of course, there's the case of "Path to Fortune" - which is really the
only data point we have, the only full length game that, it is claimed,
was largely ignored *because* of its fantasy setting. I honestly don't
know if that's true, or if the apparent lack of interest was due to
other factors.
I can only speak for myself: I definitely intend to play "PtF", when I
get the time. I haven't had any time for *anything* lately...
>So, what do other players think: would you be interested seeing a new fantasy
>I-F game, or is the market for that pretty glutted?
I would be interested in seeing a *good* new fantasy game. The market
for mediocre fantasy games is definitely glutted (as opposed, to, say,
mediocre WW II-games, where the setting might draw interest - there simply
isn't any such IF around).
--
Magnus Olsson (m...@df.lth.se, zeb...@pobox.com)
------ http://www.pobox.com/~zebulon ------
Not officially connected to LU or LTH.
Andrew Plotkin
No, fantasy IF is not dead.
Marshall T. Vandegrift (ma...@DONT.intrlink.SPAM.com.ME) wrote:
> I've been working on a full-length fantasy I-F game, but have been wondering
> how well it would be received.
> It seems that lately I've seen a number people calling just about *any*
> fantasy setting cliched. While my setting is non-generic, it's definately not
> as original as, say, So Far's.
> So, what do other players think: would you be interested seeing a new fantasy
> I-F game, or is the market for that pretty glutted?
Is it constructed entirely of cliches? Does it read like an AD&D
campaign? Are there knights and dragons which are there only because
everyone knows there are knights and dragons in places like this?
I think that if there's really a problem, you would have recognized it
already.
It's not that there's a secret cabal of fantasy-haters out here, waiting
to deride any game without electric lighting. It's, well, the same problem
that there is in fantasy novels. Some books are completely untroubled by
any wrinkle of originality. Don't make that mistake. Have fun.
(_So Far_, of course, *does* have electric lighting. :-) And also...
well, no need for spoilers.)
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
ct
In article <erkyrathE...@netcom.com>, Andrew Plotkin
<erky...@netcom.com> wrote:
> Are there knights and dragons which are there only because
> everyone knows there are knights and dragons in places like this?
>
>
> (_So Far_, of course, *does* have electric lighting. :-) And also...
> well, no need for spoilers.)
Huh! It could still do with a couple of big signs crying 'Here be dragons!'
at appropriate moments...
regards, ct
Mary K. Kuhner
In article <69au6e$q...@snews1.zippo.com>,
Marshall T. Vandegrift <ma...@DONT.intrlink.SPAM.com.ME> wrote:
>I've been working on a full-length fantasy I-F game, but have been wondering
>how well it would be received.
I would be interested in playing such a game, but only if some
real thought and passion is put into the background. I'm not
necessarily looking for novelty, but *solidness*, the sense that
this is a working, thought-out world and not just a collection of
things that the author is used to seeing in fantasy.
I would not, however, be very interested in the fantasy-plus-
anachronistic-jokes type of setting, unless you find some way of
making it really, really funny (even then I'd be skeptical--
a full-length game is rather too long for humor, to my tastes).
If you want to tell a serious story, I would like not to be
distracted by a flippant background. So I'd like the fantasy to
be straight, taken on its own terms--like "Erden" rather than
like "Phred Phontious".
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Graham Nelson
> I've been working on a full-length fantasy I-F game, but have been wondering
> how well it would be received.
>
> fantasy setting cliched. While my setting is non-generic, it's definately not
> as original as, say, So Far's.
Last year's contest was won by a straight-down-the-line fantasy
game, with magic, underground caves and kingdoms. True, almost all
the negative things said about it related to the cliched setting,
and several judges downmarked it for not having thought of a fresh
idea. Ask yourself -- is there any quirk you can put on it?
Boring things about fantasy settings:
Medieval villages. Blacksmiths, clairvoyant old women, churches.
Swords and hit points.
Evil wizards who must be overthrown.
Castles and dungeons.
Such blandness of period and style that you could be any period
between the Iron Age and 1750.
Infocom's game "Spellbreaker" is well worth exploring as an
alternative to the above.
--
Graham Nelson | gra...@gnelson.demon.co.uk | Oxford, United Kingdom
Carl Klutzke
In article <69au6e$q...@snews1.zippo.com>,
Marshall T. Vandegrift <ma...@DONT.intrlink.SPAM.com.ME> wrote:
>So, what do other players think: would you be interested seeing a new fantasy
>I-F game, or is the market for that pretty glutted?
It depends entirely on what you do with it. I certainly wouldn't rule it
out just because it's fantasy. And the line between fantasy and other
genres is much less clearcut than people would have you believe. I claim
that Dune is fantasy; the fact that people travel through space doesn't
make it science fiction. My game starts out as generic fantasy but I
threw space aliens in for fun; not a terribly original concept, but I
still ranked in the top ten. (I can't deny that the setting hurt my
score, though.)
I LIKE fantasy. What I don't want is to play an uninteresting game in a
hackneyed setting. I don't even want to play an uninteresting game in an
intriguing setting.
Carl Klutzke
Edan Harel
fake...@anti-spam.address (Neil K.) writes:
> Perhaps that depends, in part, on how you define "fantasy." I think most
>people around here seem to have developed fearsome allergies to dwarves
>and elves and other elements associated with your usual pseudo-mediaeval
>Tolkien/D&D fantasy. Partly because it's become such a tired cliche and
>partly because writing in that genre often seems appallingly cheesy. Dunno
>why. So Far, despite being sort of a fantasy (what else do you call it?
>sf-fantasy?) is noted by a marked absence of orcs, trolls, dungeons, phony
>thee-n-thou speke and other elements of that variety of fantasy.
It might just be me, but I don't like what little I've seen of So Far.
(Yup, I know, it's probably just me). I personally would like some
true fantasy IF. usually we just end up with something along the lines
of what infocom considered to be fantasy. In fact, the only games I've
played of fantasy that I considered to be "pure" fantasy would
probably be Journey and the QFG series (at least the first two and maybe
the third. Although the game usually brings in non fantasy elements (ie the
mad scientist in the 4th game), they're usually more of jokes.
I also don't like most fantasy games because they're either lacking in the
atmosphere department, or it's just too boring. But that's just me.
As for the point about games being cliched. Well, I can understand that
about a few things (like infocom-fantasy or the really-giant-in-joke games)
I think that making a game cliched can help in terms of atmosphere. While
I'm not taking the point that a game *should* be cliched, if you make
a cliched game, and do it richly (or uniquely), the atmosphere will
come naturally because people know the cliche. Cliches are cliched for a
reason, you know. For example, someone said that Zombie! was cliched. Well,
yeah, if you're comparing it to horror movies. But as a piece of IF, it stands
there pretty much alone. The horror genere (and mystery) are sorely lacking
in IF. I can't think of more than maybe half a dozen horror games. And none
of those were zombie games, either :). (course, I haven't played many of
the competition games). There's nothing wrong with being cliched as long as
it:
1) Has something unique or original or different. Otherwise it'll be
overlooked.
2) Is not a giant in-joke. This adds absolutly nothing to the atmosphere.
The only benefit is a more personal touch, but it rarely outweighs the
"Huh? I don't get it" problem.
3) Remains consistent. Don't try to change the atmosphere. Be true to
the genere you picked. Unless you specifically want to do something
different (ie, if you want to satarize a genere, do so, but try and
keep consistent throughout the game.)
4) Already has a million games of that type already. Well, not really. But
if you do choose to do something which has already been done too much before,
make sure you know what you're doing, and try and find out what people
liked and disliked about the other games and be sure to add something
original to distinguise yours from being just another "<fill in name of
first game of that genere here>" with slightly different puzzles.
Edan Harel
--
Edan Harel edh...@remus.rutgers.edu McCormick 6201
Research Assistant Math and Comp Sci Major Computer Consultant
USACS Member Math Club Secretary
Mark J Musante
Graham Nelson (gra...@gnelson.demon.co.uk) wrote:
> Boring things about fantasy settings:
>
> Medieval villages. Blacksmiths, clairvoyant old women, churches.
> Swords and hit points.
> Evil wizards who must be overthrown.
> Castles and dungeons.
> Such blandness of period and style that you could be any period
> between the Iron Age and 1750.
Aw geez. Well, I'm about 3/4 of the way through my game; after spending
three years to get to this point, I'm not gonna abandon it now.
Besides, my game most defintely does not have a blacksmith.
-=- Mark -=-
Heiko Nock
In article <69au6e$q...@snews1.zippo.com>,
ma...@DONT.intrlink.SPAM.com.ME (Marshall T. Vandegrift) wrote:
>I've been working on a full-length fantasy I-F game, but have been wondering
>how well it would be received.
I wonder why :)
>It seems that lately I've seen a number people calling just about *any*
>fantasy setting cliched.
More than one person ? <g>
>While my setting is non-generic, it's definately not as original as, say,
>So Far's.
Is So Far a work of Fantasy then ? I'd rather call it a Picasso ....
>So, what do other players think: would you be interested seeing a new fantasy
>I-F game, or is the market for that pretty glutted?
There is no such thing as a glutted market. If it's a good game, it'll
work, if not, it won't. If it's not completely terrible, lots of people
will play it.
And in the end, that's all that matters ....
--
Ciao/2, Heiko.....
Andrew Plotkin
Mark J Musante (olo...@world.std.com) wrote:
> Graham Nelson (gra...@gnelson.demon.co.uk) wrote:
> > Boring things about fantasy settings:
> >
> > Medieval villages. Blacksmiths, clairvoyant old women, churches.
> > Swords and hit points.
> > Evil wizards who must be overthrown.
> > Castles and dungeons.
> > Such blandness of period and style that you could be any period
> > between the Iron Age and 1750.
> Aw geez. Well, I'm about 3/4 of the way through my game; after spending
> three years to get to this point, I'm not gonna abandon it now.
Heh. Well, as I said, go for it.
> Besides, my game most defintely does not have a blacksmith.
Couldja add one? Just for me? :-)
Seriously, even lists of elements don't prove anything.
_A Game of Thrones_ (G.R.R.Martin) is a book I read last year which is --
in a sense -- generic fantasy. It doesn't have dragons, but it does have
hardy Northern bordermen, horse-riding tribesmen, scheming royalty and
pretenders to royalty, castles, dungeons, prophecies, children with wolf
companions, and -- I think -- elves. Also a dwarf.
It is thoroughly original and powerful, and I heartily wish the author
would get off his butt and finish the sequels. (I hear the second book is
*almost* done.)
To give one tiny example, which is background, not even plot or
character: the dungeons in one mountain castle are way, way up in the
air. One wall of the cell is entirely missing; you look out on freedom,
albeit with a half-mile drop between you and it. Admittedly you also are
looking out into freezing mountaintop wind. And the cell floor slopes.
Towards the drop.
After a few weeks in there, prisoners get very cooperative.
(Apologies if I screwed up any details; it's been over a year since I
read it.)
Then there's Michael Scott Rohan's _Winter of the World_ trilogy, which
has Tolkien-like elves and dwarves... but tied weirdly into our history.
It takes place during the Ice Age; the dwarves are dwarves, but they're
also Neanderthals. The elves are... stranger. The hero *is* a blacksmith,
but his magical weapons might be technological; at one point he's
definitely working with carbon-fiber composites.
Second April
> In article <69au6e$q...@snews1.zippo.com>,
> Marshall T. Vandegrift <ma...@DONT.intrlink.SPAM.com.ME> wrote:
> >I-F game, or is the market for that pretty glutted?
I know this: I would rather see another fantasy IF game than another
wander-around-in-a-house-and-do-stuff game. The former can be genuinely
interesting if done with originality; I have trouble seeing how the latter
could be. If I must play a "genre" game--and the best ones don't fit
neatly into genres--I think I'd prefer fantasy, actually, as science
fiction, mystery, and generic "hero" plots have never done much for me.
(My favorite Infocom games are the fantasy games, anyway.)
Duncan Stevens
d-st...@nwu.edu
312-654-0280
The room is as you left it; your last touch--
A thoughtless pressure, knowing not itself
As saintly--hallows now each simple thing,
Hallows and glorifies, and glows between
The dust's gray fingers, like a shielded light.
--from "Interim," by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Trevor Barrie
>Is it constructed entirely of cliches? Does it read like an AD&D
>campaign? Are there knights and dragons which are there only because
>everyone knows there are knights and dragons in places like this?
I'm as contemptuous of xD&D as anybody, but I don't see why the second
would necessarily be a bad thing.
>It's not that there's a secret cabal of fantasy-haters out here, waiting
>to deride any game without electric lighting.
Unless you consider one person a cabal.:) But then, he's not exactly
secret about it either.
Trevor Barrie
In article <69e0k6$88b$1...@remus.rutgers.edu>,
Edan Harel <edh...@remus.rutgers.edu> wrote:
>It might just be me, but I don't like what little I've seen of So Far.
>(Yup, I know, it's probably just me).
Nah, not just you. I don't think the prettiness of Mr. Plotkin's prose
is enough to make up for the ludicrousness of his puzzles in general.
(Of course, I liked "Lists and Lists" and "The Space Under the Window"
a lot, since neither of them had puzzles per se.)
>As for the point about games being cliched. Well, I can understand that
>about a few things (like infocom-fantasy or the really-giant-in-joke games)
Other than this year's "Sins against Mimesis", what examples are there
of "really-giant-in-joke" genre of game?
David Glasser
In article <erkyrathE...@netcom.com>, erky...@netcom.com (Andrew
Plotkin) wrote:
<snipity dip>
> _A Game of Thrones_ (G.R.R.Martin)
Hmm. That name sounds *so* similar to another fantasy author; who could
that be?
<major snippage of the real point of the post>
--David Glasser
Nice, nice, very nice-
So many different people
In the same device.
DGla...@NOSPAMfcs.pvt.k12.pa.us
dsgl...@NOSPAMhotmail.com
gla...@NOSPAMgobblernet.dyndns.com
http://glasser.base.org | http://glasser.base.org
If my ideas were those of FCS, this line wouldn't exist.
You know the deal. Get rid of NOSPAM.
Russell Glasser
To what has already been said, I would like to add the following
commentary:
A fantasy world isn't a bad thing or even a generic thing, AS LONG AS
it makes no presuppositions about things the reader already knows.
If the first character you introduce is an elf, and the game or story
fails to describe the elf in any way because it's exactly like all elves
that fantasy readers would recognize as such, that's bad. This applies
not only to physical characteristics, but also to race-related
personality quirks (i.e., all elves are wise and mischievous, all
dwarves are grumpy and good at evaluating precious gems, etc, etc,
BORING...)
What I am about to say applies equally to fantasy and good science
fiction. The world that you create has to have its own unique setting,
and more importantly, its own VERY UNIQUE rules of reality. These rules
have to be very well defined from the beginning, to the point where the
reader is comfortable with them, and they must be METICULOUSLY
consistent throughout the series. If your background makes no
assumptions about what the reader already knows, chances are you have
done something more creative than average.
I am thinking in particular of a game I played by Legend, which was
reasonably good and inspired me to read the novel series, which was
incredibly good. The game was Deathgate, the novels were written by
Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.
What was interesting to me about Deathgate was that it actually had
elves, dwarves, wizards, dragons, giants, and so on and so on... but it
used them in a way that no one had ever used them before. The races
were a background to a larger world that none of the characters were
aware of; they were all uninteresting pawns in a grander scale game
played by races that were completely original and inventive. The books
went to great pains to define characteristics of magic and races which
did not rely in any way on Tolkien or D&D. It is because the books made
up their OWN rules that they didn't bore me in SPITE of the fantasy
setting.
--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all
progress depends on the unreasonable man."
-- George Bernard Shaw
Russell can be heckled at
http://www.willynet.com/rglasser
Andrew Plotkin
Trevor Barrie (tba...@ibm.net) wrote:
> In article <erkyrathE...@netcom.com>,
> Andrew Plotkin <erky...@netcom.com> wrote:
> >Is it constructed entirely of cliches? Does it read like an AD&D
> >campaign? Are there knights and dragons which are there only because
> >everyone knows there are knights and dragons in places like this?
> I'm as contemptuous of xD&D as anybody, but I don't see why the second
> would necessarily be a bad thing.
When I say "reads like an AD&D campaign", I mean that you can see
individual paragraphs from the Dungeon Master's Guide being used to
construct the plot.
I'm thinking of a book someone gave me, one of the early Raymond Feist I
think, and the first thing that happens is that someone invents the *spell
scroll*, as opposed to the *memorized spell*. Or maybe it was the other way
around. The point was, it was exactly the D&D spell mechanics.
I think I recognized specific D&D-definition spells later on, too.
This is not the way to interest me.
Andrew Plotkin
David Glasser (dgla...@NOSPAMfcs.pvt.k12.pa.us) wrote:
> In article <erkyrathE...@netcom.com>, erky...@netcom.com (Andrew
> Plotkin) wrote:
> <snipity dip>
> > _A Game of Thrones_ (G.R.R.Martin)
> Hmm. That name sounds *so* similar to another fantasy author; who could
> that be?
Heh. Actually he goes by "George R. R. Martin" on his bylines, not
"G. R. R. Martin"
And this is his first fantasy novel, as far as I know. He wrote a lot of
very good SF in the 70's and 80's; then he was the editor for the "Wild
Cards" series of superhero-genre shared world anthologies. I don't know
what the heck he did after that, but I really liked _A Game of Thrones_.
Arcum Dagsson
In article <69au6e$q...@snews1.zippo.com>, ma...@DONT.intrlink.SPAM.com.ME
(Marshall T. Vandegrift) wrote:
> I've been working on a full-length fantasy I-F game, but have been wondering
> how well it would be received.
>
> It seems that lately I've seen a number people calling just about *any*
> fantasy setting cliched. While my setting is non-generic, it's definately not
> as original as, say, So Far's.
>
> So, what do other players think: would you be interested seeing a new fantasy
> I-F game, or is the market for that pretty glutted?
>
>
> ----------
> Marshall T. Vandegrift (ma...@DONT.intrlink.SPAM.com.ME) (You know the drill.)
> "Even in laughter, the heart is sorrowful." --Proverbs 14:13
As long as the game is interesting, I personally don't mind if it's set in
a house which is a home office, has sections that take place in a fantasy
college dorm, and the eventual goal is to defeat an evil mad scientist
(and manages to resemble Delusions, despite it all). :)
I don't really think that the background is too important, as long as the
story maintains interest, and has some original twists to it that make it
stand out.
--Arcum Dagsson
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Carl Klutzke
In article <34BB1707...@ix.netcom.com>,
Russell Glasser <rgla...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> A fantasy world isn't a bad thing or even a generic thing, AS LONG AS
>it makes no presuppositions about things the reader already knows.
I never thought about it in just this way before, but I think you are
exactly on the mark. You have managed to describe what it is about some
works of fantasy that just make me want to vomit, even though it's my
favorite genre. It reminds me of reading the first Riftworld book by
Raymond Feist, where they get attacked by "dark elves". I found myself
thinking "Oh, for crying out loud, it's the Drow, only he can't call them
that because TSR would have his butt." I can't honestly understand why
the books sold so well. Maybe they sold to people who were too young to
be sick of this sort of thing yet. I must admit, I enjoyed the Iron Tower
Trilogy and Dragon Lance the first time I read them, in high school. Upon
trying to reread them later I thought they were awful.
Make your own setting, or use one from real history. Don't duplicate
someone else's fantasy world. It's like a painting of a painting, rather
than the painting itself. It has no merit of its own.
Carl Klutzke
Magnus Olsson
In article <69g3v5$bps$1...@news.iquest.net>,
Carl Klutzke <cklu...@iquest.net> wrote:
>In article <34BB1707...@ix.netcom.com>,
>Russell Glasser <rgla...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>> A fantasy world isn't a bad thing or even a generic thing, AS LONG AS
>>it makes no presuppositions about things the reader already knows.
>
>I never thought about it in just this way before, but I think you are
>exactly on the mark.
I'm not so sure about that. Or rather, I think Russell's statement
makes no sense. All fiction makes that kind of presuppositions, to
some degree, especially fiction that takes place in the real world,
of course.
Come to think of it, I suspect Russel is confusing cause and effect
here: if the setting is very cliched, then the author will be able to
make presuppositions about what the reader knows. "My elves are just
like Tolkien's, and the reader will immediately recognize this, so I
can cut out a lot of exposition." But the same holds true for
realistic settings: "The cars in my game are just like real cars, so I
can presuppose that the reader knows a lot about how they work." And
that doesn't make a game about cars cliched, does it?
>You have managed to describe what it is about some
>works of fantasy that just make me want to vomit, even though it's my
>favorite genre. It reminds me of reading the first Riftworld book by
>Raymond Feist, where they get attacked by "dark elves". I found myself
>thinking "Oh, for crying out loud, it's the Drow, only he can't call them
>that because TSR would have his butt."
I haven't read the book in question, but were his "dark elves" obvious
clones of AD&D's Drow? Or are you implying that the concept of dark
elves originated in ADD? (It didn't: dark and light elves have existed
in Nordic folklore for centuries - the Swart Alfar and Lios Alfar of
Kay's "Fionavar Tapestry" are another example).
>Make your own setting, or use one from real history. Don't duplicate
>someone else's fantasy world. It's like a painting of a painting, rather
>than the painting itself. It has no merit of its own.
I think the important point that lots of people here are missing is
that this is true for the *setting*, and for the setting only. The
rest of the game can be stunningly original, even if it's set in a
world straight out of an AD&D sourcebook.
And let's also not forget that to many readers a recognizable setting
is a *plus*. Part of the attraction of genre fiction is that you feel
at home. Of course, there is cliched genre fiction, and there is original
genre fiction.
And all this is valid for all genres, not just for fantasy.
Take westerns, for example. How many western movies don't seem to
take place in the very same town, with the same people riding
past the same cliffs in the same desert?
Joe Mason
>has Tolkien-like elves and dwarves... but tied weirdly into our history.
>It takes place during the Ice Age; the dwarves are dwarves, but they're
>also Neanderthals. The elves are... stranger. The hero *is* a blacksmith,
>but his magical weapons might be technological; at one point he's
>definitely working with carbon-fiber composites.
Yeah. That one was just neat. Neat, neat, neat, neat, neat. The Ice
especially. In fact - HEY! I KNOW WHAT THE LICHEN IN SO FAR REMINDED ME OF!
I *knew* something before had given me that exact same creepy feeling.
(This is a compliment, by the way, not a "Hey! You stole it!" Similar tone,
not similar concept.)
Also, a guy I mentioned in another thread a while ago, Guy Gavriel Kay.
_Tigana_. It has an evil wizard, but his big master death spell doesn't kill
anybody, doesn't open a gate to the netherworld, doesn't give him Immortality:
it just makes everybody on the continent unable to hear the word "Tigana".
Joe
(from memory) "He threw down our cities, he enslaved our people, and he took
away our NAME!"
Mary K. Kuhner
In article <69g6bu$c6r$1...@bartlet.df.lth.se>,
Magnus Olsson <m...@bartlet.df.lth.se> wrote:
>Come to think of it, I suspect Russel is confusing cause and effect
>here: if the setting is very cliched, then the author will be able to
>make presuppositions about what the reader knows. "My elves are just
>like Tolkien's, and the reader will immediately recognize this, so I
>can cut out a lot of exposition." But the same holds true for
>realistic settings: "The cars in my game are just like real cars, so I
>can presuppose that the reader knows a lot about how they work." And
>that doesn't make a game about cars cliched, does it?
I read the same book that Russel is commenting on, and I had the
same complaint with it. It wasn't just that the elves were Tolkein
elves (and in fact they weren't 100%, though the resemblance was
certainly strong, and it felt kind of icky to be able to use Tolkein
knowledge to translate Feist's elven words). It was that I could
never get any kind of vivid or compelling image of what was going on,
because the writing relied *so* heavily on presuppositions.
I particularly remember a scene where the characters, deep underground,
encounter a shadow of the restless dead. This ought to be an
interesting scene, really it should. There is lots of room for
disturbing detail. What does a shadow of the restless dead smell
like? What does it make you feel like to see it? How does it look
against its background? ("Through its pale form he could see the
cavern walls, but stained and somehow repellent, as if the creature's
shadow, while not obscuring, contaminated all that it fell upon.")
But Feist did none of this. He said that they saw a wraith,
and they were afraid of it, because they thought it would steal
their life energy. I forget what they did--and I really
didn't care, because I had no engagement in the scene. I could
not see or hear or feel what was going on, nor was there any
vividness in how the characters reacted.
I feel the same way in IF if you just tell me I see an elf, or
a dragon, or a dwarf--or anything you want me to focus on. (I'm not
happy with "a car" either if it's at all important. James Bond
should not be driving "a car".)
I am happy to be shown an elf, but I want the author to show
me *his* elf, not simply ask me to fill in a generic one.
Incidentally, I ran a roleplaying campaign some years back with
people who were more-or-less elves and more-or-less dwarves. But
I never used either word for them: they were Forest-Folk and
Mountain-Folk, and when the PCs first met them I gave a fairly
detailed description relating the people to humans they'd met.
I think it worked really well in keeping the players from treating
the NPCs offhandedly and without engagement. It also kept them
remembering that they couldn't simply assume Default Elves, which
helped with campaign verisimilitude. It's worth trying.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Magnus Olsson
In article <69g97i$5uv$1...@nntp5.u.washington.edu>,
Mary K. Kuhner <mkku...@evolution.genetics.washington.edu> wrote:
>In article <69g6bu$c6r$1...@bartlet.df.lth.se>,
>Magnus Olsson <m...@bartlet.df.lth.se> wrote:
>
>>Come to think of it, I suspect Russel is confusing cause and effect
>>here: if the setting is very cliched, then the author will be able to
>>make presuppositions about what the reader knows. "My elves are just
>>like Tolkien's, and the reader will immediately recognize this, so I
>>can cut out a lot of exposition." But the same holds true for
>>realistic settings: "The cars in my game are just like real cars, so I
>>can presuppose that the reader knows a lot about how they work." And
>>that doesn't make a game about cars cliched, does it?
>
>I read the same book that Russel is commenting on, and I had the
>same complaint with it.
Well, I wasn't commenting on Russel's comment on the book, but on
his general statement about not relying on presuppositions. But
I might have misunderstood it. More about that below.
>It wasn't just that the elves were Tolkein
>elves (and in fact they weren't 100%, though the resemblance was
>certainly strong, and it felt kind of icky to be able to use Tolkein
>knowledge to translate Feist's elven words). It was that I could
>never get any kind of vivid or compelling image of what was going on,
>because the writing relied *so* heavily on presuppositions.
OK, if *that* is what Russel meant, then I can agree with him.
>I particularly remember a scene where the characters, deep underground,
>encounter a shadow of the restless dead. This ought to be an
>interesting scene, really it should. There is lots of room for
>disturbing detail. What does a shadow of the restless dead smell
>like? What does it make you feel like to see it? How does it look
>against its background? ("Through its pale form he could see the
>cavern walls, but stained and somehow repellent, as if the creature's
>shadow, while not obscuring, contaminated all that it fell upon.")
>
>But Feist did none of this. He said that they saw a wraith,
>and they were afraid of it, because they thought it would steal
>their life energy. I forget what they did--and I really
>didn't care, because I had no engagement in the scene. I could
>not see or hear or feel what was going on, nor was there any
>vividness in how the characters reacted.
But this is surely a problem of bad writing (not necessarily
technically bad, of course), not of the generic setting.
I agree 100% with what you're saying here (and if that's what Russel's
saying, I agree with him as well :-) ). And this is a sin often
committed by IF authors as well. Sometimes, it may be a lack of
imagination (the author can't figure out what his monsters look like,
so he just describes them as icky and scary). Sometimes, it's perhaps
just laziness or misplaced economy - a famous example is Hades in Zork I.
>I feel the same way in IF if you just tell me I see an elf, or
>a dragon, or a dwarf--or anything you want me to focus on. (I'm not
>happy with "a car" either if it's at all important. James Bond
>should not be driving "a car".)
>
>I am happy to be shown an elf, but I want the author to show
>me *his* elf, not simply ask me to fill in a generic one.
This, I think, is sound advice for all writing, genre or non-genre.
(But, though it may be bad writing to just give James Bond "a car"
rather than an Aston Martin Lagonda, you can still rely on the
readers' knowledge of how an ordinary car works, and limit your
description to what makes Bond's car different.)
*However*, I think we're drifting away from the real issue, which is
why generic fantasy settings are so bad.
Surely, a game can be set in a generic fantasy setting, use all the
cliches (as brilliantly parodied in Diana Wynn Jones' "Tough Guide to
Fantasyland". Lovely book. Get it.), and still have the kind of vivid
descriptions that you're asking for above, still avoid the
"presupposition of knowledge"? And what's so bad about such a game?
Mary K. Kuhner
In article <69gdaf$ltq$1...@bartlet.df.lth.se>,
Magnus Olsson <m...@bartlet.df.lth.se> wrote:
[Mary commented on Feist's _Riftworld_ novels]
>I agree 100% with what you're saying here (and if that's what Russel's
>saying, I agree with him as well :-) ). And this is a sin often
>committed by IF authors as well. Sometimes, it may be a lack of
>imagination (the author can't figure out what his monsters look like,
>so he just describes them as icky and scary). Sometimes, it's perhaps
>just laziness or misplaced economy - a famous example is Hades in Zork I.
There's a quote in Orwell's essay "Politics and the English
Language" where he says that if we think of concrete things, we
tend to start with a picture and then fit words, whereas to deal
with abstracts or cliches we start with words, and no clear picture
may ever emerge. It is certainly possible to describe a stock
creature vividly and imaginatively, but it's also seductively
easy not to, because in your mind where the picture ought to be
you may have words instead, words you're used to seeing strung
together. (I highly recommend this essay, by the way.)
I think it is easier to be lazy in a well-trodden genre. If you
write a _So Far_ you *have* to describe what the player is seeing,
or your betatesters will complain that they have no idea what's
going on. If you write a stock fantasy game you can cut corners
a lot and still produce a playable game. But cutting corners is
not the way to make something really good.
>*However*, I think we're drifting away from the real issue, which is
>why generic fantasy settings are so bad.
>Surely, a game can be set in a generic fantasy setting, use all the
>cliches (as brilliantly parodied in Diana Wynn Jones' "Tough Guide to
>Fantasyland". Lovely book. Get it.), and still have the kind of vivid
>descriptions that you're asking for above, still avoid the
>"presupposition of knowledge"? And what's so bad about such a game?
Surely it can. Sean Stewart's novel _Nobody's Son_ has a witch,
a castle, a commoner who marries the princess, and so forth, and
it's a terrific, original, moving novel. I would be happy to play
a game which did half as well.
But. Such a game will have to contend with my initial prejudice
against it, just as _Nobody's Son_ did, because 99% of
the examples of that genre I've seen lately *are* cliched and
lacking in vividness. It can certainly overcome that prejudice,
--"Bear's Night Out" overcame my prejudice against
suburban-house settings--but it will have to work at it.
In particular, the game needs to avoid lazy bits early
on (unless it is trying for parody--"Zero Sum Game" really
doesn't fall into the category we are discussing here).
One failure of imagination early may well convince me (however
unfairly) that the whole game is going to be flat. I give
more slack to games with novel settings before deciding that
they bore me. This is unfortunate, but I think it's also
common and players can't really be talked out of it. So
potential fantasy-game authors would be well advised to go
over their games very carefully asking "Have I envisioned
this clearly? Have I described it clearly? Does it make
sense? Does it belong in this game, or is it only here because
I'm used to seeing it in fantasy? Am I earning my own
emotional reactions, or am I trying to piggyback on someone
else's?"
Some people still won't play them, but that's true of every
genre and there's not much you can do about it.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Matthew T. Russotto
In article <69g3v5$bps$1...@news.iquest.net>,
Carl Klutzke <cklu...@iquest.net> wrote:
}In article <34BB1707...@ix.netcom.com>,
}Russell Glasser <rgla...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
}> A fantasy world isn't a bad thing or even a generic thing, AS LONG AS
}>it makes no presuppositions about things the reader already knows.
}
}I never thought about it in just this way before, but I think you are
}works of fantasy that just make me want to vomit, even though it's my
}favorite genre. It reminds me of reading the first Riftworld book by
}Raymond Feist, where they get attacked by "dark elves". I found myself
}thinking "Oh, for crying out loud, it's the Drow, only he can't call them
}that because TSR would have his butt."
Perhaps he didn't swipe them from AD&D, but instead swiped them from
the same source they swiped them from...
--
Matthew T. Russotto russ...@pond.com
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue."
Damien Neil
On Tue, 13 Jan 1998 04:37:42 GMT, Andrew Plotkin <erky...@netcom.com> wrote:
>And this is his first fantasy novel, as far as I know. He wrote a lot of
>very good SF in the 70's and 80's; then he was the editor for the "Wild
>Cards" series of superhero-genre shared world anthologies. I don't know
>what the heck he did after that, but I really liked _A Game of Thrones_.
...and I'm assiduously avoiding even touching the darned thing, until
he writes the rest of the series. I've been bitten that way too many
times. :>
- Damien
Heiko Nock
In article <69dnn1$6te$1...@drollsden.ibm.net>,
tba...@ibm.net (Trevor Barrie) wrote:
>>It might just be me, but I don't like what little I've seen of So Far.
>>(Yup, I know, it's probably just me).
>Nah, not just you. I don't think the prettiness of Mr. Plotkin's prose
>is enough to make up for the ludicrousness of his puzzles in general.
Hee hee .....there's a reason why he rates them as Cruel >:>
--
Ciao/2, Heiko.....
Magnus Olsson
In article <69go91$n...@wanda.vf.pond.com>,
Matthew T. Russotto <russ...@wanda.vf.pond.com> wrote:
>In article <69g3v5$bps$1...@news.iquest.net>,
>Carl Klutzke <cklu...@iquest.net> wrote:
>}In article <34BB1707...@ix.netcom.com>,
>}Russell Glasser <rgla...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>}> A fantasy world isn't a bad thing or even a generic thing, AS LONG AS
>}>it makes no presuppositions about things the reader already knows.
>}
>}I never thought about it in just this way before, but I think you are
>}exactly on the mark. You have managed to describe what it is about some
>}works of fantasy that just make me want to vomit, even though it's my
>}favorite genre. It reminds me of reading the first Riftworld book by
>}Raymond Feist, where they get attacked by "dark elves". I found myself
>}thinking "Oh, for crying out loud, it's the Drow, only he can't call them
>}that because TSR would have his butt."
>
>Perhaps he didn't swipe them from AD&D, but instead swiped them from
>the same source they swiped them from...
As I commented in my earlier post, dark elves are a common
theme in folklore.
But (totally off-topic) does anybody know why they're called "Drow" in
AD&D?
Marshall T. Vandegrift
As the general feeling seems to be against AD&D-style, "we both know what an
elf is," "get rid of the evil wizard" style fantasy games, I will quite
happily continue upon my current lines.
Just for the record, I do have a village and an "evil" wizard, though not as
usually seen. And if you're tired of elves, just wait until you see my very
non-standard Faerie. :-)
Thanks for all the help!
----------
Marshall T. Vandegrift (mailto:ma...@intrlink.com)
HarryH
In article <EMozz...@world.std.com>, olo...@world.std.com says...[boring list snipped]
>
>Aw geez. Well, I'm about 3/4 of the way through my game; after spending
>three years to get to this point, I'm not gonna abandon it now.
My suggestion to you is to just go ahead and do it.
Western was dead when Unforgiven and Dances w/ the Wolf was made.
Thriller was dead when Hunt for Red October was made.
Guitar music was dead when Beatles came.
There are several other genres that are dead (such as Animation), but because
of a few good stories (Little Mermaid, Beauty and Beast, Akira), they got
revived. A good story is timeless. Will Les Miserables be any less engaging
now since Old Revolution story is passe? I think not.
(Right now I'm trying to revive puzzle games genre. I'm still trying.)
>Besides, my game most defintely does not have a blacksmith.
Please add one for me? :)
-------------------------------------------------------
Of course I'll work on weekends without pay!
- successful applicant
Roger Burton West
In article <LmWu.1183$9p.19...@news1.atlantic.net>
har...@iu.net.idiotic.com.skip.idiotic.com "HarryH" wrote:
>Western was dead when Unforgiven and Dances w/ the Wolf was made.
>Thriller was dead when Hunt for Red October was made.
>Guitar music was dead when Beatles came.
SF films were dead when Star Wars arrived.
Genre Fantasy didn't even _exist_ until people ripped off Tolkien.
Cheers,
Roger
--
/~~\_/~\ BEWARE ,,, |~) _ _ _ _ |~) __|_ _ _ \ / _ __|_
| #=#======of==# | |~\(_)(_|(/_| |_)|_|| | (_)| | \/\/ (/__\ |
\__/~\_/ FILKER ``` _| ro...@firedrake.demon.co.uk
Vote Chris Bell for TAFF in 1998 http://www.firedrake.demon.co.uk/
Carl Klutzke
>Mary K. Kuhner <mkku...@evolution.genetics.washington.edu> wrote:
>>It wasn't just that the elves were Tolkein
>>elves (and in fact they weren't 100%, though the resemblance was
>>certainly strong, and it felt kind of icky to be able to use Tolkein
>>knowledge to translate Feist's elven words). It was that I could
>>never get any kind of vivid or compelling image of what was going on,
>>because the writing relied *so* heavily on presuppositions.
>
>OK, if *that* is what Russel meant, then I can agree with him.
It is what I meant. Russel didn't actually mention any specific books.
>But this is surely a problem of bad writing (not necessarily
>technically bad, of course), not of the generic setting.
True, but generic setting is symptomatic of bad writing. A non-generic
setting is more likely to inspire/enhance good writing.
>>I feel the same way in IF if you just tell me I see an elf, or
>>a dragon, or a dwarf--or anything you want me to focus on. (I'm not
>>happy with "a car" either if it's at all important. James Bond
>>should not be driving "a car".)
>>
>>I am happy to be shown an elf, but I want the author to show
>>me *his* elf, not simply ask me to fill in a generic one.
Details are critical to good writing. They are what really pull you into
the setting, creating a story rather than an anecdote.
>Surely, a game can be set in a generic fantasy setting, use all the
>cliches (as brilliantly parodied in Diana Wynn Jones' "Tough Guide to
>Fantasyland". Lovely book. Get it.), and still have the kind of vivid
>descriptions that you're asking for above, still avoid the
>"presupposition of knowledge"? And what's so bad about such a game?
What's bad about it is how we missed out on what it could have been with a
bit more effort.
Carl Klutzke
Carl Klutzke
In article <69go91$n...@wanda.vf.pond.com>,
Matthew T. Russotto <russ...@wanda.vf.pond.com> wrote:
>Perhaps he didn't swipe them from AD&D, but instead swiped them from
>the same source they swiped them from...
Well, Tolkien never mentions Dark Elves, though I believe they do figure
in Finnish legend, from which Tolkien derived much of his work.
Which brings up another point. Deriving something from folklore is fine.
It creates certain resonances in the setting, making it seem familiar.
But it works best if you put your own interpretation into it, so that
there's some strangeness mixed int with the familiarity. I find such
things fascinating. What I don't like is fiction derived from other works
of fiction. The sense of artifice becomes much too strong.
Carl Klutzke
Magnus Olsson
In article <69ijvt$mc3$1...@news.iquest.net>,
Carl Klutzke <cklu...@iquest.net> wrote:
>In article <69go91$n...@wanda.vf.pond.com>,
>Matthew T. Russotto <russ...@wanda.vf.pond.com> wrote:
>>Perhaps he didn't swipe them from AD&D, but instead swiped them from
>>the same source they swiped them from...
>
>Well, Tolkien never mentions Dark Elves, though I believe they do figure
>in Finnish legend, from which Tolkien derived much of his work.
I think Tolkien's elves are very much his own creation.
In Swedish folklore, "light elves" ("ljusalver", cf. Kay's "Lios
Alfar") are rather like the Anglo-Celtic Faeries, while "dark elves"
("svartalver", Kay's "Swart Alfar") are more like goblins.
>Which brings up another point. Deriving something from folklore is fine.
>It creates certain resonances in the setting, making it seem familiar.
To people who share that particular piece of folklore, that
is. Folklore differs between different cultures. In Swedish folklore,
troll can be small as well as large, and beautiful as well as ugly -
rather far from the usual English connotation of "ogre".
Folklore is also quite vague and inconsistent. Which is not
surprising, since people didn't go around writing DM's manuals in the
old days.
>What I don't like is fiction derived from other works
>of fiction. The sense of artifice becomes much too strong.
There was an interesting discussion about this on rec.arts.sf.written
some time ago, where somebody pointed out that many authors today
don't get their elves (say) from folklore anymore, nor even from
Tolkien or any other original author; no, they copy them from
authors who have in turn copied them from somewhere else.
The tragedy of those authors' works is not that they are derivatives,
but that they are second- or third-hand derivatives.
Chris Marriott
In article <Snews.980114.10...@firedrake.demon.co.uk>,
Roger Burton West <ro...@firedrake.avertspam.demon.co.uk> writes
>Genre Fantasy didn't even _exist_ until people ripped off Tolkien.
Wouldn't you describe books such as "Gulliver's Travels" as fantasy? I
certainly would!
Chris
----------------------------------------------------------------
Chris Marriott, Microsoft Certified Solution Developer.
SkyMap Software, U.K. e-mail: ch...@skymap.com
Visit our web site at http://www.skymap.com
Gunther Schmidl
>Wouldn't you describe books such as "Gulliver's Travels" as fantasy? I
>certainly would!
>
>Chris
I'd describe it as a very well constructed cynical description of then
current state affairs, disguised as a fantasy setting.
--
+------------------------+----------------------------------------------+
+ Gunther Schmidl + "I couldn't help it. I can resist everything +
+ Ferd.-Markl-Str. 39/16 + except temptation" -- Oscar Wilde +
+ A-4040 LINZ +----------------------------------------------+
+ Tel: 0732 25 28 57 + http://gschmidl.home.ml.org - new & improved +
+------------------------+---+------------------------------------------+
+ sothoth (at) usa (dot) net + please remove the "xxx." before replying +
+----------------------------+------------------------------------------+
Edan Harel
"Gunther Schmidl" <sot...@xxx.usa.net> writes:
>>Wouldn't you describe books such as "Gulliver's Travels" as fantasy? I
>>certainly would!
>I'd describe it as a very well constructed cynical description of then
>current state affairs, disguised as a fantasy setting.
So the Wizard of Oz, and the Smurfs fall into that.
Edan Harel
--
Edan Harel edh...@remus.rutgers.edu McCormick 6201
Research Assistant Math and Comp Sci Major Computer Consultant
USACS Member Math Club Secretary
Edan Harel
tba...@ibm.net (Trevor Barrie) writes:
>(Of course, I liked "Lists and Lists" and "The Space Under the Window"
>a lot, since neither of them had puzzles per se.)
Me too.
>>As for the point about games being cliched. Well, I can understand that
>>about a few things (like infocom-fantasy or the really-giant-in-joke games)
>Other than this year's "Sins against Mimesis", what examples are there
>of "really-giant-in-joke" genre of game?
Well, there were some games which revolve (in some way) around the author's
own life (a whole bunch, actually. Although I'm talking about the games
on gmd in general, not (in general) about the competition games). For example,
there are a bunch of college based games that spring to mind. I`d rather
not see such "in jokes" when I'm playing the game, at least the first
time. The games that have the best "in jokes" are those where only a
person who would understand the joke would see it or try whatever action
causes the joke or else it's funny enough to be funny even to someone
who doesn't. Otherwise it seems, at least to me, to be just a collection of
"Hi mom" signs waiting to be read and not understood by the average joe
playing the game.
For some examples of what I think tends to be good "in jokes" would be some of
the games from lucasarts or sierra (although, at times, they tend to be
overwhelming, especially in sierra games). A lot of times they'll just
hide something in the background (admittedly easier to do in a graphic
adventure). Or else they'd have puns or references to other games by Sierra
or other companies (I personally liked Sim Sim :)). In the Space Quest
series, theres a wonderfull (if really large) array of references to
other sci-fi (movies, books, shows, etc) which are easy to identify (even to
non sci-fi fans, although a good chunk of those who play the series
probably are).
For those references to more personal things (ie friends, etc) they tend
to either combine the names into names of characters (infocom did this
too). Otherwise it would be in some unusual action that would be hard for
the average player to just type in. For example, in SQ 1(?) I think that
if you wrote the name of the boss of sierra, a picture of him would appear,
asking if the game (SQ1) had been finished yet.
I think the only infocom game, that I can think of, the made such
explicit references (apart from name changing) would be Sherlock,
that had the Marx brothers thing that people spotted a short while back.
Andrew Plotkin
Magnus Olsson (m...@bartlet.df.lth.se) wrote:
> But (totally off-topic) does anybody know why they're called "Drow" in
> AD&D?
I'm pretty sure this is a real archaic word, like "grue".
It may be related to "dwarrow" or "duarough", which (again, I think)
evolved into our word "dwarf". From Old English, which was back when
elves and dwarves were all just the small folk, before Tolkien wrote
books in which they were separate species.
Andrew Plotkin
Roger Burton West (ro...@firedrake.avertspam.demon.co.uk) wrote:
> In article <LmWu.1183$9p.19...@news1.atlantic.net>
> har...@iu.net.idiotic.com.skip.idiotic.com "HarryH" wrote:
> >Western was dead when Unforgiven and Dances w/ the Wolf was made.
> >Thriller was dead when Hunt for Red October was made.
> >Guitar music was dead when Beatles came.
> SF films were dead when Star Wars arrived.
> Genre Fantasy didn't even _exist_ until people ripped off Tolkien.
I could give more examples from SF: space opera and _A Fire Upon the
Deep_, tech-and-science extrapolation and Greg Egan, etc.
I think each of these examples show a common point: the work brought
something *new* to the genre. For example, _Star Wars_ had a future
universe of unprecedented background detail, supported by equally
unprecedented special effects.
Andrew Plotkin
Chris Marriott (ch...@chrism.demon.co.uk) wrote:
> In article <Snews.980114.10...@firedrake.demon.co.uk>,
> Roger Burton West <ro...@firedrake.avertspam.demon.co.uk> writes
> Wouldn't you describe books such as "Gulliver's Travels" as fantasy? I
> certainly would!
From our point of view, Gulliver's Travels and even Beowulf can be
considered fantasy.
But there was no *genre* -- which is a marketing category defined by
reader assumptions, expectation, and background knowledge. I think the
essence of a genre is "If you liked X, you'll like Y..." The genre we
think of as "fantasy" today was constructed around Tolkien.
Similarly, you can argue that Dante's Inferno was hard sci-fi, but the
genre of sci-fi is a 20th-century thing. Not sure when it started -- pulp
magazines in the 30's?
Joe Mason
>}Raymond Feist, where they get attacked by "dark elves". I found myself
>}thinking "Oh, for crying out loud, it's the Drow, only he can't call them
>}that because TSR would have his butt."
>
>the same source they swiped them from...
No, he swiped them from AD&D. He said as much in the foreward to the edition
of _Magician_ which I read: "This book is based on the AD&D campaign that I
played". That's why a lot of it is standard AD&D fantasy.
To be fair to Feist (who was one of my favourite authors for a while) the
series didn't get interesting until the second half of _Magician_ (in
softcover,_Magician: Master_) when they got into the Tsurani in a big way. Oh,
and the Valheru were pretty original too.
(Some claim the Tsurani were also ripped off, from M.A.R. Barker's Tsolyani.
I've read one of the Empire of the Petal Throne books, but it was too long ago
to remember enough to comment.)
Joe
Joe Mason
In article <69im8p$qh5$1...@bartlet.df.lth.se>,
Magnus Olsson <m...@bartlet.df.lth.se> wrote:
>
>In Swedish folklore, "light elves" ("ljusalver", cf. Kay's "Lios
>Alfar") are rather like the Anglo-Celtic Faeries, while "dark elves"
>("svartalver", Kay's "Swart Alfar") are more like goblins.
Slight nit-pick: it was "Svart Alfar" in Kay. The last person who mentioned
them (I think it was you) made the same mistake, and I thought it was a typo.
Joe
"Most hated by the Dark, for their name is Light."
Matthew T. Russotto
In article <erkyrath...@netcom.com>,
Andrew Plotkin <erky...@netcom.com> wrote:
}I think each of these examples show a common point: the work brought
}something *new* to the genre. For example, _Star Wars_ had a future
}universe of unprecedented background detail, supported by equally
}unprecedented special effects.
<nitpick mode: on>
Futuristic, perhaps, but not future.
"A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away"
<nitpick mode: off>
Matthew T. Russotto
}Similarly, you can argue that Dante's Inferno was hard sci-fi, but the
}genre of sci-fi is a 20th-century thing. Not sure when it started -- pulp
}magazines in the 30's?
I think Verne and Wells are generally accepted as being within the
genre, which makes it mid-to-late 19th century.
Edan Harel
erky...@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin) writes:
>But there was no *genre* -- which is a marketing category defined by
>reader assumptions, expectation, and background knowledge. I think the
>essence of a genre is "If you liked X, you'll like Y..." The genre we
>think of as "fantasy" today was constructed around Tolkien.
Hmm, I'm not sure that's true. I like (or liked, haven't had much
time recently) much of D&D (at least the early bits before it got
too rule oriented) and the Dragonlance books, but I can't say
I'm terribly fond of Tolkien. Always found him a bit boring. But for
me, I've always found the most interesting bits of Fantasy to be the
plot (and some atmosphere), which Dragonlance has lots of, I suppose.
But then, I like Gullivers Travels.
Edan Harel
erky...@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin) writes:
>I think each of these examples show a common point: the work brought
>something *new* to the genre. For example, _Star Wars_ had a future
>universe of unprecedented background detail, supported by equally
>unprecedented special effects.
Umm, unprecedented background detail? That seems a stretch (even if it is
true that Lucas fleshed out the details for himself). What I think Star
Wars is, is a revamping, albeit well done, of the episodic pulp movies
and he did it again with Indiana Jones. I wouldn't say he brought anything
extraordinarily new, but he made it respectable (ie, better developed)
and more interesting for all, at least by the end of the series.
Edan Harel
Edan Harel
russ...@wanda.vf.pond.com (Matthew T. Russotto) writes:
>In article <erkyrath...@netcom.com>,
>Andrew Plotkin <erky...@netcom.com> wrote:
>}Similarly, you can argue that Dante's Inferno was hard sci-fi, but the
>}genre of sci-fi is a 20th-century thing. Not sure when it started -- pulp
>}magazines in the 30's?
>I think Verne and Wells are generally accepted as being within the
>genre, which makes it mid-to-late 19th century.
And what about Frankenstein? And then there are even earlier stories
which could debatably be put in one catagory or another (why is Gullivers
Travels fantasy and not sci-fi?). It gets tiresome.
Edan Harel
Roger Burton West <ro...@firedrake.avertspam.demon.co.uk> writes:
>In article <LmWu.1183$9p.19...@news1.atlantic.net>
> har...@iu.net.idiotic.com.skip.idiotic.com "HarryH" wrote:
>>Western was dead when Unforgiven and Dances w/ the Wolf was made.
>>Thriller was dead when Hunt for Red October was made.
>>Guitar music was dead when Beatles came.
>SF films were dead when Star Wars arrived.
>Genre Fantasy didn't even _exist_ until people ripped off Tolkien.
That seems rather morbid, and I disagree with it. genere films/tv shows
come in waves and cycles. In the late 70s/early 80s there were at
least 6 or 7 sci fi shows on American Tv. That reduced sharply till
ST:TNG came along, causing more (albeit short and sometimes bad) shows
to come along and die, and then another batch came up with DS9. Right
now, we're probably going into a dive once again.
Generes aren't revitalized when a new amazing thing comes out. It's when
people see how much money is to be made that they start noticing those
generes.
Roger Burton West
In article <yZA1qJA8...@chrism.demon.co.uk>
ch...@chrism.demon.co.uk "Chris Marriott" wrote:
>In article <Snews.980114.10...@firedrake.demon.co.uk>,
>Roger Burton West <ro...@firedrake.avertspam.demon.co.uk> writes
>>Genre Fantasy didn't even _exist_ until people ripped off Tolkien.
>
>Wouldn't you describe books such as "Gulliver's Travels" as fantasy? I
>certainly would!
Hee hee - I've just been having an email argument with _another_ Chris
about this, and for a moment I thought I was in the wrong group...
Yes, it's fantasy. But it's not _genre_ fantasy. By which I mean the
fantasyland with elves, dwarves, fighters, clerics, magic-users, thieves
(especially guilds of thieves), magic swords - you know the sort of
thing, the ripoff of Tolkien and *D&D that so many books seem to use.
See, at length: (a) The Fantasy Encyclopaedia, ed. John Clute and John
Grant; (b) The Tough Guide To Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones.
(I gather, incidentally, that DWJ is working on a book set in said
Fantasyland... :)
Trevor Barrie
>>Perhaps he didn't swipe them from AD&D, but instead swiped them from
>>the same source they swiped them from...
>
>Well, Tolkien never mentions Dark Elves, though I believe they do figure
>in Finnish legend, from which Tolkien derived much of his work.
He does, but they have pretty much nothing in common with AD&D Dark Elves.
"Dark Elves" (Moriquendi) were simply those elves who never saw the two
trees that lit the world back in the [First|Second] Age.
Joe Mason
In article <erkyrathE...@netcom.com>,
Andrew Plotkin <erky...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
>> But (totally off-topic) does anybody know why they're called "Drow" in
>> AD&D?
>
>I'm pretty sure this is a real archaic word, like "grue".
>
>It may be related to "dwarrow" or "duarough", which (again, I think)
>evolved into our word "dwarf". From Old English, which was back when
>elves and dwarves were all just the small folk, before Tolkien wrote
>books in which they were separate species.
You're probably right. Another variation made it into AD&D as "duergar", a
sort of dwarven counterpart to the drow.
Joe
Andrew Plotkin
> >I think each of these examples show a common point: the work brought
> >something *new* to the genre. For example, _Star Wars_ had a future
> >universe of unprecedented background detail, supported by equally
> >unprecedented special effects.
> Umm, unprecedented background detail?
Visually, I'm talking. Things were *dirty*.
> That seems a stretch (even if it is
> true that Lucas fleshed out the details for himself). What I think Star
> Wars is, is a revamping, albeit well done, of the episodic pulp movies
Ok, that too.
Andrew Plotkin
Matthew T. Russotto (russ...@wanda.vf.pond.com) wrote:
> In article <erkyrath...@netcom.com>,
> Andrew Plotkin <erky...@netcom.com> wrote:
> }Similarly, you can argue that Dante's Inferno was hard sci-fi, but the
> }genre of sci-fi is a 20th-century thing. Not sure when it started -- pulp
> }magazines in the 30's?
> I think Verne and Wells are generally accepted as being within the
> genre, which makes it mid-to-late 19th century.
And A.C.Doyle, of course.
I accept them as having written science fiction, but I'm not sure it was a
genre at that point. The label "science fiction" didn't even exist, and I
take that as a signpost (though not a definite answer.)
I could also argue that there are a few too many sci-fi genre conventions
missing in those authors -- the idea that the work takes place in the
*future*, for one.[1] But then we'd have to start writing the definitive
list of sci-fi conventions -- no smart comments about fandom, please --
and there isn't such a thing; I know it by getting my knee caught in it.
[1] No, _The Time Machine_ isn't a counterexample. It's not a convention
until everybody's doing it.
FemaleDeer
>From: erky...@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin)
>Date: Thu, Jan 15, 1998 00:41 EST
> But then we'd have to start writing the definitive
>list of sci-fi conventions
Let's not and say we did.
It's sci-fi if it's about the future or is about the past using a future
technology (time travel). But I KNOW it's sci-fi when I see the author's name,
if it's a sci-fi author, it's sci-fi. Hey, that's simple!
And it has a marked lack of trolls, orges, dwarfs, elves, magic spells and
other stuff. Of course there is L.E. Modesitt, Jr., who sort of "crosses the
line" and Anne McCaffery who has dragons in her books, but they are on another
(Pern), so it's still really sci-fi and then there is...
Yeah, let's not and just say we did... MUCH easier.
FD Who has been a big sci-fi fan since the age of 12. So that's over 35+ years
and counting...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Femal...@aol.com "Good breeding consists in
concealing how much we think of ourselves and how
little we think of the other person." Mark Twain
Magnus Olsson
In article <EMsFy...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca>,
Joe Mason <jcm...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>In article <69im8p$qh5$1...@bartlet.df.lth.se>,
>Magnus Olsson <m...@bartlet.df.lth.se> wrote:
>>
>>In Swedish folklore, "light elves" ("ljusalver", cf. Kay's "Lios
>>Alfar") are rather like the Anglo-Celtic Faeries, while "dark elves"
>>("svartalver", Kay's "Swart Alfar") are more like goblins.
>
>Slight nit-pick: it was "Svart Alfar" in Kay. The last person who mentioned
>them (I think it was you) made the same mistake, and I thought it was a typo.
No, it wasn't a typo, it was a memory fault. Thanks for the
correction.
Geoff Bailey
In article <erkyrathE...@netcom.com>,
Andrew Plotkin <erky...@netcom.com> wrote:
[ Talking about Wells and Verne ]
> I could also argue that there are a few too many sci-fi genre conventions
> missing in those authors -- the idea that the work takes place in the
> *future*, for one.[1] But then we'd have to start writing the definitive
> list of sci-fi conventions -- no smart comments about fandom, please --
> and there isn't such a thing; I know it by getting my knee caught in it.
>
> [1] No, _The Time Machine_ isn't a counterexample. It's not a convention
> until everybody's doing it.
Well, I would say that science fiction does not have to take place in the
future. (Indeed, _Star Wars_ is set a long time ago.) The definition that
I am most happy with I think originated with Clarke (or maybe Asimov). It
went something along the lines of science fiction is where we start with a
certain (fictional science) premise, and then the story attempts to remain
consistent with both that premise and known science as far as possible.
In practice there is usually more than one such premise. Some popular ones
relate to time travel, faster than light travel (which tends to subsume
space travel), cloning, cyberspace, nanotechnology and an astounding ability
to understand and manipulate DNA.
So _20000 Leagues Under the Sea_ was science fiction, the premise being that
the Nautilus existed. Likewise _From the Earth to the Moon_, where the
premise is that such a cannon is constructible. Unfortunately I can't
remember most of Wells' writing, but I don't recall much besides _The Time
Machine_ being science fiction. (No doubt there will be many corrections;
I should borrow his works from my dad again.) Maybe the Aepyornus (sp?)
story.
Cheers,
Geoff.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Geoff Bailey (Fred the Wonder Worm) | Programmer by trade --
ft...@cs.su.oz.au | Gameplayer by vocation.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Magnus Olsson
In article <69knee$5...@staff.cs.su.oz.au>,
Geoff Bailey <ft...@cs.su.oz.au> wrote:
>
>In article <erkyrathE...@netcom.com>,
>Andrew Plotkin <erky...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
>[ Talking about Wells and Verne ]
>
>> I could also argue that there are a few too many sci-fi genre conventions
>> missing in those authors -- the idea that the work takes place in the
>> *future*, for one.[1] But then we'd have to start writing the definitive
>> list of sci-fi conventions -- no smart comments about fandom, please --
>> and there isn't such a thing; I know it by getting my knee caught in it.
>>
>> [1] No, _The Time Machine_ isn't a counterexample. It's not a convention
>> until everybody's doing it.
>
>Well, I would say that science fiction does not have to take place in the
>future.
As I see it, that's *never* been a requirement. Lots of SF takes place in the
present-day-world - just to mention one often-used theme, take all the
mad-scientist-makes-scientific-breakthrough-in-his-garage plots.
>Unfortunately I can't
>remember most of Wells' writing, but I don't recall much besides _The Time
>Machine_ being science fiction.
"War of the Worlds"?
Nele Abels-Ludwig
On 15 Jan 1998, Magnus Olsson wrote:
[...]
> >Unfortunately I can't
> >remember most of Wells' writing, but I don't recall much besides _The Time
> >Machine_ being science fiction.
>
> "War of the Worlds"?
Most certainly. Martians invade Earth. "The Invisible Man" could be
considered S/F as well - a scientist invents invisibility elixir,
cannot reverse the effect and goes mad. Or "The Island of Dr. Moureau"
- 19th century genetic manipulation...
Nele
----
"Work is the curse of the drinking class."
(Oscar Wilde)
Dennis Matheson
In article <69jd3c$h...@wanda.vf.pond.com>,
russ...@wanda.vf.pond.com (Matthew T. Russotto) wrote:
>
>>snip<<
> Futuristic, perhaps, but not future.
> "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away"
ie - Once Upon a Time, in a Far-Away Land...
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
Julian Arnold
> Magnus Olsson (m...@bartlet.df.lth.se) wrote:
>
> > But (totally off-topic) does anybody know why they're called "Drow" in
> > AD&D?
>
> I'm pretty sure this is a real archaic word, like "grue".
>
> It may be related to "dwarrow" or "duarough", which (again, I think)
> evolved into our word "dwarf". From Old English, which was back when
> elves and dwarves were all just the small folk, before Tolkien wrote
> books in which they were separate species.
I believe it is another form of the word "troll", just meaning goblin or
hobgoblin or other nasty spirit.
Jools
--
"For small erections may be finished by their first architects; grand
ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from
ever completing anything." -- Herman Melville, "Moby Dick"
Dennis Matheson
In article <69knee$5...@staff.cs.su.oz.au>,>>snip<<
> premise is that such a cannon is constructible. Unfortunately I can't
> remember most of Wells' writing, but I don't recall much besides _The Time
The War of the Worlds - Alien Invasion
The Island of Dr. Moreau - Genetic research
The Food of the Gods - Biological experimentation
The Man Who Could Work Miracles - Psychic ability
The Shape of Things to Come - Rebuilding after global war
--
(Posting via Deja News while our news server is down)
"You can't run away forever, but there's nothing wrong
with getting a good head start." --- Jim Steinman
Dennis Matheson --- Dennis....@transquest.com
http://home.earthlink.net/~tanstaafl
HarryH
In article <69jv6n$6d7$1...@remus.rutgers.edu>, edh...@remus.rutgers.edu
says...
>Generes aren't revitalized when a new amazing thing comes out. It's when
>people see how much money is to be made that they start noticing those
>generes.
I take it you're not a Babylon 5 fan?
-------------------------------------------------------
Of course I'll work on weekends without pay!
- successful applicant
Chris Marriott
>Similarly, you can argue that Dante's Inferno was hard sci-fi, but the
>genre of sci-fi is a 20th-century thing. Not sure when it started -- pulp
>magazines in the 30's?
Jules Vernes, H.G.Wells, even some of Conan-Doyle's stuff *long*
predates that!
Chris
----------------------------------------------------------------
Chris Marriott, Microsoft Certified Solution Developer.
SkyMap Software, U.K. e-mail: ch...@skymap.com
Visit our web site at http://www.skymap.com
John W. Kennedy
>But there was no *genre* -- which is a marketing category defined by
>reader assumptions, expectation, and background knowledge. I think the
>essence of a genre is "If you liked X, you'll like Y..." The genre we
>think of as "fantasy" today was constructed around Tolkien.
A distressing lot of what is marketed as fantasy today was constructed
around Tolkien, but there was genre fantasy before LotR -- most famously,
Howard's Conan, but I think it is fair to go back to the novels of William
Morris (yes, _the_ William Morris). A case could also be made for Beckford's
"Vathek" or Voltaire's "Zadig". There were also important works published
between the original hardcover LotR (1954-56) and the explosion, which
did not take place until the softcover editions of 1965.
>Similarly, you can argue that Dante's Inferno was hard sci-fi, but the
>genre of sci-fi is a 20th-century thing. Not sure when it started -- pulp
>magazines in the 30's?
Verne, I should say. (Note that it is only in Anglophone countries that
he is regarded as a juvenile author.) But if you want the major tradition,
that, of course, would be Gernsback, who started in the teens.
Dennis Matheson
In article <erkyrath...@netcom.com>,
erky...@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin) wrote:
>>snip<<
> Similarly, you can argue that Dante's Inferno was hard sci-fi, but the
> genre of sci-fi is a 20th-century thing. Not sure when it started -- pulp
> magazines in the 30's?
There were many people who wrote what we would now call Science
Fiction. In the book _Billion Year Spree_, Brian Aldiss considers
_Frankenstein_ by Mary Shelly to be the first Science Fiction novel.
I've seen other works listed as well, going as far back as the Illiad and
the Odyssey.
The modern origin of genre Science Fiction can pretty much be traced to
the publication of the magazine Amazing Stories back in the 1920s.
Editor Hugo Gernsback called the field "Scientifiction" (Scientific
Fiction.. get it?). Gernsback is considered by many to be the father of
the field and the annual Science Fiction achievement awards (handed out
at the World Science Fiction Convention) are called Hugos after him.
(Not an expert, just someone who has been reading SF for about 30 years
now.) -- "You can't run away forever, but there's nothing wrong with
getting a good head start" --- Jim Steinman
Carl Klutzke
In article <Pine.A41.3.96.980115...@Stud-Mailer.Uni-Marburg.DE>,
Nele Abels-Ludwig <Ab...@Stud-Mailer.Uni-Marburg.DE> wrote:
>On 15 Jan 1998, Magnus Olsson wrote:
>[...]
>> >remember most of Wells' writing, but I don't recall much besides _The Time
>> >Machine_ being science fiction.
>>
>
>Most certainly. Martians invade Earth. "The Invisible Man" could be
>considered S/F as well - a scientist invents invisibility elixir,
>cannot reverse the effect and goes mad. Or "The Island of Dr. Moureau"
>- 19th century genetic manipulation...
"The Food of the Gods": growth serum
"In the Day of the Comet" (or something similar): comet strikes/comes
close to the Earth and mucks things up
What did he write that _wasn't_ science fiction?
Carl Klutzke
Magnus Olsson
In article <34be2...@news1.ibm.net>, John W. Kennedy <rri...@ibm.net> wrote:
>Verne, I should say. (Note that it is only in Anglophone countries that
>he is regarded as a juvenile author.)
Due to the unfortunate fact, it is said, that most English
translations of Verne are decidedly inferior, and often
abbreviated and "adapted for a juvenile audeince" (i.e. bowdlerized).
Daryl McCullough
femal...@aol.com says...
>FD Who has been a big sci-fi fan since the age of 12. So that's over 35+ years
>and counting...
Thank you for disclosing your age. I was thinking, with all the posts
about people being 15 and 17, that I was the only member of this forum
who had seen this side of 40 (actually, I don't turn 40 until February).
I was thinking that when I enter the '98 competition, I would say
"Please be gentle with me, I'm an old man of 40".
Daryl McCullough
CoGenTex, Inc.
Ithaca, NY
Chris Markwyn
Neil K. <fake...@anti-spam.address> wrote:
> erky...@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin) wrote:
> > Similarly, you can argue that Dante's Inferno was hard sci-fi, but the
> > genre of sci-fi is a 20th-century thing. Not sure when it started -- pulp
> > magazines in the 30's?
> Jules Verne (1828-1905)? H G Wells (1866-1946)?
> - Neil K.
I don't think Verne and Wells fit into sf as a _genre_: after all, Wells
was a respected literary figure in a way that no genre writer ever really
attains. The genrification (is that a word?) of sf started with Hugo
Gernsback's Amazing Stories in, like, 1928, and was really completed by
John Campbell and Astounding SF in the 1930s and '40s. Or something...
--Chris Markwyn
--
mark...@teleport.COM Public Access User -- Not affiliated with Teleport
Public Access UNIX and Internet at (503) 220-1016 (2400-28800, N81)
Andrew Plotkin
Magnus Olsson (m...@bartlet.df.lth.se) wrote:
> >> I could also argue that there are a few too many sci-fi genre conventions
> >> missing in those authors -- the idea that the work takes place in the
> >> *future*, for one.
> >
> >future.
> As I see it, that's *never* been a requirement. Lots of SF takes place in the
> present-day-world
Of course it's not a requirement. It's a convention. Genre doesn't run on
absolute rules.
One of the defining characteristics of mammals is that they give birth to
live young. Platypuses are mammals. Platypuses lay eggs. This is not a
contradiction. The definitions, in the real world, have fuzz.
One of the defining characteristics of SF is that it's about the future.
One of the defining characteristics of fantasy is that it contains magic.
Neither is an absolute rule. Have you read _Swordspoint_ by Ellen Kushner?
I know SF (and fantasy) by how it tastes and by getting my knee caught in
it. Some peopel try to create hard definitions, and they wind up with
(what I think of as) absurd results.
Andrew Plotkin
John W. Kennedy (jwk...@ibm.net) wrote:
> In <erkyrath...@netcom.com>, erky...@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin) writes:
> >But there was no *genre* -- which is a marketing category defined by
> >reader assumptions, expectation, and background knowledge. I think the
> >essence of a genre is "If you liked X, you'll like Y..." The genre we
> >think of as "fantasy" today was constructed around Tolkien.
> A distressing lot of what is marketed as fantasy today was constructed
> around Tolkien, but there was genre fantasy before LotR -- most famously,
> Howard's Conan
D'oh! Ok, I'd forgotten about him. The history becomes more complex.
> but I think it is fair to go back to the novels of William
> Morris (yes, _the_ William Morris). A case could also be made for Beckford's
> "Vathek" or Voltaire's "Zadig". There were also important works published
> between the original hardcover LotR (1954-56) and the explosion, which
> did not take place until the softcover editions of 1965.
_The Weirdstone of Brisingamen_, Garner, 1960.
> >Similarly, you can argue that Dante's Inferno was hard sci-fi, but the
> >genre of sci-fi is a 20th-century thing. Not sure when it started -- pulp
> >magazines in the 30's?
> Verne, I should say. (Note that it is only in Anglophone countries that
> he is regarded as a juvenile author.) But if you want the major tradition,
> that, of course, would be Gernsback, who started in the teens.
I am thinking of "the major tradition", and when it became major.
John Francis
In article <69lgks$f...@drn.zippo.com>,
Not the only one - I'm about the same age as FD (my birthday is in May).
I've been an SF fan for about as long, too. But it's only in the last
five or ten years that I've become a *big* SF fan :-(
I've also been a fantasy fan for about the same amount of time - I first
read LOtR when I was 13. Longer, actually - I guess "The XXXX Book of
Fairy Stories" counts as fantasy, and I started reading them when I was
much younger than 13.
--
John Francis jfra...@sgi.com Silicon Graphics, Inc.
(650)933-8295 2011 N. Shoreline Blvd. MS 43U-991
(650)933-4692 (Fax) Mountain View, CA 94043-1389
Unsolicited electronic mail will be subject to a $100 handling fee.
Gunther Schmidl
>Jules Vernes, H.G.Wells, even some of Conan-Doyle's stuff *long*
>predates that!
>
And H. P. Lovecraft, whose story "In the Walls of Eryx" is science
fiction/horror died in 1937 (the story was written in 1921, if I'm not
mistaken). And lots of his other stories of the "Cthulhu Mythos" are surely
*not* fantasy, but rather "Weird Fiction", a subdivision of Sci-Fi.
--
+------------------------+----------------------------------------------+
+ Gunther Schmidl + "I couldn't help it. I can resist everything +
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Julian Arnold
In article <19980115083...@ladder02.news.aol.com>, FemaleDeer
<URL:mailto:femal...@aol.com> wrote:
> >From: erky...@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin)
> >Date: Thu, Jan 15, 1998 00:41 EST
>
> >list of sci-fi conventions
>
:)
BTW, seeing as no-one else is staying on topic, which should I write, SF
or sci-fi? I've been using SF but everyone else uses sci-fi, and ISTR
that science fiction bods get all upset if one uses the wrong term, and
as you all know I would never like to upset anyone.
Giles Boutel
Joe Mason <jcm...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> wrote in article
<EMsFu...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca>...
>
> To be fair to Feist (who was one of my favourite authors for a while) the
> series didn't get interesting until the second half of _Magician_ (in
> softcover,_Magician: Master_) when they got into the Tsurani in a big
way. Oh,
> and the Valheru were pretty original too.
>
Bizarrely enough, that point was when I felt the series went downhill
(though I read the trilogy for the sake of completeness). It started out
with this nice little tale about two likeable lads on vocation day and
halfway through the first book they were virtually the most powerful beings
on the planet so there was no need to worry about them. The rest of the
books just seemed to be matching up the characters one by one with some
amazingly appropriate partner, enjoyable enough in a soap opera kind of
way, but I felt it never quite lived up to the promise the first half book.
I guess mileage does vary after all (shock horror!)
-Giles
Geoff Bailey
In article <884874314....@dejanews.com>,
Dennis Matheson <Dennis....@transquest.com> wrote:
>In article <69knee$5...@staff.cs.su.oz.au>,
> ft...@cs.su.oz.au (Fred the Wonder Worm) wrote:
>>>snip<<
>> remember most of Wells' writing, but I don't recall much besides _The Time
>>>snip<<
>
> The War of the Worlds - Alien Invasion
> The Island of Dr. Moreau - Genetic research
> The Food of the Gods - Biological experimentation
> The Man Who Could Work Miracles - Psychic ability
> The Shape of Things to Come - Rebuilding after global war
OK, I knew I should not have included that line. And then I did it anyway.
*smacks self on wrist* _War of the Worlds_ I'd somehow managed to forget
about but shouldn't have. :( My problem was that when I thought of Wells
the only stories I could remember were _The Time Machine_ and that one
about the murder in a blast furnace, which didn't seem science fictional.
Anyway, the point is taken, no more corrections please. I'll just go
stick my head in a bucket.
Chris Markwyn
Carl Klutzke <cklu...@iquest.net> wrote:
> In article <Pine.A41.3.96.980115...@Stud-Mailer.Uni-Marburg.DE>,
> Nele Abels-Ludwig <Ab...@Stud-Mailer.Uni-Marburg.DE> wrote:
> >On 15 Jan 1998, Magnus Olsson wrote:
> >[...]
> >> >remember most of Wells' writing, but I don't recall much besides _The Time
> >> >Machine_ being science fiction.
> >>
> >
> >Most certainly. Martians invade Earth. "The Invisible Man" could be
> >considered S/F as well - a scientist invents invisibility elixir,
> >cannot reverse the effect and goes mad. Or "The Island of Dr. Moureau"
> >- 19th century genetic manipulation...
> "The Food of the Gods": growth serum
> "In the Day of the Comet" (or something similar): comet strikes/comes
> close to the Earth and mucks things up
> What did he write that _wasn't_ science fiction?
Wells wrote a bunch of "mainstream" literary novels. The only one that
leaps to mind at the moment is called something like _Tono-Bungay_ or
some such name. But he and Henry James got into a nasty feud, and James
came out on top. Hence Wells was relegated to science fiction.
He also wrote some non-fiction, like _An Outline of History_.
Magnus Olsson
In article <69nkak$2...@mtinsc03.worldnet.att.net>,
Scott Steubing <ScottS...@worldnet.att> wrote:
>
>Julian Arnold wrote in message ...
>
>>BTW, seeing as no-one else is staying on topic, which should I write, SF
>>or sci-fi? I've been using SF but everyone else uses sci-fi, and ISTR
>>that science fiction bods get all upset if one uses the wrong term, and
>>as you all know I would never like to upset anyone.
>
>
The term "sci-fi", when applied to "serious" science fiction, tends to
drive most fans up the walls. Ask on rec.arts.sf.written if you
don't believe me (but bring your asbestos underwear).
Scott Steubing
Julian Arnold wrote in message ...
>BTW, seeing as no-one else is staying on topic, which should I write, SF
>or sci-fi? I've been using SF but everyone else uses sci-fi, and ISTR
>that science fiction bods get all upset if one uses the wrong term, and
>as you all know I would never like to upset anyone.
Forrest Ackerman used the term "sci-fi". If it's good enough for him....
--
Scott Steubing
Email address intentionally messed up to prevent spam. Add
".net" on to the end
Dennis Matheson
In article <69lgks$f...@drn.zippo.com>,
da...@cogentex.com (Daryl McCullough) wrote:
>
> femal...@aol.com says...
>
> >FD Who has been a big sci-fi fan since the age of 12. So that's over 35+
years
> >and counting...
>
> Thank you for disclosing your age. I was thinking, with all the posts
> about people being 15 and 17, that I was the only member of this forum
> who had seen this side of 40 (actually, I don't turn 40 until February).
> I was thinking that when I enter the '98 competition, I would say
> "Please be gentle with me, I'm an old man of 40".
>
> CoGenTex, Inc.
> Ithaca, NY
I feel your pain. I turn 40 in October...
Carl Klutzke
In article <69jb8h$4v$1...@drollsden.ibm.net>,
Trevor Barrie <tba...@ibm.net> wrote:
>He does, but they have pretty much nothing in common with AD&D Dark Elves.
>"Dark Elves" (Moriquendi) were simply those elves who never saw the two
>trees that lit the world back in the [First|Second] Age.
Doh! Forgot about them. But no, they are nothing like Drow, not
inherently evil.
And to be completely fair, I believe the Orcs are elves that were
corrupted (by Morgoth?).
Carl
Andrew Plotkin
Julian Arnold (jo...@arnod.demon.co.uk) wrote:
> BTW, seeing as no-one else is staying on topic, which should I write, SF
> or sci-fi? I've been using SF but everyone else uses sci-fi, and ISTR
> that science fiction bods get all upset if one uses the wrong term, and
> as you all know I would never like to upset anyone.
I use them interchangeably. I tend to use "sci-fi" on Usenet, solely to be
an example that not all science fiction fans give the slightest damn about
the matter.
--Z (61 shelf-feet of science fiction and fantasy -- and that's just the
paperbacks)
Den of Iniquity
On Thu, 15 Jan 1998, Julian Arnold wrote:
>BTW, seeing as no-one else is staying on topic, which should I write, SF
>or sci-fi? I've been using SF but everyone else uses sci-fi, and ISTR
>that science fiction bods get all upset if one uses the wrong term, and
>as you all know I would never like to upset anyone.
I use both and couldn't care less. But then I'd hate to think of myself as
a science fiction bod. :) (Extra smiles for UK people old enough to
remember Bod [most of us, I expect].)
--
Den
Den of Iniquity
>In article <erkyrathE...@netcom.com>, Andrew Plotkin writes:
>> Magnus Olsson (m...@bartlet.df.lth.se) wrote:
>> > But (totally off-topic) does anybody know why they're called "Drow" in
>> > AD&D?
>>
>> I'm pretty sure this is a real archaic word, like "grue".
>> It may be related to "dwarrow" or "duarough", which (again, I think)
>> evolved into our word "dwarf". From Old English, which was back when
>> elves and dwarves were all just the small folk, before Tolkien wrote
>> books in which they were separate species.
Er, yeah, something like that. Our word dwarf comes from such a word with
too many vowels and originally just meant very small. Only in the 18th
century did it come to mean dwarf in the metal-smith gnome German-folklore
sense.
Jools said:
>I believe it is another form of the word "troll", just meaning goblin or
>hobgoblin or other nasty spirit.
Funnily enough, I looked it up in my Chambers English Dictionary (a
splendid source for old words and peculiar dialect) and it listed 'drow'
(spelled exactly so) as being a word for 'troll' from the Shetland and
Orkney Isles. (For the geographically disinclined, those are little
clutches of islands up north-east from the north-east tip of Scotland, and
hence probably very Scandinavian-ly influenced.) Spot on, Jools!
--
Den
Dennis Matheson
Andrew Plotkin wrote:
>
> Julian Arnold (jo...@arnod.demon.co.uk) wrote:
>
> > BTW, seeing as no-one else is staying on topic, which should I write, SF
> > or sci-fi? I've been using SF but everyone else uses sci-fi, and ISTR
> > that science fiction bods get all upset if one uses the wrong term, and
> > as you all know I would never like to upset anyone.
>
> an example that not all science fiction fans give the slightest damn about
> the matter.
>
> --Z (61 shelf-feet of science fiction and fantasy -- and that's just the
> paperbacks)
That almost doubles my stack. Of course, my ex got a lot when she
left.
I won't mention the bookcases of Astounding/Analogs going back to
1938.
I view the SF/Sci-Fi argument with about the same level of amusement
as the Trekker/Trekkie argument. Back when I was a regular at the
conventions I used to have a button that said "Stamp out fannish
elitism. Say sci-fi."
--
"You can't run away forever, but there's nothing wrong with
getting a good head start" --- Jim Steinman
Dennis Matheson --- Dennis....@transquest.com
--- http://home.earthlink.net/~tanstaafl
Joe Mason
In article <ant15233...@arnod.demon.co.uk>,
Julian Arnold <jo...@arnod.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>BTW, seeing as no-one else is staying on topic, which should I write, SF
>or sci-fi? I've been using SF but everyone else uses sci-fi, and ISTR
>that science fiction bods get all upset if one uses the wrong term, and
>as you all know I would never like to upset anyone.
IIRC, "SF" means "hard" SF and "sci-fi" is "soft" SF. I prefer to use the two
terms interchangeably and just say "hard" or "soft" if it really matters what
I'm talking about.
Joe
Joe Mason
In article <69lm3d$fe...@fido.asd.sgi.com>,
John Francis <jfra...@dungeon.engr.sgi.com> wrote:
>read LOtR when I was 13. Longer, actually - I guess "The XXXX Book of
>Fairy Stories" counts as fantasy, and I started reading them when I was
>much younger than 13.
Your parents let you read that sort of thing at that young age? I am shocked
and disgusted.
Joe
Mark J Musante
Andrew Plotkin (erky...@netcom.com) wrote:
> (61 shelf-feet of science fiction and fantasy -- and that's just the
> paperbacks)
Do you keep them because you re-read them? Or because you can't
bear to part with them? I've read quite a bit more SF than my
bookcases let on, but then I trade old books at the local used
book store.
-=- Mark -=-
Andrew Plotkin
Mark J Musante (olo...@world.std.com) wrote:
> Andrew Plotkin (erky...@netcom.com) wrote:
> > (61 shelf-feet of science fiction and fantasy -- and that's just the
> > paperbacks)
> Do you keep them because you re-read them? Or because you can't
> bear to part with them?
Both.
I fully intend to own every cool book ever published before I die. But
I never know what I'm going to want to re-read.
I do wish, however, that Ikea still carried the 35x32x24-inch four-drawer
bureau. That can hold 28 shelf-feet all by itself. But I only own one of
them.
--Z
Stu042
In article <884872907....@dejanews.com>, Dennis Matheson
<Dennis....@transquest.com> writes:
>In article <69jd3c$h...@wanda.vf.pond.com>,
> russ...@wanda.vf.pond.com (Matthew T. Russotto) wrote:
>>
>>>snip<<
>> Futuristic, perhaps, but not future.
>> "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away"
>>>snip<<
>
> ie - Once Upon a Time, in a Far-Away Land...
I read an article by the ever-cheerful Mel Croucher, many years ago, where he
accused various films of being rip-offs of old books. I think Star Wars was
accused of being a shameless copy of a Hans Christian Anderson story... "The
Snow/Ice <...>", I think it was -- "The Snow Queen", maybe?
Stuart
Julian Arnold
In article <Pine.SGI.3.95L.98011...@ebor.york.ac.uk>,
Den of Iniquity <URL:mailto:dms...@york.ac.uk> wrote:
> Jools said:
> >I believe it is another form of the word "troll", just meaning goblin or
> >hobgoblin or other nasty spirit.
>
> Funnily enough, I looked it up in my Chambers English Dictionary (a
> splendid source for old words and peculiar dialect) and it listed 'drow'
> (spelled exactly so) as being a word for 'troll' from the Shetland and
> Orkney Isles. (For the geographically disinclined, those are little
> clutches of islands up north-east from the north-east tip of Scotland, and
> hence probably very Scandinavian-ly influenced.) Spot on, Jools!
Well thank-you. <bows> I probably looked it up in that very tome back
when I played AD&D.
Oh yes, you mentioned Bod in another thread. Check out:
http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/8662/bod.html
Joanna Marie Delaune
Dennis Matheson ("Dennis..Matheson@"@transquest..com) wrote:
: I won't mention the bookcases of Astounding/Analogs going back to
: 1938.
*drool*
um.. if you die can I have them?
Joanna
Lelah Conrad
On 17 Jan 1998 11:47:44 GMT, stu...@aol.com (Stu042) wrote:
<.....>
>I read an article by the ever-cheerful Mel Croucher, many years ago, where he
>accused various films of being rip-offs of old books. I think Star Wars was
>accused of being a shameless copy of a Hans Christian Anderson story... "The
>Snow/Ice <...>", I think it was -- "The Snow Queen", maybe?
>
>Stuart
Joseph Campbell in _The Power of Myth_ mentions Star Wars several
times. Because Star Wars hits so many mythic themes, it really
transcends being a copy of someone else's specific vision. A few
quotes:
(M = Moyers, C = Campbell)
M: ... Star Wars ... came along at a time when people needed to see in
recognizable images the clash of good and evil ...
C: .... The monster masks that are put on people in Star Wars
represent the real monster force in the modern world. When the mask
of Darth Vader is removed, you see an unformed man, one who has not
developed as a human individual .... Darth Vader has not developed
his own humanity. He's a robot. He's a bureaucrat, living not in
terms of himself but in terms of an imposed system. This is the
threat to our lives that we all face today ...
<...>
M: ... The first time I saw Star Wars, I thought, "This is a very old
story in a very new costume." The story of the young man called to
adventure, the hero going out facing the trials and ordeals ...
C: (responding to a thread about the Star Wars characters being in
the garbage compactor the way Jonah goes into the belly of the whale
in the bible) ... The belly is the dark place where digestion takes
place and new energy is created ... It's a descent into the dark... In
the first stage of this kind of adventure, the hero leaves the realm
of the familiar, over which he has some measure of control, and comes
to a threshold, let us say the edge of a lake or sea [a dungeon?],
where a monster of the abyss comes to meet him ... the hero, on
encountering the power of the dark, may overcome and kill it ....
(excerpts from Campbell, Joseph, with Bill Moyers. _The Power of
Myth_ . New York, Doubleday, c 1988)
____________
This interchange about Star Wars covers a few pages and roams
around among a number of myths. What it points up is that myth
undergirds our stories and fantasies, and that the power of myth is
eternal, since it is linked to psychological processes. "Fantasy IF"
is one way of revealing vital mythic content and allowing the player
to play out mythic aspects of self. The best of it will have mythic
content repackaged in new light. The worst of it will be merely
Shades ....
Lelah
M. Wesley Osam
In article <69au6e$q...@snews1.zippo.com>, ma...@DONT.intrlink.SPAM.com.ME
(Marshall T. Vandegrift) wrote:
> So, what do other players think: would you be interested seeing a new fantasy
> I-F game, or is the market for that pretty glutted?
That would depend on what *kind* of fantasy game it is.
It's true that people have seen the Zork/Dungeons and Dragons type of
fantasy a million times. These games are therefore going to seem a little
trite to most players. It's possible to write a successful game in this
genre, as in any genre -- the competition winner last year was a Zorklike
game from Graham Nelson. However, these games will be held to higher
standards than others, and if you want people to rate it as a classic, it
will have to be pretty spectacular.
The best thing authors can do is to create their *own* worlds, which may
sometimes incorporate traditional elements, but should at least contain
some striking ideas or images which make those worlds unique. If a world
contains magic, it should have its own rules -- preferably different from
the rules in "Enchanter" -- and should be internally consistant.
If anyone gets stuck, I'd suggest that they turn to older sources than
the Tolkienesque/D & D material beloved of mediocre trilogy writers
everywhere. Check out some books on folklore and myth from the library.
Look at traditional stories and epics from a variety of cultures. (I'd be
curious to see a game set in the same world as the Grimms' fairy tales --
they're often more brutal than most people remember.)
Look at what's going on in contemporary fantasy. I'd particularly
suggest Tim Powers; his books feature meticulously worked out magic systems
in "realistic" settings. And as an example of what a writer can do with a
stock fantasy world to give it a personal touch, look at Terry Pratchett's
best "Discworld" books; I'd suggest _Small Gods_.
(I hope all these points haven't been made several times by now. That's
the problem with not having enough time for usenet, especially when you
have to trudge to the computer lab to post anything.)
--
"Why do you look so skeptical?" M. Wesley Osam
"Because I've seen too much." wo...@iastate.edu
"Then why do you keep looking?
"Too much is never enough." -- Bill Griffith, "Zippy the Pinhead"
Joanna Marie Delaune
Marshall T. Vandegrift (ma...@DONT.intrlink.SPAM.com.ME) wrote:
: As the general feeling seems to be against AD&D-style, "we both know what an
: elf is," "get rid of the evil wizard" style fantasy games, I will quite
: happily continue upon my current lines.
Good. I'd hate to see you give up when you're 3/4 of the way done.
I'll play you're game when it's finished!
Joanna
Joanna Marie Delaune
Edan Harel (edh...@remus.rutgers.edu) wrote:
: "Gunther Schmidl" <sot...@xxx.usa.net> writes:
: >I'd describe it as a very well constructed cynical description of then
: >current state affairs, disguised as a fantasy setting.
: So the Wizard of Oz, and the Smurfs fall into that.
The smurfs? How so?
Joanna
Brad O`Donnell
Joe Mason wrote:
>
> IIRC, "SF" means "hard" SF and "sci-fi" is "soft" SF. I prefer to use the two
> terms interchangeably and just say "hard" or "soft" if it really matters what
> I'm talking about.
Here in Canada (or at least my little part of it), "SF" is a blanket term
for science-fiction, fantasy, and horror. This is because these are all
fiction genres that speculate, therefore: "speculative fiction".
When I first heard this I thought it was pretty loony. I have never pronounced
the acronym, preferring to slip "sci-fi" in its place, pretty much how in
conversation I say "text games" instead of "IF".
--
Brad O'Donnell
"A story is a string of moments, held together by memory."