I Love Fantasy Books, But…

This has been building for a while.

I have loved fantasy for basically my entire life. It was one of the first distinct genres that I was exposed to, from watching the movie Dragonheart as a kid (it’s great; go watch it if you haven’t), to watching my older siblings play Diablo II, and listening to The Hobbit countless times (on cassette too, like the growing-older-every-day person that I am). It’s such a big part of my pop culture background; I knew what a portal and non-Biblical mana were before I could read. And I think it will always be important to me, even if it’s just expressed by watching The Lord of the Rings trilogy again. And again.

But lately…man…things are just not aligning.

So I was reading this book, Paladin’s Grace by T. Kingfisher, and I got about 40% through it before accepting that, despite wanting to like it, no, I was not liking it.

It’s about this paladin whose god is killed and he’s devastated by that loss. He goes through a tough time and is taken in by this other god’s guild where he becomes a bodyguard. Then he meets this perfumer chick and there’s the beginning of a romance, but there’s also an attempted assassination of the ruler guy and there’s a serial killer on the loose and blah blah. Okay. In theory, that sounds like something I would enjoy.

The problem is that both of the leads are awkward and kinda bumbling most of the time. And, you know, one awkward character is fine, but both of them? And these aren’t teenagers; I think they’re both in their thirties. And this awkwardness is heightened by the liberal use of internal thoughts, thoughts which are also a little too quirky and trying too hard to be fun and hip.

Well, that’s it, I’ve misrepresented myself as a master, caused an international incident, and cost the city a trading partner. I knew it would happen. I’ll have to leave the city and change my name. Again. Normal people don’t have to keep leaving cities and changing their name. This is a terrible habit.

And then there’s the cutesy-esque dialogue.

“Socks,” he said. “I knit socks. I am a sock knitter. Person. Who knits. Mostly socks.”

In small doses, that kind of humor is fine. But the internal thoughts are long and persistent and then they open their mouths and the awkwardness is given a voice and I just couldn’t take it anymore.

The writing is serviceable, but with fantasy, that’s not enough for me. I need character in the description—not purple prose, but raw, vibrant images and textures. Fantasy should not be cubism; it should be the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo was not to be found in this book.

Now that the salty rant is out of the way, let’s return to the underlying point of this post. 

Alright. The last fantasy novel I read was The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. That was in December 2022 and since then the only fantasy stories I’ve read are two collections of short stories by Fritz Leiber (Lean Times in Lankhmar and Return to Lankhmar). I know I’ve tried a few other books, as illustrated above, but nothing fantasy-ish has roped me in. I liked The Blade Itself, but like a lot of fantasy books nowadays, it’s “grimdark” and that’s a bit too depressing for what I want in fantasy right now: valiancy and pure adventure.

I have the impression that modern, traditionally published fantasy is trending toward nihilism, existentialism, depression-ism, everything is dying-ism, multiculturalism for the sake of multiculturalism, and way too many women-ism. I don’t like any of that stuff, especially in fantasy. So I’ve been feeling cut off from fantasy for a while now and that’s actually how/why I found Fritz Leiber: I was wondering what fantasy was like prior to, like, 1980. And that was a nice experience. I didn’t enjoy Elric of Melniboné, but I’m still more open to trying older fantasy than newer stuff. 

That’s not to say that I don’t want to read any fantasy books from the last twenty-some years. I do still intend to try Brandon Sanderson, though I have a suspicion that I won’t be quite so enamored with his books as others are. At some point I’m going to continue with the works of Terry Pratchett, Robin Hobb and Michael J. Sullivan. Steven Erikson, Patrick Rothfuss, Guy Gavriel Kay and many others are all authors I would like to at least sample, even if I don’t end up finishing their stuff. (Shoutout to local libraries for making such trial-and-dismissal a cheap possibility.)

I keep this notebook of all the books I’ve read, and looking back at what I was reading a decade or more ago, there’s a lot of fantasy. Sometimes more than half the books on a page are fantasy. That’s definitely not the case anymore. I guess the reasons I could go through so many fantasy books as a teenager are that:

1)       they were skinnier books, by like, a couple hundred pages

2)       the story didn’t slow down for long periods

3)       in general, I knew everything would be okay in the end

Those are no small things (except the page count). The protagonist isn’t gonna die, or lose all their friends, or have PTSD that I know of, and goodness would win the day. The light at the end of the tunnel wasn’t an illusion. I want more hopeful stories in adult fantasy. The danger should still be there, because that’s exciting and fun, but I don’t want to have that creeping dread that half the cast isn’t gonna make it, and of course my favorite character is going to be among the dead.

That’s probably why I love The Lord of the Rings movies so much: almost everyone makes it and goodness wins. I’m so sick of morally gray characters because, unlike Samwise’s speech, they don’t have anything worth fighting for, since goodness and light decided to exit the (world) building.

Anyway…before I get salty again…

I’m going to further distance myself from fantasy books until I can find a book that I fully expect will re-ignite a fantastical fire within me. Or until I can start writing my own.

But if you have any recommendations for classically heroic fantasy stories, let me know, and I will check them out at some point.

---

Thanks for reading! Don’t forget to like, comment, share, and subscribe if you haven’t yet! You can show your support by leaving a tip on my Buy Me a Coffee page.