his is a topic that was spurred by a reader email, and is something that I have commented on several times, since the topic first came up. Read down the whole page to see my most recent comments on the subject, since my initial reply that no, there were no great fantasy writers has changed with more reading.

A site reader mailed today to ask about the Fantasy Review page.  More specifically, since I criticize famous and well-respected authors like Tolkien and LeGuin on it, he wanted to know what fantasy author I think is truly "great". I found it an interesting question, and as my email reply got quite long, so I thought I'd paste most of it in here, for lack of anything better to faff on about today.

First thing was to reread my fantasy review page, since I hadn't looked at it in a while.  I was surprised how short the page was; I wrote more about fricking Mötley Crüe for a quick joke than I do about fantasy novelists that I've read half a dozen books by.  I should flesh that page out at some point.  Anyway, it does cover the basics well enough, and I didn't read anything there I was desperate to change at this point.

On one level his question (Which fantasy authors I think are great.) is sort of silly; I mean if there were any, wouldn't they be listed on that page?  But I enjoyed answering it anyway, mostly elaborating on things on that page.

The quick answer is that no, I've never read a fantasy novel that I thought was excellent, nor do I think any fantasy novelists (that I've read) are great.  However the best novel I've ever read is at least partially "fantasy", though it's classified more as horror.

How about Tolkien?

Tolkien is such a huge influence on fantasy that every author since him that's not doing a humorous style (Piers Anthony for instance) is more or less doing Tolkien in mood and theme. So most fantasy is very ponderous and somewhat depressing, with huge weighty events hanging over the heads of the characters, a small group in an epic and desperate struggle against enormous odds, etc. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, I'm just pointing it out.

I'd say that Tolkien is a much better writer than LeGuin. Tolkien writes very well in the way he wants to write. It's not like he's trying to write in quick, lively language and have dynamic characters questioning their inner motivations. He's writing an epic in LotR, with classic characters and gigantic events. Battles on a massive scale, noble good guys, wickedly-evil bad guys, etc. My criticisms of his writing are for what it's not, and what I think it could be. He wrote it just how he wanted to, and did a very good job of it. It's like someone who built a massive granite and marble cathedral. It's built and it's very solid and sturdy and beautiful. Now maybe if it had stained glass it would be better, and it could have some more artistic touches, carvings on the walls, smaller more practical rooms, etc. But that's just someone else's opinion; the actual builder did it just how he wanted to do it.

I would prefer LotR if it had some non-static characters, ones who actually lived in the story and did things that didn't just serve the plot, who questioned their actions and perhaps did things that were illogical and unexpected, like people do in real life. He paints very good characters, but they are very seldom dynamic. You know exactly what you're getting with almost everyone in the novels right from the start. Would I have liked it more if there had been some female characters who did something? If there were clever and lively dialogue? If almost everyone weren't so stolid and fixed in their course? Yes to all of those, but there's no telling if people would like the book more if it had those things, and in any event, Tolkien couldn't write it that way, so it's irrelevant.  He wrote how he could write, and his style is immutable.  He's not going to write a comedy.

The main thing I think could be improved in LotR is the pacing. This sets the tone of the book, that things take a long time to happen and are very important, but Tolkien always reminds me of Lovecraft where you have to really read every sentence to get the meaning. It's very ponderously-worded and weighty, which is why so many people are unable to read the books; they can't take the time to get involved in the story, to get past the thicket of verbosity that's between them and the action. Especially people who don't read much and aren't used to having to pay attention and think while they do it.

Most readers don't want great writing. They aren't real picky; if there is good action and interesting characters and some drama/suspense, even if it's utterly-formulaic, they'll snap it up. If they've read a few other stories by a given author and liked them, they'll keep buying. There is ample evidence of this: Anne Rice and Dean Koontz are two examples off the top of my head. Relatively dreadful/formulaic writers who have huge followings due to writing the same thing over and over again, and most people slurping it up like warm Jell-O. It's certainly not just horror that has that problem; the new Tom Clancy novel "Red Rabbit" is said to be awful, I've seen three reviews that just wept at how ponderous and overlong it was. And it's a #1 bestseller entirely from the author's past fans. I think people base their book buying/reading more on topic and subject and author than any objective quality evaluation anyway. I know I do; I'm must more likely to pick up some unknown fantasy or horror novel that will probably be pulpy crap than I am to read a superbly-reviewed historical fiction novel.

Writing is hard. Especially a novel. I'd say that maybe .1% of people alive can write a coherent story. Fewer than that can write a novel and keep it readable, and maybe .000001% can write a novel that's really great. I mean how many people out there are writing, or aspiring authors, and how many are actually published? (Not that publication has much to do with writing quality, as any check of the best seller list will show you.) It's not like making a movie where you need a huge crew and lots of money as an entry requirement; anyone can write a novel and try to get it published. Every English major in the last 50 years has probably tried. Hardly anyone can succeed, so obviously it's very hard to pull off.

And then even the published writers are mostly awful. So many are basically hacks, churning out formulaic junk. Maybe their first novel or two were good, but they've run out of ideas now, or are just continuing the initial story endlessly. They might be able to create interesting scenes and characters, but it's so hard to have something fresh or new or creative happen, and especially to have the actual words on the page crackle with energy and wit and liveliness. I've written two novels, neither of which were any good, and I know how hard it is to balance plot development, action scenes, character development, keep on track and not get sidetracked, keep the writing fresh and lively, etc. I've read hundreds of novels in my life, and probably no more than 8 or 10 did that.

Most of the so-called " best writers" are creating novels most of us have no interest in reading. They are doing literary stuff, talking about society or politics or history. I think it's easier to write well with non-fiction, since you just have to relate events entertainingly; you don't have to actually think up the events yourself and know how they fit into the whole sequence of events for 500 or 1000 pages.

So to finally answer the question, there aren't any fantasy writers who I would really recommend or hold up as excellent writers. I've read a lot of good novels, a lot of bad ones, and many in between. I enjoy a lot of them, good and bad ones. A bad novel can still be fun to read if it's got interesting events and characters, after all. The biggest problem in novels, especially fantasy, is that there will be 400 pages of book, and those pages need to be turned into about 280 pages with the space and redundancy and dead time and empty lines wrung out. This is colossally hard to do; perhaps even impossible; you need to write it that way to begin with; otherwise the 400 pages are sort of a very long outline for the novel that you should write, if you could.

My example of a movie that does everything is Pulp Fiction. Virtually every moment in that movie has something interesting happening. Characters on their way to do one thing are talking about something else as or more interesting than their actual objective. Events that seem to be unfolding one way suddenly take wild turns to another outcome, one that was totally unexpected. There are surprises and action scenes that come from nowhere all through the movie. Now I'm not saying that Sam and Frodo walking through a swamp for 50 pages should be having a sparkling conversation about the hottest hobbit girls in the Shire and what type of ale they like, but there are stretches in virtually every novel that you'd like to fast forward over and get to the next thing, since you know what's happening and it's not especially interesting, but you have to keep going to get to the next section.

Some novels have such an interesting plot and events that they can stay on one course the whole time and never be less than engrossing; a lot of the early Steven King novels do that very well, but a great novel would keep bringing in new and interesting characters, seeing how they react to and with the main characters, having everyone encounter new challenges and change and adapt to them, while keeping on track for the main plot and quest, which should ideally be something of enormous importance, rather than just some mundane errand. If the same few characters are the entire novel, then they need to keep doing new things, or interacting in new ways. This is the perfect world case here; 99% of novels don't even attempt this, and lots of those are very interesting anyway. It's just that they could be better. Which is why I haven't read a great fantasy novel, just a lot that are pretty good and a lot more than are okay.

The closest to a perfect novel that I've ever read is probably Clive Barker's Imajica. It's technically horror, I guess, but it's as much fantasy as horror, so maybe that qualifies. The story is incredibly long and complicated with dozens of fascinating characters, most of whom change greatly over the course of the story. There are also amazing plot events, challenges, totally unexpected events, including the entire ending, side quests and plots, etc. And this is just my opinion; many people don't like the novel or find it boring. There's no accounting for taste.

I absolutely adored Steven King's The Stand the first 2 or 3x I read it, but that's more for the world and plot, which really caught my imagination. The characters and events he populates the story with aren't as fascinating as the whole concept itself. It's not as well done as Imajica, but it's got a ton of good characters, lots of interesting happenings, a great overall plot that keeps being advanced towards the conclusion, etc. Barker has the edge for the overall story being better, and also since he's just such an amazingly-good writer, but both are superior works.

I seldom recall reading a sentence or paragraph by King and stopping to think, "Christ that was well written." Barker does that all the time, or at least he did in his 80's-early 90's prime. I get that from various non-fiction writers, but their overall stories/books aren't as interesting to me. I also get that from my own writing, in places, but I'm hardly objective there. Obviously I'm trying to write in a way that I like and think is good; otherwise I'd write in some other way. I'm ultimately unsatisfied with 95% of my fiction, but it's usually a case of "good enough".

As I said above, it's extremely difficult to get the tone, events, characters, plot-advancement, and crystal writing all at once. Just relating the events that advance the story is the easiest thing; wording every line perfectly to accomplish that task is very tedious and difficult, and would go unnoticed by most readers anyway. That's more the sort of thing that other writers notice; most people just plow through the fair or good or great prose; devouring the plot and events. I'll notice a beautifully-designed scene in a movie, but it's not a real big priority of mine; I'll take a straight-forward scene as long as the events are interesting, while aspiring film-makers probably notice how well a scene was designed and edited as much or more than they do the plot of the actual movie.

October 21, 2002

I had a reader recommendation for Brian Lumley some months ago, and thus directed, I checked out a few of his novels.  They weren't great, but it wasn't like I wanted to claw my brain out after reading them.  Follow the link for some more commentary on them and yes, I'll add my comments on him to the horror novelist review page at some point.

Hi!

In response to your blog about what makes a good novel, I have the perfect series for you. The series "A Song of Ice and Fire" by George R.R. Martin, beginning with "A Game of Thrones". It is to be a 6 book series and unfortunately only 3 have been released so far, but just the first three are well worth the read even if the last leaves you hanging. The characters are the most well rounded you'll ever find in a series and as the series progresses, it's hard to say who the antagonists or protagonists are because you get to see the story from nearly every side.

As you get farther into the series, the author doesn't really play "favorites" with anyone and doesn't hesitate to put the axe (literally) to your favorite characters, so don't too attached to anyone! And what a story! It was roughly inspired by The War of the Roses with major families all vying for a throne and there is much double crossing and backstabbing to be had. Often times a situation will be resolved in a very unexpected way (whether good or bad for the characters involved), but whether you liked the outcome or not, you have to admire it. Also, even though it's a fantasy, it doesn't follow any fantasy formula and especially in the beginning of the series, it might as well just be a medieval fiction because of the lack of real use of the fantasy aspects (although the fantasy does pick up as the series progresses); it's nice to see a fantasy that doesn't use fantasy to drive the plot. This author uses human nature and reality. I can honestly say these are the best books I've ever read and if you need more convincing, read the reviews on Amazon.com or something. Reading from your complaints (I agree with them all), I really think you'd like these books, try them out! Enjoy!

-Brian

I have not read anything by George R R Martin, but I did read the first dozen or so books in the Wild Cards series, which he edited. I'll put the recommended novel on my list and try to grab one next time I'm at the library, to see what I think.  

At some point I'll add a sci fi or "other" book authors review page, and mention that series on it, since I enjoyed it.  They are basically comic book novels.  I don't mean graphic novels, they have no illustrations, but they are comic book type characters and action, mutated super heroes alien invaders, mutants and death on a global level, etc.  You can read more about it on the Amazon.com page for the first book, if you are interested.  IIRC books 1-6 or so were pretty good; after that the quality started to slip and most of the original core characters (the ones I liked best) were gone or minimized, and the newer cast wasn't as interesting.  Same thing that seems to happen with virtually all ongoing series.

One thing I can comment on about Amazon.com submitted reviews, which I've become rather familiar with from the hundreds I've read while doing the Band Names section.  They are frightening.  At least for music, you can pick the worst album ever, and count on glowing reader reviews and an overall rating of about 4.5 stars.  You name it, boy bands, torch song wailers, death metal, all have very high ratings.  I don't think it's a conspiracy; it's just that the people who care enough to file a review on a given album are likely fans of the artist.  You'd have to really hate some band to spend your time writing bad reviews of them and posting them on Amazon, and anyway, Amazon is there to sell stuff and stay in business.  They aren't going to do that if everything they have for sale has "don't buy this shit" all over it.  So I would suspect they tend to move along the poor reviews pretty regularly and leave the glowing ones up.

Now with books there is probably a lot more intelligent and educated core of reviewers, so perhaps the comments will be more balanced and objective. Or maybe not.

Anyone else has read it and wants to comment, feel free.  Or recommend other writers, if you know any that fit the bill.

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