John Scalzi Weighs In

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John Scalzi has weighed in over at his AMC blog on the ongoing debate of Science Fiction vs. Fantasy or where the line is drawn between the two.  His original point of contention was the use of the term Science Fantasy to describe works that aren't particularly science based.  He makes a poit that all science fiction can be classified under the broader genre of fantasy. 

"To engage in further nitpicking, everything you can possibly label as "science fiction" is in fact just a subset of a larger genre, which is correctly called "fantasy." This is because science fiction -- along with supernatural horror, alternate history, superhero lit, and the elves-and-orcs swashbuckling typically labeled "fantasy" -- is fundamentally fantastic. Which is to say, it involves imaginative conceptualizing, does not restrain itself according what is currently known, and speculates about the nature of worlds and conditions that do not exist in reality. It may gall science-fiction fans to think of their genre as a subset of fantasy, but it is, so calling a film "science fantasy" is in most ways redundant."

I take issue with the words "in my opinion" being ommited here.  My opinion is that words take on new meanings as time progresses.  Awful is great example of this.  Originally it meant full of awe, but is now a term of disgust.  So too went both the terms Science Fiction and Fantasy.  I will go so far as to say that by Miriam Webster's definition of fantasy, "the free play of creative imagination," all good fiction would fall under the fantasy category.  I would say that the definition has changed and will probably continue to do so.  Currently, the fantasy genre represents worlds where magic exists.  With sub genres of lite, dark, and high popping up, I can only imagine ti changing further in the future.  The same could be said of science fiction. 

Scalzi does point out one thing that is at the base of this arguement.  Elitism.  Some science fiction fans don't want to be associated with "fantasy" or even some sub-genres of science fiction.  This is an attempt to give what they read more literary merit.  Tearing something down to make something else look bigger is nothing but an optical illusion.  If what you are reading is good, it will shine on its own regardless of genre. 

Nightmare on Elm St. (2010)-Spoiler free review

Cover of A Nightmare on Elm Street [Blu-ray]

I grew up on Nightmare on Elm St.  It was the first real horror movie I remember watching.  I thought Freddy was pretty cool.  Robert Englund did a great job portraying him as scary and witty.  I watched the television series and even ran up my grandmother's phone bill calling the Freddy horror line for scary stories. 

This was a nightmare, just not Nightmare on Elm St.  The acting wasn't bad.  It is a teen slasher flick so acting isn't the most important aspect of the movie.  But the girls screemed loud and looked pretty, and that is pretty important in a film like this.  

Plot wise, it was basicly the original with some new actors, influences from pulp fiction, and some pedophilia thrown in for good measure.  The movie didn't really come across as scary and just kind of made you feel dirty. 

It has been years since I have seen the original, but from what I remember, it was hard to differenciate dream sequences from reality.  Not so hard in this one.  The major thing that messed up this movie was Freddy.  For some reason you can get past the original Freddy being a serial killer, but the new on is a pedophile.  Ewww gross!  The makeup went for realistic burn looks.  Freddy is pretty much a demon, so exagerating the burns into open sores like the original is okay.  Haley, is just playing Rorschach from Watchmen.  I couldn't help but make the connection every time I saw him or heard him.  It was distracting. 

Overall, it isn't for kids, and you have a better use for 2 hrs of your life.  Watch the original instead. 

Sci-fi Wire now Blastr

Syfy (pronounced sifee) has done it again.  They want to distance themselves from science fiction.  Their newsite was actually a great place to get scifi news and now they are rebranding it.  It will encompass more.  I am sure it will eventualy cover reality TV and have a recipe page.  It will probably start out covering wrestling news.
Press release after the jump.

Running Late-A race to the top entry

This is original Fiction for the race to the top contest.

“BEEP, BEEP, BEEP!” Carlos looks at the clock and thinks, “not again.” He has exactly fifteen minutes to be at school. He throws the covers off himself and launches out of bed towards the dresser; dirty shirt off and in a pile in front of his closet door before he even gets there. He slides into a fresh shirt leaving his pants and socks from the previous day, or a previous day at least. Backpack in hand, he exits his room before the clock hits 6:16. As he leaves his house, he resets his alarm clock from his phone and thinks, “that snooze alarm is going to be the death of me.”


He has been late twice this semester and has cut it close more times than he would like to recall. Carlos doesn’t mind school, but it isn’t really something worth waking up for either. He is an okay student. Smart enough to get by without really trying. That of course leads to speeches about applying oneself and, obviously, showing up on time. He knows the penalty if he doesn’t get through the gates in time.

Carlos hits the sidewalk running as he looks up towards the intersection ahead.  There is no way he is going to make it before the signal changes. Timmy runs up and stops. By the look of his hair, Timmy has just woken up too. “How much time left on it?” Carlos responded, “you're in luck, about twenty seconds”. Luck, yeah, Timmy wouldn’t make it if he had to sit through another light. It is going to be tight as it is now.

The light changes and as Carlos and Timmy head across the street they see them, the truancy bots. Hovering about eight feet in the air, if the bots caught an image of their retinas they would be tailed and there would be no fudging it. With no violations, or even just one, the bots might ignore them, but two strikes meant these guys were going to get tailed. The problem was that the bots repositioned themselves and tried to image everyone’s retina. Although the purpose of the bots were to get truant kids off the street, the info that they processes had been used to convict people of crimes, call witnesses, and they were public records so even private eyes used them in their investigations of cheating spouses.

Of course the bots saw them, they always do. They were within two blocks of the school and only had five minutes before the gates shut. If they were caught outside the gates for a third time, they wouldn’t be let in, the bots would alert the police and you got hauled off for thirty days. Carlos didn’t know anyone that had ever been unexcused three times, but the rumors he heard weren’t good; some kids said they did this procedure where they stick an ice pick up your nose and into your brain and swirl it around, scrambling the part of your brain that made you misbehave. That sounded a little farfetched to Carlos, but he didn’t want to find out where you went or what happened to you.

Two minutes left, Carlos could see the school. They were going to make it. Just a side street left to cross. Carlos sprinted through two stopped cars and, right as he was stepping on the sidewalk, heard the brakes of a car and a crunch. Timmy was on the ground holding his leg. Carlos looked down at his phone; just over one minute left. He looked back at Timmy. Timmy’s eyes were drilling holes in him. They said, “don’t leave me here!” Carlos knew if he tried to help, they would both get caught and he still had a chance by himself. He turned and ran making it through the gates with 10 seconds to spare.



Thirty days later, Timmy returned to school. He was on crutches and his leg was casted up. Carlos, tried to avoid him, but it was kind of hard when they had several classes together. Timmy didn’t seem upset with him, but he wasn’t overly friendly either. Whatever they did seemed to be working because Timmy wasn’t late anymore, in fact he was always early. He dressed nicer and answered more questions too, but he wasn’t interested in playing video games or shooting hoops anymore. Carlos, decided that what happened to Timmy wouldn’t happen to him. He would make sure that he wasn’t late anymore. Violations only stuck for six weeks and he only had two weeks before he was back down to only having one.



“BEEP, BEEP, BEEP!” Carlos looks at the clock and thinks, “not again!”

Queen: A to Z

When you think Sci Fi and original rock music, I hope your mind goes to Queen.  They had original music on both Flash Gordon and The Highlander Movie.  These songs were not just filler, but have come to represent their franchises.  Even people who hate the Flash Gordon movie love the theme.  Highlander was so associated with the Heroes of the Universe that they used it as the theme for the show six years later.  We won't go into how many fantasy and science fiction films have used Queen songs, but will mention the amazing Shaun of the Dead soundtrack has Queen songs. 

Hanna-2011

What is a Hanna movie review doing on a science fiction blog, you might ask.  The rude answer would be that I can put up a review of whatever I want, but the better answer is that there is a science fiction element to this movie.  I won’t give away what that is, but I am sure most people can figure it out pretty early in the movie. 

The plot-  Think Bourne Identity but with a 14 year old girl.  While the concept wasn’t completely original, I am looking at you Cassandra Cain: Batgirl, it was a deviation from your normal Bourne thriller.  It is more of a surface type movie as if you stop and think about any one part too much it will start to break down.  For example, the father hides the truth from her.  While it creates tension between the characters and sets Hanna up for the hero’s journey, it just doesn’t make sense for him to do that.  His goal for her would better be achieved if Hanna knew the whole truth.  But the movie moves along at a fast enough pace that you don’t really think about things like that while you are watching it. 

The Acting-  Saorise and the incredible Hulk due a pretty good job in this one.  The little British girl made me want to jump in the screen and throttle her, so I guess she was playing her part dead on.  The actors were all pretty good and well directed. 

The Action-  Some of the best fight choreography I have seen in a movie.  They tried to make the fight scenes as realistic as possible it seems and they succeeded for the most part. 

Overall it was a fun movie.  I watched with the wife and oldest daughter.  It is rated PG-13 for violence and it seemed fine for my oldest.  I would say 10+.  Give this a watch if you enjoyed Bourne, Soldier, or Cassandra Cain Batgirl.  My 10 year old gets bonus points for calling the last line of the movie.  I saw it coming too, but she called it out loud. 

Kiln People - Book Review

Cover of Kiln People (The Kiln Books)

Kiln People is a novel by David Brin.  It takes place in a future where people can copy their souls into clay golems called Ditos or Dits.  These golems only have a life span of about 24hrs and their experiences can be uploaded back into the original. 

I found the novel exceptionally good.  Brin does a wonderful job of world building here.  I picked the hardback up at a Dollar Tree or Dollar General Store a couple of years aga and wasn't expecting much. 

The novel follows Albert, a detective, as he is trying to track down Beta, a person that makes illegal copies of well known people.  The two have a history with each other and Albert can never really catch up with Beta, although he does manage to throw a monkey wrench in his plans from time to time.  Eventually Albert finds his dittos involved in something world changing. 

The science in the novel is fictional but is presented in a well thought out manner.  Brin does an excellent job of researching golems and totems througout history.  Nestled into the book are pretty real questions about what constitutes life.  The book can be very funny at times as well.  The ending gets pretty deep and philosphical just before the climax.  It went pretty starchild and I am not sure I enjoyed that as much as I did the rest of the book. 

I would recommend this book to science fiction readers and those interested in the moral debates on cloning.  Non science fiction fans may like it as well but may get bogged down a little by some of it.  Well worth a read, and I am sorry it took me this long.

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15 Science Fiction/Fantasy/Comic movies that are must sees in 2011

Charlie Jane over at io9 has listed 55 genre movies for 2011.  I don't know about you but that sounds like an awful lot.  Looking through the list, there is a bunch of junk in it like Twilight and Beastly (although it doesn't look to bad).  I will attempt to cut this list down to the 15 must see genre movies.

March 11th:  Battle Los Angeles-  I don't know, the production values look good and I am a fan of aliens taking over the world and humanity finding a way to fight back type stories. 

March 11th:  Mars Needs Moms-  I loves this book and so do my girls, this one is a no brainer, but I am interested to see how they fill out more than 30 minutes.

March 25th:  Sucker Punch-  This is my must see movie of the year.  If you like hot girls, mechs, sword play, fighting, and dragons all put together in a really pretty picture, this movie is probably right up your alley as well. 

April 1st: Super-  Dwight as a superhero, need I say more. 

April 8th: Your Highness-  If it weren't for Natalie Portman, this movie wouldn't even be on my radar.  Looks funny enough, but I hate Zooey's acting.

May 5th: Thor- This looks to be the early winner in the comic book movie onslought of 2011.  Can there be a black Asgardian?  Ask the people who complained about a blonde Bond. 

May 13th: Priest-  The preview I saw for this looked really interesting.  I like post apocolyptic worlds were humanity is fighting for its survival.

June 3rd:  X-Men First Class-  Based off of X3 and Wolverine, this movie shouldn't be here.  I am a sucker for mutants though.

June 17th:  Green Lantern-  I was really excited about this movie, until I saw the trailer.  It is DC taking movie making seriously outside of their two bread winners and I want to see the result. 

July 22nd:  Captain America-Nothing I have seen has me excited about this movie yet, and I want to be excited about it.  It is here because it has the potential to win the comic movie wars. 

July 29th:  Cowboys and Aliens-  I mean, how can you argue with a title like that.  Cowboys and Aliens, the only choosing you have to do is which side you want to win.  Should be a lot of fun. 

August 19th: Conan-  What is good in life?  This movie could be the next Conan, Momoa has some big muscles to fill.

August 19th: Fright Night-  I like people who play Doctor Who, and I like the original fright night.  It should be like peanut butter and chocolate, right?

September 30th: Now-  You have never heard of this movie have you?  That is okay; neither had I.  Take Logan's run and add the ability to by youth.  Sound cool to me. 

October 7th:  Real Steel-  Fighting and giant robots , of course I will like it.  Robot Jocks for the 21st century.

Did I miss your must see, let me know in the comments. 

Perfect Gifts for the Scifi Fathers

Fro Dr. Who Fans: Doctor Who: The Complete Specials (The Next Doctor / Planet of the Dead / The Waters of Mars / The End of Time Parts 1 and 2), Doctor Who - Lost in Time Collection of Rare Episodes - The William Hartnell Years and the Patrick Troughton Years, Doctor Who Tardis USB 4 Port Powered Hub Station, 3D Rubber Doctor Who Tardis Cufflinks with Presentation box.

Hunger Games- A to Z

I read hunger games this week and while I enjoyed it, I couldn't help notice that it was pretty much Battle Royale being retold as American YA fiction.  I had heard a lot of bad press about the violence in this book and I have to say that the violence is rather tame, especially compared to Battle Royale. 

My 10 year old is reading it and is enjoying it as well.  She said it is about as violent as warriors, a book series about warring cat clans.  Of course Hunger Games is kid on kid violence, but it was rather mild even compared to lord of the flies.  I am talking graphic description and not amount of violence. 

The are making this into a movie and are casting actors and actresses in their early twenties.  This will really take something away from the story.  The story doesn't have much merit, anyway, beyond the entertainment factor.  I just don't see that the author really had an original idea or message that she was trying to get across. 

Overall it was entertaining and appropriate for 10 up.  I know I deviated from my normal template. 

I Saw Tangled and It Was SciFi

We all know the story of Rapunzel.  I even know the original version that is much more violent.  I have never thought of it as science fiction, but Disney's movie Tangled may have changed that.  Warning, here there be spoilers.

I finally got around to watching this.  I was on a father/daughter date with my youngest (the oldest is mad because she wanted to see it too), and I kind of wanted to see something else.  Boy was I mistaken.  It might be my new favorite Disney Princess movie.  Tangle was very good and very funny. 

On the way home, as my daughter was nodding off, I came to the conclusion that Tangled was a scifi movie.  "A drop of the sun" falls from the sky and up blooms a "magical" flower.  The flower makes the witch young and is found and harvested to save the life of the pregnant queen.  The queen is healed but the baby is born with a head full of blond hair (king and queen are dark headed).  Turns out the hair is "magical as well."  You have to sing to the hair to make it heal.  If the hair is cut, it dies and the hair still attached the the head turns brown. 

A drop of the sun is obviously a meteorite with a seed of a otherworldly flower.  Singing to the flower makes it happy and it then releases some sort of rejuvenating radiation.  When the flower is turned to tea, the organism living in the flower's DNA is released and embeds itself in the fetus of the queen.  Rapunzel has a symbiotic organism that lives inside her.  I guess the alien symbiote needs its own oxygen or it uses photosynthesis to live as it expresses itself through the hair.  As these tendrils are cut the whole branch dies.  When all of Rapunzel's hair is cut the organism can no longer exist.  It dies, but with its remaining strength forces some healing essence through a tear drop. 

Want more proof?  The hair grabs and lets go of things.  It is able to move on its own.  Usually only when Rapunzel wants it too.  So the symbiote is acting in concert with Rapunzel's wishes.  A side effect of the symbiote would be Rapunzel's ability to talk to chameleons. 

Sure the movie takes place in the fantasy kingdoms of Happily Ever After, but that does not change the fact that it is a scifi movie.  Arthur C. Clarke said it best, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."  What the characters see as magic is really just an alien organism.

In closing,  Tangled is a great movie whether  it is SciFi or not.  It is clever and funny and just a whole lot of fun.  Disney hit a home run on this one.  I would suggest going to see this one and you don't even have to have a kid with you.

SyFy Channel wants to ruin motion pictures too!

Image via Wikipedia

The Orlando Sentinal is reporting that Universal Pictures and Syfy may be partnering to form a division specifically for science fiction movies.  I am not sure what the advantages of working with Syfy would be, besides knowing that the movie would be shown on at least one channel after its run on DVD.  The downsides are obvious to anyone that has watched an original Syfy movie. 

Top Ten Horror/Science Fiction Quotes

Ellie and iZombie have put together a blogfest with my site almost entirely in mind. 

So what goes into making a quote a top quote.  In my mind, it has to be memorable and usable.  They don't have to be from a good movie.  To use the what is good in life quote from Conan (fantasy, so not technically in the running as it may have made it) as an example.  It is fairly short, it is easily memorized, and it has the advantage of being call and response.  That call and response thing is huge. Well, on to the list, you can let me know how my quotes stack up in the comments. 

10.  Jaws- "We're gonna need a bigger boat."  Anytime in life you bite off more than you can chew, use this line and give yourself a chuckle.  Added advantage is that you can replace boat with anything else.  Have another kid:  "We're gonna need a bigger car."  Still works, especially if the other person is a jaws fan. 

9.  Aliens- "Game over man, game over!"  You have to do this one with the Bill Paxton voice.  Try imagining you have three wives and they are trying to kick you out of the state house, or that you are on a planet full of xenomorphs. 

8.  E.T.-  "E.T. phone home."  E.T. really doesn't age well.  The movie is almost unwatchable to me now.  I loved it as a kid, but don't really enjoy it anymore, at all.  But this line will continue on.  Probably more relevant before people had cell phones and therefor you had to ask to use someones phone to call your own. 

6.  Friday the 13th-  "Ch, ch, ch, ch, Ah, ah, ah, ah"-  Okay, so this isn't an actual line from the movies, it is a sound effect.  But it is a very effective quote none the less.  Everyone knows where it comes from and they know you are trying to give the situation a creepy feel.  Trying?  Heck, with this one you are succeeding. 

5.  Batman- "Where does he get such wonderful toys?"  This one may start a barrage of Batman quotes that go through all of the movies and maybe even some "bang" and "pow" from the TV show. 

4.  Mars Attacks- "We come in peace."  When said in certain company, this will unleash a series of "Nyack, Nyack, Nyacks."  It may even cause some yodeling or fond memories of a teenage Natalie Portman. 

3.  Star Wars-  "Luke, I am your father."  Whenever you are trying to convince someone to do something just throw this at them.  Go ahead and do your best James Earl Jones as well.  For use in everything, ie borrowing money.  "Luke I am your father.  let me borrow $5 and we will rule the universe together as father and son."  The whole original trilogy is highly quotable, but this is the one that takes the cake. 

2.  Ghostbusters- "Are you a god?  No.  Then Die!"  Great call and response here.  Can be used when anyone disagrees with you over something.  "Lets eat at Taco Bell."  "You know they don't use real beef."  "Are you a god?"  Ghostbusters is pretty quotable and I really like "Don't cross the streams," but it is only applicable in troft style urinals. 

1.  Idiocracy-  "It's got electrolytes..."  Idiocracy may be the most quotable movie ever.  Just check out fark.com if you don't believe.  I will wait while you do. " I can wait all day.  I can wait for a week."  The whole movie is a quote just waiting to happen.  If you haven't seen this movie, grab your closest friends and watch it.  the electrolyte line is very versatile.  it can be call and response with one person saying something has electrolytes and everyone else telling you that it is what plants crave.  You can change out electrolytes and plants.  "It's got alcohol, what frat boys crave!"  It will also start up an idocracy quote off. 

X-Men: Relatively spoiler free

The beauty of comic storylines is that you can continue them in a serial method, thus creating grand storylines and characterizations that would not be possible in a single issue or in three two hour movies.

I liked the movie in the theaters, but the more I dwell on it the less I like it. I hope they don't make anymore x-men movies. Two hours is not enough to establish a team of superheroes and a team of supervillians.

Hollywood crapped this movie out to make money. Lets bring back all the stars, bring in some other big names, make a lot of stuff blow up, do some amazing special effects, and kill characters for shock value, it will make millions. Oh yeah, write a story loosely base on this famous one to get the fans hopes up.

Halle Berry sucked for the third straight x-men movie. Sure they made the character cooler with special effects, but that doesn't solve her acting problem.

Taken solely as an action movie, it was good. Taken as an X-Men movie, I cried myself to sleep.

This movie took x-men cannon and urinated on it right after they used it to wipe their butts. All the movies have changed some aspects of the story, but this movie borders on blasphemy. The mistreated characters that are well loved and very established. They took several great X-Men story arcs and reduced them to a mediocre story in which to have an epic battle.

I will admit the battle was cool and the team tactics were very cool, but they changed too much for it to be completely enjoyable.

I was disappointed to say the least.

I have an English degree. I love literature. In the literary world, people have been trying to rework classics for years. It never works. No retelling of Romeo and Juliet will ever even pale in comparison to the original. No matter how many times they make Great Expectations into a movie, it always sucks. The nerve of the people to think they are worthy of changing/rewriting the works of Dickens and Shakespeare among oh so many others. Each writer has their own style and cadence and the stories they write work within that style and cadence.

Lets face it screenwriters are not the most talented writers in the world and we let them go wild on some of literatures classics. The X-Men are literature to me. The old story arcs are classics and deserve respect. Something that fan fiction and Hollywood are incapable of showing.

Fantasy Cliches And Why I Want To Kill Them

So the title is a little harsh, but hey, harsh can be fun.

I played D&D as a kid, read Tolkien and a few others so I have some familiarity with the genre. I watched a lot of the fantasy movies, blah blah blah, so I have some kind of leg to stand on when I criticize the cliches. I do so because I would like to see more original ideas in the genre. The genre suffers from several problems, some innate to the genre and some due to the general hackery of fantasy writers. Now I am talking strictly about books written in a pseudohistoricaal medieval setting, not Harry Potter or any of the modern fantasy or vampire books. I'm talking typical Fantasy here. The kind with Frazetta covers, ya dig?

Now I warn you that I will sound like I am tearing apart the very basis of Fantasy and that I am not a fan. This isn't true. I am merely tired of the same old crap. I used to like the cliches, but how many near exact copies of Lord of the Rings and Conan can I take, come on.

Also, I expect most to say, "lighten up dude, it's just fantasy," in response to my dislike of the implications of the fantasy setting worldview. I am not trying to multiculturalize or legislate rules re: fantasy. I want a larger range of fantasy worlds. Y'all can keep writing the same old baloney, I just won't read it.

The following are several of the problems.

RACIAL DETERMINISM

Fantasy has this tendency to create races as living stereotypes. Now these stereotypes don't necessarily connect to real world stereotypes. I can't really match up dwarves or what-have-you to real ethnic groups. That is not my point really. My point is that its endorsement of stereotypical thinking.

This is all reinforced by the tendency to develop human-like structures to their societies. The demihumans (to steal from D&D) have a typical human sexual reproduction and family format. There has been a tendency to try and create an ecological niche as if there were at one time Cro-magnon elves, dwarves, goblins, orcs, etc all competing for the same resources in the stone age. They have their own cultures, societies, rules, etc. Once you make these magical races biological it creates a setting that seems to endorse a biological deterministic framework. Goblins are innately inferior because of their evil Goblin heritage/genes. Elves are innately superior (and coincidentaly quite Aryan in appearance) because of their Elven genes/lifespan/abilities. And I think that is where they go awry in multiple ways.

If you start to go biological you then need to really think out the world beyond all levels of frustration. To create a semi-realistic setting you have to walk through all of evolution on the planet and explain why Elves don't rule the world. Once you do that you have to think up reasons why different groups are innately evil and how they could have survived at all without some kind of kindness/cooperation within their group. From everything I have seen a society that is as cutthroat as the Goblin races are usually depicted would be out-competed by early man who was at least somewhat cooperative at the tribal level. The point is that you would have to recreate a pseudo-biological history of the entire planet. It's just too annoying.

My favorite method is to return to myth and to return to the general idea that these are magical creatures not biological. They don't have families or societies as we would understand them. They are creatures of magic and spirit and so embody ideas not real species. Like the Fae of Ireland they may reproduce by stealing kids and feeding them magical food under the hills. Stuff like that helps you avoid all the biological and ethical complications of a decent fantasy setting. This was very much inspired by the Hellboy comic book by Mike Mignola. He's bloody brilliant (as some denizen of Harry Potter might say).

And so in designing the setting you create a roughly Earth-like evolved planet with magic creeping in at the edges.

THE CHOSEN ONE SYNDROME & THE EPIC

The next major problem is the idea of the prophesied chosen one who will save the world from darkness. I am so utterly tired of the chosen one vs dark lord BS. Are we that short of ideas that the only plot to be redone in infinite variety is some kind of Tolkien + Jesus mish-mash? It is just so painfully, sickeningly done to death. What about the little stories about interesting characters in interesting fantasy settings? Fahfrd & The Gray Mouser by Fritz Leiber is a notable exception. They should be more interesting than me or the butcher down the corner, but does it always have to be about saving the whole of middle earth? Why this need for the epic in every single novel/series? Just laziness to me.

Back to this chosen one nonsense. In the real world there are no chosen one's who change the course of history. The exceptions are Jesus, Buddha, and other such major religious figures. By and large history is made by the mass movements of people with leaders that seem to know how to ride the crest of a movement. The leaders ARE NOT THE MOVEMENT. I do not want to read about another Jesus figure sans pacifism and compassion. It doesn't appeal to me and while it has its place within Fantasy it is not the only plot one could do. To me the chosen one syndrome encourages simplistic thinking about life. Simple is comforting, but wrong and unhelpful.

The chosen one is often a farmboy, who is secretly the long lost son of the king. Besides being a tired cliche I disagree with its implications. It implies that no one could possibly become a great man without some kind of genetic link to other great men, feeding the eugenics BS throughout Fantasy novels. Why can't the farmboy, merely be a farmboy who rises to greatness? (The exceptions is Conan, the Fantasy genre's self-made man.) Why does it have to turn out that he belonged to the ruling class all along? This leads to my next pet peeve...

AUTHORITY WORSHIP

Fantasy novels make certain entirely false assumptions about authority figures.

Firstly they depict rulers as either entirely enlightened, just, nearly holy rulers, or evil usurpers of the throne. They are very much wrapped up in the nobility and the justifications of the nobility.

Let's set some things straight. Kings and the like started out as bandit/warrior/Mafioso who basically ran a protection racket and made themselves rich off of that. That is the entire basis of "nobility." All this rightful king bloodline nonsense was cover for Machiavellian Mafioso politics. There is not one shred of decency or admirability in the Lords and Ladies. They generally starved the people to live in luxury and for that should never be praised in my book. They gave nominal protection, but the primary protection the people needed was from their own King or a competing King.

The wise gentle authority figure is pure fiction. Kings of the past are generally quite similar to dictators of the modern era, e.g., Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il, Stalin, Hitler, the Kings of the Middle East, "President" Musharraf, etc.

Do any of these strike you as similar to King Arthur? No? That's my point.

And so I merely wish Kings to be depicted as well rounded humans who were driven primarily by greed and power lust, but had a human familial side as well. They can vary character, but at their hearts they are all amorally ruthless when it comes to keeping themselves in power.

I can quite easily picture an adventurer type getting stuck between Machiavellian Kings, why is that so rare?

BOREDOM WITH EUROCENTRISM

I know the genre was born out of reinvention of the ancient European epic, but does it all have to be? I enjoy it and all, but I'd like to see more novels set in fantasy setting based on extrapolations upon Asian, Native American, and African cultures. Fantasy is a big what-if anyway. Why can't you imagine how A pseudo America would develop after a few more centuries of settled culture and technological advancement? Or a pseudoAfrica? All of these can create interesting imagery. Or you can try (and this is hard) to make up your own fantasy cultures from scratch. Start with maps, then how folks look, make up language and culture, clothes, food, animals, social structure, the way magic works, the whole kit & kaboodle. That sounds challenging!

Perhaps the problem is the fantasy audience. Perhaps they just want the Lord of the Rings re-told in slightly different ways over and over and over again.

I dunno.

Peace.

NF.