Waiting for Release. A Reader’s Rant.

There is one large drawback to reading genre pieces. The problem, is of corse, the wait. Many of the books that exist within Fantasy and Science Fiction especially are structured in series, usually spanning several books. Series mean a waiting period. This is quite possibly the most aggravating aspect of a reader’s life. To find a good book, and the discovery that this book is part of series presents joy at first, which quickly turns to annoyance when a fan runs out of material. To know that the story which you adore continues is to know you. To find the end of the written material is to know frustration. Being that series novels are chapters in a larger whole, it stands to reason that many of the novels written in series have no beginning or end, only the continuation of the saga the author writes of, it stands to reason the novels are often far deeper than their standalone counterpoints.
This is not to say that standalones do not have merit. But the author who creates a series has a lot more room to play with his characters and world.

The authors are not at fault (most of the time), but the frustration a reading fan fells is far greater than other groups. A person waiting for a television show or movie only waits for an amount of time, but that time is limited to a year or two. But this time moves quickly compared to what some authors put readers through. Though it may seem like a long time to someone who is waiting for the movie, sometime they should try waiting for a slow author to release the next chapter of their ever expanding epic. A reader is subjected to only the possibility of future release. It’d be like seeing three shows, then waiting 5 years for the next episode to come out.

I would like to clarify that many authors do not make their fans wait. Many good authors often put out a new novel in one or two years, and this is acceptable to the average reader. A few author examples of who generally write prolifically and with great talent are Terry Brooks, Terry Goodkind, Brandon Sanderson, Jim Butcher, and many others.

But there are some authors that move like molasses. Because of this, many fans begin getting anger and frustrated at those authors. I know that it takes time to write a good novel, but there are a few authors that piddle away their time. These writer often have great talent, but don’t finish books in any type of timely manner. George R. R. Martin has gained this reputation, and is probably the most infamous name when it comes to slow output. It has now been five years since his last publication in his Song of Ice and Fire series.

Martin has a great talent for writing, and he’s created one of the most fascinating and complex stories in recent times, but he does not produce new material often. When his blogs are checked, there area pages upon pages of football commentary, but not so much as a peep about the book progress. Even under the section of his site that declares updates specifically for the book, the last update was more than two years ago.

This problem of waiting is constantly plaguing the reader. I understand that writers must write, and to write well requires time. But for an author to abandon his fans for longer than three years is a slap in the face to all the people supporting you in your craft.

That being said, I’ll still wait along with millions of others for the latest book out from my favorite authors. They are after all, favorites for a reason. And that’s the problem, too.

The Fantasy of a Whole Genre

I thought I should try and explain a bit about the genre of fantasy, since it happens to be a big part of what I read on a day to day basis.

There is a difference in types of fantasy that not many people know about (outside the fans, of course). Many different sub-genres exist within the overarching genre of fantasy. The two big categories are high fantasy and sword and sorcery fantasy. Others include urban fantasy, science fantasy, alternative history and a few others. But for the purpose of brevity, I’ll only focus on the big two for now. The definitions will be loosely based, simply because they are that difficult to nail down substantially. In addition, a lot of books and short fiction will bleed over to other genre elements, which makes it all the more difficult.

Please remember that most, if not all, of the books mentioned here can contain mature subject matter, whether that means sex, violence, or just mature themes. These will be marked with an *.

But let’s start with Sword and Sorcery.

Sword and sorcery fantasy is what most people associate the general fantasy stereotypes with. This is your standard Dungeons & Dragons universe. This is commonly associated with Dragons, Knights, Rouges, Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, and a whole host of other creatures and characters that exist within a predefined world. Commonly, a sword and sorcery fantasy novel will use the established worlds and common knowledge of those worlds within their novel, using generic styles to establish the world and focusing more on plot. If someone who is familiar with this universe, it allows a ease of access to the story, as most of the general setting is taken care of by previous writers and players. These, for the most part, are an easy read, as much of the story is already there, only the characters and plots are different (though not always, we’ll get to that in a moment). The various themes, magic system, religious structure, political and population settings are the same, almost always. This is not to say that sword and sorcery fantasy is not good to read, though. It can be very entertaining, but it tends to follow the same structure the world over:

A hero, usually: down on his luck/shining example in humanity,
Finds that he: has gotten in trouble/must save a person,
And: resists going on a quest/sets out on a quest immediately,
To find the: sacred object/demonic object
Which will: save the world/ destroy life as we know it.
And defeat the indomitable ancient evil.

Key Sword and Sorcery Series:

Dragonlance Chronicles*
Forgotten Realms*

I much prefer High Fantasy, which can be summed up in one sentence, though not completely. High Fantasy authors create their own world. They may rely on general principals of fantasy, of a medieval setting, with Kings and magic, but the key difference is that the world that they have built has been created from scratch. These series are often the more in-depth and interesting reads, being more highly involved with character, who are three dimensional instead of stereotypes. The characters within sword and sorcery novels often are a tweaked template that has been created before, while High Fantasy tends to create characters that are much more believable. The systems in place as well are created entirely for the novels. Each book has an entirely different set of rules, lands, magic systems, everyday life, and even the political and religious structures are highly defined within a good High Fantasy novel.

Key High Fantasy Series:

The Lord of the Rings*
The Song of Ice and Fire *
The Wheel of Time*
The Sword of Truth*

It should also be noted that High Fantasy Novels often exist on multiple levels, unlike sword and sorcery novels which often only exist on the surface. High Fantasy usually uses the characters and story to tell of philosophies, or religious opinions. They can extend to political ideologies or just studies on human nature and interaction.

So a good rule to go by is:
Sword and Sorcery fantasy – predefined, with only minimal tweaks to create a “unique” work.
High Fantasy – created from nothing, entirely unique in execution, and often has truly creative techniques within it.

One issue I always have to address is why I qualify The Lord of the Rings as a High Fantasy Novel, and not as Sword and Sorcery, as a lot of the details within Lord of the Rings fits the description of Sword and Sorcery novels so well. And I always argue that neither the land nor the stereotypes existed back when Tolkien wrote the novels. He created an entire genre off of his world that he built, because Tolkien’s work was one of the largest influences for creating Dungeons & Dragons in the first place. The fact that he created the world out of nothing (besides various myths and legends from across the globe, but that’s a discussion best left to some other time).

This is not to say that all Sword and Sorcery Fantasy novels are bad, or that all High Fantasy Novels are good. Each must be judged on its own merits, but in my experience, High Fantasy usually exhibits a feel of more care and time within it. As the author created an entire world, they have often put more effort into creating their work, where Sword and Sorcery authors often have most of the work (the world building) done for them already, so it often can lead to lazy writing.

I tend to love High Fantasy more than Sword and Sorcery, because of its deep and intricate plot, but many people prefer the light Sword and Sorcery novels. Which one you choose depends on what you like. Neither is wrong, neither is right, it is all a matter of opinion.

Whilwind of EVERYTHING

I’m taking time out of my incredibly busy day to write this, because if I don’t take a break from academic writing I believe I just might lose my mind, and then I’d have to go catch it, and stuff it in my head again….well, it’d just take too much time. So here we are.

Been an awesome time for me. Unfortunately, awesome in this case means my head nearly exploded a few times in there trying to juggle everything.

Step 1) GRE
Step 2) PAPERS PAPERS PAPERS PAPERS PAPERS
Step 3) GROUPS
Step 4) HEAD EXPLODY
Step 5) ????????????
Step 6) Profit!

I swear, every time I think I’m done, someone manages to hit me with another 15 things while I wasn’t paying attention. But enough of my whining, right?
So not much is actually happening, though my schedule wouldn’t suggest it. Things are busier than ever, but I don’t mind. Well, except for the not being able to write creatively, but still…

Sugoi-con was a blast as always, had a lot of fun with everybody. I’m sure you can find pictures online somewhere (I forgot my camera). Nerdded it up with everyone, and went a little crazy. But it was crazy awesome.

::WARNING: POLITICAL OPINION AHEAD::

The house passed a bill for Healthcare reform, but it probably won’t get through the senate because of filibuster. Nice try though. I wish we’d just get to reforming the system already. I’m all for a public option, but that’s going to be an uphill battle, and we need pre-existing conditions to disappear, as well as the tort reform.

But the opposition is rather…vocal…about their objection, and some silly people actually began believing that they represent the whole of America….

::END POLITICAL OPINION::

OH. Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson came out with a book. The first part of A Memory of Light, The Gathering Storm came out a couple of weeks ago, and I finally got around to reading it. This is it, the last story in one of the absolute best series in fantasy. This series is close to my heart, and when I heard of Jordan’s death in 2007, I thought he took a little part of me with him. I never thought I’d see the day when Jordan’s legacy would be done right, but here we are. Sanderson did a wonderful job, and I couldn’t be happier with it. It was glorious in its scope, and it covered a veritable ton of side stories and tied loose ends. That it was the first third in the last story is even more exciting and makes me yearn for the rest of it (for the uninformed out there, this was supposed to be the last book in the series, but it was so big that Sanderson split it into 3 parts). Glorious.

This post is a little disjointed right now, since stress seems to be setting back in. Back to the grindstone I go. More update later.

-Pat out