Gibson's still writing the same stuff he ever wrote... it's just that the future caught up with him.  Pattern Recognition is one of the great works of SF of the last 10 years.

MacAuley, aside from Fairyland and that one set on Mars, has always been a modern-day centric SF writer.

I actually think that the exodus to technothriller is more a result of a cultural malaise in US SF than a financial thing.

EDIT : I wasn't actually thinking of Sf's best sellers, merely of what the values of the genre are.  In Fantasy, you have very efficient hacks and they're also the most widely respected fantasy authors.  In SF the most respected guys are the inventive ones, the hacks labour away mainly in anonymity.

I think you're looking at this through crtitic-tinted glasses, specifically sf-critic-tinted glasses. The real world of sf/f readers and publishers doesn't actually bear much resemblance to what goes in the blogosphere or the pages of the NY Review of SF. To make those comparisons between fantasy and SF, you need to be comparing like authors with like.

QuoteI actually think that the exodus to technothriller is more a result of a cultural malaise in US SF than a financial thing.

Over on TTA a number of authors have said that they have been told by agents and publishers that publishing their stuff under a thriller, rather than sf, banner will double or tripple their sales. The rush towards techno-thrillers is being lead by publishers and agents.

I have more to say, but a sudden rush of pesky work. I will return!

Ned

Cool for you. I'll play it with a good group if it's what we're playing and if it's for beer & pretzels face to face I might run it but it's not my go to style of choice anymore. I think I burnt on it sometime in the early to mid 90s between AD&D2E and CRPGs/BBS games.

BTDT, need something at least just a bit more to spice it up or I'm not gung-ho. Between Gamma World crossovers, Blackmoor rumors, and some of the DMG's artifacts I don't think I exclusively played straight up vanilla fantasy (D&D default assumptions?) for long anyway.

Settings like WFRP, Tekumel/Empire of the Petal Throne, Arduin, gonzo Greyhawk/Blackmoor, Glorantha, early Scarred Lands, and possibly Eberon* are just enough removed from the baseline to get the pilot flame going again. I also prefer low availability of magic/magic items, semi to very lethal combat, and either different, tweaked or few/no other races beyond human.

Is that still Vanilla? Vanilla with sprinkles and oreo cookies on top? (shrugs)

Quote from: Casey777Is that still Vanilla? Vanilla with sprinkles and oreo cookies on top? (shrugs)

Eberron looks pretty vanilla to me.  I can build a dungeon and some elves and wizards can go explore it.

Eberron always looked vanilla to me.  I don't know where the whole Steampunk idea came from.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalEberron always looked vanilla to me.  I don't know where the whole Steampunk idea came from.

The robots and trains confuse a lot of people.  Robots have been in D&D since Gary's original Castle Greyhawk, so I don't really seen any reason to get too worked up over that.  I'm happy to get official robot PC rules, but the Warforged aren't that gonzo to folks who remember the Expedition to the Barrier Peaks or the totally official rules in the 1st edition DMG for AD&D/Gamma World crossovers.  The trains I find uninspiring.  Maybe I can do a Great Train Robbery or a Murder on the Occidental Express scenario, but past that they add nothing.

Quote from: AkrasiaWho's claiming that Zagyg isn't vanilla?  It's the original dungeon for D&D, for crying out loud.  As far as I can tell, it is the Platonic Form of Vanilla.

That's my thought, exactly. I can't recall who was trying to sell me on it as some uber-revisioning of Greyhawk that broke every rule of established fantasy settings (though I'm almost certain that it was a Troll Lord employee). At any rate, yeah -- it's totally vanilla. That's its appeal.

QuoteWilderlands might have been 'vanilla' 30 years ago, but these days in is more 'vanilla-with-chocolate-sprinkles'.

Eh. . . I think it's still pretty vanilla compared to the other flavors of fantasy spawned by the market in recent years (e.g., Agone, Mechanical Dream, Arrowflight, Eberron, etc).

Quote from: jdrakeh... Eh. . . I think it's still pretty vanilla compared to the other flavors of fantasy spawned by the market in recent years (e.g., Agone, Mechanical Dream, Arrowflight, Eberron, etc).

Well, I did say that the Wilderlands is 'vanilla-with-sprinkles'.  The reason I say this is that the Wilderlands has a strong 'swords and sorcery' character to it, whereas in the 30 years of so since the setting first appeared, 'mainstream fantasy' has moved away from 'swords and sorcery' and more towards (typically badly mangled) 'Tolkienesque high fantasy'.  So these days, while still essentially 'vanilla' in flavour, the Wilderlands has enough 'unusual' elements to it to warrant describing it as having 'sprinkles'.

Quote from: Akrasia. . . whereas in the 30 years of so since the setting first appeared, 'mainstream fantasy' has moved away from 'swords and sorcery' and more towards (typically badly mangled) 'Tolkienesque high fantasy'.

Honestly, I think the market has always been fairly Tolkienesque in nature (original D&D, after all, based its default demi-human races on Tolkien's Middle Earth variants). In that respect, I almost think that the market has moved toward 'sword and sorcery' (we have more low-magic, human-centric, fantasy settings today than we did in the early 1980s).

That said, in retrospect, I agree that Wilderlands is much more S&S than most of its rivals back in the day -- certainly moreso than Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms, large swaths of which were Tolkien with a pastiche of psuedo-European allegory added for good measure.

In today's market, I think the Wilderlands is actually more vanilla than it was back in the late 1970s (back then, it stood out from the pack, whereas today, it's largely one of the herd).