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Author Topic: You folks will love this (Time's "100 Best Fantasy Books")  (Read 3546 times)

Stephen Tannhauser

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Re: You folks will love this (Time's "100 Best Fantasy Books")
« Reply #15 on: October 19, 2020, 04:38:55 PM »
The Thomas Covenant series were popular, but I don't see them as particularly influential. ...He also deconstructed some fantasy tropes, but that's common; I don't think Covenant is an inflection point.

I think you can make a case for them being more influential than readers nowadays realize; the series actually started coming out in 1977, in the same year that The Sword of Shannara became a blockbuster, and the essayist and author Tom Simon has written a lot about how Donaldson and Brooks between them completely reinvigorated the public market for fantasy with their success.  I think Donaldson's deconstruction of heroic tropes goes unnoticed now simply because people don't realize the degree to which he was one of the first really successful examples of it (cf. "Seinfeld Is Unfunny" on TVTropes.org).

Now that said, just because a book was hugely influential in this sense doesn't mean it belongs on a list of the Greatest of All Time. I have a soft spot for Sword of Shannara myself, but it's a mediocre ripoff of LOTR which only succeeded because the audience was starved for anything like it and it had no competitors at the time. I think Covenant must be recognized as influential, but I could understand something thinking other books deserved to beat it for quality.
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Nephil

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Re: You folks will love this (Time's "100 Best Fantasy Books")
« Reply #16 on: October 19, 2020, 05:03:32 PM »
I absolutely hated the whiny leprous rapist, the book was such a slog to finish.

Trond

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Re: You folks will love this (Time's "100 Best Fantasy Books")
« Reply #17 on: October 19, 2020, 05:17:20 PM »
Quote
While Dahl’s reputed anti-Semitism has raised questions about his legacy as an author in the years since his death, James and the Giant Peach remains a favorite among kids and parents alike nearly 60 years after it was first published, thanks to its vivid imagery, vibrant characters and forthright exploration of mature themes like death and hope.

It’s as if they have to mention any and all potential triggers, even if it is “reputed” and not present in the book.

Null42

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Re: You folks will love this (Time's "100 Best Fantasy Books")
« Reply #18 on: October 19, 2020, 06:23:04 PM »
Quote
While Dahl’s reputed anti-Semitism has raised questions about his legacy as an author in the years since his death, James and the Giant Peach remains a favorite among kids and parents alike nearly 60 years after it was first published, thanks to its vivid imagery, vibrant characters and forthright exploration of mature themes like death and hope.

It’s as if they have to mention any and all potential triggers, even if it is “reputed” and not present in the book.

I agree. I mean, if it isn't even in the actual book, the it winds up being about subjecting every author of the past to the moral standards of the day, which is IMHO ridiculous. What's going to happen in 100 years if the population of the earth is 20 billion, everyone had to become vegan because we no longer have room to grow livestock, and they start throwing authors out because they ate meat?

I'll come clean. I'm half-Jewish (by descent, and I don't practice any religion, and as should be clear by now I am substantially less woke than your average NYT columnist).  Am I supposed to not play Call of Cthulhu, because of Lovecraft's prejudices? Oh, wait, maybe I shouldn't read Shakespeare either, because of the Merchant of Venice or those lines in Macbeth. Can't read 'The Waste Land', because Eliot wrote some nasty stuff. Journey to the End of the Night (Louis-Ferdinand Celine) is out too... Maybe I should ring the Spanish Academy and have them censor the epic of El Cid because of the scene where he rips off the Jewish moneylenders...

I admit I didn't like Wagner, but I just couldn't get into the music--too slow and ponderous.

I don't know man, I'm too old. The kids all think like this, and they're the future, so what am I supposed to do?
« Last Edit: October 19, 2020, 06:30:45 PM by Null42 »

crkrueger

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Re: You folks will love this (Time's "100 Best Fantasy Books")
« Reply #19 on: October 19, 2020, 07:07:15 PM »
To be fair, Howard only wrote one Conan book, The Hour of the Dragon.
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Stephen Tannhauser

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Re: You folks will love this (Time's "100 Best Fantasy Books")
« Reply #20 on: October 20, 2020, 02:56:32 AM »
I'm half-Jewish (by descent, and I don't practice any religion, and as should be clear by now I am substantially less woke than your average NYT columnist).  Am I supposed to not play Call of Cthulhu, because of Lovecraft's prejudices?

Exactly; not to mention, of course, that confronting a cosmically horrifying truth -- not that the universe is full of monsters who don't care about us, but that humans, both as individuals and as a species, are neither what we want to be nor mean what we'd like ourselves to mean -- is kind of the point of the whole Mythos. In the Lovecraftian universe's eyes, our belief in ourselves as a species genetically and functionally equal among all population groups need not be any more true or relevant than our belief in ourselves as a species possessed of an immortal soul. It all depends on whose sacred cow is gored.

That said, would I play a Call of Cthulhu game solely for the sake of fighting awesome monsters? Absolutely. Would I stick with a group that I thought was using the game as a way to browbeat me over my faith? Most likely not. But CoC is at least written so as to give players the option of not doing that. A game where you have to buy into a particular headspace to enjoy it at all is a profoundly limited one, I think.
« Last Edit: October 20, 2020, 02:58:32 AM by Stephen Tannhauser »
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KingCheops

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Re: You folks will love this (Time's "100 Best Fantasy Books")
« Reply #21 on: October 20, 2020, 03:18:03 PM »
I'll come clean. I'm half-Jewish (by descent, and I don't practice any religion, and as should be clear by now I am substantially less woke than your average NYT columnist).  Am I supposed to not play Call of Cthulhu, because of Lovecraft's prejudices?

Lol I'm part French Canadian Catholic and Lovecraft hated them as a people too.  I'm also in an interracial marriage with mixed blood children -- more huge strikes against me per Lovecraft.

He's "problematic" if you're anything but pure WASP.  Or you know, you aren't a snowflake about such things.

Shasarak

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Re: You folks will love this (Time's "100 Best Fantasy Books")
« Reply #22 on: October 20, 2020, 03:53:56 PM »
I think that if you are in any way worried about Lovecrafts beliefs then you should at least have the strength of your convictions to not grift money from his ideas.
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Trinculoisdead

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Re: You folks will love this (Time's "100 Best Fantasy Books")
« Reply #23 on: October 23, 2020, 12:51:19 PM »
On a list of "most influential fantasy" a modern-day story about some of the characters from The Iliad counts, while the foundational work--read by a thousand times as many people as the modern story,  does not? Is The Iliad not fantasy?

Null42

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Re: You folks will love this (Time's "100 Best Fantasy Books")
« Reply #24 on: October 23, 2020, 01:22:25 PM »
You can argue about some of the really early works as fantasy given that they were probably closer to legends--they believed in the siege of Troy but didn't really think the gods came down and made people do stuff, etc.

"Hey, tell us about great-great-great-great-granddad's getting lost again!"

"Well, he got blown offshore and ran into...a giant! With one eye! And he wanted to eat him, but first he asked granddad's name!"

"What did he say?"

"Nobody! So when granddad stuck him in the eye, and the other giants asked him who was hurting him, he said 'Nobody'! 'Well, they said, if nobody's hurting you, shut up and leave us alone!'"

(ancient greek laughter)

"All right, that's pretty good, give him supper."
« Last Edit: October 23, 2020, 01:25:26 PM by Null42 »

Pat
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Re: You folks will love this (Time's "100 Best Fantasy Books")
« Reply #25 on: October 23, 2020, 02:36:39 PM »
On a list of "most influential fantasy" a modern-day story about some of the characters from The Iliad counts, while the foundational work--read by a thousand times as many people as the modern story,  does not? Is The Iliad not fantasy?
If you're a librarian, do you file the Illiad under mythology, or fantasy?

Fantasy is a genre, not an adjective. It doesn't mean anything with fantastic elements, it means things associated with the fantasy genre.

Mercurius

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Re: You folks will love this (Time's "100 Best Fantasy Books")
« Reply #26 on: October 24, 2020, 12:05:51 PM »
I personally think the Iliad, Gilgamesh, etc, belong on a "root texts of fantasy" list, not as actual fantasy (genre) books.

One thing that is often missed is that many/most/all stories had fantastical elements until the rise of science and secularism around the late Middle Ages. It was the default genre, so to speak.

If we consider the Gothic romance of around the turn of the 18th-19th century to be a separate genre, among fantasy historians, George MacDonald is often considered the first modern fantasist, with his books Phantastes (1858), The Princess and the Goblin (1872) and Lilith (1895), while William Morris' Wood Beyond the World (1894) is thought to be the first book set in an entirely imaginary world. Around the turn of the century and early 20th century, you had lost civilization fantasists like H Rider Haggard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Rudyard Kipling, and a bit later, Abraham Merritt. Alongside those were horror fantasists like Arthur Machen, William Hope Hodgson, Algernon Blackwood, and eventually HP Lovecraft, and then a third sub-genre of children's fantasy with Lewis Carroll, JM Barrie, and L Frank Baum.

However, perhaps the seminal fantasist of the early 20th century was Lord Dunsany, who influenced just about everyone who came after him, including Tolkien and Le Guin. The fact that he, alone, is not on that list utterly invalidates as worthy of serious consideration.

Other important pre-Tolkien fantasists include pulp writers RE Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, and Fritz Leiber (whose long career bookends Tolkien), as well James Branch Cabell, ER Eddison, Hope Mirrlees, and David Lindsay.

Anyhow, almost none of these authors are mentioned on that list, even though they were instrumental in establishing the nature and expanse of the genre.

Melan

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Re: You folks will love this (Time's "100 Best Fantasy Books")
« Reply #27 on: October 24, 2020, 01:49:48 PM »
Fantasy is a modern genre through-and-through; I would not put any pre-Victorian texts on the list. Maybe not even Dracula. Lost world novels, colonial fantasies, planetary romance, and early 1900s Arthurian reconstructions is where it starts.
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HappyDaze

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Re: You folks will love this (Time's "100 Best Fantasy Books")
« Reply #28 on: October 24, 2020, 02:04:51 PM »
On a list of "most influential fantasy" a modern-day story about some of the characters from The Iliad counts, while the foundational work--read by a thousand times as many people as the modern story,  does not? Is The Iliad not fantasy?
If you're a librarian, do you file the Illiad under mythology, or fantasy?

Fantasy is a genre, not an adjective. It doesn't mean anything with fantastic elements, it means things associated with the fantasy genre.
Quite correct. Beyond the Illiad, consider that the Bible (and many other religious texts too) has fantastic elements too. I don't think too many people would consider it a part of the fantasy genre unless they're trying to fling shit.

Mercurius

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Re: You folks will love this (Time's "100 Best Fantasy Books")
« Reply #29 on: October 24, 2020, 02:11:40 PM »
Fantasy is a modern genre through-and-through; I would not put any pre-Victorian texts on the list. Maybe not even Dracula. Lost world novels, colonial fantasies, planetary romance, and early 1900s Arthurian reconstructions is where it starts.

Which is why some start with MacDonald's Lilith (1895) rather than Phantastes (1858). Or Morris' Wood Beyond the World (1894).

Of course, like most things--or at least cultural traditions--there is no clear starting point, or at least none that is widely agreed upon by scholars. Fantasy, as a literary tradition, was in many ways the child of Romanticism, which itself was a reactive movement to the rise of empiricism. Thus it makes sense that the genre exploded into form within the context of the Second Industrial Revolution (1870-1914).

There are also some significant benchmarks that signify different eras. Lord of the Rings (1954-55) is the most obvious one, as it influenced just about everything that came after--if only in terms of the shadow it cast, and its popularity--but I think you could find other texts that are "pins" in the map of fantasy tradition.