A Mild Dose of Quarrellousness
You know, it's not actually better when the person tarring an entire genre with a broad brush, despite not really reading in that genre, or liking it, is someone ostensibly "inside" our little ghetto.
(Case in point: SF Diplomat making sweeping generalizations about "fat fantasy" in his essay "The Aesthetics of Fantasy -- Part One," which I am indebted to SF Signal for pointing out to me.)
Anyone who constructs a single category explicitly containing Fritz Leiber, David Eddings, China Mieville, and George R.R. Martin simply cannot be taken seriously on that subject. It's not worth the time even to refute him. Just say "bah" and pass on. That's what I'm doing.
Comments
As Sean Lock says in 15 Storeys High, I don't mind insults as long as they're accurate.
If you were to scan the piece I wrote you would indeed find the names Leiber, Martin, Eddings and Mieville. The problem is that if you actually read the piece (rather than "pass on by") you'll see that I specifically mention Leiber and Mieville (along with Howard if you're curious) as not being examples of what I'm talking about.
You might be right that Martin and Eddings operate in completely different genres but it's certainly not something worthy of scoffing over.
Posted by: JonathanM | February 26, 2007 11:32 AM
Jonathan: Oops. You're right; I was reading too fast and misread that paragraph. My apologies.
I still think you're pulling an Edmund Wilson (author of the famously wrongheaded essay "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd" and a 1945 review disparaging H.P. Lovecraft as "hackwork") -- coming to a genre with a preconcieved negative view of it, and then "proving" that view is correct. I hope to reply at greater length, and more seriously, on my own personal blog.
But I should admit here that you are mostly looking at what other people call "epic fantasy," which is a fairly clearly defined subgenre. I got that point wrong in my initial post.
Posted by: Andrew Wheeler | February 27, 2007 09:29 AM