[LeMort]

I sometimes despair about the lack of imagination that is shown in the majority of todays fantasy. Sure, there is still lots of good stuff out there but it is buried under piles of commercial "Epic" or "High" fantasy rubbish.

So, here is a small list of some of the things that I think make for bad fantasy.

1) Dwarves, Elves, wizards and Dragons.

2) Kids who grow up to be powerful kings/warriors/sorcerers.

3) Soap Opera.

4) Magic swords or other 'items of power'.

5) Length for the sake of it - Less is more!

6) Consumer-friendly happy endings.

7) Black and white moral judgments.

So, what are your own pet hates? And what do you think of mine?

[This message has been edited by LeMort (edited July 16, 2001).]

[Xayn]

1) Dwarves, Elves, wizards and Dragons.yep, yep, nope, yep.

2) Kids who grow up to be powerful kings/warriors/sorcerers.yep

3) Soap Opera.yeppety-yep

4) Magic swords or other 'items of power'.there sure are too many & too powerful ones around, but I see nothing wrong with them things as such.

5) Length for the sake of it - Less is more!yeppety-yep.

6) Consumer-friendly happy endings.yep (stressing "consumer-friendly")

7) Black and white moral judgments.yep.


8) On page 1498 of 1602 you get a piece of information that in hindsight "rectifies" all the illogic ramblings of the author's first 15hundred pages.

9) "Arroint thee off, scoundrellous shadow-spawn!!!"

10) "J. R. R. who?!?"

[Pathir]

It's all in the writing. What does it matter if it is about Elves,Wizards, items of power, happy endings, sad endings...
A good writer who comes with a terrific and credible story and populates it with believable characters(Dwarfs, Elves or whatever..)of flesh and blood(in short, who writes a damn good book),must not be hanged before a trial. Do not limit yourself even before you start on something.

[Zsinj16]

Pathir, my friend, you took the words right out of my mouth!!

[Xayn]

other than 1, 2(borderline case as of "dull" plotting), and 4 it's all about the writing, don't you think?

[allanon]

Sex&violence.I like elves and dwarfes,but it is a question of taste.

[wolfshead]

I have no aversion to elves, dwarves, magic swords, etc (depending on the writer's skills) but I have found it very rare that anyone has handled unicorns without mawkishness. Dragons are often very clicheed too. I don't like sappy happy tacked on endings either.

[wastra]

While I don't think Elves and Dwarves necesarilly make for bad fantasy, they are concepts that I believe are entirely overdone and unoriginal.

I'm sick of these books that use the dungeons and dragons templates for everything. It's just so overused.

Basically, if a writer uses such ideas, they better be prepared to write ONE HECUVA story in order to make up for the cliches. that being said- it has been done before.

[azaz]

If you prefer to have less happy ending s maybe you should read more British authors. They tend to be sad, horrible endings.

[James Barclay]

Got to agree with much of the recent above - a good fantasy is one that remains credible and to that end, dwarves, elves et al are fine. Best if they don't follow the JRR templates but if the writer has skill then who am I to make judgement?

I feel a bad fantasy is one that steps outside its own boundaries to manufacture story and/or ending. (For instance, while a magic weapon might (might) be OK, if it suddenly appears to get our hero out of a tight spot when there hasn't been such an item spoken of in the world before, that is not credible)

Even D&D templates are fine so long as the story is engaging, the chracters are believable and the writer brings something new to the party.