[ChrisW]

Two subjects here that may crossover or may not.

First one is the term "Guilty Pleasure". This one is kinda the opposite of Does High Brow Fantasy Exist... (http://sffworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3500&highlight=highbrow).

It really annoys me when people use this term as to me it comes across as elitist and puts down fantasy as a whole imo. On one hand these people are proud to be fantasy readers and on the other imo still ashamed of it and feel the need to disparage it as if that somehow makes it ok to read. I don't get the mentality of "I love reading it but at the same time I know it's trash". For me if you love reading something it's not trash.

Second subject is...Why to we as a group look down on shared fantasy worlds such as Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Warhammer etc? We usually will give the first series in those settings a free pass but beyond that there is a general feeling that there not worth reading. Why? Are they of a lower quaility, do we consider them geekier than the run of the mill fantasy or to we just punish the authors for not making up there own worlds? I admit i'm guilty of this one and it's only recently that i've been willing to give those books a go. Why did I look down on them? I guess it was because they have there own "sterotype" different to fantasy and I didn't want to be looked at as someone who read those kinda books.

So what's your reason?

[DailyRich]

I don't look down on them per se, but the examples you sited are very often not looked on as literature but as simply products, ways to advertise a company's RPG line. Someone didn't sit down and say, "Hey, I've got a great story to tell." WoTC and Games Workshop said, "We need a D&D/Warhammer for Q3, what do we have?"

[molybdenum]

When an author uses a shared world, it feels like a cop-out to me. When I read a fantasy book, I want to know what that author can create. In shared worlds, the author is really only creating a plot and sometimes new characters.

In the limited time I have to read books, I want to read an author when they are living up to their full potential. That's why I don't mind the long ambitious series where a lot of work is put into the worldbuilding. The author is creating, and then showing us slowly, in a very intriguing way, what he or she has just created.

[hippokrene]

Why to we as a group look down on shared fantasy worlds such as Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Warhammer etc?

Because they survive less on their quality and more on the series name.

[Crono]

Man, I love shared worlds. Dragonlance are good books! You just need to pick the right writers. It isn't about the world behind the story, it's about who is writing it. Dragonlance, Legend of Huma is an amazing book. When I read I was filled with such glee at the whole thing.

[Andols]

Part of why I enjoy fantasy is discovering new worlds. I have never been very keen on the idea of 25 authors sharing the same world, although there are isntances where I think it would be a great idea.

Your question about the validation of those series is interesting. If we could somehow pay a group of "elitists" to read large selections of these works, I wonder how many would come out as passable with the likes of Martin, Bakker, Erikson etc.

Does someone already know the answer to this? Werthead im looking in your e-direction.

[DailyRich]

I'll cop to unabashedly enjoying the first Dragonlance trilogy. The problem is Hickman and Weis have simply been doing variations of it ever since. But even with my enjoyment, I'd put it firmly on the Terry Brooks level of entertaining fluff.

Really, I don't think any of the shared world books I've read come close to my favorite original fantasies. Not that there isn't a place for them or that they can't be enjoyable, but too often there are corporate edicts and restrictions that keep the authors from really flying with the material.

[Industrious1]

I also really liked the Dragonlance series and the Drizzt books when i was younger, and i do not regret having read them at all nor do i feel ashamed admitting so. However i recently tried a re-read of some of these nostalgic favorites from my youth and it just wasn't working for me :(

Incidentally a David Edding's re-read of the Belgariad yielded similar results.

The main thing i found missing from some of these stories was "grit" i think. An intangible quality that lends to the reality of the story you are being told; and although there is violence aplenty i would hardly call it violent in the sense of say...Bakker or GRRM. What these stories need are a modern day revamp with no healing potions or clerics returning companions to life as soon as convenient.

Then again they seem to be selling just fine. What do i know.

[Jon Sprunk]

I also really liked the Dragonlance series and the Drizzt books when i was younger, and i do not regret having read them at all nor do i feel ashamed admitting so. However i recently tried a re-read of some of these nostalgic favorites from my youth and it just wasn't working for me :(

Incidentally a David Edding's re-read of the Belgariad yielded similar results.


Good point. I think some of the "elitism" is because most RPG/shared world titles are geared toward the YA market, but they appear in the SFF section in bookstores, so it sends a mixed message. Like finding Goodnight Moon in the Literature section.

[Avi_stetto]

Please don't take this the wrong way - I don't mean to be rude, but I've got a fairly strong opinion on the subject.

I see a lot of people who are very disparaging of genre fiction in general. They see it as derivative and trite. I'm a big listener of NPR, and I've heard several authors who have looked down their noses on popular fiction. If anything even has a whiff of low-brow entertainment, it is immediately pooh-poohed.

They're welcome to their opinions. If they don't want to read genre fiction, I don't care. I like it. It appeals to me. And I'm secure enough in my identity that I don't feel threatened by intellectual bullies.

But even within genre fiction, we have those same attitudes. Here on the forum, we have enormous threads that have gone on for years about how "bad" some novels are. I've participated in those in the past. Of course a book's "badness" can be measured by technical merits, such as poor sentence structure or internal logical deficiencies. But most of the time, a lot of the displeasure expressed about these books just boils down to personal tastes and preferences.

As an example: someone may think The Night Angel Trilogy rips off major elements of the Wheel of Time. In the long run, does it matter? Not really. Both series have fans. There's probably a decent overlap in their fan bases. Full disclosure: I fall into that category. I read both series for the first time within the last year and I found enjoyable elements in both. Did I like one better than the other? In some ways, no; in other ways, yes. Jordan had a better sense of character and language, but Weeks definitely had a better sense of pacing and action in my mind.

Now, moving on to franchise tie-in fiction and shared world fiction. This in particular seems to get a lot of scorn. Andols mentioned enjoying fantasy for the ability to explore new worlds. That's a perfectly legitimate standpoint in personal preferential choices. It's something I enjoy about speculative fiction, too. But it should be recognized that every book has the opportunity to be someone's introduction. A lot of people get into the SFF subculture by playing games like D&D, World of Warcraft, or Warhammer. Others come to it by watching TV shows and movies. The tie-in novels provide them with a perfect place to start when they jump into literature with a very low "shock" to their preconceptions.

I have a friend who I play Dungeons and Dragons with. He doesn't read nearly as much as I do (he's a full-time dad in grad school), but he does enjoy reading when he gets the chance. For him, the Eberron: The Dreaming Dark Trilogy by Keith Baker is a touchstone work. He only read The Lord of the Rings because he saw the movies and thought they were cool. I gave him the Mistborn trilogy for Christmas one year. It knocked his socks off precisely because Sanderson uses very rule-based magic systems, just like in role playing games.

I have another friend who got into SFF by watching Star Trek: The Next Generation as a child. When old enough, he read the novels. From there has moved into other science fiction and fantasy. Starting with those authors and novels gave him a great jumping point.

Me, I started with Star Wars. Now I read everything from Michael Chabon to Peter Watts to Steven Erikson. Also, out of respect to both of my friends, I've read tie-in novels that they recommended. I didn't necessarily care for the books, but it gave me a deeper understanding for what they enjoyed and strengthened our friendships.

I've found that tie-in fiction I liked doesn't typically hold up very well to rereads. But that's okay. Target audiences change over time. There's certainly more than enough out there to tickle my fancy.

Also, don't be quick to fault the writers who work in shared worlds for lacking originality. A paycheck is a paycheck, and writers need to eat just as much as we do. Matthew Stover is an excellent example of this. He's written a lot of books that were absolutely brilliant in their own right, but they don't sell in quantities that are sustainable. Therefore, he's turned to writing tie-in fiction.
I have to tell you, his tie-in work is just as imaginative as his personal work.

In closing, I think it's important to remember that every book has the chance to be the first book someone's ever read. For that experience to be successful, the book has to meet the reader where they are in life. And I don't think it should be looked down upon or be a secret.