Why Authors Grow on Different Trees

[paulskemp]

Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Shared World Fiction.

Consider: Apple A grew on a tree. Apple B also grew on a tree. Therefore Apple C grew on a tree.

Consider further: Raymond E. Feist writes bad non-shared world speculative fiction. Terry Brooks writes bad non-shared world speculative fiction. Therefore George R.R. Martin writes bad non-shared world speculative fiction.

Obviously neither the the apple argument nor the author-argument is deductively valid (and for the record, I do NOT think that Raymond E. Feist or Terry Brooks write bad non-shared world speculative fiction; I am just pulling their names out of the air for the sake of an argument). Perhaps, however, one or both is inductively strong.

A strong inductive argument requires a conclusion tightly connected to and drawn from the set of expressed premises. So: Apple A grew from a tree, as did apple B. So, too, did apple C, and ad infinitum. The claim that apple Z also grew from a tree is, therefore, inductively strong. The fact that all of the apples are, in fact, apples, is enough to allow us to draw conclusions about how one grows on the basis of how others grew. In other words, based on our experience with the world, we know there is a strong connection between the quality “appleness” and the way in which apples grow. Other differences that might exist between the apples (e.g., size, appearance, taste, color) are not relevant to the conclusion about growth that we want to draw.

Note, however, that we could not make an inductively strong claim about how a McIntosh tastes based on how a Granny Smith tastes, because the difference in type between the two apples is relevant and significant to the conclusion we want to draw. That difference disconnects the premises from the conclusion. The quality of “appleness” is here not enough because, based on our experience with the world, we know that a McIntosh does not taste like a Granny Smith (except at the most general level).

This is all common sense, I realize, but I have a point. Let’s try it out on another hypothetical:

R. Scott Bakker writes bad non-shared world speculative fiction. Robert Jordan writes bad non-shared world speculative fiction. Gene Wolfe writes bad non-shared world speculative fiction. Therefore J.R.R. Tolkien writes bad non-shared world speculative fiction.

Doesn’t work, does it? Make it a string of fifty names in the premises and it remains a weak argument. The reason it's weak is the same one that prevents us from concluding anything about the taste of a Granny Smith on the basis of the taste of a McIntosh – the premises lack any significant relation to the conclusion. It’s true (solely for purpose of this illustration) that all of the named authors in the premises write non-shared world speculative fiction and that they write it badly. But the only relation the authors named in the premises share with Tolkien is that he, too, writes non-shared world speculative fiction. And the quality of “writing non-shared world speculative fiction” is not enough to allow us to make an inductively strong claim that Tolkien’s non-shared world speculative fiction is bad solely on the basis of the other named authors writing bad non-shared world speculative fiction. After all, based on our experience in the real world, we know that authors vary a great deal in terms of talent, style, and tone. We’re trying to conclude something about the taste of a Tolkien-McIntosh on the basis of the taste of Bakker-Braeburn.

I’ll bet all of this is non-controversial (except to philosophy majors, who are even now critiquing my misuse of various terms like inductively strong and deductively valid; to all of you, understand that I had logic and symbolic logic as a an undergrad almost ten years ago; cut me some slack; I’m operating from memory here :-)).

This brings me to my point (finally; sheesh!).

Notwithstanding the foregoing, exactly that kind of inductive reasoning is applied with alarming regularity to shared world speculative fiction writers (full disclosure: I am a shared world fiction writer, in WotC's Forgotten Realms). I frequently hear/read comments that are one variant or another of the following: “I read a few bad shared world fantasy novels back in the 80s. Therefore all shared world writing is rubbish.”

This kind of flawed reasoning is commonplace with respect to shared world speculative fiction. It is also nonsense. The mere fact that a piece of speculative fiction writing is set in a shared world has no relevance to the question of its quality. As with non-shared world speculative fiction, the quality of the author is the determinative factor as to the quality of the work. An example to further highlight the point:

Paul S. Kemp wrote a bad shared-world speculative fiction novel set in the Forgotten Realms. Tracy Hickman wrote a bad shared-world speculative fiction novel set in the Dragonlance universe. Timothy Zahn wrote a bad shared-world speculative fiction novel set in the Star Wars universe. Therefore William King’s shared world speculative fiction novel, set in the Warhammer universe (nay, all speculative fiction set in a shared world) is also bad.

Doesn’t it seem absurd to so generalize, both across lines, across authors, across subject matter? We’re all different apples. Hell, even within the same line (say, the Forgotten Realms) authors vary so much in terms of talent, tone, and style, that concluding anything about the quality of one author’s work on the basis of the work of another author in the line is silly. It’s tantamount to drawing conclusions about all speculative fiction writers who write for Tor on the basis of one speculative fiction writer who writes for Tor.

Again, it is the author’s individual talent that determines the quality of the work. Nothing else. And here's the critical point: There is no more connection between the abundance of an author’s talent and whether or not they write in a shared world, than there is a connection between the abundance of an author’s talent and whether or not they write New Weird stories as opposed to Epic Fantasy, whether they write for Tor as opposed to Baen.

Now, I do not want to venture into the briar patch of why so many readers (and even, I’m sorry to say, so many, many, many other authors) engage in this kind of flawed reasoning. Analyzing human nature is not the purpose of this short essay. My purpose here is simply to expose the underlying weakness in the all too often repeated claim that all shared world speculative fiction is bad. It’s not. Not by a long shot.

I am, of course, not claiming that all shared world speculative fiction is good (any more than I’d claim that all types of apple are good; McIntosh apples stink; curse you, Mcintosh! Cuuuurse yoouu!). It isn’t, any more than all non-shared world speculative fiction is good. The quality of shared world and non-shared world speculative fiction varies by author. By author. By author. And those who dismiss one or the other with a hand wave and unjustified generalization tell us more about their own biases and personal psychology than they do about the category of fiction they purport to be commenting on.

Here’s my plea to those who do not read shared world fiction based on the conviction that it’s all bad – take a bite of the apple, a different apple than you’ve tried before. And if you read a bad shared-world speculative fiction novel, treat it the same way you would a bad novel set in a non-shared world speculative fiction setting – put it to the side and don’t read that author again. But don’t make the mistake of generalizing the quality “bad” to an entire category based on such a small sample size. If you didn’t like the McIntosh, try the Fiji. If not the Fiji, maybe the Gala. There are plenty of good apples out there, believe me.

(Postscript: I am aware that “bad” as I’ve used it above is not self-defining. Further, in the context of art, which is what we’re discussing, “bad” is a slippery concept. But defining “bad” is not necessary to the argument.)

[Beleg]

Intriguing title...

[kcf]

Why?

Now I simply must know.

[paulskemp]

Originally Posted by kcf

Why?

Now I simply must know.

Reposted the body of the post. Sorry about the deletion.

[kcf]

Interesting post. I've heard a number of similar arguments that don't go into the philosphical specifics - just that Author X writes really good books in the Y realm, in spite of what you might think about it. On a more tangental note, author X generally equals Paul S. Kemp or Matthew W. Stover for their respecitve Y realms. Oh and sorry for mixing a philosphical metaphor with a mathematical one.


However, my main reason for not diving into most shared realms is not that I believe all the books are bad, but that I'm reluctant to invest in the realm due to my ignorance of it. I don't know the realm, so I'm probaly missing some subtle (possibly important) detail because I don't know the given realm. Now this is probably as much a fallacy as all books in a given realm suck, but I'm still left feeling that way. With so many good books waiting to be read, even a small, possibly illogical reason like this is enough for me to pass shared realms by.

[paulskemp]

Originally Posted by kcf

However, my main reason for not diving into most shared realms is not that I believe all the books are bad, but that I'm reluctant to invest in teh realm due to my ignorance of it. I don't know the realm, so I'm probaly missing some subtle (possibly important) detail because I don't know the give realm. Now is probably as much a fallacy as all books in a given realm suck, but I'm still left feeling that way. With so many good books waiting to be read, even a small, possibly illogical reason like this is enough for me to pass shared realms by.

That's a perfectly understandable reason, kcf. Some shared world novels do presuppose a lot of preexisting knowledge on the part of readers. That position I can understand; it just bugs me when I hear readers dismissing an entire line or lines on the basis of one or two bad experiences.

I did use a lot of words in that post to make a point that's been made before with far fewer, didn't I? Damn lawyers are wordy.

[KatG]

It's a very old prejudice, PK, and goes back to the days when "shared world," or as they were more commonly known, tie-in books, started to become a sizable side market in category sff.

The first objection was that these books were essentially marketing merchandise for other products, such as games and movies. They therefore were throw-away novels, would have to be of poor quality, and were not truly original creations written for fans, but a type of advertising. A real fan, went the song, would not sully themselves with such things. And the existence of such works under the label of sf or fantasy were made to blame for non-fans' stereotype view of sff, though that view had pretty much existed before tie-in books really came on the scene.

But the main objection was that the tie-ins started being fairly successful, with some authors developing large fan bases, leading to fears that soon all that would be available in category sff would be tie-in books, with non-tie-in authors driven off the shelves. Tie-in authors became perceived of as a threat, a rival cult, which fueled the feud, and to some extent, black-listed some authors who were trying to write both tie-in and non-tie-in works.

Of course, the tie-in authors didn't push the others off the shelves. Instead, they helped increase the fanbase and bookstore shelfspace for all sff considerably in the 1980's and 1990's. Major sff authors were effectively lured into writing for tie-in franchises like Star Wars, which made them bestsellers and helped sell their own fiction, and sff publishers started doing tie-in deals, which made them less negative about their existence. Today, the tie-in market has shrunk somewhat, but is still a part of the larger market.

It is an area of fiction that connects written sff to comics, the game industry and scifi movie/t.v. But there are many people who see such connections as undesirable, especially the scifi movie/t.v. one. A lot of category sff authors are trying to establish beachheads in the mainstream, a lot of sff fans want the old stigma of category sff off their backs, and tie-in books, which are unquestionably category, are seen as obstacles in this endeavor. They want you hidden or purged, much as mainstream critics have wanted all of category sff hidden or purged, or at least off in it's own little corner not making much noise.

So the prejudice remains in some quarters. And it is unlikely that you will convince these folk that McIntosh and Galas are different and that it is okay to have both around, or that tie-in works are worthy of any consideration on their own individual merits. Then again, you might. It's certainly in the tradition of sff to try.

[Physics Knight]

I am guessing by shared world fiction, you mean many authors writing in the same world? I stay away from it not because I think it is all poorly writen but because I think especially in sci-fi and fantasy novels that the creation of a world and magic/technology is integral and personal to the author. There is something impersonal to some board of people coming up with a world. It takes away from the feel and realism of the world and seems too much like branding things to me. I read fantasy for fun and to escape, sometimes to wonder, and to think. A labeled world takes away from the magic and realism of that world for me.

Now I enjoyed Greg Keyes's Kingdom of Throne and Bone, I think he has a knack for keeping a book going, but I would not touch his shared-world stuff. By the same token, I'm having fun reading Howard's Conan adventures, unpolished as they are, but I will never read a Conan story by someone other than him, no matter how much better written it is than the originals.

[Rob B]

Welcome to our Forums Mr. Kemp!

I think a lot of people cut their teeth reading "shared world" fiction, especially those of us who discovered the genre in the 1980s, with the popularity of Dungeons and Dragons and other RPGs. I'm one of those folk, having been pulled from Stephen King/horror into fantasy through Weis & Hickman. I haven't completely turned my back on shared world stuff, I still read more than the occasional Star Wars novel.

Why haven't I (or people with similar experiences to mine) returned to shared world fiction? Maybe a number of reasons. Perhaps since they read it when they were younger or in their teens they don't want to be read something they associate (fairly or unfairly) with childish. This is sometimes a conscious decision and probably less often, an unconscious decision.

Lou Anders of Pyr has posted on the topic over at his blog a couple of times, most recently HERE.

It seems like there is a reverse discrimination here - non-shared world (NSW) FSF often gets looked down upon outside of genre circles. The NSW FSF therefore gives the same sigh of dismissal to SW FSF.

Clearly there is good stuff to be found in the Shared World fiction, some excellent stuff in Star Wars, and I'm sure good stuff in the Wizards of the Coast novels. I hear a certain set of tales about Erevis Cale are pretty good.

This is a good topic worth continuing...

[algernoninc]

"Clearly there is good stuff to be found in the Shared World fiction"

I was wary of trying on this shared world system, because i see good authors as fierce individualists who would not adapt well to the restrictions imposed by using somebody else's characters or worldbuilding, but then i stumbled on several copies of "Thieves World" edited by Lynn Asprin, and i concluded it is possible to write in this way. Of course, not all the stories are of equal quality, but overall i was able to enjoy the different takes on the same source material.
Another example would be in comics, were the system is dominant, and the house owns the characters and any writer who wants to get in must adapt to what went on before.

[paulskemp]

KatG,

Agree on essentially all points.

I would say, though, that I think some movement away from the prejudice has begun. The internet plays a big role in this, since word of mouth is such a powerful marketing tool for books, especially spec fic books. Good shared world novels get their share of word of mouth, and that serves to break through the "all shared world fiction stinks" meme. Sites like SFFword and Fantasybookspot.com play a big role in this, in that many of the readers/posters/reviewers on both sites are at least open to the idea that a shared world novel can be a work of quality fiction.

[paulskemp]

Originally Posted by Physics Knight

I stay away from it not because I think it is all poorly writen but because I think especially in sci-fi and fantasy novels that the creation of a world and magic/technology is integral and personal to the author. There is something impersonal to some board of people coming up with a world. It takes away from the feel and realism of the world and seems too much like branding things to me.

I can understand your position, PK. I would say, however, that the shared worlds with which I am familiar (Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Star Wars, Star Trek, etc.) are not creatures of a corporate boardroom, but instead have their provenance in the minds of one or two creative people who love the setting. The authors who later write in the setting then take some small part of it and make it their own through their books, putting their mark on it, as it were. That's a very personal thing, believe me, and probably differs little from non-shared world fiction.

And make no mistake: All authors (or corporate owners of IP), shared world or otherwise, are interested branding themselves and their creation. Some may be more heavy-handed than others, but it's always there.

[paulskemp]

Originally Posted by algernoninc

I was wary of trying on this shared world system, because i see good authors as fierce individualists who would not adapt well to the restrictions imposed by using somebody else's characters or worldbuilding, but then i stumbled on several copies of "Thieves World" edited by Lynn Asprin, and i concluded it is possible to write in this way. Of course, not all the stories are of equal quality, but overall i was able to enjoy the different takes on the same source material

Algernoninc,

Interesting point. I can speak only for myself but I have experienced very little in the way of external restrictions on the stories I want to tell or the characters I want to develop.

[paulskemp]

Originally Posted by Rob B

It seems like there is a reverse discrimination here - non-shared world (NSW) FSF often gets looked down upon outside of genre circles. The NSW FSF therefore gives the same sigh of dismissal to SW FSF.

Rob,

I think that is exactly right. That's one of the reasons why it bothers me so much. The derision is unwarranted in both cases. Books stand or fall on their own merits, irrespective of genre or subgenre or whatever.

[urbandrift_gabe]

Hi Paul. Fancy seeing you here!

Stephen Baxter has a very intriguing article that coincides with your essay quite nicely, though it looks primarily at the Black Library stuff. Good reading.

--gabe