Attention fantasy writers!

[stonetoflesh]

I've been reading China Mieville's fantasy works lately-- Perdido Street Station, The Scar, etc.-- and the uniqueness and freshness of his vision really reinforces in my mind how tired and played out most epic fantasy seems to have become. How many more fantasy worlds with Tolkien-carbon-copy elves do we need to visit? How many more kitchen sculls or stableboys need to fulfill world-shattering prophecies or rise to the peaks of greatness?
Please help us to explode the overused cliches of this once-great genre. If you need a shot in the arm, I *highly* recommend The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones.

 

[jobstears]

WOW spacedout, great bit of info...I will read your recommendation; the title alone is intriguing...thanks for sharing. And what you say here is so true, the fantasy genre has gotten so tired and over-used it's a shame.

jobstears

 

[Blessed-one]

oh gee, this's making me laugh. Shall we list out all the cliches? that would be fun to do..

I've been reading China Mieville's fantasy works lately-- Perdido Street Station

i read its description at amazon.com. Sounds like a fantastic book!

 

[stonetoflesh]

oh gee, this's making me laugh. Shall we list out all the cliches? that would be fun to do..

Just check out the Tough Guide to Fantasyland, they're all there... But if you really want to, we can. Perhaps it would be better placed in the Science Fiction & Fantasy section? Unless... we structure it as an exercise of sorts: list a fantasy cliche, and then describe how you would "explode" that cliche in a story.

And yes, Perdido Street Station is an amazing book; I can't recommend it enough.

 

[Blessed-one]

Just check out the Tough Guide to Fantasyland, they're all there... But if you really want to, we can. Perhaps it would be better placed in the Science Fiction & Fantasy section? Unless... we structure it as an exercise of sorts: list a fantasy cliche, and then describe how you would "explode" that cliche in a story.

And yes, Perdido Street Station is an amazing book; I can't recommend it enough.

um, we can sure do that in the fantasy forum!

an exercise would be nice... or how you can turn that cliche around?

 

[MadeInOz]

I found these books incredibly overwritten, and hard to read. I enjoyed King Rat, but I just couldn't get into either of the Scar or Perdido Street Station.