The Faux Medieval Fantasy Condundrum

[Toby Frost]

Recent events in SF have confirmed a lot of my suspicions about SF and the "armchair journalist" end of fandom. To put it in a rather brutal way, I get the feeling that for every person who reads an epic fantasy novel and is appalled by the hegemonistic tendencies of bi-gender normalizing, there are fifty who think "Dragons? Cool!", and not all of them are straight white men by a very long way. The confusion seems to come from the need to turn everything into self-conscious boundary-pushing, which probably isn't very productive however you look at it.

There's nothing wrong with epic fantasy as such, it sells like goodness knows what (hot cakes baked in the flames of Mount Doom, perhaps?) and if it's what you want to write, that greatly raises the chance of you making a good job of writing it. So I think you should.

 

[jastius]

After 25 years, I've had my fill of reading medievalesque fantasy, but that's just me. Maybe it's as much the story structure as the setting (dark power invades - quest for the artefact/chosen one who will save everyone) but it all got a bit samey for me.
But as PM says, it's still popular. People write it and people read it. I guess it depends on what you want, ZW. If you're mad keen on getting a trad publisher, your story will have to stand out a little, or a lot. If you're writing for yourself, write what you want and love.

Oooh! Alchemist you should copyright that plotline, everybody seems to use it.
You could get residuals from star wars to the avengers!

 

[goldhawk]

After 25 years, I've had my fill of reading medievalesque fantasy, but that's just me. Maybe it's as much the story structure as the setting (dark power invades - quest for the artefact/chosen one who will save everyone) but it all got a bit samey for me.

I would say that you're reading the wrong books. Take, for example, A Song of Ice and Fire. In it, everyone including the White Walkers, are out to control as much as Westros as they can. Is one more evil than the other? If you look, you can find medievalesque fantasies that don't have a dark lord nor a quest for the ultimate McGuffin.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Hmmm but it still has the medieval feel withthe great evil scenario (the walkers) and chosen one - Jon and Dany vibe. It's also hideously padded and put me off medieval style epic more than anything else ever has.(pat Rothfuss may be curing me although it's still hideously padded.)

 

[Mirannan]

One thing I've yet to see (and I fully expect several existing titles of such to be cited in the next post) is a medievalesque fantasy set in the future that is not post apocalyptic. I can hear the loud cries of "waitaminit" right now but it's medieval ESQUE, not medieval, right? and there are many interesting things you could insert. Compound bows, ceramic edged swords made of titanium, suits of chobham armor, come to mind immediately, even how such a world comes about might be interesting
.
Very few writers are skilled enough to write good stuff that they themselves don't like. They do try, which accounts for 90 percent of the really bad stories on the market now, IMO

The Council Wars by John Ringo series is rather like that. It even has magic in the setting, or at least Clarke's Third Law magic.