Cynical questions about epic fantasy

[night_wrtr]

And would they get more out of reading a bunch of history/philosophy etc.

The things that have influenced me most so far have been real history, spy novels, paintings and myths that aren’t Tolkieneque.

I just want to highlight the reading of history for inspiration. I might be a little biased since I studied history in college, but this is where the majority of my inspiration comes from. There are tons of stories that could be used as novel fodder if you tailor your reading to what you need for your story.

For example, my novel is influence by archaic Greece. So, I have read a ton of old school Greek works, like the Iliad, Thucydides history of the peloponnesian war, Herodotus' histories, many of the plays, mythology, etc. I have also read several modern histories of phalanx warfare, Greek weaponry, and so on. One of my characters is a cavalry captain, so I have also studied Alexander the Great, which is excellent for getting an idea of battle strategy and politics of the time. I also read some about Caesar, because learning how a great general works can only help build the foundations of a good military character.

Anyway, my point is that history can provide excellent knowledge and inspiration for fantasy writing. Look at your characters, your setting, etc, then find some historical counterparts that might help fill in some gaps or provide a few ideas to help you along the way.

 

[The Big Peat]

There's certainly a market for that sort of character cast - think ggk, or Daniel Abraham, or abercrombie. Or Glen cook I suppose. But these books do often contain a coming of age pov or two as well and I've a nasty feeling that commercial appeal will be hugely enhanced by the presence of such a pov (and even more so by making them the main one). I've no proof for that other than what's big but it feels likely.

I'd also add a lot of these authors work mainly in trilogies or single book epics and maybe a predominantly mature cast sells better in shorter stories.

There isn’t much romance, at least in the stereotypical way, and no teenage dramas or coming of age (I’m afraid that teenage stuff just doesn’t feel terribly important when the world itself is threatened).

Counter point (variety obvious) - readers emotional attachment to a fictional world is only ever as strong as their attachment to the characters in it. Romance and teenage dramas aren't the only way to do it (thank gods) but they do seem to be really efficient short cuts and something needs to be in their place.

I think one of the tricky parts of these big epics is that ultimately success is about these big epic plots that often overshadow character development as you have too much going on to depict to really dwell on it, but equally success is about having characters that make people want to read their story to begin with. I think that contradiction is a big part of why characters seem to be so damn tropey and also the importance of personal drama in the genre.

Anyway, more generally, I can see pros and cons in reading a lot of epic stuff (beyond the sheer amount of time it would take). Obviously, it’s good to get a feeling for what gets into print – perhaps, I think, a wider range of stuff than the medieval semi-Tolkien stories people expect to see. You also start to see how an author “runs” a long story, like a Games Master running a campaign of Dungeons and Dragons.

But there are issues. First, there’s a lot I don’t want to read about, and teen angst is near the top. I think keeping magic mysterious, as Tolkien did with Gandalf, is a good idea. Secondly, well, how can I put this? Some of the older series just don’t seem to be very good. Some are decent, many are average, and a few big sellers are just plain rubbish (also, the “rules” have moved on since then). A lot carry the influence of The Lord of the Rings very obviously, although their prose is just functional. The things that have influenced me most so far have been real history, spy novels, paintings and myths that aren’t Tolkieneque. I’ve found that horror and crime novels are good for pacing individual scenes. It's definitely a double-edged sword.

Devil's advocate 1 - being very cynical, revisiting older forms of the epic that operate under different rules could be a good way of coming up with stories that are both new and similar to modern audiences.

Devil's advocate 2 - given the universally acknowledged difficulty the greats of the long epic have had with plotting their blockbusters, maybe they're not people to learn from. Or maybe the lesson is really long epics are doomed to have flaws.

Final point to add to the pros and cons - most of the big epic fantasy authors are very vocal about their names non fantasy inspirations. To the point where I'd argue a clear difference to the rest of epic fantasy is possibly a tick box in its own right.

P.s. these are my observations of what seems to sell, not necessarily what I like. Most of my recent attempts to get into modern epics have bounced hard and while I still love the old stuff, I'm not blind to it's flaws. Personally I think the new authors are better writers but frequently worse storytellers, possibly because they've internalised the genre's bugs as features. I both bristle at your cynicism and applaud it. I think a bit more cynicism about the genre's conventions might improve it hugely.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Devil's advocate - if a storyteller reads wheel of time, song of ice and fire, the first law, lord of the rings and Harry Potter, then what extra do they get out of reading the belgariad, chronicles of Narnia, prince of thorns, ririya revelations and assassins apprentice?

A big point literary agents such as John Jarrold have made is to read recently published fiction. That gives you an idea of what publishers are looking for.

However, even if aiming for self-publishing, it also tells you something of what people are expecting to read now. It also allows a writer to get an idea of what their contemporaries are writing, how they are doing it, and what they are using it.

Reading classics will give some idea of original influences, but the further back you go the less useful they may be to read as a writer looking to write for a modern audience.

And would they get more out of reading a bunch of history/philosophy etc. Books for inspiration, or books outside the genre to pick up something new to make their books stand out?

Non-fiction can be a great source of inspiration, but someone who only limits their reading to non-fiction is probably limiting their ability to write fiction in an engaging and accessible way. We've repeatedly seen that on chrons when non-fiction writers try to turn their hand to fiction.

But there are issues. First, there’s a lot I don’t want to read about, and teen angst is near the top. I think keeping magic mysterious, as Tolkien did with Gandalf, is a good idea. Secondly, well, how can I put this? Some of the older series just don’t seem to be very good.

I really think you need to put your cynicism aside, because it will do you no favours. I remember making a point not to read fiction during the 1990's, partly to avoid it influencing my own writing and partly because I figured it was all a pile of horse dung anyway and I could do miles better. It was a position born of arrogance and I paid for it later.

IMO if anyone ever wants to be successful in any field then they will probably want to study it and try to understand it as much as possible about it, especially the contemporary landscape. For the writer, this can and will shape their creative decisions.

Conversely, some people can be successful despite being ignorant of their chosen field. But in such instances, success may come only after years of frustration and through blind luck rather than because of knowledge and ability. Additionally, such success may be short-lived.

For example, my novel is influence by archaic Greece. So, I have read a ton of old school Greek works

That's a great example of trying to understand your field. I sincerely hope that one day you post up the opening chapter in Critiques.

 

[The Big Peat]

A big point literary agents such as John Jarrold have made is to read recently published fiction. That gives you an idea of what publishers are looking for.

However, even if aiming for self-publishing, it also tells you something of what people are expecting to read now. It also allows a writer to get an idea of what their contemporaries are writing, how they are doing it, and what they are using it.

Reading classics will give some idea of original influences, but the further back you go the less useful they may be to read as a writer looking to write for a modern audience.

Non-fiction can be a great source of inspiration, but someone who only limits their reading to non-fiction is probably limiting their ability to write fiction in an engaging and accessible way. We've repeatedly seen that on chrons when non-fiction writers try to turn their hand to fiction.

I didn't say "Don't read recently published fiction, just read non-fiction".

I said "If you've read a decent amount in the genre, are you going to get more out of reading more in the genre or out of reading non-fiction and other fiction genres?"

I do think this is an important question. Yes, of course it really helps to know the genre you're writing in. But you don't read every history book in the library for your degree - do you need to read every Epic Fantasy book in the market place to write Epic Fantasy? If I've read Cameron, Staveley, Gwynne and Abraham, do I need to read Tchaikovsky and Marc Turner too?

And if the answers to those two questions are "No", at what point do you stop? At what point do we get diminishing returns? How much less do we get if we just read a good synopsis, three good reviews and three chapters to get a feeling of someone's book instead of reading the whole thing? You could probably look at five books using the first method in the same time as you'd read a whole Epic Fantasy as a conservative guess. And I think all of us have to make some decisions about how best to use the time we've got. Maybe its not ideal, but something has to give somewhere.

I certainly don't think the reading outside of the genre should get lost. If you want to make your work stand out, you need to bring something new, and how are you going to bring something new to the genre if you're reading solely in the genre? Hell, how is a writer meant to write a mix of history and mythology if they don't know history and mythology? Writing good Epic Fantasy without researching the genre's very foundations sounds as hard as writing good Epic Fantasy without reading Epic Fantasy!

I repeat, I'm not saying don't read into the genre. I'm questioning whether reading everything you can in the genre when there's so many other good - possibly some essential - sources of help to read for an author out there, and when none of us have unlimited time, is a good idea.

 

[EJDeBrun]

I agree with you, Peat.

I personally don't ascribe to the "read recent fiction to understand the market" myself. For the same reasons I say don't watch the latest movies to know how to make them. There's an inherent flaw in that logic. Namely: if what you aspire to is what you read, you can never achieve greater than that.

Rather I think it's good to see what's around, but that's about it. Most of the time, I do find myself unimpressed to the point I can't even finish the book. (Recent victims: The Maze Runner and Wool <- don't kill me) Once in a while I'll finish something and try to see how it went and where I would have made changes to improve it. Once in a very long while, I'll find something I think is much better than anything I could ever achieve. (BTW I'm not saying I'm a writing genius. I'm a horrible writer. My only ability is in story and its underlying structures)

Anyways, I think it's good to read excellent work from any genre to get a better feel of language. I don't see the point of studying lesser works (and there are a lot of poorly written things out there!) unless as an exercise to see the flaws in my own words.

So yes, I think reading anything, everything! good in multiple genres is better than banging my head against things that are deemed good or said to be popular in the genre I'm working in but aren't going to teach me much in actuality.

 

[night_wrtr]

That's a great example of trying to understand your field. I sincerely hope that one day you post up the opening chapter in Critiques.

You never know, I just might!

I said "If you've read a decent amount in the genre, are you going to get more out of reading more in the genre or out of reading non-fiction and other fiction genres?"

At what point do we get diminishing returns? How much less do we get if we just read a good synopsis, three good reviews and three chapters to get a feeling of someone's book instead of reading the whole thing? You could probably look at five books using the first method in the same time as you'd read a whole Epic Fantasy as a conservative guess. And I think all of us have to make some decisions about how best to use the time we've got. Maybe its not ideal, but something has to give somewhere.

A whole set of good questions. I am sure this would vary on the individual, but thinking as an overall, it would certainly make more sense to widen the "read" range to include more than just your genre. Adding elements from other genre's is how fresh reads are made imo. Study more genres and you get a ton of return, because the return is based on multiple investments in many areas.

It makes complete sense to read select authors in your genre, and I say select for a reason. Hobb is known for characterization. (Obviously she is not the only one, but for the sake of examples.) Abercrombie has great action, Sanderson puts the epic in epic fantasy. I would think that instead of just reading as much as you can in genre, that you choose authors based on more than just popularity. Find the authors that are selling and what they are known for, then you can actually dig deeper and analyse the words on the page for what makes them successful and known for those aspects. Seems like a worthwhile use of time and one that carries a real benefit.

Keeping with your point, we have a finite amount of time, so it seems logical to avoid the "read as much as you can" mentality, and move more along the lines of reading specific works to benefit you as an author, which can be in and out of genre.

 

[Toby Frost]

If I was going to be super-cynical, I'd suggest writing a book that is 75% Tried and Tested and 25% Wacky and New. But then I think that really is way too much like writing by numbers and definitely not the right approach.

As far as reading in the genre is concerned, I think we're discussing degree here rather than yes or no. What I would say is that you're not going to learn much from reading older books only. I actually have a lot of nostalgia for old fantasy, partly from the Eddings era and partly from games like Baldur's Gate: the weird mix of medieval knights, Victorian houses and pioneer farmsteads; the straight-up adventure; the fact it's always sunny except in Winterland. But that's just not what I'm wired to write. One thing that struck me while reading The First Law - which is very good indeed, although not the work of flawless brilliance sometimes suggested - was that that a quite lot of fantasy novels either repeat, comment on or satirise what people think of as "classic fantasy" (which means Eddings as much as Tolkien). I'm not sure what to make of that. Should the genre just move on? Does the current generation of readers want it to?

I agree with Night_wrtr about selecting books for a reason. Perhaps a useful question is "What is distinctive about this author?". With A Game of Thrones, it's complexity and "realism", ie misery. With The First Law, it's cynicism. With other series (Memory, Sorrow and Thorn springs to mind) it might be just that it's not doing anything amazingly unusual, but is executed with unusual skill and depth. Of course, if you wanted to see how intrigue is dealt with, you could read a John le Carre novel, but it might be better to see intrigue in a fantasy setting. Best of all, I suspect, would be to read both.

On a slightly different note, I'm not sure that my dislike of teenageryness in novels is cynicism. If someone is entitled to wish that there were more dynamic female characters in fantasy, surely it's equally reasonable to wish for more protagonists who start the story "fully grown"? It's less of a politicised point, but I think an equally legitimate one in terms of what you want to read about. One thing that a book does seem to lose from having older characters, though, is that it feels slightly more dour and joyless. There's a certain enthusiasm that it's harder to get into characters who aren't very youthful.

 

[The Big Peat]

If I was going to be super-cynical, I'd suggest writing a book that is 75% Tried and Tested and 25% Wacky and New. But then I think that really is way too much like writing by numbers and definitely not the right approach.

As far as reading in the genre is concerned, I think we're discussing degree here rather than yes or no. What I would say is that you're not going to learn much from reading older books only. I actually have a lot of nostalgia for old fantasy, partly from the Eddings era and partly from games like Baldur's Gate: the weird mix of medieval knights, Victorian houses and pioneer farmsteads; the straight-up adventure; the fact it's always sunny except in Winterland. But that's just not what I'm wired to write. One thing that struck me while reading The First Law - which is very good indeed, although not the work of flawless brilliance sometimes suggested - was that that a quite lot of fantasy novels either repeat, comment on or satirise what people think of as "classic fantasy" (which means Eddings as much as Tolkien). I'm not sure what to make of that. Should the genre just move on? Does the current generation of readers want it to?

To an extent, the genre has moved on. There's less timeless pastiches and more faithfulness to particular periods of history. Less medieval and more renaissance (with a creep towards the Age of Enlightenment). Less 'well most people are nice' idealism and more probing at the skeletons in the closet. Less superheroes moving the world alone and more struggling over the command of large organisations. The First Law was a classic fantasy trilogy given a big make over after Abercrombie read A Song of Ice and Fire, which is probably the dominant influence at the moment.

To the extent the genre hasn't moved on and is still probing at different takes at classic fantasy, why should it? We're all here because we love the concepts behind it, if we just don't flat out have a lot of love for it. How many genres do move on?

On a slightly different note, I'm not sure that my dislike of teenageryness in novels is cynicism. If someone is entitled to wish that there were more dynamic female characters in fantasy, surely it's equally reasonable to wish for more protagonists who start the story "fully grown"? It's less of a politicised point, but I think an equally legitimate one in terms of what you want to read about. One thing that a book does seem to lose from having older characters, though, is that it feels slightly more dour and joyless. There's a certain enthusiasm that it's harder to get into characters who aren't very youthful.

At the risk of misrepresenting Brian, I think he wasn't accusing you of cynicism for disliking teenagers, but saying you needed to put aside your cynicism about the genre's quality and dig deeper, regardless of whether it contains elements you dislike.

Have to say I've never really thought of older characters as being less joyful. But then people talk about getting a sense of wonder from books and I'm there scratching my head.

I'd also add the more modern you get in the genre, the more the age profile varies and the older characters are in general. In fact, the more I think about what I've read of your posts, the more I'm wondering what Epic Fantasy you've been reading because it doesn't feel that representative of what I'm seeing.

I agree with you, Peat.

I personally don't ascribe to the "read recent fiction to understand the market" myself. For the same reasons I say don't watch the latest movies to know how to make them. There's an inherent flaw in that logic. Namely: if what you aspire to is what you read, you can never achieve greater than that.

Surely the answer here is simple - don't aspire to all you read. Aspire to the best, study the rest.

I'm not sure how I feel about the whole "comprehensively understand your genre" thing myself. I've tried doing it and I'm not yet clear as to what extent its benefited me. But I am fairly clear that is hasn't changed my aspirations at all.


On the subject of reading for study/investment, I do think its worth reading the mid-listers (particularly recent) as well as the greats.

The first reason is they are a better source of genre conventions than the greats.

The second is that no author does every single piece of their craft to the same level and that means that, even in a book which is fairly 'meh', there's still often something brilliant to look at. Peter Morwood's The Horse Lord has been mostly forgotten and that's because it didn't offer much that was brilliant but it did do a good job of making an arrogant young warrior with a hair trigger propensity for violence (by modern standards) likeable. That's not always easy.

I'll admit I've taken away very little from my forays into recently published Epic Fantasy. Miles Cameron does a nice job of interweaving the fantastic with a fairly hard realism late medieval setting but that's about it (worth looking at if you want to mess around with multiple PoVs a lot too I guess). But its very much YMMV.

 

[Inari Writer]

It's worth noting that a lot of authors who have written succesful and/or interesting epic fantasy have done so by drawing on things outside of fantasy fiction.

Mark Lawrence puts in technology as well mythology.

Stephen Erikson and Glen Cook both draw on a modern soldier's take on war to give depth and interest to their characters. Joe Abercrombie does that a bit too, though he makes a point of drawing on many different genres in his World of the First Law books.

Stephen Erikson is also clearly influenced by his background in archeaology. That's why he takes such a long and cynical view of civilisations and tribal cultures and why his world has conflicts that have lasted since before the last Ice Age. And why he explains how the neolithic undead make their weapons.

Miles Cameron, who can write a little clunkily at times, demonstrates a very in depth knowledge of medieval life, weapons, crafts and warfare. It's no surprise that he is actually a pen name for the historical fiction author Christian Cameron.

Elizabeth Haydon pulls in music, crafts, folklore and probably other disciplines.

George R. R. Martin uses historical events such as the dynastic struggles of the French Kings as his inspiration, (or some of it).

Steph Swainston used pop culture, sci-fi, the theme of drug addiction, Alice in Wonderland and biology in her novels.

Stephen Hunt also uses sci-fi. And steampunk, lost continent myths, superheroes, 20th Century politics, spy fiction, Voodoo, post apocalyptic fiction, Lovecraftian horror and probably some other things I've forgotten. I've lost touch with his novels but I imagine that he's added a kitchen sink by now, made of lasers.

Terry Goodkind uses a lot of political philosophy in his books.

Anyway; I could go on but I hope I've made my point.

Some of these might be classed as weird fantasy or the confusingly named 'contemporary fantasy'. But they all run to multiple books and deal in big themes.

And they all bring something to the table other than an understanding of 'classic' fantasy. Which is not to say that that's a bad thing to have either.

 

[Inari Writer]

Looks like you name checked Miles Cameron before I did Big Peat.

Well played sir. And may Boglins devour my best warhorse if it isn't so.

 

[The Big Peat]

*bows* I do have some gripes with his work but the overall product's probably about as good as anything else out there.

I'd add that I didn't get the Medieval French thingies in SoIaF but did (along with a lot of other people...) get the very strong War of the Roses influence on the initial set-up and first book.

I'd go so far as to say the non-fantasy influences are obvious or cited in any fantasy author of note and it'd be incredibly difficult to find one where that isn't the case.


While I'm rabbiting away, I'd add that Epic Fantasy is far from a homogenous genre and that the expected conventions will vary a lot depending on the take presented. Kushiel's Legacy and The Black Company are both Epic Fantasy but no one's going to expect a series about a courtesan who saves the day through investigation, intrigue and intimacy to bear all the same hallmarks as a series about a mercenary company trying to stay alive. Can you get a set of shared conventions for Military Epic Fantasy through looking at The Black Company, Malazan and The Traitor Son Cycle (along with other examples?) Maybe although truth be told, I don't think its enough of a thing to be considered a subgenre with conventions. But you can certainly start finding conventions in the sort of Epic Fantasy that has one foot in Heroic Fantasy that aren't maybe the conventions of the rest of Epic Fantasy - adult characters and shorter stories for one thing. The conventions of books taking their cues from Valdemar and Paksenarrion are not the same as the current wave of Grimdark. And so on. Sometimes I think the genre has moved on a lot more from its 80s/90s image (and was always bigger than it) than most people give it credit for.

Epic Fantasy is a bit like Groucho Marx - if you don't like its conventions, it has others.

 

[Calum]

Neil Gaiman had some intresting stuff to say on the matter,

You wanna be the next Tolkien? Don't read big, tolkien-esque fantasies. TOLKIEN didn't read big, tolkien-esque fantasies. He read books on finnish philology. You go and read outside your comfort zone, go and learn stuff. And then the most important thing, once you get any level of quality--get to the point where you wanna write, and you can write--is tell YOUR story. Don't tell a story anyone else can tell. Because you always start out with other people's voices... There will always be people who are better or smarter than you. There are people who are better writers than me, who plot better than I do, but there is no one who can tell a Neil Gaiman story like I can.

I certainly agree that a good understanding of the genre is essential, both in figuring out what's effective as well as avoiding the pitfalls of other writers. However personal experience is invaluable as it allows you to bring a unique perspective to motifs and stories. Tolkien drew heavily upon his experiences even though his novels weren't strictly allegorical.

The Dead Marshes were a call back to the images that haunted him from the First World War. The Shire was reflection of his childhood in Oxfordshire (His Aunt's home was even called Bag End). Even Shelob was born from a run in he had as a boy with a Tarantula in South Africa. Drawing on these memories allowed Tolkien to inject fresh ideas into his work. To some extent fantasy writing is a balancing act of building on what came before while adding your personal, distinct perspective to the material.

 

[Phyrebrat]

The Dead Marshes were a call back to the images that haunted him from the First World War. The Shire was reflection of his childhood in Oxfordshire (His Aunt's home was even called Bag End). Even Shelob was born from a run in he had as a boy with a Tarantula in South Africa.

I never knew that! Very interesting. All my shorts and current WIP have similar hooks to my childhood and/or past. The Dead Marshes bit really struck a chord with me - I have a 'thing' about trench warfare in WW1, an irrational fear of it, so that is particularly interesting.

pH

 

[Toby Frost]

It's possible that what I'm writing isn't really "epic fantasy" so much as a fantasy story with a very wide range, but that might be splitting hairs. I guess, following on from that Neil Gaiman quote, it's fair to say that the next Tolkien probably won't be all that much like Tolkien, although it might have his level of craftsmanship, influence, sales etc.

On a slight tangent, sometimes outside research does have very useful effects. As a kid, I was quite scared by a picture of the Loch Ness Monster, which made its way into the story. Also, a bit of research throws up things that are obscure, but work. Also, I stumbled upon the legend of the brazen heads that Francis Bacon and other scholars were said to consult, which in turn reminded me of That Hideous Strength and Alien, both of which I found really unsettling. So that went in as well.

One of the great things about looking at history in fantasy is that you uncover bits and pieces - often supernatural-themed - that haven't filtered down into the the pop culture associated with that period. I've yet to see a steampunk book inspired by Spiritualism or the Cottingley fairies, for instance, but I think it would be interesting.

 

[Inari Writer]

It's possible that what I'm writing isn't really "epic fantasy" so much as a fantasy story with a very wide range, but that might be splitting hairs. I guess, following on from that Neil Gaiman quote, it's fair to say that the next Tolkien probably won't be all that much like Tolkien, although it might have his level of craftsmanship, influence, sales etc.

On a slight tangent, sometimes outside research does have very useful effects. As a kid, I was quite scared by a picture of the Loch Ness Monster, which made its way into the story. Also, a bit of research throws up things that are obscure, but work. Also, I stumbled upon the legend of the brazen heads that Francis Bacon and other scholars were said to consult, which in turn reminded me of That Hideous Strength and Alien, both of which I found really unsettling. So that went in as well.

One of the great things about looking at history in fantasy is that you uncover bits and pieces - often supernatural-themed - that haven't filtered down into the the pop culture associated with that period. I've yet to see a steampunk book inspired by Spiritualism or the Cottingley fairies, for instance, but I think it would be interesting.

Well it's not Steampunk but Jeffrey Ford, (who also wrote the Steampunk/Weird/Epic Fantasy Well Built City Series), wrote the Girl in the Glass which is one of those 'is it supernatural or not?' novels and is heavily based on spiritualism. Though the spiritualists in that are for the most part con-artists.

 

[The Big Peat]

It's possible that what I'm writing isn't really "epic fantasy" so much as a fantasy story with a very wide range, but that might be splitting hairs. I guess, following on from that Neil Gaiman quote, it's fair to say that the next Tolkien probably won't be all that much like Tolkien, although it might have his level of craftsmanship, influence, sales etc.

a) Without asking you to tilt your hand overly, what about it would you not consider Epic Fantasy?

b) The flaw in that Gaiman quote is that when Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings, he was writing for a world that hadn't really seen anything like it (The Worm Ourobos maybe?). Good luck in finding a new take on Epic Fantasy that the world hasn't seen. Even if you never think about it, a certain amount of taste for what's good in the genre and what's not is required on a subconscious level.


There's another related issue. Tolkien was hardly an overnight success and given how cutthroat the publishing industry is today, would something as similarly off the wall make it? How much do people care about that? Feels like the advice for writing the book you dream of and the advice for getting paid aren't always the same thing.

 

[Amelia Faulkner]

I don't mean to suggest that people reading epic fantasy have lower standards than usual, or that the subgenre is inherently bad. I've read some very good epic stuff and enjoyed it considerably. But in a field where a reader can be seriously advised that it gets better in 500 pages' time, are the criteria for success different to usual?

Rewinding right back to the start of the thread, I think this isn't really a statement that the series is bad. I think that the people who stick with a series beyond book three are the people who genuinely love that series. They love the characters, the world, the writing, all of it. And then they recommend it to others and other people say things like "Eh I tried the first book and it didn't grab me."

"IT GETS BETTER, I PROMISE!"

I don't think it really means "these books are poor to start with but I swear by book 5 they're amazeballs," I think it means "But I love them... Please try a bit more? You might like it later on? Then I get another friend I can effuse with whenever there's a new release and that'd be awesome?"