Urban fantasy is less about keeping magic secret to prevent war or chaos. More like lets keep magic secret because if normal people find out about it then I'll have to write about a change in the status quo and the characters lives going in a new direction.
I both agree and disagree. In most urban fantasy there's usually a protector of some sort and there's different factions of superbeings many of which aren't benevolent.
I think a batter explanation is the: one monster can kill 10 people easy. The problem. There is aloooooooot of people. Pretty the WoD explanation. On vemp can kill 100 people. But there is only a few thousands of them and billions of people and heavy armaments is a thing..(this is why btw if someone reading this an awere of wod lore i dont like the ravnos antidluvain story
Fantasy doesn’t just cover middle earth-like worlds, it covers _literally everything that doesn’t exist_ there is endless opportunities and I don’t understand why people always go to the classic elves, dwarves, and dragons stuff (other than the fact that it’s cool as shit lmao)
@Jacob Wood I would say there is a huge overlap and can even cover similar themes with differing explainations. Science can pretty much do what magic does with another take. Only thing scifi seems to be far more is in dystopia, through look at adventure time, ita magical dystopia (through there is scifi) Its not the same but overall as genre, they overlap a lot, the magic is science we cant do yet trope comes to my mind. If you go where it can go. Its explained different, by devices in scii, nano maschines, telepaths, espers... but you get , there is a lot of overlap in genres.
it's familiar, it's easy to sell to your reader because it's what they expect. It's easy to sell to a publisher because the publisher assumes it'll have more mass appeal... all of those are admittedly very bad reasons, but those are basically THE reasons. A big problem of fantasy and scifi is that both are perceived as selling to specific audiences, so the thought process is you have to be familiar to sell the the pre-existing audience. That's not to say to can't be original, A song of ice and fire is a great example of how you can actually sell different to the existing audience, because it was truly an original spin on epic fantasy. But it's also an example of the mindset holding the genre back because now so many stories feel the need to shoehorn in gratuitous sex and violence because of the perception that modern audiences demand 'edgy'. it gets even worse when you blur the line between fantasy and scifi because to a publisher, these are oil and water so who do they market it too. Even classics like Dune were rejected by all the major publishing houses because they had no idea what genre it was, it fell to some obscure fringe publisher looking to break into the fiction market for it to even see the light of day. the modern state of both genres is in a weird place. You have some really great authors, but the big publishers only want the familiar and the serial, they discourage innovative because they can't afford to have it bomb. They're much more willing to just tell the authors of the books that fall into the grey areas to just self-publish online and let them assume all the risks, which is a double-edged sword for an author because it's really hard to find the gems in a sea of self-published mediocrity, and the author doesn't get exposed to the professional editors and literary agents as much (those people often don't get nearly enough credit), which can really help them polish their ideas.
@@petriew2018 Not only books too, thats the reason why series in season 1 that do have bigger woeldbuilding, are somewhat similar in season 1 and then in season 2 go wild. If i get that right. The publishers being the studio not wanting to take risks. I guess there are some publishers who do but , good luck, i guess. Also why star trek series only get really good after season 1 normally, no risks. Even avatar, and dragon prince do that, the darker series. Even person of interest that gets mad, and 12 monkeys, both has a relative tame season 1. Didnt consider books having the same we want something new, but no risky please, territory, manga appearently too, why manga are actually very clisheed at the start. Thats capitalism i guess. Not innovent, do something thats sure, because we company xy want profit.
science fiction may be a victim of it's own past successes in a lot of way. the 'Golden Age' stuff was all about ideas you couldn't tell traditionally in the modern world because people wouldn't listen, so the authors made their own worlds to sell their ideas. The characters were a secondary concern. That was fine when the authors had really great ideas to talk about, but after the golden age waned the tropes remained, and now publishers just assume nobody wants character-driven science fiction. No matter how often this is proven wrong.
Thats not even remotely true. The New wave of science fiction addressed those concerns in the 60s and then you had decades of people since then. The problem now is science fiction has lost its wonder factor since we live in science fiction now and the ideas presented in fiction aren't interesting enough since the advancements happening today are moving so fast. It leaves those ideas as fairly plausible instead of the fantasy factor that scifi use to have. Instead the science fiction that gets popular now is broad subgenre stuff that had been established decades prior like alien invasion, dystopia, space opera, and cyberpunk. Science fiction in literature arguably hit its peak in the 70s and has been declining since.
@@putridsunrise192 As far as science fiction goes, the real problem is that it gained general acceptance. When it was viewed with disdain, it was a literature of ideas - But after things like _Star Wars,_ it gained widespread acceptance and was recognised as profitable. Since _Star Wars_ was marketed as science fiction (while not being science fiction), that acceptance included a loss of the distinction between the two genres and suddenly everyone and their cousin Fredo was writing "science fiction". To this day, the market is flooded with half-assed fantasy, marketed as science fiction, written by people who wouldn't know a positron from a matron
@@_XR40_ I think the key point I that SF is about ideas and the characters are subordinate to them. Still there are interesting characters even in Golden Age SF: Gully Foyle, The Mule, Victor Trenchard, the self - doubting heroes of Jack Vance. I'm sure others can think of other examples.
@@alanpennie8013 Traditionally, ideas and concepts were definitely central to SF. Much "hard" SF was strictly devoted to problem-solving within the story (something it had in common with traditional mystery-fiction). Then there was the social/scientific extrapolation subgenre. There were many cases where characters were memorable, but that was always a _bonus_ - An "extra" on top of the story...
It really is personal preference, there are genres I personally don't like at all like romance, drama, murder mysteries, dystopias. But I don't have anything against them, I'm glad that they exist and that people enjoy them. I doubt anyone has ever said that they hate a genre SO MUCH to the point of wishing it didn't exist, that's just exaggerating
Honestly most hobbies are 'niche' until one gains mass market appeal, even original things are niche (even more likely to be i fear) mostly due to humans being humans and liking different things.
Foundation wasn't really about characters though. With the kind of timespan the series has, it couldn't be. Even so, the second and third books have some memorable/more developed characters like the Mule or Arcadia Darell. Also, if you want stuff that you can "connect" with emotionally, maybe try reading Vonnegut. The Sirens of Titan is not only wonderfully weird old school sci-fi, it's one of the most profoundly moving books I've ever read. Also, I'd recommend Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions. Contact by Carl Sagan is an amazing read, too. You could also try authors whose works have elements of sci-fi, everything from 1984 and Brave New World to Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow or Against the Day.
Salvor Hardin is actually one of my favourite characters in literature, probably because what he did not what he is as a character. That madlad basically toppled a kingdom without firing a shot while being held captive.
"it's like LOTR but worse, so why would I read it?" "it's like Call of Duty 4, but worse, so why would I play it?" "It's like A New Hope, but worse, so why would I watch it?"
Just to add my little nugget of thought: I think people write about and like best what resembles most their inner perspective and current struggles. And people differ quite in where they put their focus on. Some typologies call this a character bound thing. So I've noticed some focus on the relationship side of a story (by tendency females), some focus on the issue, the fight, solving a problem (by tendency males), some like jokes with their stories to make it feel lighter and some love the horror, to heighten the tension. Some like to write about emotions, others about thoughts and concepts. So as much as I agree with your observation, I'm also asking myself, if it is even possible to come to a satifactory combination of all elements for all. Maybe it's best if you try to express your personal view to the best of your abilites. And yes, science fiction writers could improve their character description and it would be a better book for all. But I've noticed that science fiction readers don't even put that much emphasis on this as long as the core why they reach for a scifi novel is satisfied. But mind, I'm not suggesting to stop stretching to reach a higher level of craft - I'm just wondering if basically the inherent writing style has its sense - at least for people similar to the author, and in consequence this puts on some limits for the writing. I just know from myself, it's one thing to want to write what would be the best story for all kind of people and a completely different thing what you actually feel the need to write a whole novel about. This passion can't be steered as easily as we often wish for. Would love to hear your thoughts on this, as I appreciate and resonate with your critiques - but I know, this is an old video ;)
Ideas. Medieval stuff: polearms are better actually. Farmboy forced to go to war gets lucky, or not, because j think killing knights is poor etiquette. Or maybe he kills a not very known sir that is an ally, panics. Steals his armor and pretends to be him. Takes out his entourage too. Now is a knight. Zombies: you are in a zoo. Gorilla, tiger, or zombie? The tiger you freed chases a guy that thought stealing a mtb just saved him from the zombies.
This kinda makes me wonder what the story I'm writing. It's basically 4 amateur wizards of a two-week-long hunt of monsters in a fishing town. The country it's in, Aldermire, is pretty north of most places, so they have polar nights like real-world places (Alaska, Canada, Norway, etc). That being said, I think it's more horror/thriller than fantasy, but this video helps in thinking of how some people view the fantasy genre and might possibly view the book if I somehow ever finish and publish the thing.
One of the things I've felt is misunderstood about Sci-fi and Fantasy is that they're modifiers to the base genre. In your case that'd be Horror/Thriller. There isn't a ton of difference between a few hunters fleeing a looming monstrous threat with guns in hand and a few mages fleeing a looming monstrous threat clutching their regents. As long as you show us what their abilities are, what their limits are, and stick to the rules? It's just as efficient for them to be using anything as anything else. What we're going to care about is the four characters, their interactions/relationships and the perils they face. Especially how they face up to and either overcome or are overtaken by the threat they're facing. Laser weapons, divinely bound spirits, alchemical steel or buckshot, tools are tools. It's usually the people using them (and their consistency) that matters, especially when the threat is an unknown to both the characters and the reader. Some really great short stories have come out of Out Of Context problems like that.
@@wren1024 Well, I do kinda have an unfinished prototype up on my wattpad account. It's the same concept of a night hunt but it's in a different town and completely different characters as well. If you can deal with an accidentally whiny main character, go right ahead. It's called "All The Lost Days" by Cendrillon_87.
Before I watch the video through I have to address the main point: I completely disagree that un-originality is keeping scifi/fantasy out of the mainstream. Almost every mainstream popular thriller, mystery or romance has been almost identical for decades straight. It's an even bigger problem in the mainstream, and sure it is a separate scifi/fantasy issue but it's easily not at all the main mainstream issue by a very very long shot
4:20 To be fair, The Other was intended/written by GRRM as the ultimate threat from the beginning of the first book. The problem is that he couldn't get to that part of the story, so most people, even fans, remember the books as Political Low Fantasy because that's what they have read/are reading (writing the prequels, which are even more Low Fantasy, only reinforced this), and when the show tried to advance the storyline, they messed it up so hard that people prefer to have their Stark vs Lannister feud over the Other invading.
James: "in order to save sci-fi and fantasy, you have to combine them." me: "nooooooooo, stop revealing my master plan!!!!" P.S. I will use this comment as proof you can't sue me for stealing your idea after I make my first billion of my book.
You have a lot of good points, and by and large, you're right. I try to push the envelope when I can in my writing, but I usually still start out with the status quo. My first Urban Fantasy novel, Bad Luck, follows the same standard formula, more or less. But my goal of the series is for the "secret" of the supernatural (fantasy) stuff is going to get out and then the series will evolve into something different. What I like about your videos is that it gets me thinking as a writer, and I value that. So, keep up with videos like this one. I find them incredibly useful!
A bit of advice from Tolken I think worth considering for you Brad Younie. "Start with the interesting part of the story." (paraphrased) if the idea is 'set up a status quo, then the interesting thing is how it breaks down and develops' keeping the status quo in place for a short time is a good idea. 1/3-1/2 a book for example if you intend to write at least two to three books worth of arc. If your doing a single novel, I'd suggest opening with the status quo just having broken and show the way things were in bits to contrast or even later on. (as in, chronological order would be 2-1-3 series of events)
I think the reason saving the world is a plot that gets used a lot is because of the stakes. Common writing advice is to have high stakes, which isn't bad advice. If the focus is saving the world I don't feel any tension because we usually don't get to see the rest of the world. The world outside of the characters feels like empty space. I'm always much more invested when the stakes are personal.
"How many characters do you remember from Foundation?" -Hari Seldon -Salvor Hardin -King Lepold -Duke Wienis, Regent of Anacreon -Hober Mallow -Emperor Cleon II -Bel Riose -the Mule -Ebling Mies -Arcady Darell And I haven't read the books in over 7 years.
Star trek too(and yes its still scifi, not hard scifi, but scifi) , also 12 monkeys the series, its brilliant, and person of interest starts tropey but it gets amazing, with strong scifi elements, the AI "the maschine" who becomes amazing. And the show minority report cast is amazing.(shame it got cancelled) And star treks strengh is, they have usually a great cast or at least some characters from the cast really fleshed out. Even voyager thats honestly just voyager, great cast. Not forgetting DS9
@@totallynotjeff7748 Ah, but there are a number of Star Trek novels, some of them written by the actors themselves. They range from the okay to the actually pretty good. Probably not for most non-Trek fans, though.
DS9 so much! There literally is not a single badly-developed major character in it. All characters, even the comic relief or villainous ones get actual depth. DS9 is really something all sci-fi authors could take inspiration from, both in terms of worldbuilding and characters.
My fantasy setting is Diesel Punk as the current timeline is set during their equivalent aesthically and technologically of the 1940s but it's Fantasy with a strict materialist (so no souls or gods, the closest is Lovecraftian Eldritch Abominations and magic has a pseudo scientific reason for it) I'm really enjoying writing stories set in it. Their tech also slowly progresses so I can have stories set in their medieval age and even earlier so it's the best of all worlds lol.
I don't think this is because of lord of the rings necessarily. High fantasy/epic fantasy mostly gets its ideas from mythology. Mythology is mostly about the fight between the good and the evil, and that is reflected in the characters as well. That's true about almost all epic fantasies. It is very difficult (if not impossible) to have a high fantasy where the characters are not facing some sort of evil overlord in some shape or form.
I've always thought of "high fantasy" referring to "high" morals. Ultimate good vs. utter evil, and such a set up naturally leads to a save the world plot. After all if the sides epitomize good and evil, then why would they limit themselves when they can expand. The evil side would utterly hate goodness and so want to wipe it out everywhere. I suppose you could have evil with more sloth to it, but that rather undermines the sense of it being "ultimate". After all, if the evil is just a cult in a backwoods village, most people can just not go there and ignore it.
@@adams13245 Agreed. People usually read high fantasy not just to see the evil being defeated, or in dark high fantasy prevail. It is clear that the story goes one way or the other, but it's the journey that counts and the readers want to see how and at what cost this happens. This sort of anticipation is only achieved when the stakes are high, ergo the fight to save the world comes to play. I wouldn't assume people would read thousands and thousands of pages of books if there wasn't a strong hook like that to carry the story.
@@pegah_di I think another thing to keep in mind is that dark fantasy isn't some tiny subgenre. In my experience a lot of dark fantasy works seem to think they're still the underfunded plucky (or not) rebels and haven't made it mainstream. It's been more than a decade since Martin got popular, and I'm getting sick of every dark fantasy work acting as though it automatically has deep mature themes.
@@pegah_di I think another thing to keep in mind is that dark fantasy isn't some tiny subgenre. In my experience a lot of dark fantasy works seem to think they're still the underfunded plucky (or not) rebels and haven't made it mainstream. It's been more than a decade since Martin got popular, and I'm getting sick of every dark fantasy work acting as though it automatically has deep mature themes.
@@gawkthimm6030 In fact, in the "old pulp magazine days", even space-opera had to be scientifically plausible. It wouldn't be published if you didn't know what a parsec was - Or the difference between a robot and an android...
Kinda silly to say that lack of originality is a problem with science-fiction and fantasy. It's a problem with *_all_* fiction, but far _less of a problem_ in fantasy and science-fiction. As far as fantasy being more popular than science-fiction, this is because fantasy tends to be basic adventure-stories (occasionally character-driven), whereas traditionally, science fiction is more oriented toward extrapolation and problem solving (Even has to follow rules of plausibility to qualify for the genre) The characters are usually less important to the story. Fantasy is not only easier to read, it's easier to write - You can literally pull every aspect of a fantasy world out of your butt, and the reader will accept it for the sake of the adventure. You can't do that with science fiction. Older science fiction readers, at least, expect logic and consistency with reality. Not that I expect anyone to have read Fritz Leiber's _Silver Eggheads,_ but most people want "wordwooze". They want to be able to turn off their minds while reading, just like they do when watching television. The reason fantasy is more popular than science fiction is the same reason romance novels outsell mysteries -- And your "solution" is pretty much the same as saying that mystery novels should have more romance in them
I've noticed that sci fi prose tends to be much more modern while fantasy tends to take its writing style from epic poetry and older genres. Idk if that's what u were thinking about
I think the issues listed here with Fantasy are why I took such a liking to Magical Realism. No keeping the magic world secret, no dark lords, no saving the world, and a bunch of settings like Colombia and India that you rarely see in Fantasy
Have you heard about The Locked Thomb triology? It's a really unique Science Fantasy Mystery Horror book series. The second book is a complete mindfuck. Although as much as I love it I must warn everybody that it has pretty much _all_ the trigger warnings...
7:37 Yes, I actually do. I remember and love all squadmates and major people from the Mass Effect trilogy. Besides a fking amazing story, Mass Effect (especially ME2 and 3) spends a lot of time making the people and places feel like actual people and places. Wrex and Grunt are both Krogan, but they are radically different people. Liara, Samara and Aria are all Asari, but again: completely different people. Now that I think about it, Mass Effect might very well be so amazing because it combines scifi and fantasy... Interesting Btw, I think we can concider Mass Effect a classic by now.
Honestly, most "sci fi" is only loosely scientific... mainly because space is really weird. For example, in a space battle, the vast majority of times you wouldn't be able to see an opposing ship in combat, even as a dot. That's because space is really, really big and empty, so any spaceship battles would happen way beyond sight range. Also, odds are by the time we get to Mars we'll have drones to do the fighting for us, or everyone will be augmented, never mind Alpha Centauri. The former involves the difficult task of either trying to make dumb drones likeable, or somehow having human characters who aren't actually in danger feel like they're in danger. The latter would need the writers to look at how augmentations would work, a lot of which would probably be about controlling the aforementioned drones, which would be really hard to get across, not to mention the above problems. Hard sci fi is really hard to write for the general audience, unless it's set close to our time, since technology and space will radically change our society and how we do things.
The reason I like Sci-fi is precisely your reason of criticism: It has barely any character focused story and prose and focuses on building an interesting world and exploring certain hypothetical situations/philosophies. This might sound weird as I'm subscribed to you but I have a hard time getting into stories if they go too deep into prose sections or character development/interpersonal relationships. I just end up zoning out. You probably had it before where you read pages but at the same time get lost in your thought and 5-6 pages along you notice that you have no idea what you just read since you were thinking over your reading. The reason why I enjoy your fantasy book reviews is because you usually give a good brief synopsis of the world and setting so that I can kinda appreciate the originality of those works without actually having to torture myself getting through the prose and character interactions. So I actually don't think science fiction fans are "pretentious assholes". We're most likely the opposite, emotionally stunted simpletons or people on the autism spectrum that can't really relate through prose/character interactions.
What you said about them reading distinctively in their prose I think I got it. It's the techniques they use. Fantasy authors have really embraced changed narrative focality and river structure but otherwise go for a more conservative style of prose and structure, while fantasy authors really go for novel structure and prose techniques, but otherwise have usually very simple focality (usually first person or third person omniscient). Which goes in hand with what you said. Mixed focality is optimal for exploring different characters and how they think and act, it really gets you on the mind of different characters. Strange structures and prose are really good for exploring big themes, think how without the weird story structure of Story of your Life structure is uniquely suited for exploring the themes of time and language.or how the weird prose in manyof the New Wavers made their ideas about perception shine.
It's actually REALLY hard if not all but impossible to publish Tolkien style fantasy with elves and dwarves in it these days. I know because I once shopped around a manuscript with (re-imagined, non-Tolkienesque) elves and dwarves in it and publishers wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. My agent flat-out said "I don't think anyone wants to read something with Elves in it" and basically made it clear that she thought I was wasting my time, and never mind if the book was any good.
I agree with your complaint that epic fantasy always heads for the "save the world" stuff and how that trickles into every other fantasy story. Not that I hate it when people save the world, but just that they better be pretty interesting for me to deal with that plot again and again. Not to mention that very few authors even think about how saving the world requires much more than just defeating one group/one evil guy...
You should really review the Three Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth's Past) trilogy. It is the most unique and grand sci-fi story I ever read, and I'd love to hear your opinion on it And I also think it manages to dodge almost all of your criticisms of sci-fi as a genre. Many of the characters, especially Ye Wenje and Shi Qiang are extraordinarily memorable. Luo Ji's growth as a character through book two to book three, and the symbolic nature of Cheng Xin's character arc are amazing. The dual vector foil attack will never leave my mind, so many of the concepts walk the line between hard and soft sci-fi with a ballet dancer's balance. The places this series will take you are simply mind blowing.
I've actually had a good time reading the Illuminae series its filled my sci fi vibe I've been in. I think something phenomenal needs to be written for the science fiction genre to be reinvigorated.
Originality is big fr, we need to think beyond medieval Europe. There are whole continents and mythologies filled with untapped potential. Fore example, I'm exploring a whole new Caribbean sci-fi/fantasy world in a short story collection.
My favorite writing technique for making an original story/setting is to mix genres you love that don't usually go together. You like LotR? You like Cyberpunk? BOOM! Now you've got a gritty detective noir with corporate overlord dwarves and drugged up goblins!
I sometimes feel like it's the bad things of these genres that allow for the good things... kind of? Like writing a familiar plot line allows you to make your characters stand out, because all the focus is on them, what they feel or what they'll do next. We all KNOW the plot - The Big Bad Guy is going down through the power of love and good magic or whatever. On the other hand, an in-depth plot often means so much time spent there that the characters fall to the side, because they're pushing the plot forward. Now I'm not saying this is Always the case, because it isn't, and I've read good scifi and fantasy that balance both, but for a lot of the works in both genres it seems to be it also great video as always! it's always fun to hear your thoughts
that hair + those jammies = comfy af i think youre right about the plot + settings being cookie cutter stuff that makes readers think "why read a shittier version of something ive read before?" case in point the first thing that comes to mind when dealing with fantasy is Medieval Europe + Magic which is just shitty LotR which is why YA + Urban Fantasy Harry Potter was such a hit imho. Its why the genre needs to interbreed with others to get fantasy thrillers and fantasy bildungsroman and fantasy erotica and fantasy mystery and shit. Once all that cross pollination happens only the fittest will survive. oh shit did i just go full ancap and pretend the market will solve things? ugh ignore all this then
I allways love when I do things right. I try to not fall into any negative tropes. Only 1-2 of my fantasy stories are about world saving. Many are more personal, like some guy hear about some fancy item so he spend a lot of time finding it so he can get rich.
I've grown a bit tired of fantasy novels that revolve around saving the kingdom/world/astral plane. Glad to see there are people out there bringing it back to a more contained story.
The point about sci-fi usually not having memorable characters reminded me just how amazingly Homeworld (an RTS game from 1999) nailed that part. Even though it has very few of them (and almost no dialogue) all the characters are very distinct and interesting.
this video is exactly what I have been saying for years, this is the first time I heard someone else say it, I know exactly what you mean and 100% agree. If we took the characters of fantasy and the worldbuilding and ideas of sci-fi, we could get something truly great. It's why Star Wars is the only sci-fi that's in the mainstream, and why Dune is to this day the bestselling sci-fi book of all time. ok, I'm done this is the last comment.
So Star Trek is not "mainstream." Despite the fan conventions, despite the way elements of it have spread through pop culture and become known separate from the show itself. What exactly counts as mainstream anyway? Cause it seems like the definition is so vague, just about anything could be said to be "non mainstream". Is it the amount of revenue it makes? The amount of people who buy works set in the universe? Harry Potter made Rowling rich, Lord of the Rings is a media juggernaut, A Song of Ice and Fire is critically loved. Are these not mainstream, as you seem to be saying?
One thing I've noticed about fantasy is the inability to just have a chill story. like in a modern setting we are perfectly comfortable with having stories about ordinary things like work, romance, school ect but in fantasy world there has to be a bad guy. Even in fantasy romance novels there is usually a villain. We clearly have many ways to do conflict that are much more relatable to human beings so the fact literal conflict is the one that gets picked a lot is kind of annoying. Take harry potter for example jk Rowling made a world that, whilst not being the most well thought out, it was a delight to read about but I really couldn't care less about Voldemort. My favourite parts of the books were always the times they spent in school. In fact I would have much rather the stories were about kids struggling in a magic school. Having to deal with bullying for Muggle parents or the very real fact that some kids are literally 11 years behind in terms of magic knowledge. Thats a much more compelling and relatable story for me than "we fight bad guy who is just evil for the sake of it"
I agree, though I will say I sometimes enjoy consuming inferior books that take after the ideas of books or stories that I enjoy. Same applies to even stuff like games or food.
Ten steps ahead of you, James. I'm in the process of publishing my first book, which is part of a sci-fi series, but almost all of my top literary influences are famous for fantasy: J.R.R. Tolkien (that's a given), Christopher Paolini, George R.R. Martin, C.S. Lewis, Brian Jacques, and Homer (the poet, not the Simpson). I know C.S. Lewis falls into a bit a grey area, because it's often debated which was he more famous for the Narnia series or his apologetics works like Mere Christianity? But suffice to say both of those categories overshadowed Lewis' Space Trilogy. Tad Williams often said that sometimes it's good to read outside whichever genre you're currently writing. I would add to Tad's thoughts to also read outside the age range you're dealing with. Like if you're writing YA, feel free to read adult or MG, etc.
That was very interesting! I think the shortage of interesting characters in scifi only happens in books, because in the scifi-tvshows ihe watched there are lots of interesting cool characters (particularly in DS9). I think there are to books that I can recommend for being very original. For fantasy there's night watch, an urban fantasy series by serey lukyanenko iirc, and for scifi there's Qualityland which is often described as a "funny dystopia". And it's really good, it would be amazing if you could reviewed it.
I think you would enjoy the Dagger & Coin books by Daniel Abraham (one half of The Expanse authors). It's not paradigm altering, but it does go against some of the issues you present in this video. The prose is very similar to The Expanse, so it benefits for an equally mechanical and descriptive sort of language, and looks at a fantasy world from a really interesting and unique angle. It's essentially like "what if fantasy, but it's about medieval banking and a religion that worships a giant, truth-telling spider that thrives on ideological extremism?" Anyway, great video as usual!
I'm really into the floating island aesthetic, and I think it's pretty common, but honestly I've been looking and I really can't find much in that family of settings. Edge Chronicles, arguably, and The Big Empty, are ones I've got, but what other ones exist that I'm not finding? Bonus points for ones which go explicitly steampunky about it...
One of the best progression/cultivation fantasy series I have ever read is the Cradle series and is probably my favorite fantasy setting of all time. I would recommend it to anyone who likes cultivation stories. Its world is just so unique I could spend hours (and i have) discussing the world of cradle.
i think that you're right saying that fantasy wold be better if stories were focused more on smaller events than ''the end of the world'', sometimes reading fantasy stories you come across some realy cool people who have a better background story than the main plot of the novel. A great book that focus on this is dan simmons hyperion, the smaller stories of the characters are far more interesting than the travel they make.
sf and f are essentially the same genre with different core ideas. most people who assume sf is inherently looking to the future while f looks to the past is missing the speculative aspect of both genres. i think sff in its whole is thinking about things that do not exist, whether it be magic we dream had or the scientific advancements we wish we could access. i just love sff :)
Science Fiction and Western basically are different genres with the same core ideas. Even ignoring more literal examples like Brave Starr, Trigun or Firefly, both are basically about being at the frontier.
Why not applied some physics to your science fiction/fantasy? For example Mass Effect did a great job in that, and that in what I based my space travel system, in the local clusters I use hyperspace because the gravity pull in the local cluster (I not use Warp, because the concept is to ridiculous even for fantasy, your ship would be torn apart from the speed), hyperspace you bend the space around the ship, not the ship travel faster than light, and to travel to other parts of the galaxy I use artificial wormholes created by an ancient alien race prior any of the alien species empires establish themselves in the galaxy (apart of the Lovecraftian horrors waiting in the darkness of the galaxy).
I think an anwesome example of original fantasy books are The rivers of London from Ben Aaronovitch or especially the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik, which is quite realistic depiction of the war against Napoleon Bonapartes evil empire, just a litte spiced up with dragons. Highly recomend. (and sorry for my english)
That solution has been in effect since _Star Wars_ came out, and really is the problem in itself. The fact is that the overwhelming majority of people don't even know the difference between the two - And that includes _most of the people writing it_ these days. Ever since _Star Wars_ showed that it could be profitable, the market has been flooded with fantasy, marketed as science fiction, written by people who literally couldn't tell the difference between a robot and an android....
If any of you loved the Expanse I highly recommend "Legend of the Galactic Heroes". It is similar to the Expanse in many ways, but it focuses much more on the high level political intrigue. The quality and quantity of memorable characters is astonishing to be honest. At one moment I realized that I kinda care about every single admiral of the evil overlord. They all *feel* like real people, and I want to know what happens to them. Which is strange. AND, if you're too lazy to read the books you can watch the anime, it's real good too!
While I read exclusively Fantasy and read only 1 sci fi series Red Rising Saga (first 3 books) I agree. I like ot a lot more to see a plot where it hasn't to be the chosen one saving the whole world from the evilest of p Overlords. That's what I liked about red rising; the overlords are still humans and it's not about saving the world but about a revolution of the lower classes against a highly oppressive upper class who barely sees their lower classes as humans
I once read somewhere that the plot basically needs to involve saving* the world or it won't count as _Epic_ Fantasy. *or not saving but the world needs to be at stake
That’s why I love the Vlad Taltos series. It’s just about a human assassin in an empire of Dragaerans. As far as I have read there is no evil lord that must be stopped to save the world, just political intrigue and competition between crime bosses.
Yo can I recommend the series the mage hand of Mars (or something like that I can’t remember the title at the moment) written by Glynn Stewart. it’s genuinely very fun to read and see what happens when you much magic and sci fi in an actual somewhat realistic way. Highly recommend the series for any who can get there hands on it.
People "know" about Lord Of The Rings and Harry Potter? Aren't those some of the most successful books ever? Or maybe by that you meant that the genre has not broken into the mainstream despite the success of a few books that belong in it.
Have you read any combinations of sci-fi and fantasy? Like the Pern Novels by Anne McCaffrey? Sci-fi fantasy combinations are not common, but they are enjoyable in a unique way. Also, everyone who reads sci-fi does so for different reasons. Some are more in to the 'heavy' science fiction, some are in it for tech and/or space settings and don't care so much for story, some are more in it for the ideas and possibilities portrayed in the future, or into other worlds and some watch it for philosophical reasons. The latter I feel sci-fi does exclusively as it can portray aspects of the human condition in ways fantasy and other genres cannot, plus it is designed in its very nature to be a 'speculative' genre, a 'what if' genre that puts forward possibilities that are believable, fantasy is not supposed to have any real world grounding and is more about entertainment. Science fiction only gains mainstream audiences when it loses some of its science and philosophy core as the mainstream audiences don't necessarily like to have accepted thoughts questioned or to have to understand scientific principles and only want to be entertained. This is why Star Wars is more popular than Star Trek (old trek, the modern iterations swap out nuanced writing in favour of drama and pew pew). Also, on the character/story balance it is very true that sci-fi (particularly classic sci-fi) has it's characters as pawns to make the story move forward with little in the way of real development. This isn't always a genre-related thing as stories across all genres will either weigh their stories more towards the characters or towards the plot. The more that is happening, the less the characters will get time to develop. Even in LOTR, we don't really know the characters very well as people compared to the characters in GoT because LOTR is story-lead and GoT is character led (which is why S8 failed so hard because they tried to switch it to story led but the characters didn't fit and they didn't give them time to logically get to the end they wanted). The challenge of modern sci-fi is to balance up 'what if' scenarios with compelling characters so you it can be both thought-provoking and entertaining. Star Trek: The Next Generation got close with this, but had to sacrifice the depth of some characters in order for the story to take centre stage as each episode was designed to be a morality play. DS9 went so character heavy that the philosophical side mostly got lost. The Expanse is probably the best balance I can think of, and while it is more political, it has a good story-to-character ratio, with more science focus and even a bit of philosophy in there. So far, it has been the best at getting these elements to line up well, but even that won't necessarily get it to become mainstream.
Honestly, this is another reason why I highly recommend people to read the Six of Crows duology. The series isn't a "save the world" plot, but just about a group of thieves, who are forced to work together to break into a prison to grab the guy with the secret to creating fantasy crack. It's more like Oceans 11 set in a fantasy universe than Lord of the Rings. The plot is rather refreshing in that regard. Plus, the characters are great and it has some quotable lines in it.
Lol I only read sci-fi and fantasy because I wanna explore other worlds. Ours is scary to think too hard about. Also Has anyone else read The Dragon Riders of Pern books? My mom got me into them and I have t seen anyone talk about them. They are as sci-fantasy and Anne Mcaffery is a gem.
I agree with most of the discussion, but the point about sci-fi and fantasy not being mainstream for lack of originality doesn't make sense to me. Unoriginality is a staple of mainstream media. Romance isn't incredibly popular because it's groundbreaking; people like stuff that's familiar to them.
I don't see where he's getting this idea that Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Star Trek are not mainstream. Can he at least outline what makes those franchises different and why they can be pop culture icons, but somehow have no impact on their respective genres being mainstream? He just seems to assume that speculative fiction is still looked down upon, with no evidence to back it up.
@@adams13245 well to be fair he did say that he was talking about the literary medium, not movies, comics or TV shows. I can't say I have evidence, but for what I can observe speculative fiction is still very niche among readers (with the exception of dystopias, as James pointed out)
Actually now that I think about it, ASoIaF and Throne of Glass' series are very obvious examples of popular fantasy franchises. I don't know many sci fi works, but fantasy does seem to be gaining more popularity over the years.
I've read a bunch of Dan Simmons and I remember two characters by name: Fedhman Kassad from Endymion and Noman from Olympos (but Noman is Odysseus so I don't even count it). Amazing books tho
Thanks for the tip, I read fantasy, write fantasy, but don't read science fiction. Maybe I should pick something up. I wish adult fantasy and YA fantasy could learn from each other, too.
I think some spice in your reading diet is worth a shot. You'd be surprised how much the solder psychology in something like Starship Troopers applies to soldiers in any setting.
After I've watched the video, even though I disagree with your main/initial point I think your criticism of current fantasy and scifi and your conclusions about how we might be able to change things is absolutely spot on. Things have become arbitrarily separated based on whether they're more 'castley' or 'spacey' when really we could all do with learning from each others strengths
Can anybody please give examples of when he says that Urban Fantasy is always about "Let's keep the magic secret, because if normal people find out about it there'll be mass hysteria"? I'm trying to think about books, movies or show that do it, and the only one that comes to mind is Gravity Falls. And yet, there's only one episode that has this theme: "Society of the Blind Eye". The rest of the show's story is actually about finding out who's the author of the journals and what the villains are actually planning, it's more of a mystery genre than anything. What James is saying here about Urban Fantasy doesn't really apply that heavily to Gravity Falls, just the one exception of the Blind Eye. So, are there shows or books that actually have the theme he mentions as the main plot?
Any book with a hidden world will have a 95% chance of having that. Gravity Falls is good, but not really Urban Fantasy, more other things I can't remember the names of right now.
@@100lovenana Well to name two that come to mind: Buffy the vampire slayer and Charmed both go with 'all magic hides from the masses' with assorted reasoning. The big issue with Urban Fantasy in general is that you have to either put a ton of work into why things look somewhat like the world outside your door despite magic being a thing, or use the excuses that it's in hiding or was gone until recently. Sometimes you get 'it got weak for a long time' like Shadowrun and Urban Arcana went with (both being Table Top RPG's, though Shadowrun is more cyberpunk than directly urban in it's setup) and have it's upswing in power be part of your plot.
Please please please read the Darksword Trilogy by Weiss and Hickman. They're my all-time favorite fantasy books. I don't even care if you make a video or not, I just think you'd enjoy them.
I like sci-fi better when its lowkey. The hard scifi sounds pretty daunting (that Matt Damon movie and the novel its based off might be the exception, from what I heard). Dune I didnt particularly enjoy. I dont know. Id have to really find the time and effort to read that stuff again, reminds me of reading yellow-paged 5 cent novels shoved into a large pile. It wasnt exactly a fun day when all Im left with is reading those.
i personally love cheesy sci fi but it is very hard to find stuff that is really what i am looking for? idk. but i also love fantasy. they both scratch different itches, i guess
idk I think there is a lot of variety in fantasy and sci fi than you give credit for here, but these books don't get as popular (less advertising is given to something that breaks the mold, it's easy to have a shiny stand in a book shop covered in dragons and swords with 'NEW: BOOK ABOUT THE HERO'S JOURNEY!' then a stand with 'NEW NOVEL ABOUT A GUY THAT DRINKS LIGHTNING OUT OF A ROCK TO WALK ON WALLS WHILE HE DEALS WITH DEPRESSION". I do fully agree that science fiction with fantasy elements and fantasy with science fiction elements are both good, science fantasy is my favourite genre, but I would go a step further and say writers benefit from reading beyond fantasy and sci fi - Tom Holt and Terry Pratchett combined fantasy with comedy, Marie Brennan, Naomi Novic and Susanna Collins combined fantasy with historical drama - I think combining fantasy and sci fi with other well loved genres can lead to really neat results!
Happy Thanksgiving, JT! I clicked on this hoping to god the SF novel I just wrote to pass the time passes muster, what with finishing it and all. Keep it up!
Most mainstream genres are even more repetitive than fantasy. Adult romance is just as unoriginal as YA, and I read books from more than three different authors of criminal thrillers and all the characters were THE SAME. Whats more mainstream usually starts suffering from unoriginality because everyone starts to use money-making formula.
Considering how much of pop culture riffs off of spec fic I really have to wonder how fantasy or sci fi aren't already there. There are supposedly tons of Lord of the Rings inspired works and their cliches have become a common touchstone for pop culture. Hell, the recent move towards dark fantasy seems to be an explicit rejection of said tropes, the idea being that they're too common and so authors need to deconstruct them in order to stand out and gain praise. It feels like "being mainstream" is so vague that just about any franchise could be said to have not reached it. Is Tullos only reading Literary Snobs are Us?
If you're looking for fantasy that doesn't follow the normal plot points, there's several I can recommend off the top of my head: The Goblin Emperor (political intrigue and a look at the effects of childhood abuse on an adult), Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (historical fantasy where magic actually has an impact on history), Rosemary and Rue (fantasy detectives), Every Heart a Doorway (the what-happens-next of children going on adventures in fantasy worlds then coming back)
All plots are basically just "someone wants something that is not easily acquired". Most fantasy gives this motive to its villain rather than its hero. Just swapping it around would be refreshing.
Has anybody read "The Goblin Emperor"? I've recently read it and loved it. I don't quite know which sub-genre it belongs to, though. Regarding memorable Sci-Fi characters: The only ones I could think of off the cuff are Ender Wiggin and Ijon Tichy. Question: What is the book with the ash blocking out the sky?
Have you read Legend of the galactic heroes?, it is really good. It is a political/military sci-fi. It does everything right from a world building perspektiv and its anime adaptation is considered one of the best anime ever made.
Not sure if the book would be classified as either science fiction or fantasy, but your complaint about "save the world plots" really resonates with me. The book series was tunnels by Rodrick Gordon and Brian Williams. It opened as a very fascinating mystery, but as the books progresses so did the scope of the plot and stakes, and finally, with the last book (that had mixed reception as well) pretty much escalated things dramatically to a save the world plot. It's one thing to have the protagonists discover things are much more dire than previously anticipated to up the stakes, but going all they way to "the world will end if the heroes don't win" is too big a jump. (Though given that particular ending, the world being "saved" is rather subjective here). It's hard to articulate, but feel like a lot of stories try to scope way too big. It's hard to appreciate the gravity of the situation if it doesn't have the proper build up.
Every time I hear the introduction song I rejoice at it being not too good and yet not too long...
Me too
Yep that intro never gets old
No joke, as soon as my brain had perceived the word "introduction" in some way, I started singing this in my head to the original tune.
Count Loonard When I first heard the first part it annoyed be but then I heard the second half and it won me over lol.
And yet, some people advocate for changing it. Wtf.
Urban fantasy is less about keeping magic secret to prevent war or chaos.
More like lets keep magic secret because if normal people find out about it then I'll have to write about a change in the status quo and the characters lives going in a new direction.
Urban fantasy is fantasy for lazy writers. Which is a shame, because the concept is cool as hell
@@ianbyrne465 If anything I'd say it's harder to write about magic and demons and stuff in modern times.
I both agree and disagree. In most urban fantasy there's usually a protector of some sort and there's different factions of superbeings many of which aren't benevolent.
I think a batter explanation is the: one monster can kill 10 people easy. The problem. There is aloooooooot of people. Pretty the WoD explanation. On vemp can kill 100 people. But there is only a few thousands of them and billions of people and heavy armaments is a thing..(this is why btw if someone reading this an awere of wod lore i dont like the ravnos antidluvain story
Fantasy doesn’t just cover middle earth-like worlds, it covers _literally everything that doesn’t exist_ there is endless opportunities and I don’t understand why people always go to the classic elves, dwarves, and dragons stuff (other than the fact that it’s cool as shit lmao)
@Jacob Wood Yes it technically does
@Jacob Wood There's a reason the umbrella term "speculative fiction" exists.
@Jacob Wood I would say there is a huge overlap and can even cover similar themes with differing explainations. Science can pretty much do what magic does with another take.
Only thing scifi seems to be far more is in dystopia, through look at adventure time, ita magical dystopia (through there is scifi)
Its not the same but overall as genre, they overlap a lot, the magic is science we cant do yet trope comes to my mind. If you go where it can go. Its explained different, by devices in scii, nano maschines, telepaths, espers... but you get , there is a lot of overlap in genres.
it's familiar, it's easy to sell to your reader because it's what they expect. It's easy to sell to a publisher because the publisher assumes it'll have more mass appeal... all of those are admittedly very bad reasons, but those are basically THE reasons. A big problem of fantasy and scifi is that both are perceived as selling to specific audiences, so the thought process is you have to be familiar to sell the the pre-existing audience.
That's not to say to can't be original, A song of ice and fire is a great example of how you can actually sell different to the existing audience, because it was truly an original spin on epic fantasy. But it's also an example of the mindset holding the genre back because now so many stories feel the need to shoehorn in gratuitous sex and violence because of the perception that modern audiences demand 'edgy'.
it gets even worse when you blur the line between fantasy and scifi because to a publisher, these are oil and water so who do they market it too. Even classics like Dune were rejected by all the major publishing houses because they had no idea what genre it was, it fell to some obscure fringe publisher looking to break into the fiction market for it to even see the light of day.
the modern state of both genres is in a weird place. You have some really great authors, but the big publishers only want the familiar and the serial, they discourage innovative because they can't afford to have it bomb. They're much more willing to just tell the authors of the books that fall into the grey areas to just self-publish online and let them assume all the risks, which is a double-edged sword for an author because it's really hard to find the gems in a sea of self-published mediocrity, and the author doesn't get exposed to the professional editors and literary agents as much (those people often don't get nearly enough credit), which can really help them polish their ideas.
@@petriew2018 Not only books too, thats the reason why series in season 1 that do have bigger woeldbuilding, are somewhat similar in season 1 and then in season 2 go wild. If i get that right. The publishers being the studio not wanting to take risks.
I guess there are some publishers who do but , good luck, i guess.
Also why star trek series only get really good after season 1 normally, no risks. Even avatar, and dragon prince do that, the darker series. Even person of interest that gets mad, and 12 monkeys, both has a relative tame season 1.
Didnt consider books having the same we want something new, but no risky please, territory, manga appearently too, why manga are actually very clisheed at the start.
Thats capitalism i guess. Not innovent, do something thats sure, because we company xy want profit.
science fiction may be a victim of it's own past successes in a lot of way. the 'Golden Age' stuff was all about ideas you couldn't tell traditionally in the modern world because people wouldn't listen, so the authors made their own worlds to sell their ideas. The characters were a secondary concern.
That was fine when the authors had really great ideas to talk about, but after the golden age waned the tropes remained, and now publishers just assume nobody wants character-driven science fiction. No matter how often this is proven wrong.
That right there is the price to pay in terms of marketing.
Thats not even remotely true. The New wave of science fiction addressed those concerns in the 60s and then you had decades of people since then. The problem now is science fiction has lost its wonder factor since we live in science fiction now and the ideas presented in fiction aren't interesting enough since the advancements happening today are moving so fast. It leaves those ideas as fairly plausible instead of the fantasy factor that scifi use to have. Instead the science fiction that gets popular now is broad subgenre stuff that had been established decades prior like alien invasion, dystopia, space opera, and cyberpunk. Science fiction in literature arguably hit its peak in the 70s and has been declining since.
@@putridsunrise192 As far as science fiction goes, the real problem is that it gained general acceptance. When it was viewed with disdain, it was a literature of ideas - But after things like _Star Wars,_ it gained widespread acceptance and was recognised as profitable. Since _Star Wars_ was marketed as science fiction (while not being science fiction), that acceptance included a loss of the distinction between the two genres and suddenly everyone and their cousin Fredo was writing "science fiction". To this day, the market is flooded with half-assed fantasy, marketed as science fiction, written by people who wouldn't know a positron from a matron
@@_XR40_
I think the key point I that SF is about ideas and the characters are subordinate to them.
Still there are interesting characters even in Golden Age SF:
Gully Foyle, The Mule, Victor Trenchard, the self - doubting heroes of Jack Vance.
I'm sure others can think of other examples.
@@alanpennie8013 Traditionally, ideas and concepts were definitely central to SF. Much "hard" SF was strictly devoted to problem-solving within the story (something it had in common with traditional mystery-fiction). Then there was the social/scientific extrapolation subgenre. There were many cases where characters were memorable, but that was always a _bonus_ - An "extra" on top of the story...
“Oh we’re already recording”
I’ve had that problem way to many times haha.
lol same, i feel like i never know when i’m recording.
"Even Classics in Sci-Fi, do you remember much about the characters at all?"
* Starts crying thinking about Charlie from Flower for Algernon *
God, the ending to that story is absolutely devastating. Actually depressing.
i think the reaseon why some people don't read other genres but they favorites is because of lack of interest rather than hate most of the time
It really is personal preference, there are genres I personally don't like at all like romance, drama, murder mysteries, dystopias. But I don't have anything against them, I'm glad that they exist and that people enjoy them. I doubt anyone has ever said that they hate a genre SO MUCH to the point of wishing it didn't exist, that's just exaggerating
For me, it's because I am short of money to buy books. And personal preference.
Honestly most hobbies are 'niche' until one gains mass market appeal, even original things are niche (even more likely to be i fear) mostly due to humans being humans and liking different things.
Foundation wasn't really about characters though. With the kind of timespan the series has, it couldn't be. Even so, the second and third books have some memorable/more developed characters like the Mule or Arcadia Darell.
Also, if you want stuff that you can "connect" with emotionally, maybe try reading Vonnegut. The Sirens of Titan is not only wonderfully weird old school sci-fi, it's one of the most profoundly moving books I've ever read. Also, I'd recommend Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions. Contact by Carl Sagan is an amazing read, too. You could also try authors whose works have elements of sci-fi, everything from 1984 and Brave New World to Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow or Against the Day.
Salvor Hardin is actually one of my favourite characters in literature, probably because what he did not what he is as a character.
That madlad basically toppled a kingdom without firing a shot while being held captive.
"it's like LOTR but worse, so why would I read it?"
"it's like Call of Duty 4, but worse, so why would I play it?"
"It's like A New Hope, but worse, so why would I watch it?"
For those who are wondering how this comment got here, idk their probly a patron
@@goosle I was wondering that
“Cough force awakens sucks cough”
@@luckykennedy7364 didn't stop people from watching it.
i mean, it's not that hard to be better than CoD imo
Just to add my little nugget of thought: I think people write about and like best what resembles most their inner perspective and current struggles. And people differ quite in where they put their focus on. Some typologies call this a character bound thing. So I've noticed some focus on the relationship side of a story (by tendency females), some focus on the issue, the fight, solving a problem (by tendency males), some like jokes with their stories to make it feel lighter and some love the horror, to heighten the tension. Some like to write about emotions, others about thoughts and concepts. So as much as I agree with your observation, I'm also asking myself, if it is even possible to come to a satifactory combination of all elements for all. Maybe it's best if you try to express your personal view to the best of your abilites. And yes, science fiction writers could improve their character description and it would be a better book for all. But I've noticed that science fiction readers don't even put that much emphasis on this as long as the core why they reach for a scifi novel is satisfied. But mind, I'm not suggesting to stop stretching to reach a higher level of craft - I'm just wondering if basically the inherent writing style has its sense - at least for people similar to the author, and in consequence this puts on some limits for the writing. I just know from myself, it's one thing to want to write what would be the best story for all kind of people and a completely different thing what you actually feel the need to write a whole novel about. This passion can't be steered as easily as we often wish for.
Would love to hear your thoughts on this, as I appreciate and resonate with your critiques - but I know, this is an old video ;)
a good urban fantasy series that breaks from the secrecy trope is the hollows
A cool urban fantasy magic thing would be magic was just discovered
Ideas. Medieval stuff: polearms are better actually. Farmboy forced to go to war gets lucky, or not, because j think killing knights is poor etiquette. Or maybe he kills a not very known sir that is an ally, panics. Steals his armor and pretends to be him. Takes out his entourage too. Now is a knight. Zombies: you are in a zoo. Gorilla, tiger, or zombie? The tiger you freed chases a guy that thought stealing a mtb just saved him from the zombies.
This kinda makes me wonder what the story I'm writing. It's basically 4 amateur wizards of a two-week-long hunt of monsters in a fishing town. The country it's in, Aldermire, is pretty north of most places, so they have polar nights like real-world places (Alaska, Canada, Norway, etc). That being said, I think it's more horror/thriller than fantasy, but this video helps in thinking of how some people view the fantasy genre and might possibly view the book if I somehow ever finish and publish the thing.
One of the things I've felt is misunderstood about Sci-fi and Fantasy is that they're modifiers to the base genre. In your case that'd be Horror/Thriller. There isn't a ton of difference between a few hunters fleeing a looming monstrous threat with guns in hand and a few mages fleeing a looming monstrous threat clutching their regents. As long as you show us what their abilities are, what their limits are, and stick to the rules? It's just as efficient for them to be using anything as anything else. What we're going to care about is the four characters, their interactions/relationships and the perils they face. Especially how they face up to and either overcome or are overtaken by the threat they're facing. Laser weapons, divinely bound spirits, alchemical steel or buckshot, tools are tools. It's usually the people using them (and their consistency) that matters, especially when the threat is an unknown to both the characters and the reader. Some really great short stories have come out of Out Of Context problems like that.
@@wren1024 Well, I do kinda have an unfinished prototype up on my wattpad account. It's the same concept of a night hunt but it's in a different town and completely different characters as well. If you can deal with an accidentally whiny main character, go right ahead. It's called "All The Lost Days" by Cendrillon_87.
Before I watch the video through I have to address the main point: I completely disagree that un-originality is keeping scifi/fantasy out of the mainstream. Almost every mainstream popular thriller, mystery or romance has been almost identical for decades straight. It's an even bigger problem in the mainstream, and sure it is a separate scifi/fantasy issue but it's easily not at all the main mainstream issue by a very very long shot
3:43 how about a bureaucrat that just really hates his job so he doing it very poorly.
4:20 To be fair, The Other was intended/written by GRRM as the ultimate threat from the beginning of the first book. The problem is that he couldn't get to that part of the story, so most people, even fans, remember the books as Political Low Fantasy because that's what they have read/are reading (writing the prequels, which are even more Low Fantasy, only reinforced this), and when the show tried to advance the storyline, they messed it up so hard that people prefer to have their Stark vs Lannister feud over the Other invading.
James: "in order to save sci-fi and fantasy, you have to combine them."
me: "nooooooooo, stop revealing my master plan!!!!"
P.S. I will use this comment as proof you can't sue me for stealing your idea after I make my first billion of my book.
you do know that science fantasy is an established genre, though? hate to break it to you, but n.k. jemisin already won all the hugos for it :)
Hahaha I thought the same thing...what kind of book are you writing btw? Been working on my first novel for a few years now
@@IzadoraKatarina no, never heard of it, doesn't exist
@@gao1812 it's basically a middle-grade science fantasy about the very near future, you know, hidden magical world, but it's in space
Warhammer 40k is the perfect example of space fantasy
You have a lot of good points, and by and large, you're right. I try to push the envelope when I can in my writing, but I usually still start out with the status quo. My first Urban Fantasy novel, Bad Luck, follows the same standard formula, more or less. But my goal of the series is for the "secret" of the supernatural (fantasy) stuff is going to get out and then the series will evolve into something different. What I like about your videos is that it gets me thinking as a writer, and I value that. So, keep up with videos like this one. I find them incredibly useful!
A bit of advice from Tolken I think worth considering for you Brad Younie. "Start with the interesting part of the story." (paraphrased) if the idea is 'set up a status quo, then the interesting thing is how it breaks down and develops' keeping the status quo in place for a short time is a good idea. 1/3-1/2 a book for example if you intend to write at least two to three books worth of arc. If your doing a single novel, I'd suggest opening with the status quo just having broken and show the way things were in bits to contrast or even later on. (as in, chronological order would be 2-1-3 series of events)
I think the reason saving the world is a plot that gets used a lot is because of the stakes. Common writing advice is to have high stakes, which isn't bad advice. If the focus is saving the world I don't feel any tension because we usually don't get to see the rest of the world. The world outside of the characters feels like empty space. I'm always much more invested when the stakes are personal.
"How many characters do you remember from Foundation?"
-Hari Seldon
-Salvor Hardin
-King Lepold
-Duke Wienis, Regent of Anacreon
-Hober Mallow
-Emperor Cleon II
-Bel Riose
-the Mule
-Ebling Mies
-Arcady Darell
And I haven't read the books in over 7 years.
Farscape, Deep Space Nine, Babylon 5, and Firefly are good examples of Sci Fi having a good cast.
But those are TV shows not books, so his point still stands. Although I think we'd all agree that books could stand to be more like them.
Star trek too(and yes its still scifi, not hard scifi, but scifi) , also 12 monkeys the series, its brilliant, and person of interest starts tropey but it gets amazing, with strong scifi elements, the AI "the maschine" who becomes amazing. And the show minority report cast is amazing.(shame it got cancelled)
And star treks strengh is, they have usually a great cast or at least some characters from the cast really fleshed out. Even voyager thats honestly just voyager, great cast.
Not forgetting DS9
@@totallynotjeff7748 Ah, but there are a number of Star Trek novels, some of them written by the actors themselves. They range from the okay to the actually pretty good. Probably not for most non-Trek fans, though.
@Luke Paci Damar did nothing wrong.
DS9 so much! There literally is not a single badly-developed major character in it. All characters, even the comic relief or villainous ones get actual depth.
DS9 is really something all sci-fi authors could take inspiration from, both in terms of worldbuilding and characters.
Solution: just be Ursula K. Le Guin
@o_o People who employ this tactic enjoy 100% success rate in fact
My fantasy setting is Diesel Punk as the current timeline is set during their equivalent aesthically and technologically of the 1940s but it's Fantasy with a strict materialist (so no souls or gods, the closest is Lovecraftian Eldritch Abominations and magic has a pseudo scientific reason for it) I'm really enjoying writing stories set in it. Their tech also slowly progresses so I can have stories set in their medieval age and even earlier so it's the best of all worlds lol.
Basically, be like the Discworld series. (I love Terry Pratchett)
:)
Iain Banks' Culture series has some great, psychologically deep characters as well as great worldbuilding.
yes, a 1000 times this!
@@gawkthimm6030
Hmm.
They're serviceable I suppose.
I don't think this is because of lord of the rings necessarily. High fantasy/epic fantasy mostly gets its ideas from mythology. Mythology is mostly about the fight between the good and the evil, and that is reflected in the characters as well. That's true about almost all epic fantasies. It is very difficult (if not impossible) to have a high fantasy where the characters are not facing some sort of evil overlord in some shape or form.
I've always thought of "high fantasy" referring to "high" morals. Ultimate good vs. utter evil, and such a set up naturally leads to a save the world plot. After all if the sides epitomize good and evil, then why would they limit themselves when they can expand. The evil side would utterly hate goodness and so want to wipe it out everywhere. I suppose you could have evil with more sloth to it, but that rather undermines the sense of it being "ultimate". After all, if the evil is just a cult in a backwoods village, most people can just not go there and ignore it.
@@adams13245 Agreed. People usually read high fantasy not just to see the evil being defeated, or in dark high fantasy prevail. It is clear that the story goes one way or the other, but it's the journey that counts and the readers want to see how and at what cost this happens. This sort of anticipation is only achieved when the stakes are high, ergo the fight to save the world comes to play. I wouldn't assume people would read thousands and thousands of pages of books if there wasn't a strong hook like that to carry the story.
@@pegah_di
I think another thing to keep in mind is that dark fantasy isn't some tiny subgenre. In my experience a lot of dark fantasy works seem to think they're still the underfunded plucky (or not) rebels and haven't made it mainstream. It's been more than a decade since Martin got popular, and I'm getting sick of every dark fantasy work acting as though it automatically has deep mature themes.
@@pegah_di
I think another thing to keep in mind is that dark fantasy isn't some tiny subgenre. In my experience a lot of dark fantasy works seem to think they're still the underfunded plucky (or not) rebels and haven't made it mainstream. It's been more than a decade since Martin got popular, and I'm getting sick of every dark fantasy work acting as though it automatically has deep mature themes.
I don't believe this is true at all.
Which of the Greek heroes fought evil, or were good themselves?
Achilles?
Jason?
Theseus?
Star Wars is more fantasy than science-fiction, change my mind
I think many call it Space Fantasy or Space operar, which was a highly charged negative term in the old pulp magazine days
Wrong - It's all fantasy
@@gawkthimm6030 In fact, in the "old pulp magazine days", even space-opera had to be scientifically plausible. It wouldn't be published if you didn't know what a parsec was - Or the difference between a robot and an android...
Why would we?
It's Dune for the masses.
And Tullos has already called Dune largely fantasy.
@@alanpennie8013 "...Tullos has already..." Not to be contentious, but I feel compelled to ask: Who the hell is Tullos, and why should we care?
Kinda silly to say that lack of originality is a problem with science-fiction and fantasy. It's a problem with *_all_* fiction, but far _less of a problem_ in fantasy and science-fiction. As far as fantasy being more popular than science-fiction, this is because fantasy tends to be basic adventure-stories (occasionally character-driven), whereas traditionally, science fiction is more oriented toward extrapolation and problem solving (Even has to follow rules of plausibility to qualify for the genre) The characters are usually less important to the story.
Fantasy is not only easier to read, it's easier to write - You can literally pull every aspect of a fantasy world out of your butt, and the reader will accept it for the sake of the adventure. You can't do that with science fiction. Older science fiction readers, at least, expect logic and consistency with reality.
Not that I expect anyone to have read Fritz Leiber's _Silver Eggheads,_ but most people want "wordwooze". They want to be able to turn off their minds while reading, just like they do when watching television. The reason fantasy is more popular than science fiction is the same reason romance novels outsell mysteries -- And your "solution" is pretty much the same as saying that mystery novels should have more romance in them
I've noticed that sci fi prose tends to be much more modern while fantasy tends to take its writing style from epic poetry and older genres. Idk if that's what u were thinking about
I think the issues listed here with Fantasy are why I took such a liking to Magical Realism. No keeping the magic world secret, no dark lords, no saving the world, and a bunch of settings like Colombia and India that you rarely see in Fantasy
Have you heard about The Locked Thomb triology? It's a really unique Science Fantasy Mystery Horror book series. The second book is a complete mindfuck.
Although as much as I love it I must warn everybody that it has pretty much _all_ the trigger warnings...
7:37 Yes, I actually do. I remember and love all squadmates and major people from the Mass Effect trilogy. Besides a fking amazing story, Mass Effect (especially ME2 and 3) spends a lot of time making the people and places feel like actual people and places. Wrex and Grunt are both Krogan, but they are radically different people. Liara, Samara and Aria are all Asari, but again: completely different people. Now that I think about it, Mass Effect might very well be so amazing because it combines scifi and fantasy... Interesting
Btw, I think we can concider Mass Effect a classic by now.
Honestly, most "sci fi" is only loosely scientific... mainly because space is really weird. For example, in a space battle, the vast majority of times you wouldn't be able to see an opposing ship in combat, even as a dot. That's because space is really, really big and empty, so any spaceship battles would happen way beyond sight range. Also, odds are by the time we get to Mars we'll have drones to do the fighting for us, or everyone will be augmented, never mind Alpha Centauri. The former involves the difficult task of either trying to make dumb drones likeable, or somehow having human characters who aren't actually in danger feel like they're in danger. The latter would need the writers to look at how augmentations would work, a lot of which would probably be about controlling the aforementioned drones, which would be really hard to get across, not to mention the above problems. Hard sci fi is really hard to write for the general audience, unless it's set close to our time, since technology and space will radically change our society and how we do things.
The reason I like Sci-fi is precisely your reason of criticism: It has barely any character focused story and prose and focuses on building an interesting world and exploring certain hypothetical situations/philosophies.
This might sound weird as I'm subscribed to you but I have a hard time getting into stories if they go too deep into prose sections or character development/interpersonal relationships. I just end up zoning out. You probably had it before where you read pages but at the same time get lost in your thought and 5-6 pages along you notice that you have no idea what you just read since you were thinking over your reading.
The reason why I enjoy your fantasy book reviews is because you usually give a good brief synopsis of the world and setting so that I can kinda appreciate the originality of those works without actually having to torture myself getting through the prose and character interactions.
So I actually don't think science fiction fans are "pretentious assholes". We're most likely the opposite, emotionally stunted simpletons or people on the autism spectrum that can't really relate through prose/character interactions.
Great content, my man. May the force be with you whilst you live long and prosper.
What you said about them reading distinctively in their prose I think I got it. It's the techniques they use. Fantasy authors have really embraced changed narrative focality and river structure but otherwise go for a more conservative style of prose and structure, while fantasy authors really go for novel structure and prose techniques, but otherwise have usually very simple focality (usually first person or third person omniscient). Which goes in hand with what you said. Mixed focality is optimal for exploring different characters and how they think and act, it really gets you on the mind of different characters. Strange structures and prose are really good for exploring big themes, think how without the weird story structure of Story of your Life structure is uniquely suited for exploring the themes of time and language.or how the weird prose in manyof the New Wavers made their ideas about perception shine.
It's actually REALLY hard if not all but impossible to publish Tolkien style fantasy with elves and dwarves in it these days. I know because I once shopped around a manuscript with (re-imagined, non-Tolkienesque) elves and dwarves in it and publishers wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. My agent flat-out said "I don't think anyone wants to read something with Elves in it" and basically made it clear that she thought I was wasting my time, and never mind if the book was any good.
I agree with your complaint that epic fantasy always heads for the "save the world" stuff and how that trickles into every other fantasy story. Not that I hate it when people save the world, but just that they better be pretty interesting for me to deal with that plot again and again.
Not to mention that very few authors even think about how saving the world requires much more than just defeating one group/one evil guy...
You should really review the Three Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth's Past) trilogy. It is the most unique and grand sci-fi story I ever read, and I'd love to hear your opinion on it
And I also think it manages to dodge almost all of your criticisms of sci-fi as a genre. Many of the characters, especially Ye Wenje and Shi Qiang are extraordinarily memorable. Luo Ji's growth as a character through book two to book three, and the symbolic nature of Cheng Xin's character arc are amazing. The dual vector foil attack will never leave my mind, so many of the concepts walk the line between hard and soft sci-fi with a ballet dancer's balance. The places this series will take you are simply mind blowing.
It would be interesting to compare it with The Expanse series.
I've actually had a good time reading the Illuminae series its filled my sci fi vibe I've been in. I think something phenomenal needs to be written for the science fiction genre to be reinvigorated.
Originality is big fr, we need to think beyond medieval Europe. There are whole continents and mythologies filled with untapped potential. Fore example, I'm exploring a whole new Caribbean sci-fi/fantasy world in a short story collection.
My favorite writing technique for making an original story/setting is to mix genres you love that don't usually go together. You like LotR? You like Cyberpunk? BOOM! Now you've got a gritty detective noir with corporate overlord dwarves and drugged up goblins!
"Saving the world 1000 times later" by Raycevick is a pretty good video on the subject.
The disc world has very good original plots that are self contained
I sometimes feel like it's the bad things of these genres that allow for the good things... kind of? Like writing a familiar plot line allows you to make your characters stand out, because all the focus is on them, what they feel or what they'll do next. We all KNOW the plot - The Big Bad Guy is going down through the power of love and good magic or whatever. On the other hand, an in-depth plot often means so much time spent there that the characters fall to the side, because they're pushing the plot forward. Now I'm not saying this is Always the case, because it isn't, and I've read good scifi and fantasy that balance both, but for a lot of the works in both genres it seems to be it
also great video as always! it's always fun to hear your thoughts
that hair + those jammies = comfy af
i think youre right about the plot + settings being cookie cutter stuff that makes readers think "why read a shittier version of something ive read before?" case in point the first thing that comes to mind when dealing with fantasy is Medieval Europe + Magic which is just shitty LotR which is why YA + Urban Fantasy Harry Potter was such a hit imho. Its why the genre needs to interbreed with others to get fantasy thrillers and fantasy bildungsroman and fantasy erotica and fantasy mystery and shit. Once all that cross pollination happens only the fittest will survive. oh shit did i just go full ancap and pretend the market will solve things? ugh ignore all this then
I allways love when I do things right. I try to not fall into any negative tropes. Only 1-2 of my fantasy stories are about world saving. Many are more personal, like some guy hear about some fancy item so he spend a lot of time finding it so he can get rich.
I've grown a bit tired of fantasy novels that revolve around saving the kingdom/world/astral plane. Glad to see there are people out there bringing it back to a more contained story.
The point about sci-fi usually not having memorable characters reminded me just how amazingly Homeworld (an RTS game from 1999) nailed that part. Even though it has very few of them (and almost no dialogue) all the characters are very distinct and interesting.
I love it when you break down cliches and tropes.
this video is exactly what I have been saying for years, this is the first time I heard someone else say it, I know exactly what you mean and 100% agree.
If we took the characters of fantasy and the worldbuilding and ideas of sci-fi, we could get something truly great. It's why Star Wars is the only sci-fi that's in the mainstream, and why Dune is to this day the bestselling sci-fi book of all time.
ok, I'm done this is the last comment.
If you don't count the fact that Star Wars _isn't_ science-fiction, but fantasy...
So Star Trek is not "mainstream." Despite the fan conventions, despite the way elements of it have spread through pop culture and become known separate from the show itself. What exactly counts as mainstream anyway? Cause it seems like the definition is so vague, just about anything could be said to be "non mainstream". Is it the amount of revenue it makes? The amount of people who buy works set in the universe? Harry Potter made Rowling rich, Lord of the Rings is a media juggernaut, A Song of Ice and Fire is critically loved. Are these not mainstream, as you seem to be saying?
One thing I've noticed about fantasy is the inability to just have a chill story. like in a modern setting we are perfectly comfortable with having stories about ordinary things like work, romance, school ect but in fantasy world there has to be a bad guy. Even in fantasy romance novels there is usually a villain. We clearly have many ways to do conflict that are much more relatable to human beings so the fact literal conflict is the one that gets picked a lot is kind of annoying. Take harry potter for example jk Rowling made a world that, whilst not being the most well thought out, it was a delight to read about but I really couldn't care less about Voldemort. My favourite parts of the books were always the times they spent in school. In fact I would have much rather the stories were about kids struggling in a magic school. Having to deal with bullying for Muggle parents or the very real fact that some kids are literally 11 years behind in terms of magic knowledge. Thats a much more compelling and relatable story for me than "we fight bad guy who is just evil for the sake of it"
I think you should track down the fantasy stories of Tanith Lee.
They might appeal to you.
I agree, though I will say I sometimes enjoy consuming inferior books that take after the ideas of books or stories that I enjoy. Same applies to even stuff like games or food.
Ten steps ahead of you, James. I'm in the process of publishing my first book, which is part of a sci-fi series, but almost all of my top literary influences are famous for fantasy: J.R.R. Tolkien (that's a given), Christopher Paolini, George R.R. Martin, C.S. Lewis, Brian Jacques, and Homer (the poet, not the Simpson). I know C.S. Lewis falls into a bit a grey area, because it's often debated which was he more famous for the Narnia series or his apologetics works like Mere Christianity? But suffice to say both of those categories overshadowed Lewis' Space Trilogy. Tad Williams often said that sometimes it's good to read outside whichever genre you're currently writing. I would add to Tad's thoughts to also read outside the age range you're dealing with. Like if you're writing YA, feel free to read adult or MG, etc.
That was very interesting! I think the shortage of interesting characters in scifi only happens in books, because in the scifi-tvshows ihe watched there are lots of interesting cool characters (particularly in DS9). I think there are to books that I can recommend for being very original. For fantasy there's night watch, an urban fantasy series by serey lukyanenko iirc, and for scifi there's Qualityland which is often described as a "funny dystopia". And it's really good, it would be amazing if you could reviewed it.
I think you would enjoy the Dagger & Coin books by Daniel Abraham (one half of The Expanse authors). It's not paradigm altering, but it does go against some of the issues you present in this video. The prose is very similar to The Expanse, so it benefits for an equally mechanical and descriptive sort of language, and looks at a fantasy world from a really interesting and unique angle. It's essentially like "what if fantasy, but it's about medieval banking and a religion that worships a giant, truth-telling spider that thrives on ideological extremism?"
Anyway, great video as usual!
I'm really into the floating island aesthetic, and I think it's pretty common, but honestly I've been looking and I really can't find much in that family of settings. Edge Chronicles, arguably, and The Big Empty, are ones I've got, but what other ones exist that I'm not finding? Bonus points for ones which go explicitly steampunky about it...
9:30
"The Expanse is fucking amazing!"
Here, you've made yourself a new subscriber.
One of the best progression/cultivation fantasy series I have ever read is the Cradle series and is probably my favorite fantasy setting of all time. I would recommend it to anyone who likes cultivation stories. Its world is just so unique I could spend hours (and i have) discussing the world of cradle.
i think that you're right saying that fantasy wold be better if stories were focused more on smaller events than ''the end of the world'', sometimes reading fantasy stories you come across some realy cool people who have a better background story than the main plot of the novel. A great book that focus on this is dan simmons hyperion, the smaller stories of the characters are far more interesting than the travel they make.
sf and f are essentially the same genre with different core ideas. most people who assume sf is inherently looking to the future while f looks to the past is missing the speculative aspect of both genres. i think sff in its whole is thinking about things that do not exist, whether it be magic we dream had or the scientific advancements we wish we could access. i just love sff :)
Science Fiction and Western basically are different genres with the same core ideas.
Even ignoring more literal examples like Brave Starr, Trigun or Firefly, both are basically about being at the frontier.
@@schwarzerritter5724 yep!
@@schwarzerritter5724
Arguably American SF is the successor to The Western.
This channel is helping me with writing so much
Why not applied some physics to your science fiction/fantasy? For example Mass Effect did a great job in that, and that in what I based my space travel system, in the local clusters I use hyperspace because the gravity pull in the local cluster (I not use Warp, because the concept is to ridiculous even for fantasy, your ship would be torn apart from the speed), hyperspace you bend the space around the ship, not the ship travel faster than light, and to travel to other parts of the galaxy I use artificial wormholes created by an ancient alien race prior any of the alien species empires establish themselves in the galaxy (apart of the Lovecraftian horrors waiting in the darkness of the galaxy).
I think an anwesome example of original fantasy books are The rivers of London from Ben Aaronovitch or especially the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik, which is quite realistic depiction of the war against Napoleon Bonapartes evil empire, just a litte spiced up with dragons. Highly recomend. (and sorry for my english)
video: and the solution is putting fantasy and sci-fi together!
me, a writer who wants to make fantasy/sci-fi hybrid stories: :O
'Me, a writer' yeah ... Everyone is a writer now...
@mincarousel I love that idea!
@@balrajsingh1492 dont u have anything better to do
That solution has been in effect since _Star Wars_ came out, and really is the problem in itself. The fact is that the overwhelming majority of people don't even know the difference between the two - And that includes _most of the people writing it_ these days. Ever since _Star Wars_ showed that it could be profitable, the market has been flooded with fantasy, marketed as science fiction, written by people who literally couldn't tell the difference between a robot and an android....
If any of you loved the Expanse I highly recommend "Legend of the Galactic Heroes". It is similar to the Expanse in many ways, but it focuses much more on the high level political intrigue.
The quality and quantity of memorable characters is astonishing to be honest. At one moment I realized that I kinda care about every single admiral of the evil overlord. They all *feel* like real people, and I want to know what happens to them. Which is strange.
AND, if you're too lazy to read the books you can watch the anime, it's real good too!
I don't know, I usually don't watch science fiction without aliens
While I read exclusively Fantasy and read only 1 sci fi series Red Rising Saga (first 3 books) I agree. I like ot a lot more to see a plot where it hasn't to be the chosen one saving the whole world from the evilest of p
Overlords.
That's what I liked about red rising; the overlords are still humans and it's not about saving the world but about a revolution of the lower classes against a highly oppressive upper class who barely sees their lower classes as humans
Elantris is good in that way. I felt similar about the emperor's soul and the way magic was used was cool.
I once read somewhere that the plot basically needs to involve saving* the world or it won't count as _Epic_ Fantasy.
*or not saving but the world needs to be at stake
Yep.
It's a very severe constraint.
Since I'm writing a fantasy/adventure book that's not about saving the world or something, this felt really assuring.
That’s why I love the Vlad Taltos series. It’s just about a human assassin in an empire of Dragaerans. As far as I have read there is no evil lord that must be stopped to save the world, just political intrigue and competition between crime bosses.
Yo can I recommend the series the mage hand of Mars (or something like that I can’t remember the title at the moment) written by Glynn Stewart. it’s genuinely very fun to read and see what happens when you much magic and sci fi in an actual somewhat realistic way. Highly recommend the series for any who can get there hands on it.
Minucia, like "how to actually write prose"
Lol!
People "know" about Lord Of The Rings and Harry Potter? Aren't those some of the most successful books ever?
Or maybe by that you meant that the genre has not broken into the mainstream despite the success of a few books that belong in it.
Have you read any combinations of sci-fi and fantasy? Like the Pern Novels by Anne McCaffrey? Sci-fi fantasy combinations are not common, but they are enjoyable in a unique way.
Also, everyone who reads sci-fi does so for different reasons. Some are more in to the 'heavy' science fiction, some are in it for tech and/or space settings and don't care so much for story, some are more in it for the ideas and possibilities portrayed in the future, or into other worlds and some watch it for philosophical reasons. The latter I feel sci-fi does exclusively as it can portray aspects of the human condition in ways fantasy and other genres cannot, plus it is designed in its very nature to be a 'speculative' genre, a 'what if' genre that puts forward possibilities that are believable, fantasy is not supposed to have any real world grounding and is more about entertainment. Science fiction only gains mainstream audiences when it loses some of its science and philosophy core as the mainstream audiences don't necessarily like to have accepted thoughts questioned or to have to understand scientific principles and only want to be entertained. This is why Star Wars is more popular than Star Trek (old trek, the modern iterations swap out nuanced writing in favour of drama and pew pew).
Also, on the character/story balance it is very true that sci-fi (particularly classic sci-fi) has it's characters as pawns to make the story move forward with little in the way of real development. This isn't always a genre-related thing as stories across all genres will either weigh their stories more towards the characters or towards the plot. The more that is happening, the less the characters will get time to develop. Even in LOTR, we don't really know the characters very well as people compared to the characters in GoT because LOTR is story-lead and GoT is character led (which is why S8 failed so hard because they tried to switch it to story led but the characters didn't fit and they didn't give them time to logically get to the end they wanted).
The challenge of modern sci-fi is to balance up 'what if' scenarios with compelling characters so you it can be both thought-provoking and entertaining. Star Trek: The Next Generation got close with this, but had to sacrifice the depth of some characters in order for the story to take centre stage as each episode was designed to be a morality play. DS9 went so character heavy that the philosophical side mostly got lost. The Expanse is probably the best balance I can think of, and while it is more political, it has a good story-to-character ratio, with more science focus and even a bit of philosophy in there. So far, it has been the best at getting these elements to line up well, but even that won't necessarily get it to become mainstream.
Honestly, this is another reason why I highly recommend people to read the Six of Crows duology. The series isn't a "save the world" plot, but just about a group of thieves, who are forced to work together to break into a prison to grab the guy with the secret to creating fantasy crack. It's more like Oceans 11 set in a fantasy universe than Lord of the Rings. The plot is rather refreshing in that regard. Plus, the characters are great and it has some quotable lines in it.
Lol I only read sci-fi and fantasy because I wanna explore other worlds. Ours is scary to think too hard about.
Also Has anyone else read The Dragon Riders of Pern books?
My mom got me into them and I have t seen anyone talk about them. They are as sci-fantasy and Anne Mcaffery is a gem.
When Threads are in the sky,
Dragon men must fly.
I agree with most of the discussion, but the point about sci-fi and fantasy not being mainstream for lack of originality doesn't make sense to me. Unoriginality is a staple of mainstream media. Romance isn't incredibly popular because it's groundbreaking; people like stuff that's familiar to them.
I don't see where he's getting this idea that Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Star Trek are not mainstream. Can he at least outline what makes those franchises different and why they can be pop culture icons, but somehow have no impact on their respective genres being mainstream? He just seems to assume that speculative fiction is still looked down upon, with no evidence to back it up.
@@adams13245 well to be fair he did say that he was talking about the literary medium, not movies, comics or TV shows. I can't say I have evidence, but for what I can observe speculative fiction is still very niche among readers (with the exception of dystopias, as James pointed out)
Actually now that I think about it, ASoIaF and Throne of Glass' series are very obvious examples of popular fantasy franchises. I don't know many sci fi works, but fantasy does seem to be gaining more popularity over the years.
This man has got no right being this cute
I've read a bunch of Dan Simmons and I remember two characters by name: Fedhman Kassad from Endymion and Noman from Olympos (but Noman is Odysseus so I don't even count it). Amazing books tho
Thanks for the tip, I read fantasy, write fantasy, but don't read science fiction. Maybe I should pick something up. I wish adult fantasy and YA fantasy could learn from each other, too.
I think some spice in your reading diet is worth a shot. You'd be surprised how much the solder psychology in something like Starship Troopers applies to soldiers in any setting.
Completely agree about The Expanse!
Really stoked for book 9!
After I've watched the video, even though I disagree with your main/initial point I think your criticism of current fantasy and scifi and your conclusions about how we might be able to change things is absolutely spot on. Things have become arbitrarily separated based on whether they're more 'castley' or 'spacey' when really we could all do with learning from each others strengths
I just found your channel and I love your work! Giving a comment to help you boost the algorithm.
Can anybody please give examples of when he says that Urban Fantasy is always about "Let's keep the magic secret, because if normal people find out about it there'll be mass hysteria"?
I'm trying to think about books, movies or show that do it, and the only one that comes to mind is Gravity Falls. And yet, there's only one episode that has this theme: "Society of the Blind Eye". The rest of the show's story is actually about finding out who's the author of the journals and what the villains are actually planning, it's more of a mystery genre than anything. What James is saying here about Urban Fantasy doesn't really apply that heavily to Gravity Falls, just the one exception of the Blind Eye.
So, are there shows or books that actually have the theme he mentions as the main plot?
Any book with a hidden world will have a 95% chance of having that. Gravity Falls is good, but not really Urban Fantasy, more other things I can't remember the names of right now.
@@andrewdiaz3529 Alright, but can you give some actual examples? Whether they're books, tv shows or movies?
@@100lovenana Well to name two that come to mind: Buffy the vampire slayer and Charmed both go with 'all magic hides from the masses' with assorted reasoning. The big issue with Urban Fantasy in general is that you have to either put a ton of work into why things look somewhat like the world outside your door despite magic being a thing, or use the excuses that it's in hiding or was gone until recently. Sometimes you get 'it got weak for a long time' like Shadowrun and Urban Arcana went with (both being Table Top RPG's, though Shadowrun is more cyberpunk than directly urban in it's setup) and have it's upswing in power be part of your plot.
Please please please read the Darksword Trilogy by Weiss and Hickman. They're my all-time favorite fantasy books. I don't even care if you make a video or not, I just think you'd enjoy them.
Please do a a review on the audio drama sojourn by the RUclipsr spacedock
I like sci-fi better when its lowkey. The hard scifi sounds pretty daunting (that Matt Damon movie and the novel its based off might be the exception, from what I heard).
Dune I didnt particularly enjoy. I dont know. Id have to really find the time and effort to read that stuff again, reminds me of reading yellow-paged 5 cent novels shoved into a large pile. It wasnt exactly a fun day when all Im left with is reading those.
vorkosigan saga is one scifi series I've read for amazing characters
i personally love cheesy sci fi but it is very hard to find stuff that is really what i am looking for? idk. but i also love fantasy. they both scratch different itches, i guess
idk I think there is a lot of variety in fantasy and sci fi than you give credit for here, but these books don't get as popular (less advertising is given to something that breaks the mold, it's easy to have a shiny stand in a book shop covered in dragons and swords with 'NEW: BOOK ABOUT THE HERO'S JOURNEY!' then a stand with 'NEW NOVEL ABOUT A GUY THAT DRINKS LIGHTNING OUT OF A ROCK TO WALK ON WALLS WHILE HE DEALS WITH DEPRESSION".
I do fully agree that science fiction with fantasy elements and fantasy with science fiction elements are both good, science fantasy is my favourite genre, but I would go a step further and say writers benefit from reading beyond fantasy and sci fi - Tom Holt and Terry Pratchett combined fantasy with comedy, Marie Brennan, Naomi Novic and Susanna Collins combined fantasy with historical drama - I think combining fantasy and sci fi with other well loved genres can lead to really neat results!
Happy Thanksgiving, JT! I clicked on this hoping to god the SF novel I just wrote to pass the time passes muster, what with finishing it and all. Keep it up!
Most mainstream genres are even more repetitive than fantasy. Adult romance is just as unoriginal as YA, and I read books from more than three different authors of criminal thrillers and all the characters were THE SAME. Whats more mainstream usually starts suffering from unoriginality because everyone starts to use money-making formula.
Considering how much of pop culture riffs off of spec fic I really have to wonder how fantasy or sci fi aren't already there. There are supposedly tons of Lord of the Rings inspired works and their cliches have become a common touchstone for pop culture. Hell, the recent move towards dark fantasy seems to be an explicit rejection of said tropes, the idea being that they're too common and so authors need to deconstruct them in order to stand out and gain praise. It feels like "being mainstream" is so vague that just about any franchise could be said to have not reached it. Is Tullos only reading Literary Snobs are Us?
If you're looking for fantasy that doesn't follow the normal plot points, there's several I can recommend off the top of my head: The Goblin Emperor (political intrigue and a look at the effects of childhood abuse on an adult), Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (historical fantasy where magic actually has an impact on history), Rosemary and Rue (fantasy detectives), Every Heart a Doorway (the what-happens-next of children going on adventures in fantasy worlds then coming back)
Oh and for sci-fi with interesting characters, everything I've read by Becky Chambers and Ann Leckie has been great
Ok but I disagree with fantasy and science fiction not being the main stream as for books... in my country they are, so I think it depends
All plots are basically just "someone wants something that is not easily acquired". Most fantasy gives this motive to its villain rather than its hero. Just swapping it around would be refreshing.
Prince of Thorns but the MC is so irking.
Yeah, so many stories where "status quo = good" & "villain = change"
Has anybody read "The Goblin Emperor"?
I've recently read it and loved it. I don't quite know which sub-genre it belongs to, though.
Regarding memorable Sci-Fi characters: The only ones I could think of off the cuff are Ender Wiggin and Ijon Tichy.
Question: What is the book with the ash blocking out the sky?
It's not a book series, but a sci-fi series that does have very memorable characters is Mass Effect. I think you should check it out.
Have you read Legend of the galactic heroes?, it is really good. It is a political/military sci-fi.
It does everything right from a world building perspektiv and its anime adaptation is considered one of the best anime ever made.
Not sure if the book would be classified as either science fiction or fantasy, but your complaint about "save the world plots" really resonates with me. The book series was tunnels by Rodrick Gordon and Brian Williams. It opened as a very fascinating mystery, but as the books progresses so did the scope of the plot and stakes, and finally, with the last book (that had mixed reception as well) pretty much escalated things dramatically to a save the world plot. It's one thing to have the protagonists discover things are much more dire than previously anticipated to up the stakes, but going all they way to "the world will end if the heroes don't win" is too big a jump.
(Though given that particular ending, the world being "saved" is rather subjective here).
It's hard to articulate, but feel like a lot of stories try to scope way too big. It's hard to appreciate the gravity of the situation if it doesn't have the proper build up.