off to paris, onto fantasy

[lobelia321]

I'm off to Eurodisney. Back on Friday. Am paying stupendous amounts of money for the Eurostar due to lateness of booking (am constitutionally unable to buy tickets in advance). Am going with t'younger son.

Have bought for the journey Lois Bujold's The Hallowed Hunt. Thank you, all you fantasy reccers! Thanks, ithiliana! I wanted to get some of the others, too, but none of the shops HAD THEM. You people clearly know the good, hidden-away stuff... *g*.

I ran to the library before it closed and borrowed another Bujold (something paladin), a Wynne Jones (something gryphon), a Feist (something fox) and Susanna Clark, Mr Norris and something something Strange.

*phew* But will only take Bujold on train as fantasy tends to be unportable!! Fat! Heavy! Tiny, tiny font!!!

Some initial observations on this genre (compared to chick lit):

Chick lit has pink covers with embossed silver stars. It shows drawings of girls with long legs and quirky expressions and 1950s arabesques.
Fantasy has dun or greyish covers with enrobed figures, billowing gowns, strange-coloured skies, weird landscapes, women with serious expressions and flowing hair, or it has covers with symbols (wheels, gems and emblems are popular).

Chick lit tends to be c. 300 pages long, relatively handleable, with big fonts. Message conveyed: Read me quickly and don't strain your eyes doing it; I'm a page-turner and will last you a few hours.
Fantasy tends to be at least 500 pages long, with tiny, tiny font to fit it all in. The flyleaf tends to sport a map. The books come in trilogies or series, much like buses. Message conveyed: Immerse yourself in my world for the next weeks, months, years.

Chick lit starts in medias res and tends to have a first-person involved narrator. Something happens in the first sentence, dialogue generally happens by the end of the first page, setting is minimal.
Fantasy tends to start with a description of setting and to favour, at least on the first page, the third-person non-involved ('omniscient') narrator. There needn't be any dialogue for many pages, or only terse dialogue. There is frequently a dead body.

Chick lit characters are called Kelly, Paige or Becks.
Fantasy characters are called the Lady Ijeda, Carawaith or Talwas Hun.

And never the twain shall meet! Genre boundaries are firmer than the Berlin Wall. I have so far not come across a single cross-over author, who's written both fantasy and chick lit.

I wonder which genres are porous with fantasy? Crime? Thriller? Mills & Boon/Harlequin romance? Horror seems to be close. And maybe historical novel? But literary fiction? Realist fiction? Kitchen sink drama?? Sci fi is very close. Very few authors appear to be non-Anglo-saxon.

I find this whole delving into a new genre fascinating. And rather exciting.

My pile of books-to-be-read would currently strain the LJ-post character limit...

See you all on Friday! *waves*

Comments

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

I now want to write fantasy chicklit. :)

I'll be intrigued to know your reaction to Jonathan Strange. It's kind of the marmite of fantasy. I enjoyed it, nice on toast. My mum couldn't get it down at all.

I think I've actually read a lot of fantasy, almost all of it aimed at children. I've read a lot of Diana Wynne Jones's children's books, I think they're fun. Chrestomanci's great, and I'm very, very fond of Archer's Goon.

Have fun!

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

Actually, now I think of it, I'm sure there is fantasy-tinged humorous chicklit, although I don't know of any titles or authors, offhand.

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

ps. have you read Geoff Ryman? I haven't read any of his novels (I have read his sort story Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter which should be available to dowlnoad online if you Google it), but would like to. He writes science fiction and fantasy and other stuff, I do believe.

[viva-gloria.livejournal.com]

is it too late to say take Paladin of Souls and not Hallowed Hunt?

(Bujold interesting case: she is a lot more character-based, light-hearted, emotionally oriented than many traditional fantasy authors. Though note she did her best-selling stuff in science fiction for many years ... and started off as a fanficcer, I believe.)

Fantasy / chick lit crossover authors tend to use pseudonym for one. But Laurell K Hamilton, when not in horror/chicklit crossover mode, does some fantasy.

map in the front = often sign of formulaic (plot-token) fantasy

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I tried to read the Hallowed Whatsit by Bujold. I really tried. Then I had to turn the pages really fast and read the end and then, I'm afraid, I had to drop it into the Oxfam bin.

I'm afraid fantasy may not be for me. (Well, maybe I should try one or two other authors, eh? But I hated this book. It really put me off. So appallingly written. I'm now onto one of the ones you recced: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, and I like that one much, much better.)

[viva-gloria.livejournal.com]

I'm a Bujold fan (the chicklit of fantasy!) but I found The Hallowed Hunt far from her best -- indeed I struggled with it. Hence imprecations above. It would be wrong and sad to form opinion of genre based solely on this. (JS&MN much more fun though occasionally overwrought.)

Depends what you are looking for anyway -- good prose? (in which case turn to the literary end) Or representative of genre? (in which case turn to the blockbusters, but drink several martinis to numb yourself first)

I like Res's ratatouille of genre blurring. See also 'slipstream' which is what we used to call sf/fantasy/horror crossovers back in the 90s.

In other news, I wrote and posted SGA fic!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Slipstream! What did this mean, though? Where's the analogy?

You posted SGA! Ah, I will look! As you'll be aware, I haven't really be on LJ of late. What great news!

I might numb myself and go for the blockbusters but buy them at Amnesty International so that my money goes to a good cause, at least. I was curious about the ones you labelled slashtastic but they are not in the shops; I'll have to get them via amazon and after my horror experience with Bujold, I am now reluctant...

[viva-gloria.livejournal.com]

interesting post about genre conventions -- compiled from panels at Wiscon
http://resolute.livejournal.com/499756.html?format=light

Like any other genre and like mainstream, there is well-written fantasy and, er, other. Good not always = well-written. Plus it is a genre that seems to attract Extreme Prose so you may not care for e.g. Sarah Monette's style.

Here is a game you can play alone, though it is much more fun with two or more players:
1. go to a charity shop or second-hand book stall
2. find a novel by Stephen Donaldson
3. open it randomly
4. locate next use of the word 'clench'. It will not take long.

Re slipstream, I think the analogy is to things that move fast! and are exciting! which was rather ambitious in most cases. Or things that move between two or more streams maybe.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Horror and fantasy are so close that they get to share the same year's-best anthology. Sometimes stories that straddle the line between them are called dark fantasy.

Where fantasy crosses M&B romance, you get paranormal romance. Covers where you have a modern woman clasped in the mighty arms of a time-traveling Viking or Scottish laird or whatever.

Where fantasy crosses chicklit, you get a different branch of paranormal romance: the funny ones with titles like Undead and Unwed, or the dark ones where the woman is a private detective and she gets drawn into a war between the vampires and the werewolves.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Well! I am learning so much! Genre is not Berlin wall; genre is ratatouille! Great. I love it.

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

And never the twain shall meet! Genre boundaries are firmer than the Berlin Wall. I have so far not come across a single cross-over author, who's written both fantasy and chick lit.

I don't know if this counts as proper fantasy, since it's so very very tongue-in-cheek humour, but have you ever read Undead and unwed by Mary Janice Davidson? It's chick flick lit with vampires! :P

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

Oh, just saw resonant8 beat me to it. lol

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Never say never, eh? Just goes to show. *laughs a lot at the happy ratatouille of genres*