I am Krador, son of Kroth, and I am the Avenger of Time!
I feel this occasional need to write a big, fat fantasy epic. Dragons and fallen gods and warriors pouring through the breech. I don't know why I should feel bad about that. My first experiences with the genre were basic fantasy. I tore through Tolkien and Lewis and MacDonald, read Brooks and McCafferey (which I count as fantasy, even though it was later revealed to be SF) and the like. I went through a stage where I was reading purely fantasy, and writing purely SF. At some point science fiction gained some traction in my mind and took over, and I transitioned to Laumer and Saberhagen (both his fantasy and science fiction) though this time really served as a buffer between my young mind and my more adult personality. The next stage was Gibson, ah Gibson, and that sent me in a whole new direction. I put milSF behind me, and high fantasy way behind me. It was at this point that I got serious about RPGs too, and spent a lot of my creative energy on White Wolf products.
But fantasy stayed with me, at various bandwidths. I kept a casual game of Middle Earth RP going all through college, and then started playing with my wife's D&D group a while later. And now I'm playing WoW, and I'd just like to point out that there are 11 million people playing this game. I've been reading more fantasy, too. Anyway. It's going to happen someday. I've got some notes, even the beginnings of a chapter.
I should note that the first book I ever wrote, and this was in 7th grade so I'm not sure it counts, but the first time I sat down and said "I'm going to write a book" it was this horrible thing about the three swords of time and an invasion by dragons and there were airships and the climatic scene ended with the hero throwing the Sword of Eternity (which was the result of the magical re-forging of the original three swords) across a battlefield and into the skull of the Dragon King. It was called Elf Wars. There were no elves.
posted by Tim Akers @ 7:52 AM
6 Comments:
I confess that probably the most anticipated book in my wish list is Fantasy, GRRM's "A Dance with Dragons". And there are thousands like me.
The big problem is quality and image. The New Weird has shaken a bit the Fantasy stigma, but the fact that most Fantasy is badly written does not help.
It could well be the moment for a classic fantasy revival, if GRRM manages to finish his epic. So I say go for it.
Though maybe it would be better to publish as Tim RR Akers...
Go Timerakers!
A lot of Fantasy is bad, but a lot of any genre (or any anything) is bad. There is some potential for good there, I think. One example that springs to mind as actually good was Tad Williams' [i]Memory, Sorrow and Thorn[/i] series, although I recall it got a bit muddy near the end.
I don't think there's anything wrong with writing Fantasy.
I also think your book sounds pretty good (for a 7th grader). You produced something.
Before we go too far into this, I should say that I've got proposals in to acquisition department, and contractual obligations in the direction of Veridon. And I can only manage one book at a time right now. So I don't think I'll be jumping on this. But I'd kinda like to.
Part of it is probably the grass is always greener syndrome. When you're hip-deep in writing a novel, maybe writing a different novel seems more appealing.
Or maybe it's the idea of starting a new novel, because starting is the fun bit, if you don't have someone breathing down your neck asking when it will be finished.
But yeah, contracts and all that. Back to work!
& you're still writing about airships!
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