... in the words of a popular beat combo.
I have recently been inspired back into reading science fiction by the long running discussion of Philip Ball’s The Sun and Moon Corrupted – I suppose SF is a natural reading habitat for scientists, but these days my absolute favourite fiction is what I’d describe as real world fantasy.
This is fiction that subverts the laws of nature in some way, but is still set in or strongly linked to the world as we know it, as opposed to the swords and sorcery tradition, with its noble archetype The Lord of the Rings.
This fiction absolutely delights me, but I’ve found very few authors who do it well. (If you can add suggestions to my fab five below, please do.) These are authors I wanted to celebrate here for writing the ultimate of this kind of fiction. Interestingly, none of them solely write in this style – some also wrote SF, some swords and sorcery as well – but they are my literary heroes.
The five?
- Ray Bradbury – the most lyrical with his evocation of childhood and place
- Gene Wolfe – to my mind the greatest and still going strong
- Roger Zelazny – also an excellent SF writer, but even when writing swords and sorcery (e.g. his Amber series), gives it a real-world twist: these are real world people, not the people of a fantasy existence
- Neil Gaiman – though perhaps better known for comics, has written two of my favourite collections of real world fantasy short stories
- Alan Garner – though originally writing for children, his fiction grew up as I did and has the most amazing sense of the importance of place in fantasy.
With Bradbury and Gaiman particularly there’s a close overlap with horror – but there is a difference. Stephen King’s stuff is over the other side of the divide to me. His writing has elements of real world fantasy but is too solidly in the horror genre.
Wonderful stuff.
Brian – I think you have set an impossible challenge because the boundaries you have chosen to define your concept of Fantasy Fiction are incredibly fuzzy. You have chosen to define Swords and Sorcery as excluded from fantasy but one could also argue that Science fiction is included in your definition if one excludes Space Opera.
The object of the post is lists, so here goes:
I’m with Brian Derby and his support for Olaf Stapledon. His best books are Star Maker and Last and First Men which Brian Aldiss described as ‘ontological prose poems’ rather than novels. Sirius, says Aldiss, is Stapledon’s most human novel, perhaps because it is about a dog.
A dog, yesterday
My father introduced me to H. G. Wells whose short stories I have long enjoyed. I find his novels rather tedious, though. I find Stephen Baxter’s novels even more tedious, except for one—Time Ships, Baxter’s sequel to Wells’ The Time Machine—which is a cracker. A typist in my father’s office introduced the teenage Gee to Asimov, whose appeal was heightened by the charms of said typist, I have to say.
Many of Arthur C. Clarke’s books still bear close reading. My favourites are The Fountains of Paradise and The Songs of Distant Earth. The natural successor to Clarke is Greg Bear whose Eon, its sequel Eternity and Blood Music are my favourites, though many of you will be familiar with Darwin’s Radio.
I do enjoy the books of many of the exponents of the ‘new wave’ of British space opera, instigated largely by Iain M Banks and continued by the likes of Alastair Reynolds, Justina Robson and Peter F Hamilton.
Miscellaneous recommendations include Dan Simmons (Hyperion, Ilium, Olympos) and Vernor Vinge (A Fire Upon The Deep).
I could go on and on – being the editor of Nature’s Futures SF section has exposed me to the works of SF authors whom I’d never otherwise have discovered, such as Tobias Buckell, Nalo Hopkinson, Jeff Crook, Gareth C. Evans, Peter Watts, Neil Asher and many others.
But there will always be a place in my heart for Jorge Luis Borges, each of whose tiny, crisp essays is a logic bomb for the mind.
Would J.K Rowling fall into this category?
ahem
It’s nice to see Alan Garner there – I grew up with him too. I loved the way he kept the sense of mystery (Tove Jansson did the same thing – I still find the Groke faintly scary). If you haven’t read it, you might enjoy Strandloper, which is for adults. It’s not quite fantasy.
Oh dear. It’s fantasy you want. And Real-World Fantasy? Isn’t that a kind of contradiction in terms, like Personnel Management?
King is a great writer, but I don’t particularly like the stories as well, it’s just too yucky in most cases. Henry already mentioned Dan Simmons. What about Neal Stephenson?
Brian D – I do think you can draw a distinction between real world fantasy (which is set in the real world, but has some explicit break in the laws of nature, e.g. magic works, and SF, which is supposed to stick to the laws of nature, even though there are certain conventions (time travel, FTL travel etc.) that push laws to breaking point.) So I’m afraid your list mostly doesn’t make it in. I love Peake, but Gormenghast isn’t real world. Mr Pye is, though.
Bob – Yes, Rowling probably would fit, though she rather stretches the real world with her Ministry of Magic etc. She just isn’t in the same league for sophistication as the five I mentioned. I have read Strandloper, and Garner’s more recent adult book (which definitely is this kind of fantasy), Thursbitch. Not a beginner’s book, that, but excellent.
Henry – no, it’s not a contradiction in terms, it’s more a contraction (short for ‘fantasy with a real world setting’). But, yes, it’s fantasy I want so all that SF stuff, wonderful though it is, goes out the window.
Sabine – I don’t know Simmons, but a quick look at Amazon suggests he’s more SF than real world fantasy. Neal Stephenson looks a bit more promising, though his stuff is still probably SF. My main concern there is that his books seem to be very long! I didn’t mention it above, so I wasn’t being too restrictive, but one of the thing I like about the five authors I mentioned is most of their stuff is quite short. I haven’t the patience for 500+ page books.
Sabine – I was just about to mention Neal Stephenson. I’m working my way through his Baroque trilogy right now. Londoners will particularly enjoy these books, which chronicle the early years of the Royal Society and natural philosophy. Not sci-fi at all (at least not up to where I’ve read).
Brian. Titus Alone (GG book 3) is most definitely in the real world. However, I think you are constraining book choice with a very elastic boundary that stretches to fit what you wish!
There’s probably a lot of Michael Moorcock that fits the Real-World Fantasy label. He’s written a lot about London, as Matt will be pleased to hear. One which might fit the bill is Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell by Susanna Clarke. I read this last year and recommend it highly.
Now, I feel I must get a little pedantic, since the popular beat combo) to which Brian alludes is one of my favourites, as is the song from which he quotes. The first line goes
Is this just fantasy?
and not
Just thought you should know that.
Matt – I’ll take your word on it on Stephenson – I was going on the blurb on Cryptonomicon, which seemed fairly fantasy-free. He still falls into my ‘too long’ trap, though.
Brian D – I beg to differ on Titus Alone. The ‘real world’ Titus emerges into feels very artificial. (Maybe the whole thing was a virtual simulation on a computer.) I am indeed fitting the boundary to my choice – that’s the point of the exercise! I want more books that will tickle the same fancy as those of the five authors I mentioned. Though, as a I saw, I’m very fond of Peake, he doesn’t.
Henry – that’s a thought. I tend to equate Moorcock with either new wave SF or the Elric stuff, which I liked as a lad, but there is, of course, more.
I have read Strange/Norell – definitely fits the bracket – excellent stuff. Don’t know if she’s done anything else in that vein. (On a quick glance she has a book of short stories, The Ladies of Grace Adieu that sounds promising.)
Another one I’d include is the lovely Bartimeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud, which though aimed at older children/young adults is very entertaining.
@Henry – Yup, I’ve read Moorcock’s London stuff and Jonathan Strange and would also endorse them. (I’m so utterly obsessed with London, I rarely read a novel that isn’t set here. Perhaps not very healthy, but it adds another layer to walking around town.)