Who reads epic fantasy?

[rachelmanija]

This post was not only prompted by a remarkably stupid NY Times review of the "Game of Thrones" TV series, in which the reviewer thought the story was a polemic against global warming, claimed that women don't like fantasy, and further claimed that women do love sex, so the sex was gratuitously crammed in to please them

Comments

[lnhammer]

Mercedes Lackey counts as best-selling, fwiw -- she still commands 5-figure advances, last I heard. Not sure where Michelle Sagara (West) fits -- probably mid-list?

As a data-point, I read very little epic fantasy these days, and what I do is all written by women. I prefer my fantasy domestic, contemporary, or urban.

---L.

[mme_hardy]

Ms. West's recent work -- which I very much love -- is urban fantasy, unless there's more that I've missed.

Lacking actual data and basing my opinion only on bookshelves, I would say that publishers have figured out/decided that heroic fiction with female protagonists who have interiority* will find its audience in YA and in romance, but not so much in mainstream epic fantasy, and that sort of epic is often what women write. (Did the Deed of Paksenarrion, which qualifies under the above, ever reach the bestseller heights?)

* Is that a word? I'm groggy. I mean that the character's reactions and processing of those reactions are a significant part of the plot.

[lnhammer]

As West (for Daw), the House War books, companions to the Sun Sword books, are still epic fantasy. As Sagara (for Luna), the Elyantra books are secondary-world urban fantasy. I think the latter sell better, but Daw does publish her in hardback first.

I'm only reading the latter, natch.

---L.

[mme_hardy]

I'm in love with the Elantra books; their publication is one of the highlights of my reading year, and I finished them even when I couldn't concentrate to finish other novels. (I should probably reread the last one and see what I overlooked, though.)

[branna]

I'm reading both and like them both, but they are quite different. I probably prefer the Elantra books, but the House War books have intrigued me more than I expected.

In addition to the names listed her (Hambly, Kerr, Elliott, etc.), some of Lynn Abbey's old stuff (I'm thinking _Daughter of the Bright Moon_) is second-world, arguably epic, and definitely not-urban fantasy, though her more recent stuff has all been urban in flavor (Jerlayne, the _Time_ novels). Also, there's Amanda Downum's new novels (The Drowning City, The Bone Palace) which are secondary-world, technically could be called urban in that they are all centered around one city or another, but feel pretty blasted epic to me.

The thing is, I'm not sure where the dividing line lies between "secondary-world, non-urban" fantasy and "epic" fantasy. Is it length? Is it the presence of certain tropes in the content? For a large slug of my favorite female authors, there's some significant chunk of their work that I'm totally unsure how classify.

[mme_hardy]

I think "epic" fantasies have to have (A) war and (B) movement -- the protagonist can't remain in one city in an epic fantasy, he has to be constantly in motion.

Your definition may vary.