Bittercon: Historical Eras and Genre

[sartorias]

This is off Readercon's Saturday panel list. I don't know how much interest this one will raise--but.

Their title and info is: Why Don't We Do It in the Reformation? Underutilized Historical Eras in Spec Fic. Oooh! A conflated version of their descriptor: There have been many alternate histories of WW II and the Civil War, but almost none of

Comments

[anna_wing]

Oh dear. My apologies for that mess.

[gategrrl]

I think Avengangle makes a very valid and relevant point. How we're educated in our school system has a LOT to do with what writers write, and what readers want to read.

But I'd like to add that, no only is it the education angle, but readers want what they're accustomed to hearing about. It's like being spoonfed history through docudramas on television. You *know* they're not accurate, but that's not necessarily the reason why a reader will pick up a well-researched and finely textured historical fantasy.

Also, I don't think that students are given enough interest in research--how, why, where. (but that's a blanket statement, of course)

[sartorias]

Education should cover the basics...yet when I look back at my education, during my time we were being fed the "America is great" pablum. I read ferociously outside of the school bland textbook, garnering my historical perspective not at school, but despite school.

[alecaustin]

Yeah. I've been thinking about writing a post on the (many) lies we tell our children for a while now. Part of the reason I haven't is because it's so hard to choose where to begin.

[pdlloyd]

Have you seen Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen? We so need to understand this sort of thing.

[tcastleb]

There's also Chelsea Quinn Yarbro who writes in a wide variety of historical settings, from ancient Rome to 17th century Italy, to Genghis Khan's China, to a convent in the dark ages, to San Francisco when they opened the Golden Gate Bridge. And someone at a con mentioned that she never changes the historical details to fit her characters or the plot; those both adapt to the setting, which is pretty darned amazing, considering the detail in some of those books.

There's also Lian Hearn's Tales of the Otori series, which is based in a pseudo-historical Japan.

So there's plenty of eras, and some of them likely have been neglected, or it goes in phases (I'm kind of thinking there'd be more, say, Japanese interest after Memoirs of a Geisha and Last Samurai, or something.) Seems like the biggest obstacle to a certain era would be a lack of resources and a real cultural understanding that comes from being raised in a particular culture, but with time and patience it can be done.

[sartorias]

Yeah...Yarbro's all feel the same to me, despite the variance in settings, but then I'm not in her audience.

[anna_wing]

Kara Dalkey's done fantasy Japan as well. C J Cherryh too ("The Paladin").

Barry Hughart, of course, has done fantasy China so well that he has basically killed the genre, since no one can match him. If you want fantasy China now you must watch Chinese historical epics on film.

Gwyneth Jones did a fantasy/science fiction future Malaysia ("Divine Endurance").

Geoff Ryman has of course done Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge.

[cedunkley]

I will second Judith Tarr's dancinghorse works. Besides her wonderful fantasies set in her own second world settings she has a series of stories set during the Crusades. The Hound and the Falcon trilogy and the Alamut duology (where Saladin makes an appearance) are excellent fantasy stories.

If there are other fantasy stories set in such areas I'm not aware of them. While I do prefer the western European, British medieval setting it's always nice to branch out into other areas.

Personally, I'd like to see an epic fantasy set in very early Japan. That would be interesting.

[sartorias]

Early Japan--and all the powerful female gods!

[cedunkley]

Some day I'd like to give it a shot. I'd have to start my research with reading translated copies of the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki and then dive even more than I already have into the Kotodama, elements of which I've already incorporated into a couple of characters I have in my fantasy stories.

Early Japan with its gods and goddesses is a treasure trove waiting to be plundered and shaped into many great stories.

As I said above, I would love to get around to it eventually. I imagine someone, somewhere probably already is.

[affreca]

I would like to see some well done early Japan fantasy. Especially if they realize Japan at that time was not homogeneous (something it took me taking a class to learn about), and there's more than just the court.

[kalimac]

What? WW1 was the setting of and occasion for one of the most influential fantasy stories of all time, "The Bowmen" by Arthur Machen, which was responsible for the Angels of Mons mythology. Some Dunsany stories are also strongly influenced by WW1 in which he, like Tolkien, served. (So did A.A. Milne, but I sure can't find it in his fiction.)

I think we have to separate alternate history from other forms of sf/f. General sf/f in historical settings goes to either what's glamorous or what the author knows well. And since everybody in the field's read Austen and Heyer and O'Brian, lots of them go there.

Alternate history is drawn towards highly contingent events, and nothing's more contingent than a war, unless it's an assassination. But some wars are more contingent than others: the US Civil War and WW2 shine clearly in that respect, while WW1 and Vietnam were just muddy muddles, without so much clear contingency.