Fantasy

During my (continuing) fiction-related hiatus - I'm barely spending any time at the computer and haven't even been responding to email! It's freeing! - I've been reading a lot of fantasy and it's got me thinking about the genre.

When all the Buffy the Vampire Slayer hype started, I sneered and ignored it. First, the name. Buffy?! Vampires?! Second, the movie starring Luke Perry. My feminist sensibilities suggested that I would probably hate a movie with a pretty young female lead called "Buffy" screaming and being chased by vampires. Third, the little bits I saw of the TV program included some really bad acting and ridiculous special effects.

Years later, when I did end up watching the WB and UPN series regularly due to persuasive peer pressure, I was amazed. Yes, there was bad acting. Yes, there were bad special effects. Yes, there were lovely young women getting kicked, punched, and thrown around by large men. But man, Joss Wedon was doing some interesting stuff. There's a lot more room for creativity and flexibility in a genre that's less rigorously defined, with fewer immutable lines, and this show contained some really ground-breaking stuff that was different from anything else on television.

I've long felt the same way about fantasy fiction. Oh, yes, there is some incredibly bad stuff out there marketed as fantasy. Some people (and some publishers!) will buy anything with swords and dragons, it seems. But there are some treasures in the refuse heap. There are some richly developed worlds, written quite well, revealing amazing amounts of research into cultures, religions, military campaigns, and yes, fashions, around the world.

For many of us, reading is escapism. I love to lose myself in a good story, immersing myself in the world the author creates. That's no more real if the fantasy is of Jane Austen's creation or C.S. Lewis's. I'm no more likely to find myself in 19th Century English society than I am to find myself in Narnia. But both journeys are wonderful escapes from my daily life, and both make me yearn for what will never be, in a most wonderful way. Just because it isn't "realistic" doesn't mean it isn't a good story, and well-written.

I don't know what would be a good introduction to fantasy literature for the skeptical. I started very young with fairy tales, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkein, Joan Aiken, and so many many more. When I was a teenager I discovered Orson Scott Card. Some of what he does is just wonderful. He likes to write series novels, though, and his creative ideas always end up faltering out, becoming sermons that bog down the plots as each series progresses. I am not comparing modern fantasy to the classics in the English Literature canon. But I do recommend Margaret Weis (Death Gate Cycle) and Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time) as engrossing series reads.

Certainly, reading really good fantasy is a better summer pastime than reading one of those many pink-covered books about lipstick and fighting over men that litter the prime real estate at chain bookstores this time of year.

I think it's good when adults maintain a sense of wonder. I think it's healthy to suspend disbelief. I love that intelligent grown-ups are dressing in robes and drinking butterbeer. I'm glad that most of the highest grossing movies of all time are fantasy movies.

Next time I'll tackle video games. Won't that be exciting?