Sime~Gen Inc. Presents

ReReadable Books

September 2009

"The Mystery of Magic Part II: Hard and Soft Fantasy"

By

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

By now you’ve had a chance to read some mystery-detective novels such as the ones we discussed last month as well as my blog entry on J. J. Abrams, Wired, and the Magic of Mystery. http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/04/wired-magazine-for-romance.html

Keep in mind how the excruciatingly precise mystery plot produces such satisfying elegance when the puzzle is solved. The mystery delivers a punch equivalent to the Romance novel’s HEA (Happily Ever After) ending. Both these genres work magic on your emotions. And now lets look at how the Adult Fantasy genre is shaping up.

Let’s start with a look at the Fantasy field as it diverges from the SF field.

In April 2009, in the on linkedin.com, in the Group Science Fiction readers, writers, and collectors, the managing editor of Abandoned Towers Magazine, Kelly Christiansen, asked (and got flooded with replies) "Which do you prefer? Hard sci-fi or soft sci-fi. For purposes of this discussion, hard sci-fi is defined as a story that focuses heavily on the technology and why it works, and soft sci-fi is a story that just assumes the technology works but doesn't go into detail about why."

You have to be a member of Linkedin.com and of the Group to use the following link:

http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&discussionID=2842926&gid=45166&trk=EML_anet_qa_cmnt-cDhOon0JumNFomgJt7dBpSBA

Christiensen's given a good reader’s definition of the difference. Writers would ask is technology the hero, or is the protagonist the hero?

The same dichotomy could be applied to Fantasy. Hard Fantasy would be a story that focuses on the magic and why it works; Soft Fantasy one that just assumes magic works and doesn’t go into detail about why. Or in Mystery, is the Detective novel about the procedure that nails the perp, or the Detective’s subconscious angst in facing this crime?

Llewellyn publishes some novels that focus on explaining the magic, the technology of magic, where figuring out how magic works resolves the conflict.

Katherine Kurtz’s Deryni novels which I’ve reviewed in this column generally have some bit of magic technology the hero must learn to win the day. The Deryni series started back when the Fantasy field was just splitting off from the SF field. Kurtz deftly blends the two sets of interests.

After Deryni, the adult Fantasy field galloped on into pyrotechnic worldbuilding. Writers unleashed imagination to mix and match magical postulates. The result has been an explosion of Fantasy novels filled with vitality attracting a voracious readership, and spilling over into TV and film. Twilight is a case in point.

In the footsteps of greats like Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague DeCamp with the Mathematics of Magic and the "Harold Shea" series of the Incomplete Enchanter 1940 to 1954 series, (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Shea) came the success of many carefully researched, meticulously envisioned fantasy novels of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Then writers went hog wild and brought Egyptian, Scottish, Norwegian, Chinese, Japanese, Native American, and Eskimo legends, myths and religions into Fantasy.

Now we have a second and even third generation of such writers entertaining a readership jaded by real world myth, perhaps confused between the reality of magical traditions and the literary license authors have taken. The Fantasy field is creating new tropes for history, religion, art, and most of all magic.

I’m seeing an increasing trend in Fantasy to build on the most well known fantasy worlds, morphing both the well researched magical technology and the freehand inventions that actually make no sense to trained occultists (which doesn’t spoil a good story!). The resulting derivatives of derivatives has created a chaotic but fun scene for readers.

But now I see a pattern, a dichotomy developing in Fantasy that is very similar to the division into Hard and Soft SF that started in the 1950’s when Marion Zimmer Bradley began to publish stories that were more character driven than technology driven, and began her Darkover Series where Magic replaces Science as the basis of technology.

I believe we now have Hard and Soft Fantasy with audiences that like one but not the other. As with SF though, really good Hard Fantasy is difficult to find. But Soft Fantasy is producing some hilarious send ups you’ll want to read when you’re in the right mood.

Anton Strout continues his preternatural series with Deader Still. NY City Detective Simon Canderous has to work on a tight budget to defend the city from Vampires and other incursions using psychometry, his girlfriend’s talent for technomancy and clues only he dares pursue. With all the sitcom situations, Strout still puts in some technology of magic. That I don’t believe a word of it doesn’t matter!

Deader Still is a fast, breezy urban fantasy with many in-group references to old SciFi TV Shows aptly used. The author’s gaming background shows in how the relationships are submerged under plot and action.

Strout gives us another fantasy world where it’s all a conspiracy to keep the world from "knowing." This might be a sub-genre of Soft Fantasy called Conspiracy Fantasy.

In another urban fantasy series, Rob Thurman updates us on the half-human Cal Leandros and his brother Niko who now run a preternatural detective agency. I reviewed a prequel to this, Night Life, RoC Fantasy pb, in October 2006, in this column. This one is just as good.

Cal and Niko are hired by a Vampire, and then the fantasy worldbuilding gets wilder and wilder as Thurman reveals more about the other-dimension magical beings who spawned Cal on a human mother. The relationship between the brothers is the focus of the story, and that relationship "arcs" or changes in this episode. I’d enjoy a sequel!

Jim Butcher’s Wizard detective, Harry Dresden, appears in a novella in a collection titled Mean Streets. You’ll want to read this story, The Warrior, before reading Turn Coat, the next Dresden novel. The Warrior is about Michael Carpenter, who was the bearer of one of the great Archangel Swords, but was injured and retired leaving that Sword in Harry’s (secret) keeping. Michael is an agent of Good, an instrument of God in the world while most of the rest of Harry Dresden’s world is composed of demons, wild magical forces, magical Powers from another dimension, and the usual battle between White and Black magic.

Dresden is the focus of these stories, but the magic in the worldbuilding is nevertheless believable at least while you’re reading the story.

Another story in Mean Streets that you’ll want to read is Noah’s Orphans by Thomas E. Sniegoski. Remy is a fallen Seraph, an angel of the Heavenly Host. As the story opens, Remy’s black Labrador retriever, Marlowe, reminds him that Seraphim are not supposed to have human wives, summer cottages in Maine, or work as private investigators, either. But Remy does all that and dreams of his dead wife.

God is a touchy subject in America these days, controversial even. But two TV Shows, that started in the wake of the resounding failure of Joan of Arcadia (where Joan was a prophetess like Joan of Arc), Reaper and Supernatural, have begun to introduce the presence of God as real in their worlds. You can see full episodes online!

Supernatural is about the two brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester. Dean spent a season or so in Hell tortured until he loved to torture (and is now ashamed of it). Sam is ever tempted by his ESP talents to abuse Power. Until the Angels showed up and explained why Lilith is harrying them, neither one ever seriously prayed. I think your supposed to doubt those two guys really are Angels.

Reaper is about a young man whose father sold his son’s soul to the Devil, and now the Devil forces the youth to collect souls who escaped from Hell and send them back. It’s a comedy. The Devil is a character. God is not.

Both Reaper and Supernatural started presenting their urban fantasy worlds with a clean, clear premise focused on demons, the Devil, black magic. Never did the main characters turn to God as the solution to their problems. But now, some years into the two series, God and Angels are creeping out of the shadows, albeit cautiously.

Apparently, you can’t (even in fiction) fight Evil without the biggest heavy-hitter for Good on your side. And that won’t happen unless you ask.

Barb Hendee, after her successful collaboration on The Noble Dead Saga, which I’ve given rave reviews in this column, has written a solo novel, Blood Memories. The cover says "nothing stays in the dark forever." And this novel starts out very Dark with telepathic vampires and psychic policemen investigating an apparent murder in the vampire’s house. The short novel is one ugly, bloody scene after another, playing up the horror until you can smell the blood. But it has an optimistic ending that promises less blood and more story in future novels in this series.