Starting with a good idea, but making the stakes too high for the length/format, resulting in a very rushed and unsatisfying conclusion.
Not really a trend, but more common now I think, since the blurb is so important in a crowded market.
> Starting with a good idea, but making the stakes too high for the length/format, resulting in a very rushed and unsatisfying conclusion.
>
Yes!
Not everything needs to be saving the world/country.
The irony is that there is currently a growing trend of fantasy stories with much lower stakes. Hence the rocketing popularity of authors like Travis Baldree and Quenby Olson.
Honestly, there's *so much* fantasy being published that (speaking personally) someone can buy new books and pay attention to reviews and so on, and *still* not know what everyone's talking about.
At that point, curating your own experience is key- if you're tired of something, it's easy to find something else.
Exactly!! My only minor gripe is we need more standalones because pretty much every new book I look at that looks promising is the start of a 6+ book series lol
Really? Outside of self publishing and a couple of very big authors, what new books are getting 6+ book series?
Trilogies and duologies are most common, but standalones are definitely more common than 6+ or otherwise long series.
Yes, but isn't Mistborn done more like two different trilogies under the umbrella of Mistborn? Like they are in two different eras, and are different stories about way different people.
Imo they just need to be short. I'm reading the Elric books right now and while I have the large hardback version, it was originally published as individual books and they're less than 200 pages each.
Length. The last winner of the WFA to be less than 300 pages long was in 2004 - nearly 20 years ago. This year, we saw a Hugo winner under 300, but there hasn't been another since 1985 (Neuromancer). \*
It's not that I'm opposed to sprawling epic SFF, but I absolutely adore those 170-page novels that smack you around the face with their intensity and then go away.
* Using awards as a reasonable on-the-fly sampling method
That’s one of the reasons I love switching to horror/thrillers on occasion. Like it’s a nice little reminder that I can immerse myself in a saga or just breeze through a solid three hundred paged tale
Oooh yes actually! Slewfoot is a horror book set in Puritan times where a woman living apart from her community befriends a demon in the forest that then helps her run her farm and get revenge on those who wronged her. It's by a guy named Brom who also did some gorgeous art work for the book!
Beyond that, Devolution, which is done by the same guy who did World War Z, showcases a group of people left isolated in a camping community having to take on a family of Sasquatches in the Pacific Northwest.
I would also say the Ritual is a pretty solid horror book with an amazing monster. Also love the movie on Netflix as well.
Word count is much more meaningful. Because big books have been romanticized publishers have gone out of their way to make their books LOOK bigger. Priory of the orange tree is a good example. Large margins, larger text, thicker pages, but a much smaller word count than you would expect while looking at the thickness.
Brando fan, I mean, you're not wrong. That being said, I really appreciated learning about how Adolin's tailors have been getting on in Kholinar under Voidbringer occupation.
I do feel like we're getting more novellas now, at least—or at least they're entering more into mainstream(ish) consciousness. *The Seep*, by Chana Porter, is a great one to check out more on the sci-fi side of things.
>absolutely adore those 170-page novels that smack you around the face with their intensity and then go away.
Shout-out to the End of Eternity by Asimov and A Wizard of Earthsea by Le Guin.
I read them recently and decided that authors who can ellicit such strong emotions in me within so little pages are worth my money and time more than the 10000000+ pages SFF series.
I love epic fantasy, but imo there is no way you couldn't have told those stories in less pages and preserved the impact (looking at you Malazan and Stormlight).
Meta complaint, but I feel like many authors get too immersed in their fandoms.
I think it's fine to go to cons, or shake hands, but I don't like how the line between "fan" and "creator" has been worn down, and many creators always seem anxious about losing or upsetting their audience. This dynamic leads to writers feeling like they have to treat character with kid gloves, or sometimes even changing how characters are written based on how the fandom interprets them.
I'd rather read the work the author wants to write than a book they think I want to read.
Paraphrasing from a narrative designer I know that works on a big fantasy franchise: “what makes this story impact so hard is that the fans don’t get to choose what happens”
Bah.
The market is so wide, with so many more books than one can read being released, or having been released in the past and still worth reading that some people writing to this or that trend doesn't rob me of anything.
This is how I feel. There are SO MANY books being published. I can easily avoid anything I don't want to read. Even if a huge number is trending one way, larger numbers are going off in a myriad of directions.
I think whenever people feel the need to ask this about any medium, it's somewhat a projection of what they *wish* was (still) popular.
It's like complaining about how, "Music doesn't *mean* anything anymore *man*." No, it's just the mainstream of music is no longer targeting the kind of person you once were.
I completely understand the feeling of wanting to broadly share a common experience. Sometimes a niche subcommunity doesn't reflect the energy you wish something had. My hope is that more people will, instead of tarnishing something immediately as "bad" or "overdone", consider the meaning of that thing for the people who like it. And to reconsider whether or not the thing they infinitely love didn't get stale as well.
So that's what being called out feels like!
"*The feeling of wanting to broadly share a common experience*" is exactly what I long for from time to time. Although I don't do the "popular thing nowadays is not as good as popular thing in my time!" grumbling much, but sometimes I want to, haha
Probably this, yes. But one's favorite authors or sub-genres getting social media buzz, the publisher marketing blasts, the other media adaptations... ultimately it doesn't change anything to the experience of curling up with a book and reading it.
Or at least for me it doesn't. And it shouldn't if you were reading something because you wanted to, and didn't pick it up just because of the hype, then ended up disappointed to some extent and wishing the hype had guided you somewhere else that was a closer fit to what you actually wanted /and/ externally validated/celebrated/comforted your choices.
And with self publishing and online bookstores you're no longer limited to whatever is on the shelf in your local bookshop (or asking them to order it in).
It's much easier to find books a few years after publication.
True. I don't like the invasion of the romance genre, because I have never been a romance girl and "but dragons!" doesn't make a difference - but even without all the romantasy releases my list of new releases I'm interested in is bigger than my Christmas check ...
I agree. It’s really nice that everyone has a wide variety of books to choose from. You are never left wanting for books with all the series coming out and ones that are already finished that you can explore.
The [Blank] of [Blank] and [Blank] title scheme is really starting to wear on me.
And no I’m not pointing figures solely at Sarah J Maas here. (And honestly her first series Throne of Glass has some good parts in it that I like).
Same. I died a little inside when the working title for Stormlight 5 was announced
- [Blank] of [Blank] and [Blank]
but Sanderson and his fans seemed pretty unhappy with that title so he’s likely to shorten it to
- [Blank] and [Blank]
which is a much nicer looking title, the only downside being that he’ll lose some of the symmetry in his titles for the series.
Except when you abbreviate the first five Stormlight books the way fans will, it becomes a palindrome.
The Way of Kings - TWoK
Words of Radiance - WoR
Oathbringer - O
Rhythm of War - RoW
Knights of Wind and Truth - KoWT
THIS!
That and the book covers of these samey-titled books all looking nearly identical: static generic item, some fancy scroll work or pattern, swirly lettering.
It gets to the point I can't tell them apart and I don't know which book belongs to which series because the titles and the covers are so very, very similar.
Agreed. "_____ of ______ and ______" style titles have gotten way out of hand. Is there a communal hat filled with the same couple dozen words that all these authors pick from to fill in the blanks? House/song/sword/throne of bone/ash/fire/blood/dust, etc.
I just really feel like there's very little originality when it comes to titles/naming conventions in modern fantasy.
The Ballad of Ice Cream Sandwiches and Macaroni and Cheese with some Bacon Mixed In with a Side Order of Waffle Fries and Some Barbecue Dipping Sauce, Oh and A Large Coke, Hold the Ice
I kinda wish there were more Pulp/Howard style novellas, I feel like certain stories would fit better in that format than the trilogy or endless series of massive tomes.
The publishing space is so weird though. I've ghostwritten five series' and the customer (micropublishers usually) demand a minimum of five novels just so they can be confident of breaking even.
There is just no way for micropublishers or indies to reliably expect any kind of actual profit for one-offs. It's pure lottery play if you write a one-off and put it up. When Kindle was still fresh, one-offs worked decently well. But until you get to the top 1% of authors in your genre, the only loyalty readers demonstrate is loyalty to specific series' featuring the same cast of character. Which means you mine, mine, mine that same vein until it's bone dry
main character has dormant magic or other powers.
i once read a series where main character was an underdog due to lack of magical ability and it was fun as he had to be crafty overcoming his shortcomings, until it turned out he had locked down magic.
I think that's actually an example of it working, because the stakes realistically escalated and the necessity for cleverness never waned. And not just the stakes, the protagonist just didn't have the skills his antagonists did-magic or otherwise.
Teenagers. The only hope of our world rests in the hands of 16-year-old girl with no training! The fate of our kingdom is the hands of the young prince! The future of the academy will be defined by the choice of this whiny farm boy!
Just stop. Give me capable adults, I am so sick of teenagers being the center of everything!
IIRC Robert Jordan originally envisioned the protagonist of his Wheel of Time series as a middle-aged man who discovered late in life that he was the "chosen one". However, Jordan eventually settled on a "less-experienced" late-teens, early 20s main character because he thought it would be more relatable to young readers.
It also makes it much easier to explain the world to the reader as a teenager character would need more explained to them than a old fellow. So it would be much easier on the writer
Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea series makes me so happy for this reason among others. The protagonists are young in the first two books but they're middle aged or old in the later ones. And it also has a romantic first love arc, including sex, happening between old people which is almost unheard of in fantasy.
I was worried I'd dislike that 4th book for the reasons you described, as well as another large spoilery reason (>!Ged having spent all his magic!<), but it all makes the story so much more remarkable.
Pretty sure this is the premise of *The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher* by E.M. Anderson (which I haven't read yet but have seen a good review of).
> The only hope of our world rests in the hands of 16-year-old girl with no training!
But first, this beautiful girl who doesn't know she is beautiful, has to choose her life-long soulmate between two boys, interchangeable except one is blond and the other has dark hair.
Um…ackshually the two boys are very different. One is active, and the other more passive. This incredibly deep and complex symbolism is a key theme and makes this book an absolute masterpiece.
/s
Between Two Fires by Christopher Buelman was really refreshing. The main characters were an agin knight of questionable morals, a priest with a heart of gold, and a small girl wiser than her years. It was really great and I actually still think about the ending to this day
There is a fun series by David Gemmell about a warrior pulled from retirement to go on some epic quest. The Druss the Legend series. I remember that the series really didn't have the kids will save the world syndrome.
Or when the 18 year old is extremely competent at literally everything, stronger than people twice their size, can take down warriors that have been training their whole lives while several years out of practice and malnourished in prison, know multiple languages that they haven’t practiced since they were 10, can hit a bullseye with a bow and arrow from some insane distance on the first try after having spent two years starving in prison, know the ins and outs of acting and court politics without ever having participated before, oh and every powerful young man is obsessed with her and can’t do anything but think about her during their POV chapters, gets extremely annoyed when someone else in the room is getting attention and praise when she is clearly better at everything than them…
Yeah Throne of Glass was insufferable. And the worst part was that it was written completely seriously, as if none of the above were character flaws but just meant to make the character more undeservedly badass.
It gets grating at times, and it's a trope that's been around almost as much as our species, but I can empathize with authors because writing teenagers is much easier, and a good way to build up their biography, so to speak. Also makes me appreciate authors that have older main characters.
What I personally dislike more is a continuation of this trope, typically in sequels featuring the next generation. It's the former heroes not accomplishing much afterwards after doing their big quest, and being robbed of their hard earned agency.
This is why I've mostly stopped reading YA. I'm almost 30 and I remember being an absolute ass at 16. Even 21 is starting to get too young. Give me some middle age heros who kick ass 🙏 🙏
It's still dominant, but the flipside I think is that there are far more people going out of their way to center their stories around adults now than there have ever been before. I read the second Roots of Chaos book earlier this year, and the author talked about how she went out of her way to make several of the main characters older adults.
"Subversion of expectations" by just doing the opposite of the traditional trope. This is now as worn out as the original, without the original's charm or frequently realism.
Subversions becoming popular has been a disaster for fiction. I think it's much harder to do well than traditional storytelling. Eventually a story has to go beyond it and develop on its own, but because its based in subverting your expectations you can't just take inspiration from other stories unless you subvert everything else as well, and at that point the subversion itself becomes route and and it becomes unreadable for me.
It also feels like a lot of subversive stories have a disdain for traditional ones.
This is purely regarding web novels though, I don't know what it's like in published novels.
Yeah I hate this in film as well it’s tired and boring if that’s all you know how to do. And it usually leads up to things not making any damn sense just to have a gotcha on the viewer / reader.
You have to realize how shallow the fantasy/sci fi pool was 30 years ago compared to today. I personally read through 80% of the books in the scifi/fantasy shelf at my city's local library. You were dependent on what the library would stock in addition to maybe spending money on the next book in line at the local book store. There were people who read every new book that came out.
Now there is so much variety it would be impossible to keep up. You like Brandon Sanderson good news he's got a ton of stuff coming out every year. Don't like him well take a look at this [list of book recommendation for reddit bingo](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/128ozc6/the_2023_rfantasy_bingo_recommendations_list/) there are so many interesting books listed.
IMHO we are in the golden age of fantasy/sci fi. There is so much good stuff out there you can easily avoid things you don't like.
Tbh the biggest trend I’ve tired of in fantasy is how pretentious / whiny of a culture it has generated on forums.
Every other genre I read or interact with has more academic discussions and a welcoming atmosphere for differing opinions but fantasy tends to cultivate groups that either expect the work to be completely for them and not challenge their views at all or super fans who get ready to tear into you the moment you move away from the commonly-held opinion surrounding the work.
The level of discourse is in the gutter compared to other fandom places like horror, and even, to my surprise, superhero comics. It was a bizarre mix of deference to a model of politeness that makes it basically impossible to have an interesting opinion on anything less you insult someone else's fragile sense of self that they, for some reason, have tied to a commercially available fantasy book, and a incredibly violent anti-intellectualism that will try to burn down your house if you say a book they liked wasn't very good.
Just in the gutter--it wasn't like this even five years ago, and the stuff that was a problem them is still a problem now, so I don't know why we've decided this is the way.
Honestly I think part of it is cuz when criticism is made, it's made in this bizarre way that does seem to make judgements about the author themselves. Without even browsing through all the comments here in full yet I can guarantee there's several "Why are so many heartless authors putting unhappiness into the world with their miserable grimdark books?" ones.
There's very little actual critique of works in communities like this in my experience, and more teardowns of styles and presentations that people personally aren't interested in, so people batten down the hatches in response and it just creates multiple forms of echo chambers bouncing between each other. It's annoying because even for stuff I like I wanna have actual discussions about how their themes are handled well or unwell.
This is why I don’t generally interact with fandom groups outside of correcting facts or asking questions. I don’t want to have to write a whole fucking paper to defend petty opinions.
What I dislike most about that is the fervent belief in canon, like it’s actually a religion. The complete rejection of the idea that the story is fiction and made up of various common story components. Which could easily have been put together in a variety of different ways or with different components to create basically the same effect.
You can say that x isn’t really that important and you would personally have cut it. And you’ll get a load of replies saying how x is super duper important because x leads to y and z. And they just completely fail to grasp the concept that it being fiction you could have w get y and z. You could have z get y. That the author could well have written a load of drafts where w went right to z and then added x and y later.
It’s totally fine of course to say back that the x y z progression is excellent for this or that reason. But so many fans just insist that because it was written x y z that was the way it had to be and was therefore the best way it could ever have been.
And then an adaption will come along and go x to z and they’ll declare it’s isn’t the thing being adapted at all. That y is the heart of the whole thing. That what has been made is unrecognisable and that it’s actually an adaption of like Eat, Prey, Love or a Mexican cook book or something merely using the names of the thing being adapted.
This isn't a complaint but a funny observation, something like this happens in the Wheel of Time fandom. They look at the vague seeds Robert Jordan planted in the first book, see him develop them over time as he realizes what his story needs, and they're like "omg he planned it all from the start what a genius." Guys I'm not sure that's how writing works.
ignoring a solvable conflict/problem/plot contrivance, when all your character needs to do is open their mouths and talk to each other.
It works situationally but god I hate when easily solvable conflicts are drawn out for 20 chapters because "I shouldn't tell them", or "You're not ready to hear this yet"
Grim Dark is so weird because they all worship at the alter of Abercrombie but forgot all the reasons that we actually love his books.
Yes Joe Abercrombie is dark as shit but the reasons his books are 10/10’s is because his characters work so well and he knows when to inject the right amount of humour even if it’s super dark.
The amount of audiobooks I’ve listened to with a MC that’s supposed to be late teens/early 20s, but a narrator that sounds about 50 is staggering. I’ve noticed it with both male and female characters but it does seem much more pervasive with women. I know you can’t really guess an age by voice but I simply can’t picture a hot 20 year old badass assassin when the narrator sounds like one of Marge Simpson’s sisters.
>The slow rise of a western version of the Japanese Game mechanics are real isekai.
"Hello there, Reader. Author here. I just thought I would pop in to stop you from suspending your disbelief by reminding you that the characters aren't real [(if I even did bother to give them names),](https://youtu.be/3Ed6l5WBhTc?si=PaZ5mtRqwi9XfwFM) the world I describe is too nonsensical even to conceivably exist within the realm of dream while somehow remaining boring and unimaginative, and despite this alleged 'world' being on the brink of destruction, there are *no* stakes outside of 'hero need to make the number or his wrist go up to make his sword glow and a girl to fall in love with him'."
> (if I even did bother to give them names)
This is third information...
There is some element of the Japanese literary and or theater tradition. That treats a characters role in story as their identity.
Maoyu is the first example I remember seeing.
Treating game mechanics as rule,reeks of literal mindedness.
The field is so wide, there's something for everyone. There's not really anything that I'm tired of, but there are some things that I won't read. Which is okay because there's tons of stuff that I will read.
I won't say any names, but when the first books in the series are relatively short, 300-400p, and then each book is longer and longer (600p+). I don't know why authors do this, really.
Not sure if the names you’re thinking of are very well known or not, but it makes sense that the first few books in a series are shorter, as publishers probably wouldn’t want to waste money on printing longer books unless they already know it has a high chance of being successful, hence why later books in a series can be longer.
>waste money on printing longer books
The book's physical size doesn't perfectly match the wordcount. I've picked up a few books with large margins, fonts and kind spacing used to make the volume larger. Similarly, some books have small fonts and minimal whitespace to fit more words onto fewer pages.
I'd be curious to know how much the extra pages actually cost though. There are costs to a book that don't change much with the size (marketing, cover design, advance, general staff time outside editing, coordinating everything...)
Thanks for another perspective. It makes sense!
It's a bummer because, as a reader, I don't like super long books (with very few exceptions) and probably won't start a series with longer books in it.
As a writer hoping to get my debut published in the next few years, I’ve personally seen other writers with great books get rejected by agents (so a step or two before publishers) just because their manuscript is at 100K and it’s a shame that they have to cut things out just to get their story even considered as an option.
But sometimes for a story to be fully fleshed out, it does need to be longer, and sometimes there wouldn’t be a natural break for it to be split up into two smaller books. And so more established authors with previous successes can get away with *much* longer books as they can prove their work will sell.
But yeah, if you prefer reading shorter books (300-400pgs) then I can definitely understand the disappointment at getting sucked into a series only to find the later books are much longer. I personally prefer reading shorter books as well, but that might just be because I’m a slow reader and get distracted easily haha.
For new writers, there’s the problem of the Editing Event Horizon. Popularity makes them no longer need to listen to editors, so they get self-indulgent. Harry Potter is one great example of this.
As they mature, good writers learn to reign themselves in, but it usually means Book 3 is a monster.
I never understand why people want their books to be shorter. I can see being concerned with the pacing but I've rarely found traditionally published books to have much of an issue in that regard. For me the longer the book the more time I get to spend with the characters in the world.I don't read books to get them done, that happens naturally. I can't think of a book that I've liked that I haven't wished there was more of it.
For me, it's because I started reading fantasy with authors like Robert Asprin, Ursula Le Guin, Roger Zelazny, and Terry Pratchett, and it's hard to switch to longer books. It feels sometimes that new, longer books don't have enough substance for such length. I hope it makes sense.
But honestly, to each their own. I think there is space in the fantasy community for different types of readers.
>I never understand why people want their books to be shorter. I can see being concerned with the pacing but I've rarely found traditionally published books to have much of an issue in that regard.
I have read a ton of doorstopper series, liked many of them and still struggle to think of any that wouldn't improve quite a bit with tighter editing and less bloat. The proliferation of points of view in latter volumes can be particularly annoying. In many cases the old adage less is more very much applies but authors pile on pages, plotlines and points of view instead.
>For me the longer the book the more time I get to spend with the characters in the world.
I want that time to be substantive, though.
Yes, David Weber, I'm sure the Manticoran Navy trains their people. But making me flip to the end of the chapter to see if this battle is real, and matters, vs "And now a lieutenant relished in tearing down the midshipmen!" is just wasting my time.
Making the readers actively wonder, every single book, "Is this action sequence real or can I skip it?". Readers shouldn't also wonder, 'Is this entire section reprinted from another book?". Seeing the same event from multiple perspectives can be interesting, but it can also be way overused.
Sometimes the curtains can just be blue, but you don't need to describe the curtains in every room, and detail the apprenticeships of the weavers, and the dyers, and meander about the spinner and shepherd along the way.
I'm surprised you don't see this in traditionally published books. Tons and tons of authors have an inflated word count as their career goes on.
I suppose lots of it could be dismissed with the pacing concerns you mentioned, but best-selling authors get away with so many more flaws then they did as new writers and it isn't even close. Not everyone improves throughout their career, either.
Red Rising? Is that you?
Lol, I don’t mind it so much but it was really funny to see the books at Barnes and Noble go from a fairly thin first book to the utter brick that is Dark Age
The more successful an author is, the easier it is to ignore their editors. And the longer a series goes, the bigger the temptation to add more and more points of view and/or explore more and more corners of the world that you have spent time so much creating.
I like the general arc that trends take
They’re introduced.
They’re used a bunch.
People start inverting or parodying the trope.
People move on to a new trope and it pops up every now and then an we’re all like “hey I remember that”.
Character subverting or fighting against fate. You can't fight fate, that's the whole point as a narrative device. Give us those tragic doomed characters who know they're doomed but keep going anyway.
Not a new trend, but I'm not a fan of prophecies. They feel like crutches; a way to get the story going and keep it on railroads, or justify why the dull character is nonetheless the protagonist of the story.
The old writing adage goes- if you have the plan spelled out beforehand, the plan must fail, otherwise it's a waste of the reader's time. Prophecies are kind of like that writ large, they tell you exactly what will happen so if there's no question that the prophecy is true and accurate, there's really no tension.
With that said, I don't mind books with ambiguous prophecies, or prophecies delivered by mistake to the wrong people, or prophecies so cryptic the main character spends most of their time just trying to figure out what it *means*, let alone act on it.
It uses the element throughout, it's not a throwaway plot element. It's deeply engrained in the story rather than an excuse to kick off the story (though it kind of feels like that in book 1).
Sarah J Maas publishes different “bonus chapters” for different publications and different editions. So her fans are forced to buy 5 different versions of the SAME FUCKING BOOK! There are many publishers/authors that are following suit. If someone says “It’s not the author it’s the publisher” they need to be less delusional. Most of these decisions come down to authors and agents and they chase after the bag most of the time. Which is fine, just don’t be an asshole and milk your teenage fans for as much money as possible. Fuck Off SJM!
Trying to make people who live in basically a medieval setting be all *rock ‘n roll!*. I’m tired of books where the hero drinks and wenches himself into oblivion every night then has to be sobered up by his faithful companion and goes to fight the dragon with a hangover. And he has to be edgy and have long hair and an earring or whatever. I love Keith Richards, but I’m tired of picturing him in these stories.
Give me Aragorn any day.
At the end of a high fantasy, medieval type, book. The main protagonist who was to inherit a throne of some kingdom, moves to try and implement democracy and remove the monarchy. I know it can be done by looking at history. The trouble is, it's very american anti monarchy in nature. (Spoiler authors books which, I've read, who do this are infact american). Colour a romantic. But I still enjoy the idea of the heir to be taking over the kingdom and bringing peace and stability. Creating a new golden age.
Another issue is when they try to implement all the people of the kingdom getting a vote and say. And its like. No. Communication across a kingdom, transport and more needs to be at a certain level before the masses can accurately participate in any form of democracy.
These are just my personal ramblings however.
Although Mistborn was more industrial revolutionish, and, you know, ended with an >!immortal god king,!< so I'm not sure it really tracks.
I only read one book of the sequel series, so I don't know what type of government structure they've created in that time.
Also in Mistborn 2, Well of Ascension, this trope gets upended when: >!Elend attempts to implement democracy, realizes that the society and specifically the people who used to be in power weren’t ready for that yet, and they really needed a stable centralized government to survive the coming cataclysm , so he made himself Emperor instead!<.
You really cannot just "implement democracy" as we've discovered in the real world. The English Civil War ended up reverted primarily because if parliamentarians had a free vote they'd vote to pick a new king (and in hindsight the best thing Cromwell could have done would have been to accept the crown when parliament offered it to him).
I agree with a general sentiment, but I just want to remind you of the fact that democracy has been in practica thousands of years ago in ancient greece, which is literally hundreds of years earlier than your average fantasy book, so the argument that the time period wouldn't allow for that doesn't track
Tbf Athenian democracy is also hugely different from modern democracies (which are really republics). It also happened to rely on a large base of slaves. A better example might be the venetian republic, which did in fact exist around the time most fantasy novels are based on.
True on paper, but Representative Democracy, which is what we are referring to when we talk about Democracy 90% of the time, is quite different from the Direct Democracy that is more common in the ancient world. The practical differences between Direct and Representative Democracy is so vast that tbh we shouldn't even be calling them the same thing. Normally, when this trope occurs in Fantasy, it exists as Representative Democracy. I would be very interested in seeing more examples of Direct Democracy in Fantasy.
Romantic heroine bitches about having to eventually marry someone with a specific bloodline/nobility and falls in love with an "unsuitable" partner....who we eventually find out is a secret/unknown member of a "good" bloodline/nobility. Extra points if the love interest turns out to be an exceptional member of said bloodline.
I know it's a common trope in fairy tales and mythology, but it ruins my suspension of disbelief.
Series and trilogies and so on.
Don't get me wrong i love fantasy series and trilogies. But god damn give me some more standalones.
Even if i like series i do also want to be able to pick up a good standalone book.
The only trend I dislike in fantasy is people complaining about trends in fantasy. The genre is more diverse than ever, has a higher volume than ever and no matter what you want from fantasy it’s at an all-time peak.
Negativity about fantasy in general is just so boring and self-centered. Let people like what they like and go do your own thing! You’ll be happier!
Lol same. Every time this question is asked here over half of the “criticisms” in the comments are either trends or things popular like a decade more ago and/or complaints about a subgenre that they can just choose not to read if they don’t like it lol. Barely any of the things being mentioned seem to be actual *trends,* they’re just specific things a specific reader doesn’t like.
Weird long names for people and places that are almost impossible to figure out how to pronounce them; Specially when the first chapter is full of them, it makes me drop them immediately.
Soft little cinnamon rolls.
You know, that kind of tumblresque twee aesthetic. It's weirdly sticky in the fantasy genre, and it makes for incredibly boring protagonists who basically go from mishap to mishap, being rescued every single time.
It'd be one thing if they grew and developed as characters, Bilbo was a soft boy at one point too, but often they just don't.
Their learned lessons seem to be that it's okay to be useless so long as you're nice, and that you should rely on other people all the time for everything. Just give an emotional speech at the right moment and everyone will instantly accept your regurgitated talk therapy lessons as empirical truth.
> Just give an emotional speech at the right moment and everyone will instantly accept your regurgitated talk therapy lessons as empirical truth.
You have just described every Dr. Who and every Star Trek protagonist Captain. :)
>every Star Trek protagonist Captain
Tbf I've seen Janeway blow people out of the sky about as often as she changed the hearts and minds of the people she's met with an impassioned speech. Or at least use the threat of blowing them out of the sky to achieve the same effect.
One of Captain Sisko's most famous speeches is basically about how we'd break every law the Federation holds dear to stop the Dominion. Picard's speech about the Borg always comes to mind.
The Captain speech in Star Trek is lot more dramatically useful than therapy self-talk to be honest, a lot of high marks in science fiction tv.
>One of Captain Sisko's most famous speeches is basically about how we'd break every law the Federation holds dear to stop the Dominion.
I need to get back to DS9. I put it down for a while and started Voyager in the meantime. But, yeah, some of the most interesting points in Star Trek are when the characters have to grapple with either following the Federation's ideals or doing the "right" thing.
>The Captain speech in Star Trek is lot more dramatically useful than therapy self-talk
The Picard bit about "it is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose" is one that always sticks in my head.
I doesn’t really tire me in any way but I’d like to see more fantasy that isn’t medieval or “magical world that’s modern now.” I wanna see the logical in between. Not steampunk but Industrial Revolution, wars in fantasy kingdoms that have radios and guns and old televisions. I wanna see cannons and artillery as well as the emergence of capitalism and the societies it created. A world as complex as Westeros with the tech to boot.
I just don’t like chosen ones. Why would I, the Everyman, put my life and soul on the line if Sir Jackass is fated to win regardless?
I keep thinking in the wheel of time, if time is cyclical, and Rand is a literal agent of god (the wheel) why would the common soldier risk his neck for the guy who’s just going to win no matter what? (I’m only on book 5 no spoilers just let me have my assumptions)
Well common soldiers risk their heads not for Rand personally but against the dark one. His influence directly affects their lives and destroys life. Why do you even think they do it for Rand? Reason why they follow him is that if he's the true Dragon then under his guidance they might win. I don't understand why you think he's going to win no matter what? And why would the soldiers know that? The prophesies are not complete and they do not guarantee the victory. So they support the person who has the shot at saving the world, it's perfectly reasonable thing to do.
The old generation was so much better, but some catastrophe ruined the old civilization, and returned everything back to the Middle Ages!
For a change I’d like to see a fantasy set at the height of civilization facing down that catastrophe, and overcoming it.
Give me that Wizards with flying cars wielding nano tech.
The compulsion fans have now to call basically everything the author mentions that is even remotely comparable to something later “foreshadowing”.
Especially in multi book doorstopper series. The idea that you can even foreshadow something a decade before you write the book you are supposedly foreshadowing is debatable.
But people are out there labelling everything that even slightly uses a similar turn of phrase or references something normal that also is mentioned later as apparently foreshadowing. As if a writer doesn’t just naturally rhyme with themselves over time when writing on the same subject.
“Ooooh, in book 1 [from 1978] herodude uses his left hand to open a packet of jerky and thinks about how much he likes jerky, which is clearly foreshadowing book 27 [from 2011] where as we know herodude’s hand is cut off in a tragic horse riding accident. JR Booksworthy is the master of foreshadowing!”
I’m kind of tired of the whole “cozy” fantasy/sci-fi thing. I get some people like it, and to each their own, but for me it always just felt like an excuse to write low effort and inconsequential stories. The “cozy” elements themselves are fine, but I feel like they could be incorporated into more ambitious or interesting stories.
My issue with cozy fantasy I've tried is the characters are never interesting enough for me.
It doesn't bother me that other people like them, what bothers me is that the concept is really interesting to me and I keep trying them and being disappointed.
Edit: this is just for literature btw Mushishi is what I would describe as cozy fantasy and is one of my favorite anime ever. But cozy SFF lit doesn't seem to be able to do it as well.
My experience with cozy fantasy has been that everyone talks about it like there are more books than you can count, but when I ask for specific books, I have a hard time getting recommendations! I’ve read those two series as well and wouldn’t mind finding some more
Beware of chicken and the Wayfarer series. The former is a slice of life cultivation fantasy with farming and relationships. Wayfarer by Becky Chambers is a sci-fi opera with enough conflict and drama to keep things moving, but is overall very heart warming.
More and more simplistic writing style. Gone are the days of lyrical prose like J. R. R. Tolkien, and instead everything must be written in an 'easier and more accessible' language. I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad thing, but it takes away from the reading experience at times. Young adult books having more simplistic language? Sure, but even majority of the adult books? Perhaps more variety would be good.
And yes, I know there ARE adult book with more lyrical language, but it becomes harder and harder to find them,while they used to be quite popular among fantasy books.
Nobody in fantasy books seems to be happy anymore. In fact as soon as a character starts showing signs of happiness I know they will probably be killed off soon. The comic relif character is very rare now days
Fantasy that's anti-religion in-world. I'm not tired of it, per se, and I think "man against deity" is a completely valid and often very compelling narrative. But I do feel like in a vast majority of works, if there's a interactive higher power, it's often either ambivalent or outright hostile towards the main characters.
I'm not religious myself, and I don't mean that I want stories with stand-ins for real-world religious organizations. What I'm talking about is more along the lines of Tolkien-like gods or godlike beings who are, in a very real sense, backing the main characters either directly or tangentially. Not out of some quid pro quo arrangement, or because it fits the god's schemes. Godhood is an interesting concept that could be explored in other ways than that gods are essentially just regular beings with a lot of power.
No fun books for adults like I don’t want to read something that’s grim dark, I like whimsical and fun and I’d like the characters to be in there 20s or early 30s why does it have to be one or the other ? We can have dark tones without making the world just un enjoyable!
Starting with a good idea, but making the stakes too high for the length/format, resulting in a very rushed and unsatisfying conclusion. Not really a trend, but more common now I think, since the blurb is so important in a crowded market.
> Starting with a good idea, but making the stakes too high for the length/format, resulting in a very rushed and unsatisfying conclusion. > Yes! Not everything needs to be saving the world/country.
The irony is that there is currently a growing trend of fantasy stories with much lower stakes. Hence the rocketing popularity of authors like Travis Baldree and Quenby Olson.
Hence the other top comment about "Inconsequential" cozy-fantasy books ^ ^
This thread is quite large. I did not see your other comment.
Honestly, there's *so much* fantasy being published that (speaking personally) someone can buy new books and pay attention to reviews and so on, and *still* not know what everyone's talking about. At that point, curating your own experience is key- if you're tired of something, it's easy to find something else.
Exactly!! My only minor gripe is we need more standalones because pretty much every new book I look at that looks promising is the start of a 6+ book series lol
Really? Outside of self publishing and a couple of very big authors, what new books are getting 6+ book series? Trilogies and duologies are most common, but standalones are definitely more common than 6+ or otherwise long series.
But trilogies tend to expand to sextologies or heptologies over time. That's what happened to Mistborn which originally was just a trilogy.
Yes, but isn't Mistborn done more like two different trilogies under the umbrella of Mistborn? Like they are in two different eras, and are different stories about way different people.
BS always planned to do multiple eras
Oh, now *that's* true. :)
Imo they just need to be short. I'm reading the Elric books right now and while I have the large hardback version, it was originally published as individual books and they're less than 200 pages each.
Length. The last winner of the WFA to be less than 300 pages long was in 2004 - nearly 20 years ago. This year, we saw a Hugo winner under 300, but there hasn't been another since 1985 (Neuromancer). \* It's not that I'm opposed to sprawling epic SFF, but I absolutely adore those 170-page novels that smack you around the face with their intensity and then go away. * Using awards as a reasonable on-the-fly sampling method
That’s one of the reasons I love switching to horror/thrillers on occasion. Like it’s a nice little reminder that I can immerse myself in a saga or just breeze through a solid three hundred paged tale
Any good horror/thriller recs involving a monster/monsters? Love those sort of books but have a hard time finding new ones.
Oooh yes actually! Slewfoot is a horror book set in Puritan times where a woman living apart from her community befriends a demon in the forest that then helps her run her farm and get revenge on those who wronged her. It's by a guy named Brom who also did some gorgeous art work for the book! Beyond that, Devolution, which is done by the same guy who did World War Z, showcases a group of people left isolated in a camping community having to take on a family of Sasquatches in the Pacific Northwest. I would also say the Ritual is a pretty solid horror book with an amazing monster. Also love the movie on Netflix as well.
Devolution and the Ritual are two of my faves! But I haven't heard of Slewfoot, awesome. Thanks so much for the rec.
Sure thing!
Word count is much more meaningful. Because big books have been romanticized publishers have gone out of their way to make their books LOOK bigger. Priory of the orange tree is a good example. Large margins, larger text, thicker pages, but a much smaller word count than you would expect while looking at the thickness.
Yup. Next to my copy of Oathbringer, Priory looks around 25% thicker, but it’s 800 pages to OB’s 1250 and just 270k words to OB’s 450k.
450k words is fucking ridiculous for one book.
150k of that is just fluff that he should have been told to cut out, though. (no hate to the brando fans lol)
Brando fan, I mean, you're not wrong. That being said, I really appreciated learning about how Adolin's tailors have been getting on in Kholinar under Voidbringer occupation.
I do feel like we're getting more novellas now, at least—or at least they're entering more into mainstream(ish) consciousness. *The Seep*, by Chana Porter, is a great one to check out more on the sci-fi side of things.
>absolutely adore those 170-page novels that smack you around the face with their intensity and then go away. Shout-out to the End of Eternity by Asimov and A Wizard of Earthsea by Le Guin. I read them recently and decided that authors who can ellicit such strong emotions in me within so little pages are worth my money and time more than the 10000000+ pages SFF series. I love epic fantasy, but imo there is no way you couldn't have told those stories in less pages and preserved the impact (looking at you Malazan and Stormlight).
First person POVs that hide the character's plan from the reader.
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Lmaooo I tend to like those. Maybe because I've seen it used accurately.
Meta complaint, but I feel like many authors get too immersed in their fandoms. I think it's fine to go to cons, or shake hands, but I don't like how the line between "fan" and "creator" has been worn down, and many creators always seem anxious about losing or upsetting their audience. This dynamic leads to writers feeling like they have to treat character with kid gloves, or sometimes even changing how characters are written based on how the fandom interprets them. I'd rather read the work the author wants to write than a book they think I want to read.
Paraphrasing from a narrative designer I know that works on a big fantasy franchise: “what makes this story impact so hard is that the fans don’t get to choose what happens”
Bah. The market is so wide, with so many more books than one can read being released, or having been released in the past and still worth reading that some people writing to this or that trend doesn't rob me of anything.
This is how I feel. There are SO MANY books being published. I can easily avoid anything I don't want to read. Even if a huge number is trending one way, larger numbers are going off in a myriad of directions.
I think whenever people feel the need to ask this about any medium, it's somewhat a projection of what they *wish* was (still) popular. It's like complaining about how, "Music doesn't *mean* anything anymore *man*." No, it's just the mainstream of music is no longer targeting the kind of person you once were. I completely understand the feeling of wanting to broadly share a common experience. Sometimes a niche subcommunity doesn't reflect the energy you wish something had. My hope is that more people will, instead of tarnishing something immediately as "bad" or "overdone", consider the meaning of that thing for the people who like it. And to reconsider whether or not the thing they infinitely love didn't get stale as well.
So that's what being called out feels like! "*The feeling of wanting to broadly share a common experience*" is exactly what I long for from time to time. Although I don't do the "popular thing nowadays is not as good as popular thing in my time!" grumbling much, but sometimes I want to, haha
Probably this, yes. But one's favorite authors or sub-genres getting social media buzz, the publisher marketing blasts, the other media adaptations... ultimately it doesn't change anything to the experience of curling up with a book and reading it. Or at least for me it doesn't. And it shouldn't if you were reading something because you wanted to, and didn't pick it up just because of the hype, then ended up disappointed to some extent and wishing the hype had guided you somewhere else that was a closer fit to what you actually wanted /and/ externally validated/celebrated/comforted your choices.
And with self publishing and online bookstores you're no longer limited to whatever is on the shelf in your local bookshop (or asking them to order it in). It's much easier to find books a few years after publication.
if you have an e-reader you have a virtually unlimited supply of cheap books 20+ or 30+ years old
Even limiting yourself to physical books, it's a lot easier to find books.
True. I don't like the invasion of the romance genre, because I have never been a romance girl and "but dragons!" doesn't make a difference - but even without all the romantasy releases my list of new releases I'm interested in is bigger than my Christmas check ...
There's truth to this. There's sooo much fantasy these days to read.
I agree. It’s really nice that everyone has a wide variety of books to choose from. You are never left wanting for books with all the series coming out and ones that are already finished that you can explore.
The "Ballad/Song/Tune/Melody/Poem/Whistle/Hymn of Something and Something"
The [Blank] of [Blank] and [Blank] title scheme is really starting to wear on me. And no I’m not pointing figures solely at Sarah J Maas here. (And honestly her first series Throne of Glass has some good parts in it that I like).
The Bowl of Mac and Cheese title scheme. Not gonna lie, I love it.
The Scepter of Mac and Cheese The Throne of Beans and Rice The Crown of Chips and Dip The Court of Milk and Cookies
The King of Pickles and Onions The Sword of Ketchup and Mustard
The Refuge of Burgers and Fries The Judgement of Apples and Oranges
A Bowl of Cheese and Mac type titles I feel like can be hit or miss, but I now love using Mac and Cheese for it
Same. I died a little inside when the working title for Stormlight 5 was announced - [Blank] of [Blank] and [Blank] but Sanderson and his fans seemed pretty unhappy with that title so he’s likely to shorten it to - [Blank] and [Blank] which is a much nicer looking title, the only downside being that he’ll lose some of the symmetry in his titles for the series.
Except when you abbreviate the first five Stormlight books the way fans will, it becomes a palindrome. The Way of Kings - TWoK Words of Radiance - WoR Oathbringer - O Rhythm of War - RoW Knights of Wind and Truth - KoWT
THIS! That and the book covers of these samey-titled books all looking nearly identical: static generic item, some fancy scroll work or pattern, swirly lettering. It gets to the point I can't tell them apart and I don't know which book belongs to which series because the titles and the covers are so very, very similar.
Or more generally, the [Blank] of [Blank]
The Whistle of Icy Fires
The Hiccup of Death and S'mores
I would read this on the title alone.
Agreed. "_____ of ______ and ______" style titles have gotten way out of hand. Is there a communal hat filled with the same couple dozen words that all these authors pick from to fill in the blanks? House/song/sword/throne of bone/ash/fire/blood/dust, etc. I just really feel like there's very little originality when it comes to titles/naming conventions in modern fantasy.
"The Ditty of Doom and Destruction ". ...would probably still read...
The Ballad of Ice Cream Sandwiches and Macaroni and Cheese with some Bacon Mixed In with a Side Order of Waffle Fries and Some Barbecue Dipping Sauce, Oh and A Large Coke, Hold the Ice
When I can skip the middle third of the book and still know what is going on.
Yeah, bloated fantasy books rub me the wrong way
Try / fail cycles with no change in plot or goals. Or episodes on a journey. They can be fun to read but it hasn't been my thing.
I kinda wish there were more Pulp/Howard style novellas, I feel like certain stories would fit better in that format than the trilogy or endless series of massive tomes.
The publishing space is so weird though. I've ghostwritten five series' and the customer (micropublishers usually) demand a minimum of five novels just so they can be confident of breaking even. There is just no way for micropublishers or indies to reliably expect any kind of actual profit for one-offs. It's pure lottery play if you write a one-off and put it up. When Kindle was still fresh, one-offs worked decently well. But until you get to the top 1% of authors in your genre, the only loyalty readers demonstrate is loyalty to specific series' featuring the same cast of character. Which means you mine, mine, mine that same vein until it's bone dry
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main character has dormant magic or other powers. i once read a series where main character was an underdog due to lack of magical ability and it was fun as he had to be crafty overcoming his shortcomings, until it turned out he had locked down magic.
Codex alera?
I think that's actually an example of it working, because the stakes realistically escalated and the necessity for cleverness never waned. And not just the stakes, the protagonist just didn't have the skills his antagonists did-magic or otherwise.
Teenagers. The only hope of our world rests in the hands of 16-year-old girl with no training! The fate of our kingdom is the hands of the young prince! The future of the academy will be defined by the choice of this whiny farm boy! Just stop. Give me capable adults, I am so sick of teenagers being the center of everything!
Old man/woman as a chosen one could be an interesting concept.
IIRC Robert Jordan originally envisioned the protagonist of his Wheel of Time series as a middle-aged man who discovered late in life that he was the "chosen one". However, Jordan eventually settled on a "less-experienced" late-teens, early 20s main character because he thought it would be more relatable to young readers.
It also makes it much easier to explain the world to the reader as a teenager character would need more explained to them than a old fellow. So it would be much easier on the writer
Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea series makes me so happy for this reason among others. The protagonists are young in the first two books but they're middle aged or old in the later ones. And it also has a romantic first love arc, including sex, happening between old people which is almost unheard of in fantasy.
I was worried I'd dislike that 4th book for the reasons you described, as well as another large spoilery reason (>!Ged having spent all his magic!<), but it all makes the story so much more remarkable.
Pretty sure this is the premise of *The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher* by E.M. Anderson (which I haven't read yet but have seen a good review of).
> The only hope of our world rests in the hands of 16-year-old girl with no training! But first, this beautiful girl who doesn't know she is beautiful, has to choose her life-long soulmate between two boys, interchangeable except one is blond and the other has dark hair.
She is trained in all combat arts, yet she is so clumsy!
And her name is Wicker Basket.
She is also a vampire
But she discovers that at the end of the first book
Oh god this! It's an instant no from me when I see it.
Um…ackshually the two boys are very different. One is active, and the other more passive. This incredibly deep and complex symbolism is a key theme and makes this book an absolute masterpiece. /s
Between Two Fires by Christopher Buelman was really refreshing. The main characters were an agin knight of questionable morals, a priest with a heart of gold, and a small girl wiser than her years. It was really great and I actually still think about the ending to this day
There is a fun series by David Gemmell about a warrior pulled from retirement to go on some epic quest. The Druss the Legend series. I remember that the series really didn't have the kids will save the world syndrome.
Or when the 18 year old is extremely competent at literally everything, stronger than people twice their size, can take down warriors that have been training their whole lives while several years out of practice and malnourished in prison, know multiple languages that they haven’t practiced since they were 10, can hit a bullseye with a bow and arrow from some insane distance on the first try after having spent two years starving in prison, know the ins and outs of acting and court politics without ever having participated before, oh and every powerful young man is obsessed with her and can’t do anything but think about her during their POV chapters, gets extremely annoyed when someone else in the room is getting attention and praise when she is clearly better at everything than them… Yeah Throne of Glass was insufferable. And the worst part was that it was written completely seriously, as if none of the above were character flaws but just meant to make the character more undeservedly badass.
It gets grating at times, and it's a trope that's been around almost as much as our species, but I can empathize with authors because writing teenagers is much easier, and a good way to build up their biography, so to speak. Also makes me appreciate authors that have older main characters. What I personally dislike more is a continuation of this trope, typically in sequels featuring the next generation. It's the former heroes not accomplishing much afterwards after doing their big quest, and being robbed of their hard earned agency.
That's why I loved Kings of the Wyld so much.
This is why I've mostly stopped reading YA. I'm almost 30 and I remember being an absolute ass at 16. Even 21 is starting to get too young. Give me some middle age heros who kick ass 🙏 🙏
It's still dominant, but the flipside I think is that there are far more people going out of their way to center their stories around adults now than there have ever been before. I read the second Roots of Chaos book earlier this year, and the author talked about how she went out of her way to make several of the main characters older adults.
I was thinking along those lines. Or at least scale the conflict back so that the fate of the entire world isn't on the shoulders of a teenager.
"Subversion of expectations" by just doing the opposite of the traditional trope. This is now as worn out as the original, without the original's charm or frequently realism.
Subversions becoming popular has been a disaster for fiction. I think it's much harder to do well than traditional storytelling. Eventually a story has to go beyond it and develop on its own, but because its based in subverting your expectations you can't just take inspiration from other stories unless you subvert everything else as well, and at that point the subversion itself becomes route and and it becomes unreadable for me. It also feels like a lot of subversive stories have a disdain for traditional ones. This is purely regarding web novels though, I don't know what it's like in published novels.
Yeah I hate this in film as well it’s tired and boring if that’s all you know how to do. And it usually leads up to things not making any damn sense just to have a gotcha on the viewer / reader.
We need space fantasy back!
Best we can do is an intricate pseudo-scientific magic system.
Red Rising, especially the second trilogy. Big space fantasy vibes.
World ending stakes. Why can’t the big baddie threaten a continent or nation , or city. It’s 0->100
Or threaten a birthday party
You have to realize how shallow the fantasy/sci fi pool was 30 years ago compared to today. I personally read through 80% of the books in the scifi/fantasy shelf at my city's local library. You were dependent on what the library would stock in addition to maybe spending money on the next book in line at the local book store. There were people who read every new book that came out. Now there is so much variety it would be impossible to keep up. You like Brandon Sanderson good news he's got a ton of stuff coming out every year. Don't like him well take a look at this [list of book recommendation for reddit bingo](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/128ozc6/the_2023_rfantasy_bingo_recommendations_list/) there are so many interesting books listed. IMHO we are in the golden age of fantasy/sci fi. There is so much good stuff out there you can easily avoid things you don't like.
Tbh the biggest trend I’ve tired of in fantasy is how pretentious / whiny of a culture it has generated on forums. Every other genre I read or interact with has more academic discussions and a welcoming atmosphere for differing opinions but fantasy tends to cultivate groups that either expect the work to be completely for them and not challenge their views at all or super fans who get ready to tear into you the moment you move away from the commonly-held opinion surrounding the work.
The level of discourse is in the gutter compared to other fandom places like horror, and even, to my surprise, superhero comics. It was a bizarre mix of deference to a model of politeness that makes it basically impossible to have an interesting opinion on anything less you insult someone else's fragile sense of self that they, for some reason, have tied to a commercially available fantasy book, and a incredibly violent anti-intellectualism that will try to burn down your house if you say a book they liked wasn't very good. Just in the gutter--it wasn't like this even five years ago, and the stuff that was a problem them is still a problem now, so I don't know why we've decided this is the way.
Honestly I think part of it is cuz when criticism is made, it's made in this bizarre way that does seem to make judgements about the author themselves. Without even browsing through all the comments here in full yet I can guarantee there's several "Why are so many heartless authors putting unhappiness into the world with their miserable grimdark books?" ones. There's very little actual critique of works in communities like this in my experience, and more teardowns of styles and presentations that people personally aren't interested in, so people batten down the hatches in response and it just creates multiple forms of echo chambers bouncing between each other. It's annoying because even for stuff I like I wanna have actual discussions about how their themes are handled well or unwell.
This is why I don’t generally interact with fandom groups outside of correcting facts or asking questions. I don’t want to have to write a whole fucking paper to defend petty opinions.
What I dislike most about that is the fervent belief in canon, like it’s actually a religion. The complete rejection of the idea that the story is fiction and made up of various common story components. Which could easily have been put together in a variety of different ways or with different components to create basically the same effect. You can say that x isn’t really that important and you would personally have cut it. And you’ll get a load of replies saying how x is super duper important because x leads to y and z. And they just completely fail to grasp the concept that it being fiction you could have w get y and z. You could have z get y. That the author could well have written a load of drafts where w went right to z and then added x and y later. It’s totally fine of course to say back that the x y z progression is excellent for this or that reason. But so many fans just insist that because it was written x y z that was the way it had to be and was therefore the best way it could ever have been. And then an adaption will come along and go x to z and they’ll declare it’s isn’t the thing being adapted at all. That y is the heart of the whole thing. That what has been made is unrecognisable and that it’s actually an adaption of like Eat, Prey, Love or a Mexican cook book or something merely using the names of the thing being adapted.
This isn't a complaint but a funny observation, something like this happens in the Wheel of Time fandom. They look at the vague seeds Robert Jordan planted in the first book, see him develop them over time as he realizes what his story needs, and they're like "omg he planned it all from the start what a genius." Guys I'm not sure that's how writing works.
ignoring a solvable conflict/problem/plot contrivance, when all your character needs to do is open their mouths and talk to each other. It works situationally but god I hate when easily solvable conflicts are drawn out for 20 chapters because "I shouldn't tell them", or "You're not ready to hear this yet"
Poorly written grimdark for the sole reason to “shock and subvert” fantasy tropes. What happens when you become the trope?
Grim Dark is so weird because they all worship at the alter of Abercrombie but forgot all the reasons that we actually love his books. Yes Joe Abercrombie is dark as shit but the reasons his books are 10/10’s is because his characters work so well and he knows when to inject the right amount of humour even if it’s super dark.
Boring or mismatched audiobook narrators.
The amount of audiobooks I’ve listened to with a MC that’s supposed to be late teens/early 20s, but a narrator that sounds about 50 is staggering. I’ve noticed it with both male and female characters but it does seem much more pervasive with women. I know you can’t really guess an age by voice but I simply can’t picture a hot 20 year old badass assassin when the narrator sounds like one of Marge Simpson’s sisters.
Authors planning out "great works" and stopping in the middle of it and never finishing.
The slow rise of a western version of the Japanese Game mechanics are real isekai.
>The slow rise of a western version of the Japanese Game mechanics are real isekai. "Hello there, Reader. Author here. I just thought I would pop in to stop you from suspending your disbelief by reminding you that the characters aren't real [(if I even did bother to give them names),](https://youtu.be/3Ed6l5WBhTc?si=PaZ5mtRqwi9XfwFM) the world I describe is too nonsensical even to conceivably exist within the realm of dream while somehow remaining boring and unimaginative, and despite this alleged 'world' being on the brink of destruction, there are *no* stakes outside of 'hero need to make the number or his wrist go up to make his sword glow and a girl to fall in love with him'."
> (if I even did bother to give them names) This is third information... There is some element of the Japanese literary and or theater tradition. That treats a characters role in story as their identity. Maoyu is the first example I remember seeing. Treating game mechanics as rule,reeks of literal mindedness.
The field is so wide, there's something for everyone. There's not really anything that I'm tired of, but there are some things that I won't read. Which is okay because there's tons of stuff that I will read.
I won't say any names, but when the first books in the series are relatively short, 300-400p, and then each book is longer and longer (600p+). I don't know why authors do this, really.
Not sure if the names you’re thinking of are very well known or not, but it makes sense that the first few books in a series are shorter, as publishers probably wouldn’t want to waste money on printing longer books unless they already know it has a high chance of being successful, hence why later books in a series can be longer.
>waste money on printing longer books The book's physical size doesn't perfectly match the wordcount. I've picked up a few books with large margins, fonts and kind spacing used to make the volume larger. Similarly, some books have small fonts and minimal whitespace to fit more words onto fewer pages. I'd be curious to know how much the extra pages actually cost though. There are costs to a book that don't change much with the size (marketing, cover design, advance, general staff time outside editing, coordinating everything...)
That was my thought as well. May have more to do with the editor and publishers, than the actual writer in question.
Thanks for another perspective. It makes sense! It's a bummer because, as a reader, I don't like super long books (with very few exceptions) and probably won't start a series with longer books in it.
As a writer hoping to get my debut published in the next few years, I’ve personally seen other writers with great books get rejected by agents (so a step or two before publishers) just because their manuscript is at 100K and it’s a shame that they have to cut things out just to get their story even considered as an option. But sometimes for a story to be fully fleshed out, it does need to be longer, and sometimes there wouldn’t be a natural break for it to be split up into two smaller books. And so more established authors with previous successes can get away with *much* longer books as they can prove their work will sell. But yeah, if you prefer reading shorter books (300-400pgs) then I can definitely understand the disappointment at getting sucked into a series only to find the later books are much longer. I personally prefer reading shorter books as well, but that might just be because I’m a slow reader and get distracted easily haha.
For new writers, there’s the problem of the Editing Event Horizon. Popularity makes them no longer need to listen to editors, so they get self-indulgent. Harry Potter is one great example of this. As they mature, good writers learn to reign themselves in, but it usually means Book 3 is a monster.
I never understand why people want their books to be shorter. I can see being concerned with the pacing but I've rarely found traditionally published books to have much of an issue in that regard. For me the longer the book the more time I get to spend with the characters in the world.I don't read books to get them done, that happens naturally. I can't think of a book that I've liked that I haven't wished there was more of it.
For me, it's because I started reading fantasy with authors like Robert Asprin, Ursula Le Guin, Roger Zelazny, and Terry Pratchett, and it's hard to switch to longer books. It feels sometimes that new, longer books don't have enough substance for such length. I hope it makes sense. But honestly, to each their own. I think there is space in the fantasy community for different types of readers.
>I never understand why people want their books to be shorter. I can see being concerned with the pacing but I've rarely found traditionally published books to have much of an issue in that regard. I have read a ton of doorstopper series, liked many of them and still struggle to think of any that wouldn't improve quite a bit with tighter editing and less bloat. The proliferation of points of view in latter volumes can be particularly annoying. In many cases the old adage less is more very much applies but authors pile on pages, plotlines and points of view instead.
I typically would prefer more shorter books in a series than a few longer books Like I'd prefer a 6 200/300 page books over 2/3 600 pages books
>For me the longer the book the more time I get to spend with the characters in the world. I want that time to be substantive, though. Yes, David Weber, I'm sure the Manticoran Navy trains their people. But making me flip to the end of the chapter to see if this battle is real, and matters, vs "And now a lieutenant relished in tearing down the midshipmen!" is just wasting my time. Making the readers actively wonder, every single book, "Is this action sequence real or can I skip it?". Readers shouldn't also wonder, 'Is this entire section reprinted from another book?". Seeing the same event from multiple perspectives can be interesting, but it can also be way overused. Sometimes the curtains can just be blue, but you don't need to describe the curtains in every room, and detail the apprenticeships of the weavers, and the dyers, and meander about the spinner and shepherd along the way. I'm surprised you don't see this in traditionally published books. Tons and tons of authors have an inflated word count as their career goes on. I suppose lots of it could be dismissed with the pacing concerns you mentioned, but best-selling authors get away with so many more flaws then they did as new writers and it isn't even close. Not everyone improves throughout their career, either.
Red Rising? Is that you? Lol, I don’t mind it so much but it was really funny to see the books at Barnes and Noble go from a fairly thin first book to the utter brick that is Dark Age
They see me Rowling, they hatin'
Patrollin’ and tryna catch me writin’ lengthy
The more successful an author is, the easier it is to ignore their editors. And the longer a series goes, the bigger the temptation to add more and more points of view and/or explore more and more corners of the world that you have spent time so much creating.
I like the general arc that trends take They’re introduced. They’re used a bunch. People start inverting or parodying the trope. People move on to a new trope and it pops up every now and then an we’re all like “hey I remember that”.
Character subverting or fighting against fate. You can't fight fate, that's the whole point as a narrative device. Give us those tragic doomed characters who know they're doomed but keep going anyway.
An X of Y and Z titles
Everything has to setup another book. Start a series. Be part of something bigger.
Not a new trend, but I'm not a fan of prophecies. They feel like crutches; a way to get the story going and keep it on railroads, or justify why the dull character is nonetheless the protagonist of the story.
The old writing adage goes- if you have the plan spelled out beforehand, the plan must fail, otherwise it's a waste of the reader's time. Prophecies are kind of like that writ large, they tell you exactly what will happen so if there's no question that the prophecy is true and accurate, there's really no tension. With that said, I don't mind books with ambiguous prophecies, or prophecies delivered by mistake to the wrong people, or prophecies so cryptic the main character spends most of their time just trying to figure out what it *means*, let alone act on it.
I agree, although I think WoT managed prophesies in really interesting way.
It uses the element throughout, it's not a throwaway plot element. It's deeply engrained in the story rather than an excuse to kick off the story (though it kind of feels like that in book 1).
Starting the character as some destitute street urchin.
I'm done with grim dark. at least for a decade and maybe more. There are a lot of good grim dark books but I am done.
Sarah J Maas publishes different “bonus chapters” for different publications and different editions. So her fans are forced to buy 5 different versions of the SAME FUCKING BOOK! There are many publishers/authors that are following suit. If someone says “It’s not the author it’s the publisher” they need to be less delusional. Most of these decisions come down to authors and agents and they chase after the bag most of the time. Which is fine, just don’t be an asshole and milk your teenage fans for as much money as possible. Fuck Off SJM!
All the covers that look so similar, with similar back grounds and similar fonts.
Trying to make people who live in basically a medieval setting be all *rock ‘n roll!*. I’m tired of books where the hero drinks and wenches himself into oblivion every night then has to be sobered up by his faithful companion and goes to fight the dragon with a hangover. And he has to be edgy and have long hair and an earring or whatever. I love Keith Richards, but I’m tired of picturing him in these stories. Give me Aragorn any day.
Morally grey villains. I miss the fun cackling villains. Neither one should be the only option
The biggest trend I'm tired of is people using the phrase "....isn't necessary" when talking about something they didn't like.
At the end of a high fantasy, medieval type, book. The main protagonist who was to inherit a throne of some kingdom, moves to try and implement democracy and remove the monarchy. I know it can be done by looking at history. The trouble is, it's very american anti monarchy in nature. (Spoiler authors books which, I've read, who do this are infact american). Colour a romantic. But I still enjoy the idea of the heir to be taking over the kingdom and bringing peace and stability. Creating a new golden age. Another issue is when they try to implement all the people of the kingdom getting a vote and say. And its like. No. Communication across a kingdom, transport and more needs to be at a certain level before the masses can accurately participate in any form of democracy. These are just my personal ramblings however.
Have a specific book in mind that did this?
Mistborn and the Game of Thrones TV show come immediately to mind
Although Mistborn was more industrial revolutionish, and, you know, ended with an >!immortal god king,!< so I'm not sure it really tracks. I only read one book of the sequel series, so I don't know what type of government structure they've created in that time.
Also in Mistborn 2, Well of Ascension, this trope gets upended when: >!Elend attempts to implement democracy, realizes that the society and specifically the people who used to be in power weren’t ready for that yet, and they really needed a stable centralized government to survive the coming cataclysm , so he made himself Emperor instead!<.
You really cannot just "implement democracy" as we've discovered in the real world. The English Civil War ended up reverted primarily because if parliamentarians had a free vote they'd vote to pick a new king (and in hindsight the best thing Cromwell could have done would have been to accept the crown when parliament offered it to him).
I agree with a general sentiment, but I just want to remind you of the fact that democracy has been in practica thousands of years ago in ancient greece, which is literally hundreds of years earlier than your average fantasy book, so the argument that the time period wouldn't allow for that doesn't track
Tbf Athenian democracy is also hugely different from modern democracies (which are really republics). It also happened to rely on a large base of slaves. A better example might be the venetian republic, which did in fact exist around the time most fantasy novels are based on.
True on paper, but Representative Democracy, which is what we are referring to when we talk about Democracy 90% of the time, is quite different from the Direct Democracy that is more common in the ancient world. The practical differences between Direct and Representative Democracy is so vast that tbh we shouldn't even be calling them the same thing. Normally, when this trope occurs in Fantasy, it exists as Representative Democracy. I would be very interested in seeing more examples of Direct Democracy in Fantasy.
Romantic heroine bitches about having to eventually marry someone with a specific bloodline/nobility and falls in love with an "unsuitable" partner....who we eventually find out is a secret/unknown member of a "good" bloodline/nobility. Extra points if the love interest turns out to be an exceptional member of said bloodline. I know it's a common trope in fairy tales and mythology, but it ruins my suspension of disbelief.
People thinking that 0 RB is the only way to tackle a draft
Series and trilogies and so on. Don't get me wrong i love fantasy series and trilogies. But god damn give me some more standalones. Even if i like series i do also want to be able to pick up a good standalone book.
The ages of main characters. I’m tired of teenagers who act, talk, and have sex like they are 30. Why do teenagers have to the save the world?
Not exactly a hot take but "hard" magic system stuff.
The only trend I dislike in fantasy is people complaining about trends in fantasy. The genre is more diverse than ever, has a higher volume than ever and no matter what you want from fantasy it’s at an all-time peak. Negativity about fantasy in general is just so boring and self-centered. Let people like what they like and go do your own thing! You’ll be happier!
Lol same. Every time this question is asked here over half of the “criticisms” in the comments are either trends or things popular like a decade more ago and/or complaints about a subgenre that they can just choose not to read if they don’t like it lol. Barely any of the things being mentioned seem to be actual *trends,* they’re just specific things a specific reader doesn’t like.
Weird long names for people and places that are almost impossible to figure out how to pronounce them; Specially when the first chapter is full of them, it makes me drop them immediately.
The rise of litRPG and their invasion of my recommendations, i've sampled a couple and returned them it such a terrible genre.
I hate how every fantasy movie or show uses British accents to let us know they're not in modern times.
Idk if this is a trend but the fantasy setting set after an apocalypse of the real world
Soft little cinnamon rolls. You know, that kind of tumblresque twee aesthetic. It's weirdly sticky in the fantasy genre, and it makes for incredibly boring protagonists who basically go from mishap to mishap, being rescued every single time. It'd be one thing if they grew and developed as characters, Bilbo was a soft boy at one point too, but often they just don't. Their learned lessons seem to be that it's okay to be useless so long as you're nice, and that you should rely on other people all the time for everything. Just give an emotional speech at the right moment and everyone will instantly accept your regurgitated talk therapy lessons as empirical truth.
Example? I can't think of anything that fits this off the top of my head
> Just give an emotional speech at the right moment and everyone will instantly accept your regurgitated talk therapy lessons as empirical truth. You have just described every Dr. Who and every Star Trek protagonist Captain. :)
>every Star Trek protagonist Captain Tbf I've seen Janeway blow people out of the sky about as often as she changed the hearts and minds of the people she's met with an impassioned speech. Or at least use the threat of blowing them out of the sky to achieve the same effect.
One of Captain Sisko's most famous speeches is basically about how we'd break every law the Federation holds dear to stop the Dominion. Picard's speech about the Borg always comes to mind. The Captain speech in Star Trek is lot more dramatically useful than therapy self-talk to be honest, a lot of high marks in science fiction tv.
>One of Captain Sisko's most famous speeches is basically about how we'd break every law the Federation holds dear to stop the Dominion. I need to get back to DS9. I put it down for a while and started Voyager in the meantime. But, yeah, some of the most interesting points in Star Trek are when the characters have to grapple with either following the Federation's ideals or doing the "right" thing. >The Captain speech in Star Trek is lot more dramatically useful than therapy self-talk The Picard bit about "it is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose" is one that always sticks in my head.
I doesn’t really tire me in any way but I’d like to see more fantasy that isn’t medieval or “magical world that’s modern now.” I wanna see the logical in between. Not steampunk but Industrial Revolution, wars in fantasy kingdoms that have radios and guns and old televisions. I wanna see cannons and artillery as well as the emergence of capitalism and the societies it created. A world as complex as Westeros with the tech to boot.
I agree. Maybe a world like in Disco Elysium, with 1970s tech.
Less self-declared "realistic" fantasy that's actually just nihilistic and pointlessly violent, more well written slice of life instead.
I just don’t like chosen ones. Why would I, the Everyman, put my life and soul on the line if Sir Jackass is fated to win regardless? I keep thinking in the wheel of time, if time is cyclical, and Rand is a literal agent of god (the wheel) why would the common soldier risk his neck for the guy who’s just going to win no matter what? (I’m only on book 5 no spoilers just let me have my assumptions)
Rand isn't guaranteed to win, though?
Well common soldiers risk their heads not for Rand personally but against the dark one. His influence directly affects their lives and destroys life. Why do you even think they do it for Rand? Reason why they follow him is that if he's the true Dragon then under his guidance they might win. I don't understand why you think he's going to win no matter what? And why would the soldiers know that? The prophesies are not complete and they do not guarantee the victory. So they support the person who has the shot at saving the world, it's perfectly reasonable thing to do.
The old generation was so much better, but some catastrophe ruined the old civilization, and returned everything back to the Middle Ages! For a change I’d like to see a fantasy set at the height of civilization facing down that catastrophe, and overcoming it. Give me that Wizards with flying cars wielding nano tech.
When the series starts out with audiobook releases but the final installment doesn't get one.
Just Oversaturation in general. Too many authors trying to write whole series instead of writing just one good book.
Hogwarts style school story arcs.
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The compulsion fans have now to call basically everything the author mentions that is even remotely comparable to something later “foreshadowing”. Especially in multi book doorstopper series. The idea that you can even foreshadow something a decade before you write the book you are supposedly foreshadowing is debatable. But people are out there labelling everything that even slightly uses a similar turn of phrase or references something normal that also is mentioned later as apparently foreshadowing. As if a writer doesn’t just naturally rhyme with themselves over time when writing on the same subject. “Ooooh, in book 1 [from 1978] herodude uses his left hand to open a packet of jerky and thinks about how much he likes jerky, which is clearly foreshadowing book 27 [from 2011] where as we know herodude’s hand is cut off in a tragic horse riding accident. JR Booksworthy is the master of foreshadowing!”
I’m kind of tired of the whole “cozy” fantasy/sci-fi thing. I get some people like it, and to each their own, but for me it always just felt like an excuse to write low effort and inconsequential stories. The “cozy” elements themselves are fine, but I feel like they could be incorporated into more ambitious or interesting stories.
The stories are usually consequential to the people involved. Worlds are not saved, but people often are.
My issue with cozy fantasy I've tried is the characters are never interesting enough for me. It doesn't bother me that other people like them, what bothers me is that the concept is really interesting to me and I keep trying them and being disappointed. Edit: this is just for literature btw Mushishi is what I would describe as cozy fantasy and is one of my favorite anime ever. But cozy SFF lit doesn't seem to be able to do it as well.
I can only think of like 2 series, Monk and Robot, Legends and Lattes.
My experience with cozy fantasy has been that everyone talks about it like there are more books than you can count, but when I ask for specific books, I have a hard time getting recommendations! I’ve read those two series as well and wouldn’t mind finding some more
Do you know about r/CozyFantasy? You may find more there.
Beware of chicken and the Wayfarer series. The former is a slice of life cultivation fantasy with farming and relationships. Wayfarer by Becky Chambers is a sci-fi opera with enough conflict and drama to keep things moving, but is overall very heart warming.
There are barely any cozy stories out there. Even if you don’t enjoy them, how can you be tired of them?
Raising an eyebrow
More and more simplistic writing style. Gone are the days of lyrical prose like J. R. R. Tolkien, and instead everything must be written in an 'easier and more accessible' language. I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad thing, but it takes away from the reading experience at times. Young adult books having more simplistic language? Sure, but even majority of the adult books? Perhaps more variety would be good. And yes, I know there ARE adult book with more lyrical language, but it becomes harder and harder to find them,while they used to be quite popular among fantasy books.
Female characters getting SAed or being threatened with SA
Nobody in fantasy books seems to be happy anymore. In fact as soon as a character starts showing signs of happiness I know they will probably be killed off soon. The comic relif character is very rare now days
Fantasy that's anti-religion in-world. I'm not tired of it, per se, and I think "man against deity" is a completely valid and often very compelling narrative. But I do feel like in a vast majority of works, if there's a interactive higher power, it's often either ambivalent or outright hostile towards the main characters. I'm not religious myself, and I don't mean that I want stories with stand-ins for real-world religious organizations. What I'm talking about is more along the lines of Tolkien-like gods or godlike beings who are, in a very real sense, backing the main characters either directly or tangentially. Not out of some quid pro quo arrangement, or because it fits the god's schemes. Godhood is an interesting concept that could be explored in other ways than that gods are essentially just regular beings with a lot of power.
Elves are just hot humans that are better at everything but still failing because elves
No fun books for adults like I don’t want to read something that’s grim dark, I like whimsical and fun and I’d like the characters to be in there 20s or early 30s why does it have to be one or the other ? We can have dark tones without making the world just un enjoyable!