New Article Posted: A Changing of the Guard Part I

[Rob B]

We are trying something a little new here at SFFWorld in our articles section of the Web site. Aidan Moher has contributed the first of a two-part overview of the hot new fantasy writers in what he is calling A Changing of the Guard. The first part is posted here.

Next week, the second part will be posted. Any thoughts?

[FitzChivalry]

How is the guard being changed? i see new authors coming in, but i don't really see old authors going away...
Sure every once in a while an old author passes away, but they seem to keep writing to their last days and they aren't really stepping down.

[Eventine]

I like the idea of the articles, but wonder at the value of the content of this one. Pitching a list of "new" authors at a forum with page upon page hyping them is a bit redundant. I'd have been more interested in it if it touched on why these were the authors making waves here - which seems to be to be more about them being available online in blog/livejournal form, participating in forums like this (hi Joe), publishing interviews with various sites and the introduction of book competitions via popular blogs.

I also agree with Fitz's point about changing of the guard - most of the, let us say, "more established" authors referenced are either long dead or actively publishing.

I know that sounds like a pretty negative post, so let me re-iterate that I like the idea of articles. Can anyone submit Rob?

[FitzChivalry]

Is that the reason we hear so much about those authors? because of their involvement with the online community?
If so, i would be more interested in an article about the new promising authors we don't hear about as much.

As for the value of the article, it might be wasted on the people of this forum, as they already know those authors, but it is published on the main site, i'm sure many people visit it that don't really read the forums.

[Mithfânion]

I like the idea of the articles and this one for instance could be a good source of recommendations to people, even though those who post or lurk here will already know of the acclaim of those authors.

With regards to changing of the guard, I think it is correct to say that not many of the old guard are leaving, but at the same time you have to conclude that there are a lot of good new authors coming out in the last two or three years, to my mind more so than in the years before. Presumably part 2 will go into other authors more.

It is a very crowded field. But when I look at the number of new books I'm buying in 2007, especially of realtively new authors, than that number is higher than usual, and the same was true last year.

[Hobbit]

Thanks for all your comments guys: we're basically just wanting to try out another angle at SFFWorld, and where we'll go with this very much depends on what you think.

If the response is positive then there may be more developments in this vein. This might include articles with an eye to those who know more about the genre: I think this one's a nice summary of some of the things going on at the moment. It can be very easy to lose track of some of these, and as Fitz has said if it brings more people into the SFFWorld Forums that can only be a good thing.

To try and add in my rambling thoughts further: as for the 'why' these authors appear, online targeting/connection seems to be a way forward, not only as a promotional tool (to my mind the less palatable end of the scale) but also to somewhere where writers genuinely wish to interact with similarly interested parties about things they have of interest together. If I remember right, Mith, weren't you complemented for doing so by Scott Bakker a while back? Word of mouth is a wonderful thing, I've often been told.

As a general point, things do seem to be better at the moment in that there may be more genre stuff around (certainly in the UK) but perhaps more importantly to my mind the quality is generally very good (with some exceptions, which stand out more as bad because the competition is so good.)

I would also add that I think that in particular SF seems to be picking up momentum after being the runner-up to Fantasy for a few years. (Perhaps that's another article there!) Erm, Charlie Stross, John Scialzi, Paul McAuley immediately spring to mind with an online presence.

And as for 'the changing of the guard' - yes, you're right. Those pesky authors keep on writing until they're old, don't they? Perhaps what is meant by this is perhaps a change of emphasis: from older more established writers (Jordan, Martin, Brooks, etc) to new young hip writers such as Lynch and Abercrombie. Bit like the New Wave of the 1960's?

Hobbit

[al'Kael]

Hey Everyone,

As the author of the article, I just wanted to drop by and address some concerns some of you seem to have with the article.

First off, I'm glad to see some of your have enjoyed the article! I had fun putting it together and I hope somewhere down the road it might lead someone to an author they may have otherwise never tried!

To those of you with some concerns about the article, I'll shine a little light on how the articles came about and my purpose behind writing them.

Despite how it may seem (especially with a title like "A Changing of the Guard") I didn't set out to make a statement about the industry with these articles, I don't intend them to be an intense look at the direction that the SFF genre is taking or any sort of evolution that is being made. Rather, I realized that a lot of my favourite authors/the big name authors from times past (Terry Brooks, Terry Goodkind, George RR Martin, Robert Jordan, etc...) are either getting old (Terry Brooks), ill (Robert Jordan), dead (Mervyn Peake) or only slowly writing novels (Stephen Donaldson) and that a much larger majority of my reading time these days has been devoted to authors who are pretty new to the writing world.

So, I set out to gather together a collection of some of the hip, new authors in the field at the moment, most of which I've read, some of which I haven't. One big resource I drew on for the article was here at SFFWorld and that's one of the reason why so many names in the articles are so familiar to you forumers. Which brings me to another point, this article isn't meant for the hardcore Fantasy readers: of course you all know who Joe Abercrombie, Brian Ruckley and Pat Rothfuss are! (Especially considering a lot of them post here on the forum!) Instead, I originally wrote these articles for my blog as an attempt to reach some of the more casual fantasy readers, looking for something to read once Sword of Truth, Wheel of Time, and Harry Potter are over. Within the context of my blog, and the front page of SFFWorld, the article makes sense and hold worth (in my opinion) when targeting the proper audience, which may not necessarily be the folks on this forum who were some of the first to introduce me to many of the authors on the list! Hopefully this answers some questions about the article and addresses some of the complaints I saw!

Finally, I'd just like to thank you folk for turning me on to some of the great authors entering the field at the moment!

As for authors with a presence on the Internet, that's a topic I'd love to cover and/or love to see covered by someone. As someone else mentioned, the Internet (and forums like this) are an immensely powerful tool that is only just now being discovered by the publishing houses of the world, and it would be interesting to see how this affects the reader/author relationship.

[Leiali]

I recently undertook a sf/fantasy creative writing course, and I realised how much I missed the intellectual discussions regarding the influence literature has on the world, and detailed readings of novels written by literary giants. My degree was a long time ago and the closest I have to a taste of that now is sffworld and the wealth of information as well as passion people here have for this particular genre.
I think the article written was a great overview of the genre, but I for one would appreciate more depth. There is so much knowledge and discussion on these sites. I would be interested in sff world contributors picking out some of the discussions (anything with KatG posting would be a good start) and writing news articles about them, or just taking the sites pulse every once in a while: These would be valuable oversights and resources for anyone interested in the genre, whether they be authors, readers, or publishing houses..

[Gary Wassner]

I get new readers every day from the internet and particularly from this site. My books aren't viewed as cutting edge, so I don't benefit from all the 'cool new' author lists, though I'd disagree with many who assume they know what to expect from my series. Nevertheless, the internet has been an amazing source of publicity for me. My publisher doesn't advertise extensively so this is a venue that's particularly important.

I'd love to read an article about authors who have internet presences. And I'd love to read what people think the myspace phenomenon will ultimately lead to.

In the meanwhile, I do believe that advance copies supplied by publishers to 250 strategic reviewers and readers, along with a PW review gives any author a big leg up. It's hard to make significant sales if your books aren't eventually purchased by the brick and mortar stores, and that's how it happens. I'm not sure that word of mouth here reaches the computers of the buyers at B & N, though I could be wrong. Usually their buys are program buys via the publisher's distrubutors.

Some authors who have great reps on the web, like my friend Matt Stover, are hard to find on the shelves, sad as that may be. He writes amazing, action packed, intelligent books, and how many here have read him? And he's a name you didn't even mention Al'Kael. (along with me, of course)

[Gwendelyn]

Hey, al'Kael,

If your intention was to introduce people who are less familiar with recent Fantasy to the newest notable authors, you hit one of your targets. I've been primarily a non-fiction/mystery reader for almost a decade (I've been a serious RPG gamer all along, and I love fantasy, but I had some bad experiences with finding decent Fantasy novels after Tad Williams). It's been 10 years since I read anything Fantasy beyond Discworld and Harry Potter (and a bit of WoT, but I found it more of a marathon than a good reading experience, so I gave up). My reason for joining this forum was to learn more about novels published since then that are worth reading.

I've spent a good deal of time this week lurking, working my way through a number of the sticked recommendation threads, but I found the amount of books and authors discussed overwhelming. A distillation treatment of the latest notable authors is much appreciated. Although I realize that some read-worthy authors will inevitably go without mention in a short article, I hope that I will eventually get around to sampling their work later as I have the time.

Your article poked my interest in The Lies of Locke Lamora. I read a synopsis of the book on Amazon, but thought it wouldn't be to my taste. After I read your article, however, I browsed the active thread about the book, and I find my interest growing. I currently have it on my reading wish list (and will probably pick up a copy once I finish what I'm currently reading).

Of course, I would love to read any articles discussing the authors or the current state of Fantasy in more depth. As I was browsing the recommendation threads, I found a couple of interesting discussions about the pyschology of book covers in marketing and a rough history of publishing the genre, and those were very interesting.

Looking forward to part 2.

[KatG]

We've always had some articles, and yes, anyone can submit a piece for consideration. What we're trying to do now is keep the forums be the exciting place for discussion they've always been and add more content that will be of interest to members, including new articles.

I think Aidan's made an excellent start and I look forward to Part 2 of the piece. But I do have some nits to pick, ones that may hopefully be addressed in Part 2, and that is that except for Naomi Novik's alt history fantasy series, all the new books listed are epic fantasies, and the old guns they are compared to are the very old guns. There's a whole middle generation there that seems to be getting ignored now, authors like Stephen Brust, Stephen Erikson, Kate Elliot, Sean Stewart, Jonathan Carroll, Diane Duane, Laurell K. Hamilton, J. Gregory Keyes, China Mieville, etc., who picked up the ball from the first generation crew -- Salvatore, Feist, Brooks, Jordan, Donaldson, De Lint, Powers, Pratchett, Cherryh, Lackey, Lee -- and ran with it, who got a tremendous amount of attention in the 1990's and the early oughts, were heralded as the new wave of new fantasy, and are still going strong and online. In fact, Erikson is just getting going really.

But of course new is new, and that's what the article is focusing on, which is fine. But if I have to continually endure the on-line whining about how fantasy needs to branch out, think fresh and diversify, I would like there to be some honesty about it, such as the fact that we're not talking about fantasy, we're talking about epic fantasy (and sometimes only a limited slice of epic fantasy) and that 2/3 of the fantasy fiction currently churning up the waters is going to be ignored.

So in Part 2, I would hope to see mention of writers like Kelly Armstrong and Jim Butcher, Keith Donohue, Jeff Vandermeer, Susannah Clarke, Steph Swainston, Alexander Irvine -- writers who are doing interesting things but who aren't necessarily writing epic fantasy and who are much talked about online also. But if you don't do that, it's okay -- there are a lot of interesting epic fantasy writers out there now too, so many these days that it astonishes me. You can do the non-epic wunderkinds in another article. And put in more female authors in general please.

I think it's a great way to start, a nice introduction, Keep it up, dude.

[al'Kael]

Re: Gary
These articles are something I plan to keep up with, at least as long as people find some merit in them! Obviously this first edition was nothing near to an exhaustive list of all the great, new and lesser known Fantasy authors and I'm always keeping my eyes open for other authors to add to the list! Matt is actually the perfect candidate, you may very well see him in A Changing of the Guard pt. III!

Re: Gwendelyn
Gwen, I'm glad to see that your very first post on the boards was in regards to my article! You're correct in saying that readers such as yourself are one of the main groups I hope to reach with these articles. I'm sure you, despite not being a huge reader of Fantasy, knew who Robert Jordan, Terry Goodkind, Terry Brooks, etc... were, but the fact that I may have helped turn you on to a new (and superb) author such as Scott Lynch tells me that these articles work on some level!

You won't be disappointed with Lynch. I'm drooling with anticipation at the release of his second novel, only days away!

Happy reading! You've got quite an adventure ahead of you!

Re: KatG
I understand where you're coming from and that's the exact type of feedback I love to hear! This first edition of the article centred around what I feel are the biggest of the big when it comes to the new fantasy heavy hitters. The Second article, however, branches out a bit, both in genre and in time, including authors who wouldn't fall into the "epic fantasy" category (I'd argue with you, also, that Scott Lynch doesn't write epic fantasy).

As I mentioned to Gary, these articles are something I hope to continue working (and improving) for many more iterations. There are so many authors out there that deserver to be read (such as many of the ones you mentioned) that it will take more than two or three articles to cover them all and do them justice. Unfortunately Part II (which has been written for a little while now) doesn't include any of the authors you listed, but the authors one there are just as exciting.

As the articles move on, I will undoubtedly be moved deeper back in time, only so many new authors can hit the scene each year! Greg Keyes (as you mentioned) is a great example of an author who has been around for several years, picking up the mantle from many of the old guard, but still hasn't "broken out" in a way that his excellent novels deserve.

As long as there are authors out there writing good, strong pieces of speculative fiction, I plan to continue to spout their virtues!

Thanks for the kind words, KatG!

[Gary Wassner]

I take it you've not read my books, al'Kael?

It amazes me that there are so many people writing fantasy of all kinds today. Your articles can only be informative. It's impossible to know about everyone and if you're able to bring a few dozen names to the attention of readers who wouldn't learn about them otherwise, then your're doing a service to everyone.

The only time I object is when claims like 'the definitive list' are appended to these types of recommendation threads.

[KatG]

The problem is that we probably need to drop the term epic, which has outlived its usefulness. But no one's come up with a nomenclature to replace it that is readily adopted as yet -- secondary world, imaginary realm, alternate reality? All candidates batted around. Be that as it may, Scott Lynch's series is set in an imaginary, pre-industrial world and therefore is considered an epic novel in the current terminology. As is Rothkus, Abercrombie, etc.

Now I'm all for imaginary worlds, pre and post-industrial, but again, I'm hoping you branch out as you go, if only because there are a lot of new fans to fantasy who are not very interested in imaginary realm novels and want other things like Novik and Clarke's alternate histories, or supernatural fantasy's wise-cracking modern day gumshoes. And these people are also on-line and talking about their interests. That being said, spreading word of any book is always a good thing, in my view and epic fantasies give us something very unique to fiction.

[alison]

If "epic" is good enough for Homer, it's good enough for me!

I'm fascinated by the whole internet thing, which I guess is just an extension of word of mouth, which to date is what has pushed my sales. It's almost all been word of mouth, as far as I can tell, which so far seems to be working fine. I guess the only problem, if it is a problem, is that it's under the radar. Gary, I'm kind of interested in how you're finding MySpace. I started a page for my poet self (rather sheepishly, my kids were very scornful) basically because my poetry publisher invited me to, and then I thought I may as well do a Pellinor myspace as well. I find it a weird kind of place - all I do is add "friends", and the software is so clunky it's kind of hard to actually communicate with people. The music industry's got it down, but I'm not sure how useful it will be for books. All it's done is put me in touch with a few people I'd lost touch with, and interestingly, there's more interest in the poetry page than the fantasy one, which is not at all the case on my website!

I started a Pellinor blog the other day, because I'm having trouble keeping up with fanmail and keeping the site up to date etc. I think that's a better way to go, for me at least, in the realm of cyber networking - I like blogging (I've run a well respected theatre review blog for three years now) and the back and forth suits me. And it's all in one place. Candlewick are planning what sounds like a fairly comprehensive Pellinor website of their own, with audio interviews, maps, info about the culture of the books etc, which I guess will be released when the hardback Crow comes out in September this year, and they're pushing it heavily on the new editions of the paperbacks. So clearly they have hopes of it. That will be cool, of course, but I'm not sure if it will attract new readers as such. I guess we'll see.