Gene Wolfe as counterexample is well-chosen—his unreliability isn't technique, it's ethics. If the narrator can't be trusted, neither can your certainty. The reader earns nothing; they chase. That's re-read territory, not content-consumption territory.
I think the rot you're describing isn't unique to fantasy. Weird fiction has its own version: the domestication of cosmic horror into "eldritch" as aesthetic tag rather than philosophical stance. Lovecraft's indifference becomes "vibes".The tentacle becomes the brand asset, same as the dragon. Ligotti's antinatalism flattens into "dark academia with existential dread." The template doesn't care which mythology it hollows out, it just needs the emotional furniture and the marketable silhouette.
What you call" Flat Christianity", I'd call the logic of discoverability. Moral clarity as SEO. The book optimized to be recommended, not to leave residue.
Wonderfully said. I didn’t consider the rot that has set in other genres, but I appreciate your examples as they become self-evident once you name them.
In my works, cosmic horror is not something you can argue with; it is indifferent and doesn’t care.
When you domesticate, you lose the nuance. A dragon becomes a talking dog with wings.
In grimdark for instance, riding a dragon should feel like borrowing a god’s jaw.
Enchantment requires distance. Once something is fully usable, it’s no longer sublime.
Yea. I hate that dragons have been domesticated. Somebody needs to write a story where the dragon is domesticated but kills everyone around them and takes over, and that is the ancient history that needs to be reconciled.
Yea, I hate how wonder has been so domesticated and the only person who did good worldbuilding as far as I know would be Cressida Cowell -- and Redwall. They are both so good worldbuilding-wise.
The other day my teacher said Tolkien's worldbuilding is so good because he just leaves things unexplained every now and then, making the world feel lived in. Big. Bigger than just the story in front of you.
When a story feels like 'oh this is all it is' there's a feeling if dissatisfaction because you've learned all there is. Ever wonder why modern books don't get much fanfiction? I hate small worlds so much because it doesn't feel real.
Also only including details that 'serve the plot' and streamlining everything sucks as well. This is how you end up with small worlds.
Tolkien’s lacunae function like Lovecraft’s adjectives: they mark the border where comprehension fails. The difference is Tolkien trusted wonder; Lovecraft, only dread.
Neat! Haven't read Lovecraft because I am afraid of any work of art that is potentially permeated with moral nihilism, but yes I also trust the wonder. Only recently have I discovered how exactly Tolkien did that, which is what I just explained. (Though Tolkien was also pretty good at writing horror, if you've read the Barrow-Downs chapter, or the book's description of the balrog in Moria, or the Nazgul.) I assume you've read it?
Please. It's the first book I faked sick for, just to keep reading. And yes, the Barrow-wights still unsettle me more than most explicit horror I've encountered since. Tolkien understood that dread works best when it brushes against something sacred.
Bro those books are practically my literary stable, treated the way ancient people treated bread. Yea Tolkien's horror was the best I've ever read, because Tolkien knows how to slide against things but never fully reveal them. I hope I figure out how to do that well someday. He doesn't just do that with horror but with the good things, too, in Aragorn's summaries of history and Galadriel's power.
That’s the whole craft, isn’t it? The sliding. Revelation kills mystery, in horror and in wonder both. Galadriel’s power stays vast precisely because we only glimpse its edges. If you’re working toward that, I’d be curious to read what you’re writing.
We've got a problem in genre lit right now. Everything getting published, both trad and indie, are the "same but different' stories that are really just all the same. The desire to sell books for the sake of the sale has flattened romance, fantasy, domestic thrillers into boring replicas of the last popular book in the genre. I don't know the answer to this, but I'm seeing essays like this more and more. Where are the innovative writers in these genres who are willing to branch out and be creative?
This is the answer to every question posed in this article. Everyone can be a published author now, and as a result, many people who love reading can now write their own versions of the stories they love, where they're not telling some deep philosophical story but a fun story they enjoyed writing with dragons you can be pals with. The landscape of writing has simply changed.
As someone trying to write something that expects patience from the reader, this tension feels real. The question isn’t whether innovative work exists, it’s how it finds its readers.
That is the million-dollar question -- how innovative work finds its readers.
My enduring thought here is that 15 years ago, when blogging and social media still felt fresh and creator-driven, there were more opportunities for authors to be discovered. Everything was slower, and social media wasn't just content and algorithms driving visibility. It at least felt more organic, as if you could write something and readers could actually stumble upon it. And we had eager readers book blogging, which feels like the opposite of Bookstagram. Everything was slower, more deliberate and enjoyable.
I keep thinking I'd like to start a book blog here on Substack and just talk about books and writing and authors (as if I could make the time to do that in my life), but I feel like that's what's missing. Give readers a place to find stories, rather than being bombarded with content.
This is a great comment, so I'm replying to it again.
Speaking of "boring replicas," my first novel was a result of my love of Blade Runner and Underworld — I thought, 'Let's write a sci-fi vampire thriller, complete with clones (replicants),' only I made mine a tragedy because I love tragedies. I think a lot of writing is about remixing ideas that you loved, and I don't see anything wrong with that — the "replicas" part, not the "boring" part.
What I think is an issue here, and why you get "boring replicas," as I stated in my other comment, is that anyone can be a "published author" in about the time it takes to make tea. You don't even have to be good at writing to sell a thousand books because a fantastic cover and some well-chosen keywords or a good back cover blurb that hits the right notes will get you across the finish line to success. Between the covers, that's where the problem lies. Writers who haven't learned how to write yet are sending their "boring replicas" into the void dressed up as glorious future best sellers.
The proof is in the pudding — last year, I read three indie novels because I wanted to be supportive, loved the covers and the blurbs, and the marketing was on-point. All three books were terrible, amateurish, and barely contained anything resembling a character arc. All the effort was put into marketing, not writing.
This is why I prefer Substack to social media — on Substack, authors talk about writing; on social media, authors hawk their books. "Buy my book." I've since unfollowed as many of those accounts as I could have. Yeah, I got books, and I have serial fiction on Substack. Yeah, I want you to read it — I do — but I would rather just talk about writing.
Where are the innovative writers? They're mostly invisible, under the surface of a continual wave of authors begging you to buy their books. Self-publishing, like social media, was a grand idea; it's mostly become a curse.
(I have wanted this since I was 12. Eight years building my craft and defiance. The more I read the more convinced I am that I will blow people's socks off)
Good points. I think Grimdark makes a similar error but in the other direction. It might reject the externalized binary of Good and Evil, but it simultaneously rejects that there is higher meaning to be grasped. As a result, I find that the "fantastical" elements of Grimdark settings tend to flatten into mere set-dressing. There's not enough meaning to be grasped through them, since the whole point is that there's no meaning.
yea. as soon as you reject objective truth, you lose sight of everything and all is flattened into photocopies with different names and settings but the meat is all the same
Oh, really? Thank you for clearing my head on the matter--I appear to have been mistaken. I have heard conservative literary youtubers politely rail against grimdark and apparently I did not do enough research.
I think the trouble with the idea of grimdark (I don't think I've read any) is it would be an overcorrection against preaching in stories....both saying 'this is how it is whether you like it or not' and 'figure it out yourself' are bad, but does grimdark provide at least the guideposts of good and evil? Without those how can you judge the actions of anyone?
Oh....I see....so from what I can tell, it's a 'choose the moral' type of story? I've heard a lot about grey anti-heroes as the protagonists and cannot help but think the grimdark author (not saying all do this but) is probably capable of subtly skewing the story to incline the reader to a certain conclusion. I can easily see liberal authors doing that on the already fertile ground of 'choose your own adventure' type of morality, though I understand that that is a pretty dark thought and obviously not all authors are actively doing that. In fact, most are probably not. That would take a certain level of skill very few authors have displayed recently.
Do you think conservative/Christian literary folk aren't exactly fans of grimdark precisely BECAUSE of the readers being left to fend for themselves?
All I've heard are complaints about grimdark presenting a world without hope or something to that effect and I am simply trying to understand the mechanics of how this actually works. Because I'm curious lol
A lot of readers want to be told what to think when presented with a situation in a story, even at a subconscious level. Grimdark requires that you be the judge of what you see developing in the story based on your own moral code.
I disagree. Grimdark doesn't necessarily rejects the concept of good/evil but rather lets things play out as to let readers draw their own conclusions.
I don’t think that’s unique to grimdark, which prompts the question: what *is* unique about grimdark? And the answer has always been the bleak worldview and the presentation of meaningless suffering.
It is unique to Grimdark because in standard fantasy all those elements are pretty cut and dry. Here is your good guy, here is your bad guy, and here is how the author wants you to feel.
I think you're crafting a false dichotomy between cut-and-dry "standard fantasy", and "grimdark" which is supposedly everything else.
I repeat that leaving moral judgement to the reader is not what makes grimdark unique. If it was, then Ursula K. Le Guin, and Guy Gavriel Kay would qualify, as would Tolkien's The Children of Húrin. A story can have moral ambiguity while still assuming meaning and order. Such stories within fantasy predate the grimdark label by decades.
What separates grimdark from these others is its insistence that, after judgement is rendered, it ultimately doesn't matter: that suffering has no higher meaning beyond power, entropy, and the finitude of existence.
The very word 'grimdark' comes from Warhammer 40k, which explicitly defines its setting as a place without progress, without peace, without hope:
"Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter"
I simply have to disagree that grimdark authors aren't trying to make you feel a certain way. Grimdark *does* want you to feel something very specific: futility, disgust, and nihilistic resignation.
The difference isn’t ambiguity. It’s metaphysics. Some stories wrestle with suffering inside a meaningful universe. Grimdark assumes the universe is indifferent. I think there’s an honesty to Grimdark in that.
Strongly disagree, dude. You need to read further (and may I suggest my own Goddess’s Honor series?). Or try Sherwood Smith’s Sartorias books, or Kate Elliott, or something ELSE.
There’s a LOT of good fantasy that isn’t infected with this rot, especially if you branch out into indie.
You forgot the 'defanging' of the vampire! I firmly believe this occurs because people are writing to a kind of template. Money is made by the people who tell writers how to write - know your audience, hit the beats, include specifics because it's expected...by the reader. It's not about the craft of writing, it's about making money from books.
That's it.
Making money.
If one writes for the pleasure, being compelled from some internal, inexplicable itch, to get the idea down on paper, then it'll be better.
Everyone is chasing the dream of becoming the next -fill in the gap with name of author you put on a pedestal - and getting a movie deal and , and, and.
Some writers need to take a big breath and a big break, and ask themselves why, in total honesty, am I writing. And then decide if they should continue or give up.
It isn't just fantasy, as some respondents have said, romance is infested, and it's spreading.
I know loads of grimdark books. None of them fit your description. First Law, Prince of Nothing, Final War, Poppy War, Manifest Delusions, Empires of Dust, Godblind. The fact you spout an opinion without backing it up with evidence tells me you're a person who goes on feelings instead of facts.
I mean, *A Diabolical Bargain* I had the entire story take place in a city with a wizards' university, and the magical forest next to it. (The forest was the first attraction.)
And since I like fairy tales, I did a whole heap of the lesser known ones in *A Princess Seeks Her Fortune.* With a rather lower-key quest.
This is all true. My day job is to read and summarize books not already on our company's sales website, so that usually means I get recently published works. In the past 15 years can't recall any truly remarkable new fantasy novels or series coming across my desk.
Even the titles of fantasy are formulaic these days. How many “Noun of Noun and Noun” teenage romance fantasies are there, for example? Who knows? Not me (and more than most people I should be one of the ones who DOES know).
I’ve noticed the same thing in cinema and in every genre of book. Yes, it’s great that anyone can get published and that the landscape has allowed for a bigger range of stories. But it makes me feel like we need new genres.
I grew up a horror junkie as far as movies go. I complained for years about the “popcornificiation” of horror, how we no longer get anything deeper than slashers, flashing lights, shock value. Turns out it was because the popcorn horror gets the most press.
Companies like A24 came out and labeled their work Elevated Horror. I propose book culture does the same - Listen, you can have your romantasy and cozy fantasy and all that but please label it as such, and relabel things like you mentioned here as something like, elevated fantasy. Label your “airport” thrillers as such so that I don’t get pissed that McFadden is next to King under the catch all term of “thriller.” Let me know what I’m getting. I’m not mad you’re writing accessible fantasy for people who just want surface level stuff. Some people can only handle that stuff. People need simple stuff to help them wade into genres before they can grasp the tougher reads. But don’t place it next to LOTR and other richly complex works and then get surprised when I’m disappointed, and when people looking for cozy fantasy get upset at how depressing and controversial some of these more complex books are.
We need better categorizing. I like the term Elevated horror.
How to get people onboard though? Maybe we should make a list and start by using being strict. The list can have brain dead lit, just properly labeled.
I think it happens the same way it happened with cinema. Inventing labels for things and using them repeatedly, haha. I think it just HAPPENED with movies on places like letterboxd because people were so insistent. And part of it has to be resisting our urge to kind of be snobs. Brain dead lit sure, but it needs a more neutral term to catch on- that’s why I call some things “airport thrillers” they are sold in airports and meant to be easy to follow if you are reading them in small bits on a beach or on flights. I think “pop thriller” is a decent term that wouldn’t feel degrading to the consumers too. Fantasy I have heard “high fantasy” or “elegant fantasy” sometimes, too. The key I think is to subcategorize (which given how many tropes publishers love to put in descriptions you’d think they’d push more) and to avoid demeaning terms for “poppy” things but applying more heady terms to the higher ones - hence “elevated.”
Haha yeah I know it was tongue in cheek, more mentioned it as an example of why there’s pushback in adoption of subgenres sometimes. Some people hate the term popcorn thriller for some reason but it’s honest.
A lot of writers are picking up the same themes so fantasy market seems to be inundated with copies, some good and some not so. The real key for all fantasy writers needs to be in building up a world which is intriguing and combining fantasy with character and pulling at human emotions to convert it into an epic fantasy
It's why I always approach writing fantasy as spiritual warfare. The demons are real. They can possess or trick you. A lot of times it's hard to tell the difference between morals and demonic influence. Humanity has a lot of ideas what good is and isn't. The demons are counting on confusion.
I love killing dragons. I am writing a whole series on killing dragons, set in a world where there are thousands of years of asking the big questions and struggling to kill dragons
"Flat Christianity takes the brand value and drops the burden. It wants the emotional uplift without the moral terror."
Knowing that Christianity spread and consolidated itself through the blood, sacrifice, and suffering of many generations, diluting that weight is disrespectful. Even genuine idealism requires crossing a foul-smelling swamp of decomposing bodies. The fact that the world is not clean is precisely what makes it so difficult to keep your white mantle untarnished.
Exactly! It cannot be presented as binary good. It needs the history. I used the example of Victor Hugo as he portrayed it at it’s lowest and highest in the same narrative. Such an astounding piece of work.
Gene Wolfe as counterexample is well-chosen—his unreliability isn't technique, it's ethics. If the narrator can't be trusted, neither can your certainty. The reader earns nothing; they chase. That's re-read territory, not content-consumption territory.
I think the rot you're describing isn't unique to fantasy. Weird fiction has its own version: the domestication of cosmic horror into "eldritch" as aesthetic tag rather than philosophical stance. Lovecraft's indifference becomes "vibes".The tentacle becomes the brand asset, same as the dragon. Ligotti's antinatalism flattens into "dark academia with existential dread." The template doesn't care which mythology it hollows out, it just needs the emotional furniture and the marketable silhouette.
What you call" Flat Christianity", I'd call the logic of discoverability. Moral clarity as SEO. The book optimized to be recommended, not to leave residue.
Wonderfully said. I didn’t consider the rot that has set in other genres, but I appreciate your examples as they become self-evident once you name them.
In my works, cosmic horror is not something you can argue with; it is indifferent and doesn’t care.
When you domesticate, you lose the nuance. A dragon becomes a talking dog with wings.
In grimdark for instance, riding a dragon should feel like borrowing a god’s jaw.
Enchantment requires distance. Once something is fully usable, it’s no longer sublime.
Yea. I hate that dragons have been domesticated. Somebody needs to write a story where the dragon is domesticated but kills everyone around them and takes over, and that is the ancient history that needs to be reconciled.
Exactly. And the same applies to horror: dread that explains itself stops being dread. The best monsters are the ones that refuse to be fully usable.
PS: “Borrowing a god’s jaw”—I’ll keep that one.
Yea, I hate how wonder has been so domesticated and the only person who did good worldbuilding as far as I know would be Cressida Cowell -- and Redwall. They are both so good worldbuilding-wise.
The other day my teacher said Tolkien's worldbuilding is so good because he just leaves things unexplained every now and then, making the world feel lived in. Big. Bigger than just the story in front of you.
When a story feels like 'oh this is all it is' there's a feeling if dissatisfaction because you've learned all there is. Ever wonder why modern books don't get much fanfiction? I hate small worlds so much because it doesn't feel real.
Also only including details that 'serve the plot' and streamlining everything sucks as well. This is how you end up with small worlds.
Tolkien’s lacunae function like Lovecraft’s adjectives: they mark the border where comprehension fails. The difference is Tolkien trusted wonder; Lovecraft, only dread.
Neat! Haven't read Lovecraft because I am afraid of any work of art that is potentially permeated with moral nihilism, but yes I also trust the wonder. Only recently have I discovered how exactly Tolkien did that, which is what I just explained. (Though Tolkien was also pretty good at writing horror, if you've read the Barrow-Downs chapter, or the book's description of the balrog in Moria, or the Nazgul.) I assume you've read it?
Please. It's the first book I faked sick for, just to keep reading. And yes, the Barrow-wights still unsettle me more than most explicit horror I've encountered since. Tolkien understood that dread works best when it brushes against something sacred.
Bro those books are practically my literary stable, treated the way ancient people treated bread. Yea Tolkien's horror was the best I've ever read, because Tolkien knows how to slide against things but never fully reveal them. I hope I figure out how to do that well someday. He doesn't just do that with horror but with the good things, too, in Aragorn's summaries of history and Galadriel's power.
That’s the whole craft, isn’t it? The sliding. Revelation kills mystery, in horror and in wonder both. Galadriel’s power stays vast precisely because we only glimpse its edges. If you’re working toward that, I’d be curious to read what you’re writing.
We've got a problem in genre lit right now. Everything getting published, both trad and indie, are the "same but different' stories that are really just all the same. The desire to sell books for the sake of the sale has flattened romance, fantasy, domestic thrillers into boring replicas of the last popular book in the genre. I don't know the answer to this, but I'm seeing essays like this more and more. Where are the innovative writers in these genres who are willing to branch out and be creative?
This is the answer to every question posed in this article. Everyone can be a published author now, and as a result, many people who love reading can now write their own versions of the stories they love, where they're not telling some deep philosophical story but a fun story they enjoyed writing with dragons you can be pals with. The landscape of writing has simply changed.
This is so true. Both liberating but also a struggle to create something of a “fantasy zeitgeist” in my opinion.
As someone trying to write something that expects patience from the reader, this tension feels real. The question isn’t whether innovative work exists, it’s how it finds its readers.
That is the million-dollar question -- how innovative work finds its readers.
My enduring thought here is that 15 years ago, when blogging and social media still felt fresh and creator-driven, there were more opportunities for authors to be discovered. Everything was slower, and social media wasn't just content and algorithms driving visibility. It at least felt more organic, as if you could write something and readers could actually stumble upon it. And we had eager readers book blogging, which feels like the opposite of Bookstagram. Everything was slower, more deliberate and enjoyable.
I keep thinking I'd like to start a book blog here on Substack and just talk about books and writing and authors (as if I could make the time to do that in my life), but I feel like that's what's missing. Give readers a place to find stories, rather than being bombarded with content.
Totally. I don’t know if we can rewind to that era, but I do think readers still crave spaces that feel intentional rather than optimized.
Thank you Sarah. The innovative writers are in a gross minority because it takes three requirements to be one:
Inspiration
Mastering of the craft
Courage to write something that might go against the grain
Cheers from the Strange Girl 💜
This is a great comment, so I'm replying to it again.
Speaking of "boring replicas," my first novel was a result of my love of Blade Runner and Underworld — I thought, 'Let's write a sci-fi vampire thriller, complete with clones (replicants),' only I made mine a tragedy because I love tragedies. I think a lot of writing is about remixing ideas that you loved, and I don't see anything wrong with that — the "replicas" part, not the "boring" part.
What I think is an issue here, and why you get "boring replicas," as I stated in my other comment, is that anyone can be a "published author" in about the time it takes to make tea. You don't even have to be good at writing to sell a thousand books because a fantastic cover and some well-chosen keywords or a good back cover blurb that hits the right notes will get you across the finish line to success. Between the covers, that's where the problem lies. Writers who haven't learned how to write yet are sending their "boring replicas" into the void dressed up as glorious future best sellers.
The proof is in the pudding — last year, I read three indie novels because I wanted to be supportive, loved the covers and the blurbs, and the marketing was on-point. All three books were terrible, amateurish, and barely contained anything resembling a character arc. All the effort was put into marketing, not writing.
This is why I prefer Substack to social media — on Substack, authors talk about writing; on social media, authors hawk their books. "Buy my book." I've since unfollowed as many of those accounts as I could have. Yeah, I got books, and I have serial fiction on Substack. Yeah, I want you to read it — I do — but I would rather just talk about writing.
Where are the innovative writers? They're mostly invisible, under the surface of a continual wave of authors begging you to buy their books. Self-publishing, like social media, was a grand idea; it's mostly become a curse.
ME LET ME ALLOW MEEEEEEEEEE
(I have wanted this since I was 12. Eight years building my craft and defiance. The more I read the more convinced I am that I will blow people's socks off)
Good points. I think Grimdark makes a similar error but in the other direction. It might reject the externalized binary of Good and Evil, but it simultaneously rejects that there is higher meaning to be grasped. As a result, I find that the "fantastical" elements of Grimdark settings tend to flatten into mere set-dressing. There's not enough meaning to be grasped through them, since the whole point is that there's no meaning.
It definitely can go too far. Ie. an overcorrection.
We need to keep the wonders in our writing to stay intact too.
yea. as soon as you reject objective truth, you lose sight of everything and all is flattened into photocopies with different names and settings but the meat is all the same
Grimdark doesn't reject objective truth. It presents characters in a story and lets you, the reader, draw your own conclusions.
Oh, really? Thank you for clearing my head on the matter--I appear to have been mistaken. I have heard conservative literary youtubers politely rail against grimdark and apparently I did not do enough research.
I think the trouble with the idea of grimdark (I don't think I've read any) is it would be an overcorrection against preaching in stories....both saying 'this is how it is whether you like it or not' and 'figure it out yourself' are bad, but does grimdark provide at least the guideposts of good and evil? Without those how can you judge the actions of anyone?
It's not up to the author to tell you that. He just presents the story and you make of it what you want.
Oh....I see....so from what I can tell, it's a 'choose the moral' type of story? I've heard a lot about grey anti-heroes as the protagonists and cannot help but think the grimdark author (not saying all do this but) is probably capable of subtly skewing the story to incline the reader to a certain conclusion. I can easily see liberal authors doing that on the already fertile ground of 'choose your own adventure' type of morality, though I understand that that is a pretty dark thought and obviously not all authors are actively doing that. In fact, most are probably not. That would take a certain level of skill very few authors have displayed recently.
Do you think conservative/Christian literary folk aren't exactly fans of grimdark precisely BECAUSE of the readers being left to fend for themselves?
All I've heard are complaints about grimdark presenting a world without hope or something to that effect and I am simply trying to understand the mechanics of how this actually works. Because I'm curious lol
A lot of readers want to be told what to think when presented with a situation in a story, even at a subconscious level. Grimdark requires that you be the judge of what you see developing in the story based on your own moral code.
I disagree. Grimdark doesn't necessarily rejects the concept of good/evil but rather lets things play out as to let readers draw their own conclusions.
I don’t think that’s unique to grimdark, which prompts the question: what *is* unique about grimdark? And the answer has always been the bleak worldview and the presentation of meaningless suffering.
It is unique to Grimdark because in standard fantasy all those elements are pretty cut and dry. Here is your good guy, here is your bad guy, and here is how the author wants you to feel.
I think you're crafting a false dichotomy between cut-and-dry "standard fantasy", and "grimdark" which is supposedly everything else.
I repeat that leaving moral judgement to the reader is not what makes grimdark unique. If it was, then Ursula K. Le Guin, and Guy Gavriel Kay would qualify, as would Tolkien's The Children of Húrin. A story can have moral ambiguity while still assuming meaning and order. Such stories within fantasy predate the grimdark label by decades.
What separates grimdark from these others is its insistence that, after judgement is rendered, it ultimately doesn't matter: that suffering has no higher meaning beyond power, entropy, and the finitude of existence.
The very word 'grimdark' comes from Warhammer 40k, which explicitly defines its setting as a place without progress, without peace, without hope:
"Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter"
I simply have to disagree that grimdark authors aren't trying to make you feel a certain way. Grimdark *does* want you to feel something very specific: futility, disgust, and nihilistic resignation.
Love it or hate it, it ain't neutral.
The difference isn’t ambiguity. It’s metaphysics. Some stories wrestle with suffering inside a meaningful universe. Grimdark assumes the universe is indifferent. I think there’s an honesty to Grimdark in that.
Exactly. It’s not ambiguous, it’s a different metaphysical view a priori. It’s just as didactic as anything else, just arguing in the other direction.
One can only think it’s “more honest” or “more realistic” if they already believe its premises.
So Warhammer created grimdark? Warhammer is not even grimdark.
I'm done but thanks for the chat 😊
Warhammer is the main image for Wikipedia’s Grimdark page. We’re clearly talking about completely different definitions here 😅
We shouldn’t have shared it with the normies. I preferred it when fantasy was a secret handshake, a sign this person could be a friend.
This. It was a huge mistake
Strongly disagree, dude. You need to read further (and may I suggest my own Goddess’s Honor series?). Or try Sherwood Smith’s Sartorias books, or Kate Elliott, or something ELSE.
There’s a LOT of good fantasy that isn’t infected with this rot, especially if you branch out into indie.
You forgot the 'defanging' of the vampire! I firmly believe this occurs because people are writing to a kind of template. Money is made by the people who tell writers how to write - know your audience, hit the beats, include specifics because it's expected...by the reader. It's not about the craft of writing, it's about making money from books.
That's it.
Making money.
If one writes for the pleasure, being compelled from some internal, inexplicable itch, to get the idea down on paper, then it'll be better.
Everyone is chasing the dream of becoming the next -fill in the gap with name of author you put on a pedestal - and getting a movie deal and , and, and.
Some writers need to take a big breath and a big break, and ask themselves why, in total honesty, am I writing. And then decide if they should continue or give up.
It isn't just fantasy, as some respondents have said, romance is infested, and it's spreading.
It's why grimdark is so important. It's doing something different.
Yes, it's removing the pretense. Getting back to the roots and moving forward in the right direction. Good grimdark that is. But I know you know.
Give me moral pressure, weird wonder, and fearless prose. Make fantasy truly wild again.
Disagree, with the exception of Glen Cook.
Why?
Because too much grimdark leans toward the bigoted, violence-for-violence’s sake, faux-Aryan modes for my liking. Cook manages to avoid that stuff.
Does it? Give examples. I've never come across Nazi grimdark.
You haven’t been looking, then. And no, I’m not promoting any of it.
I know loads of grimdark books. None of them fit your description. First Law, Prince of Nothing, Final War, Poppy War, Manifest Delusions, Empires of Dust, Godblind. The fact you spout an opinion without backing it up with evidence tells me you're a person who goes on feelings instead of facts.
It has died many times and will do so again. I'm going to with my friends bring it back to the days of Tolkien.
Same, bro
Huh 🤔 Maybe this explains why I stopped reading fantasy decades ago.
It’s all got too derivative back in the 90s and it’s unrecognizable now.
Yep but also I find my tastes have changed as I get older. I now prefer hard sci-fi with a good plot. Also harder to come by these days.
There's still lots of room in fantasy.
I mean, *A Diabolical Bargain* I had the entire story take place in a city with a wizards' university, and the magical forest next to it. (The forest was the first attraction.)
And since I like fairy tales, I did a whole heap of the lesser known ones in *A Princess Seeks Her Fortune.* With a rather lower-key quest.
It can be revived! One book a time!
WRITERS OF ROHAN ASSEMBLE
(Not my pun, it belongs to a friend XD)
The fantasy of death would be great too.
I have a book for you!
I'll consume it.
This is all true. My day job is to read and summarize books not already on our company's sales website, so that usually means I get recently published works. In the past 15 years can't recall any truly remarkable new fantasy novels or series coming across my desk.
Even the titles of fantasy are formulaic these days. How many “Noun of Noun and Noun” teenage romance fantasies are there, for example? Who knows? Not me (and more than most people I should be one of the ones who DOES know).
I’ve noticed the same thing in cinema and in every genre of book. Yes, it’s great that anyone can get published and that the landscape has allowed for a bigger range of stories. But it makes me feel like we need new genres.
I grew up a horror junkie as far as movies go. I complained for years about the “popcornificiation” of horror, how we no longer get anything deeper than slashers, flashing lights, shock value. Turns out it was because the popcorn horror gets the most press.
Companies like A24 came out and labeled their work Elevated Horror. I propose book culture does the same - Listen, you can have your romantasy and cozy fantasy and all that but please label it as such, and relabel things like you mentioned here as something like, elevated fantasy. Label your “airport” thrillers as such so that I don’t get pissed that McFadden is next to King under the catch all term of “thriller.” Let me know what I’m getting. I’m not mad you’re writing accessible fantasy for people who just want surface level stuff. Some people can only handle that stuff. People need simple stuff to help them wade into genres before they can grasp the tougher reads. But don’t place it next to LOTR and other richly complex works and then get surprised when I’m disappointed, and when people looking for cozy fantasy get upset at how depressing and controversial some of these more complex books are.
We need better categorizing. I like the term Elevated horror.
How to get people onboard though? Maybe we should make a list and start by using being strict. The list can have brain dead lit, just properly labeled.
I think it happens the same way it happened with cinema. Inventing labels for things and using them repeatedly, haha. I think it just HAPPENED with movies on places like letterboxd because people were so insistent. And part of it has to be resisting our urge to kind of be snobs. Brain dead lit sure, but it needs a more neutral term to catch on- that’s why I call some things “airport thrillers” they are sold in airports and meant to be easy to follow if you are reading them in small bits on a beach or on flights. I think “pop thriller” is a decent term that wouldn’t feel degrading to the consumers too. Fantasy I have heard “high fantasy” or “elegant fantasy” sometimes, too. The key I think is to subcategorize (which given how many tropes publishers love to put in descriptions you’d think they’d push more) and to avoid demeaning terms for “poppy” things but applying more heady terms to the higher ones - hence “elevated.”
Oh sure! I didn't actually mean to create a category called brain dead. I like your idea of airport and pop!
Haha yeah I know it was tongue in cheek, more mentioned it as an example of why there’s pushback in adoption of subgenres sometimes. Some people hate the term popcorn thriller for some reason but it’s honest.
A lot of writers are picking up the same themes so fantasy market seems to be inundated with copies, some good and some not so. The real key for all fantasy writers needs to be in building up a world which is intriguing and combining fantasy with character and pulling at human emotions to convert it into an epic fantasy
It's why I always approach writing fantasy as spiritual warfare. The demons are real. They can possess or trick you. A lot of times it's hard to tell the difference between morals and demonic influence. Humanity has a lot of ideas what good is and isn't. The demons are counting on confusion.
I love killing dragons. I am writing a whole series on killing dragons, set in a world where there are thousands of years of asking the big questions and struggling to kill dragons
"Flat Christianity takes the brand value and drops the burden. It wants the emotional uplift without the moral terror."
Knowing that Christianity spread and consolidated itself through the blood, sacrifice, and suffering of many generations, diluting that weight is disrespectful. Even genuine idealism requires crossing a foul-smelling swamp of decomposing bodies. The fact that the world is not clean is precisely what makes it so difficult to keep your white mantle untarnished.
Exactly! It cannot be presented as binary good. It needs the history. I used the example of Victor Hugo as he portrayed it at it’s lowest and highest in the same narrative. Such an astounding piece of work.