The Artificial Fantasy Trilogy Since 1977 ( why most recent Sword & Sorcery is bloated and artless)

As quite a number of people have asked about where they can get the book, I felt I should mention here that it is available as a Kindle Ebook from Amazon in several countries and also from the A&C Black website. Thanks.

Moorcock's Corum stories really were formative fantasy for me. So much of the imagery in my head when I write my own books comes from there.

Interesting to think of Dumas as an originator. The Three Musketeers and its follow-ups are my favorite series of all time.

Really enjoyed this and learned a lot. Eddings got me into fantasy in my early teens. I loved his stuff at the time and still have a nostalgic affection for Belgariad and Mallorean. On the theme of your talk, I vividly remember standing in the book shop as a teenager looking at fantasy stuff wondering how every story needs at least three books to tell it haha. I've been reading some Moorecock recently on your advice. Thoroughly enjoying it. Cheers.

Well said. I think people like to think the books they read first were the originators of some of these tropes and never look back further. I keep reaching back to older and older influences of influences, ad nauseam. I've read at least a few stories from each of the authors you mentioned (C.L. Moore,Fritz Lieber, ect) and back to Lord Dunsany and more. It amazed me how much an author could fit into a book that would be considered a novella at this point; the broken sword really brought it to light for me. even a short story can accomplish so much in less than 100 pages. Current fantasy seems bloated by comparison; just trying to fill a page count.

Great video. Well done. Some nice insights here. You should put a recommended list in there as well!

China Mieville wrote tons of singletons in the late 90s/ early 2000s. In fact, in his entire corpus I believe there is one set of three interlinked. He also falls pretty far away from standard sword and sorcery, though.

Thanks for a fascinating bit of literary history, Steve. I largely agree with you on the excessive bloat of some fantasy series: in my estimation 'The Wheel of Time' is one of the worst culprits, but with it now becoming a TV series it will continue to sell! However, I think there are some writers that can make a trilogy work. Jack Vance for one, with his Lyonnesse books.

For me, I see the basis of all modern S&S to be “The Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the Jeweler,” by Lord Dunsany. It contains everything a good S&S story should have, in about 5 pages, and obviously inspired everyone from love Lovecraft to Leiber, from Howard to Smith, and so on.

Really interesting video! I knew that Tolkien's LOTR was split into three books for financial/publishing/binding reasons but it had never crossed my mind before to consider The Three Musketeers as being proto-sword and sorcery. TTM was one of my favourite books when I was young, such that I read it several times. Also, I now realize that it must've hugely influenced my writing as I now write historical fiction (albeit with a speculative slant). Thank you!

Really enjoyed this. I notice in the background you have the set of encyclopedias from the World of Wildlife.

Thanks for this. I'm not really a fantasy fan, largely because of the sameness you mention. I've always wanted to find standalone fantasy, as it's not the genre but the genre's 'packaging', if you will, which has put me off. As such, your recommendations are a huge help!

I went straight from Lord of the Rings/Hobbit to Moorcock and found him much more my style, immediately bounced off Eddings. Enjoyed the original Feist trilogy, but left after the follow-up Prince of Blood. I did enjoy his novel Faerie Tale, more in the vein of Holdstock's Mythago Wood. I didn't read any of Brooks' Shannara but did enjoy the first of the Landover novels, despite not knowing it was part of a series. To be fair, it may not have been when I read it. I've recently gone back to read some of the others and have enjoyed them a lot, a nice mix of light and dark and quite unusual as far as Fantasy novels go. Started Donaldson's The One Tree in my teens and didn't get very far, lesson learned that you can't just jump in anywhere. I did the read the first two trilogies a decade or so ago and liked them quite a bit. Still haven't risked the third. Also enjoyed his Gap series. I skipped Jordan completely, apart from some Conan pastiches, Martin, apart from his southern vampire novel. As well as Goodkind / Bradley / Hobb / Sanderson etc. I find it a lot harder to commit to a series of a dozen or more doorstops. It's not how I want to enjoy fantasy. I do like Tanith Lee and Sheri S. Tepper.

Other astounding fantasy novels that don't get discussed enough: The Weirdstone of Brisengamen by Alan Garner Faerie Tale by Raymond Feist Windmaster's Bane by Tom Deitz Hart's Hope by Orson Scott Card

I generally agree with you (I too was reading fantasy in the early 1970s); but I will say this: Despite all of the hundreds (thousands?) of Tolkien "trilogy" 'imitators", I have not found one who I think did the job as well as Tolkien. I don't know how long ago you read The Lord of the Rings, but perhaps you should give it another go now. Tolkien's world is more of a low magic epic fantasy than you describe (and at times is quite dark), and some of the 'bad guys' like Shelob, the Balrog, Saruman, Wormtongue, etc., are more chilling than perhaps you are remembering. Even the Nazgul and the Barrow Wights are quite terrifying.

Interesting to note that even Dumas couldn't resist writing three 'Three Musketeer' books (a trilogy of sorts).

Mention should be made of Karl Edward Wagner's Kane saga from the second half of the 1970s, which consists of several short stories and novellas. for the short story "Two Suns Setting" he received the BFA Award in 1977. Kane is a Conan-like dark anti-hero character. Although it is only a small but sharp output (the few books have around 150- 160 pages) the Kane books helped reinvigorate the S&S subgenre, providing some interesting variations to a category that had previously been moribund. The series is marked by a propensity toward supernatural adversaries, a tendency that seems to portend Wagner's later move to horror.

Big series or no, there are writers who are doing incredible work with deconstruction in mind for the fantasy genre. Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen and Bakker's Second Apocalypse are prime examples, both with strong allusions to Conan and with major departures from Howard's and Tolkien's mould. Those two are experts of anthropology/archaeology and philosophy respectively, and each book is a feast. As for singletons, Guy Gavriel Kay still manages to write very compelling ones in the fantasy genre, though they are "historical fantasy" or "historical fiction with a quarter turn". I would love more standalones, but the pressure to sell one book and make it three is very real. Increasingly I see the same in SF today. In general, fantasy worlds are vast labours of love for their writer's. They spend years working on them, and for fans of the genre, worldbuilding is part of the joy. We love material culture and deep time, immortals who've seen the shape of history, trade networks and the power structures and economic trends that come from a species of magic.

I don't read a lot of fantasy myself, and tend to agree with much of what you've said. I'm a great fan of Classical Mythology (currently rereading Rouse's Odyssey transl.), I love Lord Dunsany, enjoy some Robert E. Howard, have tried a bit of Moorcock, and appreciate a good deal of Tolkien, to whom I don't think you're quite fair here. I can see where you're coming from on Lord of the Rings. If you have any interest in seeing some strengths of his not on display in that book, though, I'd strongly recommend trying The Children of Húrin. As far as writing a demonic character, for my money, Glaurung falls no lower in quality than Arioch. (If you have read the book, I'd be very interested what your reaction to it was.) I'd also like to quote at some length from Tolkien's Lay of Leithian, where the elf-maiden Lúthien has just offered herself up to Morgoth, the Dark Lord before Sauron. Morgoth's answer: 'Why should ye not in our fate share Of woe and travail? Or should I spare To slender limb and body frail Breaking torment? Of what avail Here dost thou deem thy babbling song And foolish laughter? Minstrels strong Are at my call. Yet I will give A brief respite, a while to live, A little while, though purchased dear, To Lúthien, the fair and clear, A pretty toy for idle hour. In slothful gardens many a flower Like thee the amorous gods are used Honey-sweet to kiss, and cast then bruised, Their fragrance loosing, under feet. But here we seldom find such sweet Amid our labours long and hard, From godlike idleness debarred. And who would not taste the honey-sweet Lying to lips, or crush with feet The soft cool tissue of pale flowers, Eating like gods the dragging hours? A! Curse the Gods! O hunger dire, O blinding thirst's unending fire! One moment shall ye cease, and slake Your sting with morsel here I take!" For me, the lust, pride, and scorn of this passage all come across as fully three-dimensional and believable, notwithstanding all the poetic expression involved. With that said, I do think the fantasy genre has lost immensely through attempting to imitate Tolkien. I've bounced straight off all the modern stuff I've tried. Edit: Forgot to mention Clark Ashton Smith. Wonderful poet and storyteller.

60’s and 70’s fantasy really hits different. The 80’s and 90’s have some great fantasy gems here and there as well. A lot of the popular modern epic fantasy series bore the hell out of me though and feel like the exact same stories being told over and over again.