Hey everyone…big shameless self-promotion for yours truly. I’ve published my first-ever piece in The Atlantic. It’s about fantasy literature and film. I ask whether we’re in a ‘fantasy bubble’.
Take a gander, if you’re interested in this sort of thing.
Erik Kain
Erik writes about video games at Forbes and politics at Mother Jones. He's the contributor of The League though he hasn't written much here lately. He can be found occasionally composing 140 character cultural analysis on Twitter.
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ZOMG! I love the Atlantic! Congrats E.D.!Report
Yes, The Atlantic has been a goal of mine for a long time, so I’m pretty stoked.Report
Well deserved, congradulations E.D.!Report
Nice piece, E.D.Report
Having now read your article I’d like to thumbs up the content. Good job. Alas, I’m afraid that The Black Cauldron Disney movie probably killed Prydain and salted the grave for any hope of other adaptations. Even if some skittish producer was willing to give Taran another shot I imagine that Disney’s vampire lawyers have tied the intellectual property of Prydain up tightly is Mickey’s clutches. Hmm I suppose maybe Disney itself could try relaunching it… I’m doubtful tho, mores’ the pity; Prydain was a masterpiece.Report
You’re probably right. But we can always dream…Report
Awesome.Report
Well done sir. Will this be in the print edition as well?Report
I don’t believe so. I think it’s just online.Report
Mega-congrats!Report
> Plus fantasy costs too much money to produce. Dragons,
> spells, and fantastical worlds are expensive, even in the
> age of digital animation that has made this all possible.
Two notes on the piece:
First, this is coming *way* down in the next five years. The cluster that Pixar used to produce Toy Story is laughably simplistic by today’s compute cluster standards. While it still takes top-notch technology to produce good-looking dragons on screen, producing 5 minutes of 1080 hi-def video on a hobbyist cluster is possible *real soon now* (barring the software licensing cost). The software licensing cost is a big deal, granted.
There’s plenty of good, dark, edgy, or all of the above fantasy out there that predates 1999. There’s a nice well of good fantasy to draw from without anything *new* being written, and a decent chunk of it would translate pretty well to either the big or small screen for various audiences. The question is, will this stuff be brought into the pipe for production or is everyone trying to find the *next* Harry Potter?
Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser? Dragonsbane? The Black Company? The Deed of Paksennarion? Could Showtime throw up the Elric saga?Report
It’s hard to say. I am fully aware that my entire thesis could be wrong, and that’s okay with me. A lot of these things could be made into shows or movies, for sure. The Elric stuff…I don’t think so.Report
One of the problems with transposition of fantasy from the written media to other media is that a lot of the descriptors don’t work well.
It’s like trying to bring the Travis McGee books to the screen (crossing genres); there’s a lot of internal musing that couldn’t come up on screen without a metric ton of monologue.
A relatively flashy four-color type magic series can make the transition pretty easily. A fairly heroic epic series (like GoT or the Paks books) could make the transition pretty easily because the magic is accessible or minor or both.
Something like the Jhereg books would be made substantially *different* by translation (although the dialogue in those would be fun on screen) since Brust’s descriptions of how witchcraft works would be hard to take from a word-based description to a visual one… but the sorcery stuff is straight four-color.
I think you could do Elric. Not because the books themselves would be easily mappable, but because there’s a lot of gothic vampirism going on there and you could make it intriguing to people who like dark stuff and doomed heroes.Report
Brust’s Dragaera books. (I’d call a fantasy hit-man “dark” and “edgy”, even if it is leavened with Borsch Belt jokes and Monty Python call-outs.)Report
Congrats Mr. Kain, one of many articles to follow I would hope.
Unfortunately in your list I only recall reading Chronicles of Narnia (when I was about 10-11), Lord of the Rings (when I was 13) and 1/2 of the first Harry Potter book when it first came out. My son convinced me to read Wheel of Time, and I’ve read them all but they literally give me a headache. Now that Jordan is dead it has only gotten worse. 13 books in and all I can say is, “can I buy an outline”?
The interesting thing is I love science fiction with a passion but never could get into fantasy although book stores tend to lump them together. That said, I’ve been thinking of getting into a Game of Thrones strictly because I saw it on this site. Well the series anyway. 🙂Report
I would reccomend GoT. It has much of the elegance and fascinating aspects of Wheel of time without the pointless complexity. It’s complex, to be sure, but I’ve never had to consult the bibliography to figure out who is what.
But I find Rand an insufferably sexist and whiny sort of character so I may be biased.Report
I couldn’t stand Wheel of Time. But yes! Do read GoT!Report
The first stage in the League takeover of the Atlantic is now complete.
Congrats and keep up the good work!Report
Just remember: when you play the game of thrones, you win…Report
“Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain series would also make a wonderful series of films without stretching budgets too thin. And there are many others.”
Lloyd was my first introduction into the wonderful world of Fantasy Fic as a kid. This shout out made my day.Report
Jealous…Report
You must be absolutely delighted. Mazel tov!!Report
Congrats for cracking the Atlantic, especially with such a great piece.Report
You also get republished this way. See, for instance:
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/642436-fantasy-s-spell-on-pop-culture-when-will-it-wear-off
Why Richard Dawkins would care about your piece, other than that he liked it, is sort of beyond me.Report
Huh. Hardcore atheists are a humorless lot. I get squeemish when a bunch of people who hate the idea of god so much that they also sort-of-tepidly dislike fantasy literature as well keep asking “What’s the point?” of my piece.
Honestly, what’s the point of anything? We’re all just thralls to the Flying Spaghetti Monster anyways.Report
The reflexive dislike of fantasy is unjustified in part because some of the best writers have the same issues over religious belief that the rigorous anti-theist has. Gods might exist in Erikson/Esslemont’s Malazan world, but they have an almost universally negative effect on the world; even the ones who are trying to change things for the better are marked by moments of profound pettiness and indifference to human life.
And then there’s Bakker’s Three Seas world; religious belief was certainly at the heart of the story, but there were no literal manifestation of the gods – making the blind certainties about faith and damnation all the more real and devastating.Report
Not to mention the cynical ‘savior’ aspect of Bakker’s novels.Report
Congratulations. Good job.
BTW, is this site malfunctioning? When I click the link to get here, I land on a page that was from 3 days ago. Then I have to click “older” on the gifts of gab, then “newer” to see the recent posts.Report
I haven’t had any problems like that. Has anyone else?Report
Not I.Report
I have this problem all the time. If I’m not logged in, I see a several-day old version of the site, and it navigates as if new posts or comments haven’t been made. Recently, it’s started to happen even when I am logged in. Usually, logging in works, if it doesn’t, hitting F5 usually forces a refresh.Report
Guess I need to tinker with the caching plugin.Report
This sounds like you’re behind a proxy server with a low refresh.Report
When you put a proxy in front of something that people value, they begin to value the proxy itself.Report
I get it at home and at work, and only at the League. . . but it’s not all that annoying, I only mention it because it was asked.Report
Yeah, that’s not it then.Report
Or your browser is caching too aggressively.Report
That is a major feather in your cap. Congratulations!
And a good piece, too.Report
Oh, and be sure to update your bio. You’ve earned bragging rights.Report
I read comments like this one:
There is nothing wrong with fantasy, just as long as you realise that it IS fantasy.
And I wince inside. It’s like you wrote an essay on a wonderful recipe you found for shepard’s pie and one of the comments was “you should eat a lot more than meat and potatoes”. Or an essay on a sipping whiskey and someone pointed out that drinking water was essential for good health.Report
This is where I thought you were about to go until I read the end of the sentence:
It’s like you wrote an essay on a wonderful recipe for shepherds pie and one of the comments was “you know there aren’t any actual shephards in it, right?”Report
Wow, Erik, congrats! I don’t think there is an adult alive in this country that has ever written anything that hasn’t wished to have earned what you just did.
(Also, great article)Report
Thanks to everyone for the really kind words. Much appreciated!Report