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ORSON SCOTT CARD
This is the golden age of serious fantasy literature. It was created by the surprising success of J. R. R. Tolkien’s obscure, self-indulgent, and brilliant exercise in creating the missing English epic, but then languished, as too many writers drew all their creative fire from Lord of the Rings or, if they wanted to be original, the legends of Arthur.
Fantasy became relentlessly English. Tolkien’s elves turned up everywhere, in one guise or another. So did his orcs. So did the ring, and the reluctant hero drawn from among the little people.
It’s the same thing that happened with cyberpunk. A terrific writer dazzles us, but instead of imitating his creative process in order to come up with something equally original, his disciples sprinkle his devices through their own imitation stories, like a badly collated photocopy of greatness.
Always the best fantasy writers strike off on their own, and their work now is coming to the fore. For the past 20 years, the creative energy of speculative fiction has been migrating from sci-fi to fantasy, and this summer is as good a time as any to catch up.
For instance, Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy is new but complete, so there’s no waiting to get the end of the story. The motley cast of talented misfits is trying to bring down a thousand-year empire (try to avoid thinking “reich”), but the heroes discover to their dismay that, bad as the empire was, it was holding back something even worse.
Or if you want to get in on the ground floor, look at Sanderson’s newest hardcover, Warbreaker — a whole new magic system, with graustarkian intrigue at the highest level.
Patrick Rothfuss creates a fascinating bildungsroman with his The Name of the Wind. It is extravagantly a “tale told in an inn” — each volume in the series is one night’s storytelling by a hero who insists he has retired from the business.
Lamentation, by Ken Scholes, begins with what looks like a nuclear explosion that destroys an entire city. Only one survivor walked away — a mechanical man named Isaak. He has no memory of what caused the explosion, but in the turmoil after the destruction, he becomes an observer and a participant in all the politics and warfare and magic. He begins to discover the secret behind all the magic — including his own existence.
These are merely some of the most recent. Once you realize how much excellent literature is scattered between the reefs of vampire novels in the sci-fi and fantasy section of the bookstore, you’ll enjoy prowling through the backlist.
Authors to look for:
Kate Elliot’s dark and beautiful Crown of Stars series, which puts us through the experience of being conquered by a ruthless and terrible enemy. (First volume: King’s Dragon.)
Lynn Flewelling’s devastating exploration of human identity in her Tamir trilogy, in which, to save her life, a royal girlchild is changed at the moment of her birth into a boy, while her twin brother is changed into a girl and then killed, so that the family’s enemies will be satisfied. This one act of dynastic cruelty destroys almost everybody — but Tamir manages to find her way to the destiny that was foreseen for her. (First volume: The Bone Doll’s Twin.)
Anything by Robin Hobb, who arguably set the standard for the modern serious fantasy novel. My favorite series is her Liveship Traders. (First volume: Ship of Magic.)
And other authors who will not disappoint you: James Maxey, David Farland, George R. R. Martin, Sherwood Smith, Sean Russell, David Gemmel; and in YA fantasy: Tanith Lee, David Lubar, Louis Sachar, Brandon Mull, Neal Shusterman, and Tamora Pierce.
Last of all, though, let me mention three excellent crossover books — half 19th-century English novel, half contemporary fantasy. The best of them is the brilliant novel-about-a-novelist The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield.
The truth of the story seems always just out of reach, until all comes clear in a stunning finale that left me gasping.
Galen Beckett’s The Magicians and Mrs. Quent is a bit more heavy-handed as a pastiche of Austen and the Brontës, by way of Jules Verne, but I found it a delight from beginning to end.
And then there’s the novel that treats magic exactly as science was treated in 19th-century England — as a gentleman’s hobby. When you weigh Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke, you may be tempted to skim a little, just so you can finish it the same year you began — but I promise you, every aside, every footnote, is delightful.
— Orson Scott Card is a novelist and critic.