Question Two

[kriadydragon]

sandpiper764 asked if I prefer writing fantasy or sci-fi.

Though I do love Sci-fi, I really prefer writing fantasy. Fantasy, I feel, offers limitless ideas and unique situtations. Sword and sorcery, urban fantasy... I love it all. But what I love best is being able to come up with my own worlds, creatures, and rules governing magic. It's a challenge I never tire of tackling.

Sci-fi... I don't know. There have been few sci-fi stories I've been happy with (about three or four in all). Which is funny, because when I first decided I wanted to be a writer, it was sci-fi I was leaning toward. Well, sci-fi and young adult thrillers. I didn't really get into reading fantasy until highschool, when a friend introduced me to Piers Anthony (although I've long since fallen away from reading his books.) The thing is, though I didn't start reading fantasy until highschool, I was always into it. I loved dragons, unicorns and pegasus, and was addicted to the Hobbit cartoon and the movies Legend and Dragonslayer. I also felt Star Wars more of a fantasy than sci-fi, despite all the tech (if you think about it, SW really is a traditional fantasy in Sci-fi clothing). Why it took me forever to get into fantasy books, I have no idea. But once I did, I was in heaven.

Comments

[sandpiper764.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your answer! I enjoy watching scifi - TV and movies - but tend to read more fantasy than science fiction. And for myself as well, fantasy does seem to open up the realms of imagination more so than scifi. It also seems closer to the heart.

IMO, too much tech can bog down scifi and take away from the story arc. But to be honest, I've noticed that fantasy books can become somewhat formulaic over time (i.e. just expanding on the worlds created by Tolkien, for instance).

In my reading past: Chronicles of Amber by Zelazny, Piers Anthony, Anne McCaffrey, Tolkien, Terry Brooks, Douglas Adams. What I've read more recently: Diana Gabaldon (Outlander series) and Neil Gaiman (American Gods, Neverwhere). Good stuff.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

But to be honest, I've noticed that fantasy books can become somewhat formulaic over time (i.e. just expanding on the worlds created by Tolkien, for instance).

Very true. I love traditional sword and sorcery but it can get tiresome fast, and most tend to be the same. There's always a prophecy, always a group configuration of a man, dwarf and elf, and when it comes to many of the books I've tried to read, the focus is so much on the plot that the characterization falls a little flat.

My favorite fantasies have all been traditional without being remotely generic about it (not counting the Dragonlance series. But even though generic, the characterization, IMO, was excellent and made the stories rise above being another Lord of the Rings knock off.) Barbara Hambly, Diana Wynn Jones, and Ursula K. LeGuinn are three authors whose stories blew me away.

My all time favorite kind of fantasy, though, is one where the author turns their back completely on the traditional. Urban fantasies, for example. An even better example is Clive Barker's The Abarat - a kind of modern day Wizard of OZ/Alice in Wonderland with a world and creatures completely made up. I love it when an author stretches their imagination to the limit in order to come up with something completely new and unusual. And I love it when I'm able to do the same and make it work.