Ahira's Hangar

This is a thread and a poll not about Robert Jordan's writing per se - rather it is an attempt at a serious discussion about the effects of his series Wheel of Time upon the subgenre of epic fantasy.

Boon
Jordan's epic series has sold many, many, many copies. And since publishers are in business to make money, they pay attention to such things.

While I cannot prove it, I am fairly certain that other writers have been given a shot at multi-volume fantasy epics because of Jordan's success.

At least two writers that I am aware of, who are successful award-winning authors of science fiction (Catherine Asaro and Lois McMaster Bujold) have switched from science fiction to fantasy in recent years. Perhaps it was a natural career progression ~ but a little voice in the back of my head says that writers need to eat, too. When first rate authors switch over to fantasy, that can be seen as a good thing for fantasy fans (though possibly a loss for those fans of their original genres).

Many people I have talked to on the internet started reading fantasy because of Jordan. And that is certainly a boon!

Bane
The sheer size (numbers of pages, numbers of books in the series) of Wheel of Time surpasses its massive amount of sales.

And that seems to be spreading to other authors and other series. While in the hands of a very good author, thousands of pages might be a great joy -- how many people can write a 10,000 or more page work and not include unneeded padding and redundancy and some self-indulgence on those pages?

A trilogy used to be pretty standard for "adult" fantasy (children's series such as Narnia, Dark is Rising, Prydain etc. have often had many more books in them but the books are usually quite short). The bar has somehow and somewhen been raised to four or more large books per series. While this might give the authors more scope to unleash their imaginations - well, see the paragraph above. How many of them are up to writing a hugely long series and keeping the thing sharp and focused with no extra padding?

I used to gush about new books I like. Now whenever I give people a recommendation I always tell them if it is a part of a series, and if that series is unfinished how long it is projected to be and how long it is thought to be before the last book is released. And I never did that before Jordan (and to a lesser extent Martin, given his problems writing his latest book).

So how about it, folks? Boon, bane, or both? BoonBaneBothShow results ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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A little of both.

Make no mistake I hate Robert'ordan's work, I think it's utter rubbish, butt he impact this series had the trends it showed that could be financialy viable had a severe impact. Certainly epic fantasy was already a commercial success (Brooks, Eddings, Dondaldson), hoeever Jordan's work was a bit of an evolution that showed that fans wold buy books that featured more than one protagonist - large casts - and and more than 1 major plotline, and buy many of them. Jordan also -- love him or hate him -- did so in away that his vision was dsiproportionate to his ability to render them by leaps and bands, made a huge world-bulding undertaking that possibly had no equal until Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen. Jordan's ambition and planned scope is something to be admired - his ablity to render it (or apparently any but 1 type of female character) should not.

To some of your points:

Quote:While I cannot prove it, I am fairly certain that other writers have been given a shot at multi-volume fantasy epics because of Jordan's success.

I'll go on to say there would be no A Song of ice and Fire if Jordan didn't have the success he had.

Quote:At least two writers that I am aware of, who are successful award-winning authors of science fiction (Catherine Asaro and Lois McMaster Bujold) have switched from science fiction to fantasy in recent years. Perhaps it was a natural career progression ~ but a little voice in the back of my head says that writers need to eat, too. When first rate authors switch over to fantasy, that can be seen as a good thing for fantasy fans (though possibly a loss for those fans of their original genres).

I think the genre's have blurred so much the relevance of categorization is being lsot. That said my understanding about Bujolds work, although criticaly well recieved (and I realy enjoyed them,but nobody is going to convince me that she should have won the Nebula) they were not very successful commercially - which shouldn't surprise anyone. At any rate it will be interesting to see Richard Morgan's Sword/Sorcery Fantasy he is working on.

Final thoughts:

Jordan's legacy is sealed. Although I think this series is average at its best, it's hugely popular and did a tremendous amount in terms of proving something to publishers, who only are attracted to sales figures. People forget (since we have been bashing Jordan for years now), when this series frst came out, it was groundbreaking. Not great, most of the time not even good, but that makes him 50 times better more preferable than Terry Brooks.
The Bodhisattva

Fantasybookspot.com

My interview this week: Kelly Link
<i>Edited by: Jay Tomio  at: 1/1/06 1:45 pm
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I said both. While I have no use for Jordan he definately kept the genre alive in the minds of the general public. *****
Before, you are wise; after, you are wise. In between you are otherwise.
Fravashi saying (from the formularies of Osho the Fool) <i></i>

Does anyone else share my concern for "the neverending story" ? Jordan is not the only one - if you have ever had the misfortune to read the terrible Terry Goodkind, you will know that he does not even have a series-long plot. I truly worry that this phenomena will continue to spread...

I have always stated that (not finishing his story in a timely or spacely manner) is my major complaint about Jordan (for the record I view him as completely mediocre - he can write individual scenes quite well, but cannot sustain his writing over the length of one book, much less ten plus -- but there are certainly much much worse writers out there!!)

Starts singing This is the sonf that will not end... ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
<i>Edited by: Duchess of Malfi at: 1/2/06 10:48 am
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