Screw the Magic-Kingdom

No, this isn’t some anti-Disney rant. This is an outpouring of frustration with the fantasy genre’s saturation with save-the-magic-kingdom and a-young-boy-finds-his-destiny-in-a-faraway-land-threatened-by-evil plots. I’m sick of them. Bored with it. Yawnsville. After over 20 years of reading this stuff I can’t take any more of it.

I know this trend is a result of the forerunners that formed the genre. J.R.R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series. Moorcock’s Elrick. Fafnird and the Grey Mauzer. And I read and loved this style of story when I was a kid. I enjoyed these plots when I was a young adult. I hit highschool and started reading more comic fantasy to escape, even if a little, from that damnable boy fulfilling his ragfrnragin destiny.

I was a teenage girl, what did I care about some penis-wielding idiot’s journey to manhood? And that’s all fantasy was when I was a kid. Where were the stories about girls? But it wasn’t even a lack of ‘me’ in the genre I enjoyed, not deep down. Not really. No, the under representation of my sex (gender is social, sex is biological) wasn’t the real source of my burgeoning dissatisfaction with a genre I’d enjoyed for a decade. I’d just hit saturation point with the sword-and-sorcery template.

I didn’t realize how unsatisfied with the stock-in-trade of the genre I really was until after college, though, when a friend mentioned how he didn’t read fantasy because he didn’t like the save-the-magic kingdom stories.

So, screw the magic kingdom. You hear me authors? I’m talkin’ to you. Let the thing come down like a house of cards built by a drunken rhinoceros. Point it out to a hiccuping t-rex and tell it the plot called it’s momma a bad name.

I want something fresh. I want new tropes. I want cross-genre delights and old thoughts with new masks.

I started reading urban fantasy because it’s the opposite of the save-the-magic-kingdom. But it’s starting to get elbowed in by woo-woo and too many plots are starting to serve up a-person-finds-their-supernatural-destiny-to-face-an-old-evil-in-our-new-world. Lots of the-chosen-one-saves-the-world/city-every-Tuesday is cropping up. I know you have to have a threat. But STOP with the destiny.

I’ve got four boxes of destiny and I can’t get rid of it for love or money. Where are the clueless cab drivers who accept barter in place of cash tips off odd drunks and find a two-inch pony in their glove box demanding help finding it’s hotel?

It’s late, and I’m tired. This rant is rambling.

For those of you reading this and thinking, “yeah, man, YEAH!”…

List of books and Series That Fight The Power Bands

• Glen Cook’s Garret P.I. series.
• Branden Sanderson’s Mystborn triology (the darklord wins. discuss).
• Mike Resnik’s Stalking the… books (Stalking the Unicorn, Stalking the Dragon, etc.)
• Naomi Novak’s Tremaire series
• Norse Code
• Ice Song
• Charles de Lint, one of the founders of the urban fantasy genre
• Chine Meville (pronounced me-AH-vill)

That’s all my sleep-soggy brain can come up with right now.

Get out there and find yourself some alternative fantasy. Get out there and write some.

I’m going to bed.

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2 Responses to “Screw the Magic-Kingdom”

1. Dan Whitworth says:

   March 30, 2010 at 12:17 pm

   I’ve just started re-reading Elric, and I have to point out: Elric destroyed his “magic kingdom” in his very first appearance! But overall I agree with your point. This is why, while I love Jim Butcher’s contemporary Harry Dresden series, his sword-and-sorcery series left me cold.

   Reply
   • Chriss Cornish says:

     March 31, 2010 at 11:32 am

     Elric ends up destroying his “magic kingdom”? How cool is that! No wonder John keeps telling me I should read it.

     I’ve never been able to get into Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera series either, but that one I actually wanted to give a try because, at a Mysterious Galaxy event, he said that story was inspired by a Pokemon-meets-the-Lost-Roman-Legion idea.

     Reply