I'm using a Romanesque setting myself, if that's worth mentioning. Also subverting/deconstructing the Chosen One and Evil Overlord tropes.
Another fad was/is magic with hard rules. The author makes up a magic system, and then the system is used in a surprising way at the climax. I was never big on this, so I haven't read a lot of it, but I know a lot of it is out there. I think the future of fantasy is going to be in the cross pollination of the genre with magical realism, romance, thriller, crime, historical and so on. Mythical and fairytale elements are just another part of the mix, so more stories will be human centered with less fantastic elements, unless the mythical aspect is a part of the point. I think this is because Hollywood is releasing more genre-combining movies, like super hero films that are also thriller, or spy, or heist, or whatever (romance / rom com crossovers are coming). Also, more readers are reading cross genre. When I was a kid, people I knew who were into fantasy and sci fi often only read those genres. Now, most of the people I know who read / write fantasy read across many genres, and are often not even aware of the whole scope of the fantasy genre itself. You're as likely to get a story inspired by Tom Clancy or John Green as you are Warhammer, because fantasy writers are not necessarily interested in, or even exposed to, D&D / Warhammer / Witcher / Tolkien. Maybe not even GoT.
I didn't understand the flashback / flash forward timeline until the princess was lost in the forest and they explicitly state the Witcher is her magic oath dad. In retrospect, it was kind of obvious. Maybe if I was better with faces. I didn't get it in the moment though.
The next Final Fantasy is going back to FF's roots. FF16 has a more traditional medieval fantasy setting, rather than futuristic. This could indicate an upcoming medieval fantasy trend? We shall see!
I'm planning something like that. Medieval meets Robots. These are sent by Aliens to teach humans and guide them to the right way (but of course things don't go as planned). There won't be any real magic in this story, just these robots' superhuman abilities and that's why people think they are wizards. Of course, this is not a new idea. I have seen Terminator fan fiction where a T1000 is accidentally sent back to medieval England. Something like the 990's instead of the 1990's.
With the popularity of the Warcraft franchise I wouldn't be surprised. I think it's the only fantasy franchise to have ever gotten away with featuring elves infested by alien chest-busters scavenging stolen starship parts on the fragmented outskirts of a blown-up alien planet with radiation that mutates all inhabitants trying to reverse-engineer the parts into nuclear mana-reactors. However, you gotta take into perspective that the "Forgotten Realms era" I mentioned had already featured this trope / theme. It's the late 90s where you had the Elder Scrolls Universe's Tamriel united by a giant brass robot (1995), I /think/ one of the Zelda games also featured prominent high-tech stuff and there was ... Wizardry 8. Just ... leave that there. It was truly a blend of fantasy / science fiction with little chance to decide where it fits. I understand also that this did not penetrate into literature though (or to say, did not penetrate further than what the above franchises produced in literature). That's definitely an ongoing process. I think it was sparked by the deviation from Tolkienist fantasy in the 2000s. You can clearly see the shift in focus within works that were written /around/ the 2000s to include more than an evil one or to subvert it. I welcome it greatly; it does good for a story to feature an antagonist that cannot be clearly isolated/outlined. All of these are ... good to look forward to. Exciting. And it makes me consider incorporating them into my own project.
Yeah, I agree. The ‘Evil Overlord’ is broken into three characters: a mortal empress, a Sorcerer, and the main character (who embodies the ‘evil leader of hordes’ aspect of the trope.
I really hope to see fantasy that features humans without any magical powers figuring out ways to survive in a world where nothing makes conventional sense. Somewhere in the middle between “humanity fuck yeah!” and cosmic horror. Medieval Chernobyl. Yeah. For example, in a world where cursed sand slowly converts living things into more sand, humans would have to find ways to contain and prevent sand contamination.
What's next for fantasy? Something even slightly original for once, I'd hope. No more dragons and wizards and dwarves and elves and magic or magik. Come up with something new. Be creative PLEASE! And no more "part 1 of the wurbleflorber chronicals."
Amen brother Selbbin. How many fantasy novels are even set in a capitalist society though? Are you looking for communist fantasy or something?
Reminds me of Day of the Triffids (one of my favorites). Then there was the more recent book (that became a movie) Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer. I didn't read the book but I remember thinking the movie was weird...
What's your issue with my upcoming hepta-decology? Unsure about the possible sarcasm there There's a surprising amount of collectivist / syndicalist content in fantasy and science fiction worldbuilding I've seen. The main issue with these is that nobody goes further into collectivist theory than reading Marx and they all disregard the fact that 19th century collectivism is not feasible / impossible / unrealistic. A good start for anyone wishing to feature a collectivist society would be to at least address the Socialist Calculation Debate and its various schools / outcomes instead of porting a utopia. Of setting fantasy novels in a "capitalist society", there's the real charm there of a slightly politically-loaded statement that posits "capitalism" as something special like "collectivism" or "gestalt consciousness" whereas the core basis of capitalism is the natural exchange of resources which in turn is the natural result of most cultural / societal developments. Even in a fantasy society where you've got a close-knit community of wanderers you may still have capitalism per se if they exchange resources and not share them. Taking that into account, 90% of fantasy / science fiction worlds are set in a capitalist society. I don't see much of a change here - I did mention the Socialist Calculation Debate and the "result" thereof was that collectivism is not feasible and even a totalitarian socialist/communist state must maintain some sense of market economy (*cough* CCP *cough*). Thus I expect collectivist worldbuilding to be restricted to individual cultures or races within greater capitalist / market / exchange based worlds. EG, have the Quarians in the Milky Way, have the Lightforged in Azeroth, have the Romulans in the galaxy.
not really trying to be sarcastic; he said he wanted to see less of capitalism and its putrid culture in fantasy and I wondered if some sort of communist fantasy is what he's looking for. A lot of fantasy is set in some medieval world or its technological analogue, so if you want to call that capitalism then alright. I didn't mean that fantasy doesn't include capitalist structures, I worded that really badly now that I reread it, but based on the high fantasy that I'm familiar with, literally any other genre has more to complain about in that regard than fantasy, if you feel like complaining about it. In fact, a lot of the high fantasy I've read has absolutely no grasp of basic economics
Fair enough, was unsure about that part. I understand the vast majority of fantasy is capitalism with the idea that "free trade and safe merchants = prosperity" and that's where economy ends. Exactly ... ... That's just generally true for most worldbuilding isn't it? Science fiction included. God I don't envy the monetary regulators of a galactic single currency. And ... do you think financial reporting cycles are universal all around the galaxy?
Communist fantasy sounds great- all fantasy is a breathing of communism through the pores of dreams- but my point here is rather on the standpoint of the artist and the communism of art. Poetry hates to be sold and marketed, but demands rather the repudiation of these things and to be free. To have done with poisoned superstitions like intellectual property, and the vicious gauntlet of trendsetters, tastemakers, and the whole nasty apparatus of capital seeking to strangle art.
lol, and the political ramifications of a galactic empire--the Galactic Senate in Star Wars for example...in the real world it would fall apart within a decade I feel quite sure. I always sympathized with the Separatists, haha. They're basically standing up against a tyrannical central government, and they're the only ones interested in actually enforcing trade laws. Also Asimov's Galactic Empire...I mean, he was a good biochemist I guess, and a good story teller, but it's just so unfeasible. I couldn't quite suspend my disbelief the whole time.
Hi, I've noticed with a lot of what I've been writing in the epic fantasy genre, the technology level has been advancing and it's starting to merge with steampunk. Maybe that's just me. Cheers, Greg.
I am inspired by works in the Fantasy genre, but not following trends, the inspirations would be more from older works. From those I go my own way with my creativity, using way I write as well as I can, and it explores things that are beyond what I have read myself from fantasy works, as in post-apocalyptic settings, or other conditions with unique descriptions. Yet the writing from me is with a simplicity to let readers imagine more for those themselves, which may be in a variety of ways still leaving the story I write complete and intact.
Hi, Actually with the books I'm working on at the moment, I've been moving into the science fantasy realm - through the wonders of genetic engineering I've been bringing elves and faeries and whatever, into an urban sci fi setting. Cheers, Greg.
I pretty much stop short of going to sci fi, and that is pretty much why. I have seen somewhere how elves can be used in sci fi with explanations like that, though I do like reading sci fi, I would not want to do that to elves, which I use elsewhere in my writing, who do not need those explanations as they have their own with their own history. In my writing they are much like the rest of us who are human, so they are not excluded from that, but each will have a different future, living generally much longer, and each moving one at a time through some portal to somewhere else, where there is another future as something a little different. Yes, that's vague, but aside from my own vague ideas for it, no one other than elves would understand any of that.
I ran across an interesting interview. An independent author has been using a web serial to build an audience. https://thefantasyinn.com/2018/01/22/pirateaba-interview/
Well, the next fad seems to be "dark academia" There seems to be a lot coming out after Leigh Bardugo's Ninth House and the sequel (i see it a lot on agent's wishlists too) They also have been popping up in new release lists
