On Fantasy (the genre)

Today I started reading Furies of Calderon, a novel that starts a fantasy series that I've been assured by people whom I trust to be very good. Forty pages in, there's already been considerable action and some interesting seeming characters...but I really don't give a shit yet. I'm going to push through and see if things change, but I think I'm starting to figure out what it is about traditional fantasy (and the space fantasy sub-genre of sci-fi) that has made it so hard for me to get into it for the last several years: I don't have the patience for the window dressing.

In order to effectively engage their audience, any author needs to suck their readers into the world of their story. With fantasy, that's an even more ambitious task because the world often looks so little like our own. The author needs to help the reader understand not just the social and physical environment in which the characters reside, but the social and physical properties of the world. This makes fantasy a very visual genre. Often times, we are introduced to the realities of this world through elaborate set pieces or plot sequences designed to illustrate way things work. Since I'm not a visual thinker, I'm easily distracted by overly visual descriptions. They get me working to create an image as opposed to comprehending the idea.

Best case, for me, is that the author quickly establishes these things as mundane and moves beyond the overly ornate descriptions. Worst case is that the window dressing becomes not just a fact of the universe but a major part of the plot; the author remains enamored of his or her imagery and the novel trades proper character and plot development in favor of a series of ever escalating set pieces - like a bad action movie in text form.

Now, urban fantasy (and many genres of sci-fi) manage to get away with things for me because they exist on top of our world. Instead of establishing whole new realities, they propose an altered version of ours. This frees up their ability to focus on what is unique and lets me, as a reader, establish a means of contrasting this world with mine instead of needing to construct it from the ground up. The other way that urban fantasy (though not most sci-fi) tends to be able to effectively introduce its world is by having the reader learn about it along with the protagonist. This is a device that is utilized effectively by most of Neil Gaiman's urban fantasy as well as by Harry Potter (which, I believe, would also be considered urban or modern fantasy).

Maybe, if I stick it out, Furies of Calderon and further books in the series will show me the light. Maybe they will reignite a love for traditional fantasy in me and help me find the patience to give some other books a chance. I'm a bit worried about the overly-capable young female rogue type character and the underdog young boy who will rise to great importance; but I've read enough of the Dresden Files to know that Jim Butcher is a capable author who is willing to toy with cliches enough to keep them interesting. I'll make sure to report back when I'm done.