Challenging reality.

Fantasy did not start and will not end with Tolkien, black-and-white morality, escapism and nostalgia for fairy-tale feudalism. There are very different traditions: Surrealism; the populist modernism of the pulps; Peake's Gormenghast; Borge's dreams. For them, fantasy doesn't fall back on a stock of clichés – it estranges, it undermines and challenges reality.

- China Miéville

In spite of the fact that this blog claims to deal with both genres, I'm probably more of a fan of science fiction than fantasy. However, they're both well represented in my little library here, even if my fantasy collection leans more toward the classics than that of most readers: The Lord of the Rings and the Narnia series of course, but also lesser-known older books like The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison, the Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake, Lord Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter, and so on.

I also have my share of the adventures of heroic (or anti-heroic) fantasy characters: Conan, Elric, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Prester John, Brak, Kane, and a few other of their sword-toting brethren - or sisters, in the case of C. L. Moore's Jirel of Joiry.

But, as Mr. Miéville's introductory quote quite accurately points out, any attempt to limit the boundaries of fantasy is futile. Many of the examples I've listed above are well-known standards or classics as far as fantasy publishing goes, but let's not ignore Neil Gaiman's urban fantasies, China Miéville's own tales of New Crobuzon and its mixed bag of denizens, Stephen Donaldson's Thomas Covenant books, Tanith Lee's dark, sexually oriented tales, Ursula K. LeGuin's thoughtful Earthsea series, Roger Zelazny's brilliant Amber novels, or Jack Vance's quirky storytelling.

But in spite of having all this source material to draw upon, it took me a surprisingly long time to write this post. I had all these bits and pieces, all these observations and fragments regarding fantasy, but I couldn't find the hook, the connecting element that would get it all to make sense together.

In an attempt to further the progress of things, I did what I consider to be the equivalent of free association - I went to Google™ and typed in "fantasy". After moving past a lot of admittedly intriguing offers by buxom young women regarding my fantasies and their willing if expensive fulfillment thereof, I made my way to the Wikipedia entry regarding Fantasy, which contains the following statement:

Fantasy is a genre that uses magic and other supernatural forms as a primary element of plot, theme, and/or setting. Many works within the genre take place on fictional planes or planets where magic is common. Fantasy is generally distinguished from science fiction and horror by the expectation that it steers clear of scientific and macabre themes.

My first thought was, "No, that's not what distinguishes fantasy from science fiction, that's like saying that the ocean is generally distinguished from dry land by its lack of trees and grass. " Sadly, as a definition the Wikipedia entry seems to be far too close to the sort of narrow viewpoint that Mr. Miéville derides in his statement.

In my opinion, I think that at some very basic level the creative desires of the science fiction author and the fantasy author are completely different. The science fiction author accepts the rules, however much he may then proceed to bend them. If an SF author wishes to have his starships travel faster than light, they have to be able to provide some explanation of how this violation of current physics is possible. This explanation may not be a scientific possibility under current state of the art, but the author recognizes the need to acknowledge the limiting factor of c as a constant.

The fantasy author approaches things from the other direction. They create a world in which they make the rules, with no need to explain or justify them. Floating cities, talking trees, seven league boots, the author has complete freedom, unhampered by any need for explanation or logic - as in the opening quote, challenging reality.

To illustrate what I mean, if a science fiction author wants to include a flying horse as an element in their story, they have to consider the physics of flight: the surface area required to lift the weight of a horse, the question of how wing muscles would be integrated into a horse's physical structure, and whether or not a flying horse would need to be hollow-boned, like a bird.

A fantasy writer may have an explanation for the existence of flying horses in their story, but it doesn't need to be rooted in science. It might involve a drunken dalliance between a stallion and a roc (giant bird for those of you who don't follow these things); a magical cantrip that keeps the horses aloft; or it might simply be by decree, as this scene from The Magician's Nephew, the first book in the Narnia series: *

"Be winged. Be the father of all flying horses," roared Aslan in a voice that shook the ground. "Your name is Fledge."

The horse shied, just as it might have shied in the old, miserable days when it pulled a hansom. Then it reared. It strained its neck back as if there were a fly biting its shoulders and it wanted to scratch them. And then, just as the beasts has burst out of the earth, there burst out from the shoulders of Fledge wings that spread and grew, larger than eagles', larger than swans', larger than angels' wings in church windows.

Voilà - a flying horse, literally on demand. What better symbol could Fantasy have?

- Sid

* Not everyone is aware that the Narnia books were written out of sequence. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe was written first, and then in later years some person, possibly from Porlock, demanded an explanation from C. S. Lewis: why a wardrobe? Why is there a lamppost in Lamppost Waste? The result was The Magician's Nephew, a prequel novel which is probably the weakest of the books due to its dutiful filling in of the gaps. Thanks to my mother's wisdom, I read The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe first, and never for a moment wondered why there was a lamppost flickering away in the middle of the forest on the other side of a wardrobe - for me, it was just part of the author's world and I accepted it. Interesting that Disney made the same decision in terms of filming the adaptations.