Trends in Contemporary Fantasy

[silvijanus]

We could argue that our real life economy system is partly pure fantasy But no, I mean real fantasy story with swords and magic and whatever... where characters main quest would be to save bankrupt country and defeat loaners... making gold coins with secret alchemy formula could be fantasy version of Quantitative easing, and etc.

I'm mostly kidding of course, but those topics are more or less actual today.

[Doctor_Chill]

Placing bets on trends for the future: Gritty is here to stay, same as Dystopia for the rest of the decade at least. Grimdark is slowly going to meld into Viking Fantasy, yes. Show me a stereotypical Grimdark that doesn't have some semblance of a barbarian.

Flintlock Fantasy will continue to under perform, but like Steampunk, it will find a niche eventually. New Weird will continue to flourish, though maybe not at the rate it did with the early China Mieville, Mark Charan Newton, and Jeff Vandermeer. There's still Kameron Hurley and Mark T Barnes to champion the movement.

Fantasy Noir will continue to fly under the radar as a subset of UF, shelling out two or three major works a year one day. I think we're seeing our first this year with Dark Star by Oliver Langmead and The Dragons of Heaven by Alyc Helms.

Speaking of China influenced Fantasy, I'm still placing half my chips on Silk Road Fantasy. It's doing about as well as Flintlock I'd say, but there's actually a well of untapped potential to actually flourish. I dunno. Stuff like this (examining trends in literature) has always fascinated me. Love to speculate on how we got here and perhaps where we'll be headed next, though some weirdo could come and blow that train off its tracks any day.

[Yora]

Speaking of China influenced Fantasy, I'm still placing half my chips on Silk Road Fantasy. It's doing about as well as Flintlock I'd say, but there's actually a well of untapped potential to actually flourish. I dunno. Stuff like this (examining trends in literature) has always fascinated me. Love to speculate on how we got here and perhaps where we'll be headed next, though some weirdo could come and blow that train off its tracks any day.

Oh yes, I can see that having a lot of potential with the geopolitical order of the coming decades.

[silvijanus]

On two topics we agreed we would love to see asian inspired fantasy. Question to speculate: can we get it from native author? In one billion Chinese + billion in India, at least one has to be good (fantasy) writer. Right? Or maybe not? I dont know

[eclipse]

Recent years we have all these financial crisis and issues, analytics are like superstar sharing their wisdom and predictions about loans, debts etc.  So... can "Financial fantasy" be the next big thing?

You mean "Trickledown economics"? 

You should check out the The Folding Knife by K. J. Parker

[Yora]

On two topics we agreed we would love to see asian inspired fantasy. Question to speculate: can we get it from native author? In one billion Chinese + billion in India, at least one has to be good (fantasy) writer. Right? Or maybe not? I dont know

A while ago I read an article about there being a huge ebook market in China, which is heavily dominated by fantasy. They are just not getting translated and published in English.

[Nyki Blatchley]

Recent years we have all these financial crisis and issues, analytics are like superstar sharing their wisdom and predictions about loans, debts etc.  So... can "Financial fantasy" be the next big thing?

I thought finance was fantasy in any case. Just not as fun as most kinds.

[Raptori]

On two topics we agreed we would love to see asian inspired fantasy. Question to speculate: can we get it from native author? In one billion Chinese + billion in India, at least one has to be good (fantasy) writer. Right? Or maybe not? I dont know

A while ago I read an article about there being a huge ebook market in China, which is heavily dominated by fantasy. They are just not getting translated and published in English.

Yeah I heard that too. There was one novel translated with quite a bit of fanfare recently, but I can't remember what it was 

[Ryan Mueller]

Recent years we have all these financial crisis and issues, analytics are like superstar sharing their wisdom and predictions about loans, debts etc.  So... can "Financial fantasy" be the next big thing?

Daniel Abraham's doing pretty well with his Dagger and Coin series. Banking plays a central role in the story and the world.

[silvijanus]

I wasn't aware of these books. Might check it out
About asian authors... I don't really care from which country or part of the world author is. Author -> reader, only relation important in this case. What's bogging my mind lately... I know there are good authors there (must be), talent equal to Rofthuss, Sanderson, maybe even titans like Martin and Tolkien. Small chance they will get translated or even published. That's sad. As a reader and someone who loves fantasy - I want them I'm sure all of you agree. 

[Elfy]

Recent years we have all these financial crisis and issues, analytics are like superstar sharing their wisdom and predictions about loans, debts etc.  So... can "Financial fantasy" be the next big thing?

Daniel Abraham's doing pretty well with his Dagger and Coin series. Banking plays a central role in the story and the world.

Also formed a fair part of Feist's Rise of a Merchant Prince, and elements of The Lies of Locke Lamora.
Someone mentioned Asian fantasy. They are few and far between, but I can't go past Barry Hughart's Master Li and Number Ten Ox stories about an ancient China that never was, but should have been. Unfortunately there were only 3 of them. The first one, The Bridge of Birds, came out in 1984 (won the World Fantasy Award in 1985) and the last one, The Eight Skilled Gentlemen, came out in 1990. Hughart reportedly became rather disillusioned with the world of publishing after that and The Eight Skilled Gentlemen was the last book he had published.

[Justan Henner]

I wasn't aware of these books. Might check it out
About asian authors... I don't really care from which country or part of the world author is. Author -> reader, only relation important in this case. What's bogging my mind lately... I know there are good authors there (must be), talent equal to Rofthuss, Sanderson, maybe even titans like Martin and Tolkien.

There likely is, though I read an article fairly recently (maybe within the last six months) which said the Chinese market was geared toward quantity rather than quality, with authors who might write up to 10k words a day (as part of a serial), and then post it immediately without a whole lot of editing. I'm sure there's some there, but I find it difficult to believe that such an environment fosters a lot of high quality work.

[Justan Henner]

I like to double post.

[Elfy]

I wasn't aware of these books. Might check it out
About asian authors... I don't really care from which country or part of the world author is. Author -> reader, only relation important in this case. What's bogging my mind lately... I know there are good authors there (must be), talent equal to Rofthuss, Sanderson, maybe even titans like Martin and Tolkien.

There likely is, though I read an article fairly recently (maybe within the last six months) which said the Chinese market was geared toward quantity rather than quality, with authors who might write up to 10k words a day (as part of a serial), and then post it immediately without a whole lot of editing. I'm sure there's some there, but I find it difficult to believe that such an environment fosters a lot of high quality work.

Sounds a little like the Bollywood film industry.

[JMack]

I wasn't aware of these books. Might check it out
About asian authors... I don't really care from which country or part of the world author is. Author -> reader, only relation important in this case. What's bogging my mind lately... I know there are good authors there (must be), talent equal to Rofthuss, Sanderson, maybe even titans like Martin and Tolkien.

There likely is, though I read an article fairly recently (maybe within the last six months) which said the Chinese market was geared toward quantity rather than quality, with authors who might write up to 10k words a day (as part of a serial), and then post it immediately without a whole lot of editing. I'm sure there's some there, but I find it difficult to believe that such an environment fosters a lot of high quality work.

Sounds a little like the Bollywood film industry.

I've had some great fun watching the Bollywood cheese fest. Chennai Express as ine example is amazingly bad and entertaining. The female lead is breathtaking, and a lovely singer, stuck in the funniest crap script ever. It's almost take off on itself.