Pat's Fantasy Hotlist: "The Continued Viability of Epic Fantasy" panel at the World Fantasy Convention

"The Continued Viability of Epic Fantasy" panel at the World Fantasy Convention

This is a panel featuring David Drake, John Fultz, Blake Charlton, David B. Coe, and Freda Warrington. Thanks to Blake for sharing it on Facebook.

I was curious about it, for Steven Erikson mentioned it and he didn't seem to fully agree with what was said. He bemoaned the fact that he's seldom invited to sit on such panels, and that apparently there is no future for epic fantasy unless you're George R. R. Martin, so everyone should start cutting side-plots right now, etc. Erikson went on to say that it certainly didn't look that way to him, especially given his royalty cheques of late.

Haven't had time to watch the whole thing, but I figure that many of you will be interested.

Enjoy!
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12 commentaires:

Ted Cross said...: I can't believe someone would even have a panel with such a name. The publishers are just clueless if they think epic fantasy could die. The Game of Thrones series and the Hobbit movies will prove just how enormous the audience is for this genre. If they were smart they would be anticipating the trend and buying such books now so that they are ready to hit the shelves when those shows come out.; 1:41 PM
Blake Charlton said...: i'm with ted.; 2:20 PM
Susan Gourley/Kelley said...: I think the vampire phase caused a blip but it's only a temporary fad in which a lot of paranormal romance was labeled as urban fantasy and took lots of shelf space from epic fantasy. Publishers jumped on the bandwagon but the bubble of demand for urban fantasy will burst at some point and the epic fantasy readers will still be there, loyal as ever.; 3:56 PM
Adam Whitehead said...: The 'epic fantasy is dead' bandwagon has been set rolling almost as often as the 'SF is dead' one, and is just as often proven to be untrue. The idea that epic fantasy is no longer viable in the age of Brandon Sanderson (what will be the NYT #1 novel next week? I wonder...), Pat Rothfuss, Joe Abercrombie, Brent Weeks and Peter Brett is just farcical.; 4:20 PM
James said...: This 'debate' rears its head every now and then, and it just has no substance at all - where's the hard evidence?

The rise of urban fantasy/dark fantasy/paranormal romance (or whatever you want to call it) isn't really affecting epic fantasy, because it's a totally different audience buying those books - it's not stealing epic fantasy's readers.

Joe Abercrombie's 'The Blade Itself' has allegedly sold 100,000 copies in the UK alone since publication in 2006. Hardly the sign of a genre in decline, and that's just one example.; 7:22 PM
Robin said...: Besides, it's not like you couldn't read both urban and epic fantasy. Of course some genre purists may shudder at the thought, but there are many flexible readers. I'd say that those who read urban (or epic) fantasy are more likely to pick an epic (or urban) fantasy book than those who feel that fantasy altogether is too weird for them.; 2:31 AM
Anonymous said...: by halfway in part 1 the question's rendered pretty pointless, not sure I'll watch the others!

David B Coe's point seems to be that he couldn't write 200k epic fantasies these days, and the Wheel of Time doesn't indicate there's a viable midlist for epic, which isn't an argument. Well, I'm midlist I believe, and my last was just over 200k words. If Epic's dead, I wouldn't be getting royalty cheques - they might not be of the size of Steven Erikson's, but they're paying the bills and surely that's the marker of a healthy genre?; 6:54 AM
Marc said...: I'm glad Erickson made some comment about the size of his royalty checks. I see his books selling very well here in the USA, since about 2007. They got off to a slow start, but the momentum has been building and building.; 8:47 AM
Ryan said...: I don't mean to get hostile, but I would like to comment that all of those authors have written books that I consider sub-par. I think there's always going to be Fantasy, but it's always going to be tough for bad books to get sold.; 12:05 PM
Jebus said...: Having gone to Aussiecon and now watching this panel and others from other cons it really amazes me that more thought isn't put into the ideas behind some panels. Who actually comes up with them anyway? I'm assuming someone running the con thinks of it and the authors just get plonked on there.

Don't get me wrong, some panels are fascinating, but some are just idiotic.; 7:37 PM
Phillip H. Tang said...: Not sure what is meant by 'epic fantasy'. By epic do they just mean long? Sword play? I'm on a slow internet connection at the moment and will have to watch it tomorrow if I get a chance.; 12:20 AM
Grack21 said...: Why in the name of God would you have David Drake on an EPIC FANTASY panel?; 2:35 AM