I don't want to derail the high v. low fantasy thread, so I'm creating a new thread for my thoughts on this topic. It is interesting to me, as both a reader and writer, to understand how other people view the boundaries of the genre.
In the other thread, I mentioned works like Gormenghast, Swordspoint, works like KJ Parker's Engineer Trilogy (as well as the other works of his I've read), some Guy Gavriel Kay, and the like. Someone has told me that The Goblin Emperor doesn't have any magic, although I'm not sure that's true--maybe just so little they didn't really notice it, maybe there really is none.
The first thing that comes to mind about the above is that I see these works labeled as "Fantasy" on the spine, at least in editions that bother labeling them. And they get shelved in fantasy. Those are important things to know as a writer because it tells you where the publishers draw the line of the genre, and how readers are going to see these books out in the wild, so to speak. Gormenghast I sometimes see shelved with general fiction/literature, but usually these are all in fantasy. Most bookstores I've been to shelve fantasy and science fiction together, so except for the case where there is a genre label on the spine of the book the shelving won't make much difference in most stores. The few I've seen where F and SF are separated would have these in fantasy. What a publisher calls these works can impact, at least to some degree, who is going to read them, because I know some F readers who won't read SF, and vice-versa.
When it comes to the more academic of whether they're fantasy, I think if they're in a made-up world they have to be fantasy. That seems to fall squarely within the plain meaning of the word "fantasy." That also puts a lot of what we think of as SF into a category, and things get a little hazy. I do think a lot of so-called SF is really just fantasy in space (e.g. Star Wars). Sometimes, I think it makes sense to view most SF as a subset of fantasy.
Could the works I've been citing be set in the real world?
I don't think most of them can, unless you're really stretching the boundaries of what you think remains the "real world." No castle like Gormenghast has ever existed or is likely to exist in the real world. There's no real place and time you can set that story.
With the Engineer trilogy, I don't think you can set it in the real world either. You'd have to find a society of advanced engineering skill, ruled by large, administrative, engineering guild, and then put them together with more or less medieval-level populations just across the sea. I don't see where you can find that in earth's history.
The ones that work best in the real world are those of Guy Gavriel Kay's works that don't have magic, because many of them are actually based on real world historical events, and read often like historical fiction. They're not historical because Kay is inventing the people and places to an extent, to give more latitude in the writing (and renames the places, people, etc.) and the ability to change events to suit him, without being bound by history (some call it historical fantasy). Even here, I'm more comfortable just calling it fantasy. To me, that's what it is.
This is of quite a bit of interest to me now, because my WiP, a children's story, takes place around a distant star and centers around mechanical technology (with some elements that are "magic-like" in the sense that they're simply hand waved as more advanced tech). I consider it a straight fantasy story--at least that is how it has been in my mind while writing it. But there is no real magic of any kind.
In the other thread, I mentioned works like Gormenghast, Swordspoint, works like KJ Parker's Engineer Trilogy (as well as the other works of his I've read), some Guy Gavriel Kay, and the like. Someone has told me that The Goblin Emperor doesn't have any magic, although I'm not sure that's true--maybe just so little they didn't really notice it, maybe there really is none.
The first thing that comes to mind about the above is that I see these works labeled as "Fantasy" on the spine, at least in editions that bother labeling them. And they get shelved in fantasy. Those are important things to know as a writer because it tells you where the publishers draw the line of the genre, and how readers are going to see these books out in the wild, so to speak. Gormenghast I sometimes see shelved with general fiction/literature, but usually these are all in fantasy. Most bookstores I've been to shelve fantasy and science fiction together, so except for the case where there is a genre label on the spine of the book the shelving won't make much difference in most stores. The few I've seen where F and SF are separated would have these in fantasy. What a publisher calls these works can impact, at least to some degree, who is going to read them, because I know some F readers who won't read SF, and vice-versa.
When it comes to the more academic of whether they're fantasy, I think if they're in a made-up world they have to be fantasy. That seems to fall squarely within the plain meaning of the word "fantasy." That also puts a lot of what we think of as SF into a category, and things get a little hazy. I do think a lot of so-called SF is really just fantasy in space (e.g. Star Wars). Sometimes, I think it makes sense to view most SF as a subset of fantasy.
Could the works I've been citing be set in the real world?
I don't think most of them can, unless you're really stretching the boundaries of what you think remains the "real world." No castle like Gormenghast has ever existed or is likely to exist in the real world. There's no real place and time you can set that story.
With the Engineer trilogy, I don't think you can set it in the real world either. You'd have to find a society of advanced engineering skill, ruled by large, administrative, engineering guild, and then put them together with more or less medieval-level populations just across the sea. I don't see where you can find that in earth's history.
The ones that work best in the real world are those of Guy Gavriel Kay's works that don't have magic, because many of them are actually based on real world historical events, and read often like historical fiction. They're not historical because Kay is inventing the people and places to an extent, to give more latitude in the writing (and renames the places, people, etc.) and the ability to change events to suit him, without being bound by history (some call it historical fantasy). Even here, I'm more comfortable just calling it fantasy. To me, that's what it is.
This is of quite a bit of interest to me now, because my WiP, a children's story, takes place around a distant star and centers around mechanical technology (with some elements that are "magic-like" in the sense that they're simply hand waved as more advanced tech). I consider it a straight fantasy story--at least that is how it has been in my mind while writing it. But there is no real magic of any kind.