Heroic fantasy

Heroic fantasy is a sub-genre of fantasy literature which chronicles the tales of heroes and their conquests in imaginary lands. Stories tend to be intricate in plot, often involving many peoples, nations and lands. Grand battles and the fate of the world are common themes, and there is typically some emphasis on a universal "Good versus Evil" conflict. Fact|date=April 2007

Frequently, the protagonist is reluctant to be a champion and is of low or humble origin, and frequently having royal ancestors or parents but not knowing it. Through events usually beyond his control, he is thrust into positions of great responsibility where his mettle is tested in a number of spiritual and physical challenges. Although it shares many of the basic themes of Sword and Sorcery the term 'Heroic fantasy' is often used to avoid the garish overtones of the former. [ John Grant and John Clute, "The Encyclopedia of Fantasy", "Heroic fantasy", p 464 ISBN 0-312-19869-8]

Initially indistinguishable from the early fantasies of ER Eddison and CS Lewis and the pulp fiction of Robert E Howard, it began to assume its own identity following the enormous success of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and the popularity of fantasy fiction in general. Fact|date=April 2007

From the seventies onwards a number of authors, heavily influenced by Tolkien's works, began publishing formulaic fantasy novels designed specifically to capitalize on this success. At the same time, the resurgence of the fantasy adventure short story (known as Sword & Sorcery) and the deliberate distancing many authors took to Tolkien's works, Michael Moorcock in particular, made it increasingly necessary for the creation of a separate genre. Fact|date=February 2007

Heroic Fantasy in the Modern Age

Many new authors now shed, at least partly, the traditional concepts of heroes and even of good and evil.Fact|date=April 2007 They tend, like George RR Martin, Robert Jordan, or Robin Hobb, to use several viewpoints, of "heroes" or "villains", and to blur the distinction between those two categories.Fact|date=April 2007

A recent rewriting of the Tolkienian myth by Jacqueline Carey that, while not located in the same world, also describes the struggle of a company against an evil god and his army, showing this evolution well. The main characters of the book are actually the "villains", shown not as inherently evil, but as the victims of betrayal and bad choices. On the other hand, the "heroes" are portrayed as arrogant, narrow-minded, and unforgiving. In other words, there is not much difference between the two sides. Even the "evil" god has been forced into the role, not by fate, but because of his brother's pride.

Perhaps an even better example of this evolution is the rise of irony and self-derision in heroic-fantasy.Fact|date=April 2007 Authors like Martin like to break the clichés of the genre by featuring "usual" heroes -- such as the chivalric ideal of the knight -- as murderers, bullies and rapists, while kings and regents are devious and uncaring manipulators.

The only decent people are powerless commoners, who struggle to survive during a civil war that does not concern them. There is little that is "heroic" about them, in the usual sense. Another type of irony is the use of the "anti-hero." Jacqueline Carey's Phèdre is essentially a clever, resourceful and caring young woman... who incidentally happens to be a masochistic courtesan.

But by far the most acute example of self-parodying heroic-fantasy is provided by the British writer Terry Pratchett, whose parodies of the genre are widely acknowledged as a prime example of British humor.

In recent years, heroic fantasy has matured somewhat out of its staid image as sub-par 'fat fantasy', becoming a genre of its own, the best examples of which have received much praise Fact|date=February 2007.

elected authors

* E R Eddison
* Jessica Amanda Salmonson
* David Gemmell
* Charles R. Saunders
* Edgar Rice Burroughs
* Karl Edward Wagner
* Michael Moorcock
* Robert E. Howard
* J. R. R. Tolkien
* Robert Jordan
* Jacqueline Carey
* Mercedes Lackey
* Lloyd Alexander
* Christopher Paolini
* Terry Goodkind
* Joe Abercrombie

Quotations

"Heroic fantasy" is the name I have given to a subgenre of fiction, otherwise called the "sword-and-sorcery" story. It is a story of action and adventure laid in a more or less imaginary world, where magic works and where modern science and technology have not yet been discovered. The setting may (as in the Conan stories) be this Earth as it is conceived to have been long ago, or as it will be in the remote future, or it may be another planet or another dimension."

"Such a story conbines the color and dash of the historical costume romance with the atavistic supernatural thrills of the weird, occult, or ghost story. When well done, it provides the purest "fun" of fiction of any kind. It is escape fiction wherein one escapes clear out of the real world into one where all men are strong, all women beautiful, all life adventurous, and all problems simple, and nobody even mentions the income tax or the dropout problem or socialized medicine."

— L. Sprague de Camp, introduction to the 1967 Ace edition of "Conan".

ee also

*High fantasy
*Sword and sorcery
*Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America (SAGA)

References

External links

* [http://www.violetbooks.com/heroic.html Enjoying heroic fantasy]

* [http://www.towson.edu/~flynn/herofan.html Heroic fantasy]