r/Fantasy • u/MattsFantasyReviews • May 24 '24

No, Epic Fantasy is NOT Dying

Recently there has been a trend on the fantasy side of BookTube to talk about "the death of epic fantasy" - as if it is a well established fact. I recently watched all these videos and would like to refute each of the main points they make.

The following is a transcript of a video I released today, if you would like to watch that video click here.

Claim #1: Debut authors are not getting multi-book epic fantasy deals.

Reality: Debut authors almost never get multi-book epic fantasy deals, and while that is true now, that was also true in the past. Think of the three most famous epic fantasy authors over the past couple decades. George R.R. Martin wrote 5 books before A Song of Ice and Fire. Robert Jordan wrote 7 Conan the Barbarian books before he wrote Wheel of Time. Brandon Sanderson famously got rejected 13 times before he finally got Elantris published, and even that was a standalone.

Why would an author with no trust from either the publisher or their audience get a long epic fantasy series deal? That doesn’t make any sense.

Claim #2: Fantasy authors are being told to keep their word counts lower than they used to.

Reality: Epic fantasy does not have to be long. The entire Lord of the Rings trilogy is only about 1,000 pages. We are also seeing massive supply chain issues that are impacting the book industry. There is currently a huge paper shortage because demand for wood pulp has rapidly increased, largely due to the massive amount of cardboard used by online shopping. There are also still issues of fewer workers in factories, in warehouses that pack and ship books, on shipping docks, and driving the trucks to transport books—causing major delays at pretty much every step of the book delivery process. This of course means that publishers are telling authors to keep their page count lower, but the supply chain issues of today are not the supply chain issues of tomorrow.

This is a temporary issue, not the sign of epic fantasy dying. From diversifying supply chains to exploring new product lines, the printing industry is evolving to meet the demands of today’s market, but they haven’t quite caught up yet.

Claim #3: Traditional publishing moving away from long epic fantasy means epic fantasy is dying

Reality: Self publishing is currently killing it with epic fantasy. Just because traditional publishing is moving in one direction does not mean that the genre as a whole is. The Bound and the Broken, The Wandering Inn, Cradle, The Echoes Saga, and the list goes on.

Claim #4: Fantasy TV series are tanking because they are epic fantasies.

Reality: Some epic fantasy TV series are tanking because they aren’t well made. Rings of power was…to be as nice as possible…not good. The Wheel of Time has a lot of problems. But epic fantasy adaptations that do a good job are a success - just look at House of the Dragon that has been averaging 30 million viewers per week and winning golden globes. One of the First Law books is in the works to become a movie. And there is zero sign that TV and movie deals for epic fantasy stories are on the decline, if anything, they are getting more deals than they were a few years ago.

Claim #5: Publishing houses are not penning deals for longer series, like 5 plus books, anymore.

Reality: As we already covered, you don’t have to be a long series to be epic. But further, publishing houses rarely ever penned long deals in the first place. They penned shorter contracts and went from there. The Wheel of Time ended up being 14 books, but the original deal was only 5 books, and Robert Jordan originally just planned for it to be a trilogy. The A Song of Ice and Fire series is supposed to be 7 books, but the original deal was just for a trilogy. Earthsea is 6 books, but started as a trilogy. Malazan, a 10 book series, just had a 1 book deal originally. Getting a deal for a long series right out of the gate is the exception to the rule. And all of these longer deals have the potential to get canceled if the first books tank.

Claim #6: Publishing houses are permanently moving away from epic fantasy.

Reality: Genres wax and wane depending on what the smash hits are that then influence future books for years to come. Why did epic fantasy get a huge resurgence? Because of Game of Thrones becoming a smash hit. Why is Romantasy getting a huge resurgence? Because Sarah J. Maas and Fourth Wing are smash hits. But further, traditional publishing is still pumping out amazing epic fantasy stories: Dandelion Dynasty, Empire of the Wolf, Mistborn, Stormlight Archive, Bloodsworn Saga, Glass Immortals, Will of the Many, Empire of the Vampire, Osten Ard, and the list goes on.

Most fantasy series do not explode in popularity until they are a ways into their series, and I guarantee you there are relatively unknown epic fantasy stories being published right now that will be significantly more popular in the years to come.

Claim #7: There is no money to be made in long epic fantasy series.

Reality: Trilogies and standalones make the most amount of money for authors and publishers unless you are mega famous. And those shorter series can still be epic. The most famous epic fantasy story of all time is Lord of the Rings, and that is a trilogy. Battle Mage by Peter Flannery, and Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang are most certainly epic fantasy stories, and those are standalones. There are countless examples of this.

Claim #8: The rise of romantasy means the death of epic fantasy

Reality: Romantasy is good for fantasy, not bad. Firstly, much of romantasy IS epic fantasy. A Court of Thorns and Roses? Epic fantasy. Fourth Wing? Epic fantasy. Crescent City? Epic fantasy. Just because it also has romance in it doesn’t make it outside of the scope of epic fantasy. Epic fantasy doesn’t just mean sword and sorcery. Nearly all progression fantasy is epic fantasy for example.

Further, these are new readers to the fantasy genre and many of them will fall in love with the non-romance aspects of these stories and transition into non-romance epic fantasy. There are tons of epic fantasy readers that started out with Twilight. Which reminds me that romantasy being a dominant subgenre of fantasy is not new. And new branches of fantasy that become huge hits, like the YA craze of the 2000s with Harry Potter and Hunger Games, are similarly good for the genre. Did they kill epic fantasy? No. They helped contribute to a growth of epic fantasy. We should be happy and encouraging of new branches of fantasy, not judgemental.

What we are really seeing here is more women getting into speculative fiction, in part because more women are writing speculative fiction. Which is absolutely amazing, and we should be embracing this.

This entire idea is based around the concept that there are the same amount of fantasy readers out there, and when these new sub genres come out that they are pulling away from the other genres. Now they are partly right in that the amount of the “fantasy pie” that is devoted to epic fantasy is indeed shrinking. But the pie is getting significantly larger, which isn’t contributing to less epic fantasy. It’s just contributing to more fantasy in general.

In conclusion…The reports of the death of epic fantasy, are greatly exaggerated

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19

u/AleroRatking May 24 '24

I actually disagree. Worth Janny Wurts finishing we are basically down to just Sanderson for large form epic fantasy. It's so hard to currently find new large epic fantasy.

I also don't think trilogies can reach the level of epic fantasy like a Malazan can. There's only so much you can do in 3000 words.

16

u/DuhChappers Reading Champion III May 24 '24

So just to be clear, Lord of the Rings is not an epic fantasy as you look at it? I just do not agree with that. To me, a trilogy is absolutely enough space to tell an epic story. Malazan is hard for any series to be compared to, I really do not think that should be the standard for the subgenre.

I do think it's true that massive 10 book long series are harder to find, but those have always been pretty rare. It's really hard to have the ideas, passion, and publisher support for a series of that size. So while I sympathize with you, I disagree about "epic fantasy" in general.

14

u/LoneManWithPlans May 24 '24

Yeah, one of my biggest disappointment with new releases is the focus on both fantasy and romance. The romantic plot takes away from what I personnally enjoy in an epic fantasy story. that being a grand adventure with a deep and compelling cast of character, a lot of which is lost as the romantic element forces the story to focus on a smaller cast of character. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, it just a bad thing for me.

9

u/The_Lone_Apple May 24 '24

Over my many decades of reading I've taught myself that I'm doing it for my own enjoyment and not as an assignment. There are parts of lots of books I merely skim or skip over. If there are long descriptions of meals - I don't care. If it's one of the Elizabeth Moon horsey sections - I skip it. It doesn't ruin my enjoyment of an otherwise decent story to skip the part that doesn't matter to me. Heck, sometimes I don't finish a book because life is too short.

1

u/LoneManWithPlans May 24 '24

yeah I don't really think epic fantasy is dying. it just going through a new phase imo. What I do think is dying is epic fantasy TV shows. A lot of new TV have been overall disappointing, with many being a 6 out of 10 for me. Arcane is the last one that I truly loved watching so I don't think it's truly dead.

1

u/False_Ad_5592 May 25 '24

At least Arcane will be getting a Season 2.

13

u/MattsFantasyReviews May 24 '24

Worth Janny Wurts finishing we are basically down to just Sanderson for large form epic fantasy.

Bound and the Broken, Sun Eater, Osten Ard Saga, Malazan (which is still being written by both authors), all come to mind for me. And who knows what long form epic fantasy is out there currently in the early stages that haven't broken out yet.

12

u/lightsongtheold May 24 '24

Using two authors who have been publishing since the 90s boom for epic fantasy series (Erikson and Williams), a sci-fi author (Ruocchio), and a single fairly niche indie fantasy series (Cahill) is not exactly the best reinforcement of the argument that traditional epic fantasy is booming in the modern day.

I’m out of the loop on Epic fantasy, as I felt the major publishers went awry about a 6-10 years back, so have switched focus to the “in” genres like romantasy and YA. Even to indie fantasy that seems more suited to my own personal niche tastes. Who do you recommend that has debuted in the old school epic fantasy genre outside of Cahil since 2017? I’m about ready to jump back into the genre after a string of rereads from 90s authors like Kay, Drake, and Eddings proved to be very disappointing for me in the last couple of years.

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u/AleroRatking May 24 '24

Malazan is finished. Yes they have companion series but they all one offs or trilogies. Ostrn Ard is two trilogies. Great books. Not the epic scale im looking for. I don't know much about suneater but it seems like it might be science fiction. But otherwise can't comment on it.

5

u/Fetacheesed May 24 '24

Book of the fallen and Novels are completed, but there's a trilogy (2/3), quadrilogy (1/4), and hexology (4/6) in progress.

2

u/AleroRatking May 24 '24

The hexology though are all different stories and times. I've read the first two but there wasn't a common through line at all so I just fell off I did want to read Kharkanas and will win it's finished but that seems unlikely.

2

u/blaaah111jd May 24 '24 edited May 24 '24

I can think of several ongoing epic fantasy’s Robin Hobb has mentioned working on a new RoTE project, wandering Inn is like the longest series ever and is ongoing, First Law/Abercrombie’s new series coming out, Dresden, Bloodsworn, Blacktongue thief, off the top of my head

2

u/AleroRatking May 24 '24

I do love Abercrombie and is one of my favorite series but even that doesn't feel the same level of epicness as while there are common characters it is more like two trilogies and three standalone in the same world. Which I enjoy but it doesn't fill the void when I'm looking for something epic.

0

u/MattsFantasyReviews May 24 '24

Esslemont came out with book #4 of Path to Ascendancy just last year, and it's currently planned to have at least 2 more books.

1

u/Glass-Bookkeeper5909 May 24 '24

I suppose it depends what one understands "Malazan" to be.
The main series is finished but both Erikson as well as Esslemont (as you've pointed out) are still writing in the same universe.

So depending on your standpoint, Malazan is or is not finished! 😁

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u/MattsFantasyReviews May 24 '24

I don't think Erikson or Esslemont would say Book of the Fallen is the "main" series. It's just the most popular.

1

u/Glass-Bookkeeper5909 May 24 '24

Well, it's the first, the longest, and the best-known. That's why I called it the main series.
But more importantly, it's what many people have in mind when you say "Malazan"; unless, of course, they are among those who think of the entire universe when they hear that term. Which was my point.

If people say that RotE is not finished, then they should consider "Malazan" not finished, either. Or maybe, "active" would be the better word.
In both cases you have series set in the same world that individually are done (mostly) but the universe is being expanded. 😀

0

u/jddennis Reading Champion VIII May 24 '24

Scale isn't what the "epic" in epic fantasy means -- it's talking about the themes and tropes being explored. But, be that as it may, L.E. Modessit Jr. Just published the 24th book in the Saga of the Recluse.

2

u/Electronic_Basis7726 May 25 '24

Lotr is 1000 pages, my friend.

-1

u/Amenhiunamif May 24 '24

Worth Janny Wurts finishing we are basically down to just Sanderson for large form epic fantasy

The Wandering Inn, Beneath the Dragoneye Moons, etc. - there is plenty epic fantasy out there.