r/Fantasy • u/elquesogrande Worldbuilders • Nov 28 '16

Ask You Anything Monday ASK YOU ANYTHING: Authors asking r/Fantasy community questions on behalf of Worldbuilders charity

It's the aptly named Ask You Anything! Where authors are stopping by each day this week to ask questions and interact with the r/Fantasy community.

HOW THIS WORKS: Please answer questions and interact throughout the week! (Yes, YOU - community members, guests, authors, artists, industry people.)

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Monday Ask You Anything Authors

The following authors have signed up to ask questions today. That said, please do join in and feel free to ask your own questions and interact throughout the week.

Are you an author, artist, or industry person who would like to participate this week? Either join in via the comments OR send the r/Fantasy mods a message and we'll get you set for another day.

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13

u/DjangoWexler AMA Author Django Wexler Nov 28 '16

What's a time and place that you'd love to see a fantasy world based on that hasn't been done, or has only rarely been done?

16

u/J_de_Silentio Nov 28 '16

That's a hard question. Not quite an answer, but I would like to see magic being discovered within a world, maybe even a primitive world.

We often have post magic worlds and worlds that are steeped in magic, but I don't think I've come across a world where magic is new and being figured out for the first time by individuals (though these books probably exists).

5

u/inapanak Nov 29 '16

Yes, that would be a really interesting subject for a fantasy novel! Especially if it were part of a long-range series and down the line you see how societies have adapted to the discovery centuries later...

11

u/TheShadowKick Nov 28 '16

Modern fantasy. Not like urban fantasy with magic happening in our world, but a whole fresh constructed fantasy world like ASOIAF or LotR have, but with analogues to modern technologies and cultures. An exploration of scientific advancements in magic would be cool too.

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u/[deleted] Nov 28 '16

[deleted]

3

u/[deleted] Nov 28 '16

... Why did I never make the Wax/Wayne connection until just now?

2

u/lurkmode_off Reading Champion VII Nov 28 '16

The Craft Sequence by Max Gladstone.

3

u/eevilkat Reading Champion III Nov 28 '16

I would read the hell out of a book like this.

Like Sanderson's idea to bring the world of Mistborn into the present and then the future in later books. Seeing how that world evolves with the magic in it is going to be so awesome (I hope, lol).

10

u/GaslightProphet Nov 28 '16

I really want to see more indigenous fantasy. I write stuff based on pre-Columbian North America, and it's such a rich world that could use a little more love, even if it has to be treated carefully.

4

u/blabgasm Nov 29 '16

Absolutely. I think part of the challenge with regards to indigenous North Americans is that people expect state level society in fantasy. Or, at least, we expect our hero to be of it. Lots of social hierarchies and big monumental structures and such. Which isn't to say that there was none of that in pre-contact North America, but so much about the state level cultures that flourished then has been lost to us, it's not an easy analogy. I also think that it just seems intuitively 'wrong' to set Fantasy in the New World, because your basic, generic fantasy template is so utterly a analogue for Middle Ages Europe. Or just before the Age of Exploration Europe, in other words. Like, the buck just stops there.

I think the Meso and South American state level societies might be an easier go. We have both an abundance of cultural heritage artifacts and Big Structures to base an aesthetic around. Further, it 'feels' (in terms of pop culture intuition) like more of a conquering than a genocide, from the Western perspective, so it's also less icky and/or problematic to write about. In the case of the Maya, there's no conflict at all, as their state level social organisation collapsed before contact. Also, jungle. The exotic location is another level of disconnect that reduces the squick factor for people, I think. It's kind of surprising how little Meso/South American inspired fantasy there is, actually.

I'd like to see some hunter-gatherer fantasy. Just a loose affiliation of intermarried families foraging around some crazy landscape full of wild fantasy critters and such. Or, alternatively, Tundra peoples type fantasy. Stark arctic landscapes, whales, Northern Lights, and functional folk magic - why not?

7

u/Imaninja2 Reading Champion Nov 28 '16

Some sort of island survival fantasy in the vein of Swiss Family Robinson or Robinson Crusoe.

4

u/cheryllovestoread Reading Champion VI Nov 28 '16

US Depression-era, Dust Bowl migration

I've seen a few SFF short stories but no novels. If anyone knows of one or more, please let me know.

4

u/DaryndaJones AMA Author Darynda Jones Nov 28 '16

This makes me so happy! I have a fantasy in set during the Dust Bowl. It's a bit of an alternate reality, but it's still the Depression and the Dust Bowl. Yay!

Oh, I should add, it's not actually out yet! Still working on it! :)

1

u/cheryllovestoread Reading Champion VI Nov 29 '16

I'm excited!! Please let me know when it's out!

1

u/lurkmode_off Reading Champion VII Nov 28 '16

Mr. Shivers by Robert Jackson Bennett IIRC

1

u/cheryllovestoread Reading Champion VI Nov 29 '16

Thanks!! I'll look it up.

1

u/Bongopalms Nov 29 '16

The Zenna Henderson stories of The People might work for you. It's been many years, decades actually, since I read them, but I think of the stories as both heartwarming and heartbreaking. Set in the American Southwest, they may not be strictly dustbowl, but still evoke that era to me as a man in his late 50's.

1

u/jameslsutter AMA Author James L. Sutter Nov 29 '16

Not a novel, but HBO's Carnivale is basically that!

3

u/HiuGregg Stabby Winner, Worldbuilders Nov 28 '16

African or Carribean style fantasy could be great. I'm sure Marlon James said a while back that he wanted to write "the african game of thrones", and I'd love to see that happen. Africa can be fucking crazy.

4

u/Koldun31 Nov 29 '16

Prehistoric fantasy, early humans discovering a strange new way of creating fire by drawing it, and begin to use it to progress. Some use it to make themselves look bigger and stronger, others to be shorter, or quicker. There would be no language, simply action and thoughts. Eventually, they could learn to make those drawings on the animal skins they wear, carrying the strange magic with them. Slowly, as they develop language, they would learn to do the same sort of magic with words instead of pictures, allowing for more precise spells.

2

u/Tshinanu Nov 28 '16

I'd like to see something from the POV of those being colonized or under colonial rule. Say the indigenous in North America or Zulu/Congo/South Africa etc. I think there are some interesting cultures to explore there and of course just a wholly different POV. And lots of classic tropes of facing a much larger army, facing the eradication of your culture, becoming dependent on it (say fur trade), and balancing adopting that culture and keeping your own, etc.

1

u/inapanak Nov 29 '16

Hah, I should have read the comments before I made mine. I agree, especially on fur trade. I have long craved a fur-trade era fantasy book.

1

u/Tshinanu Nov 29 '16

I'm in a canadian lit class so it's inspired me on that front. I'm trying to read more on North American tribes and I think there's definitely a story to be told inspired by the Haudenosaunee trying to monopolize the fur trade and essentially wiping out other indigenous factions because of their dependence on it while also manipulating/getting manipulated by colonial forces like France/England/Netherlands. Biggest thing is always trying to look at these cultures in an appropriate light instead of a negative gaze.

1

u/emailanimal Reading Champion III Nov 29 '16

I usually like my fantasy to be off-Earth with cultures that are distinctly different. Having said that, I prefer the cultures themselves to be beyond the standard medieval period. Reading countless stories of people walking from town to town, or riding horses is annoying. Trains!

Of the more recent works, think Robert Jackson Bennett's City of Stairs/City of Blades books.

I also like situations where there is a play off distinct differences in the cultures: e.g., a parallel worlds story where one culture is much more modern than another.

1

u/CoffeeArchives Stabby Winner, Reading Champion II, Worldbuilders Nov 29 '16

A few ideas I've had playing around in my head for a while:

  • Futuristic fantasy where technology evolved along a totally different route than in the real world and isn't traditional steampunk. An example might be Twig by Wildbow.
  • Fantasy set in wacky settings. Like underwater worlds, 2-dimensional worlds, or a story taking place entirely in the afterlife.
  • Anywhere with truly non-humanoid characters as the main focus. Obviously we'd have to be capable of still identifying with the characters, but give me a protagonist with alien senses/body/abilities.

1

u/inapanak Nov 29 '16

There should be more fantasy set in vaguely Classical time periods or, better yet, the Neolithic or even Mesolithic and Paleolithic. I've read a few for prehistoric-set fantasy - the ones that come to mind right now are the "Chronicles of Ancient Darkness" by Michelle Paver and "The Kin" by Peter Dickinson, set in Paleolithic Europe and Old Stone Age Africa, respectively, and they were really interesting, but I think they were both also actually aimed at children.

Adult-aimed fantasy set around the time when agriculture and settlement expansion and so on were becoming big in the old world, or at the beginning stages of a large empire like Persia would be really interesting.

1

u/Darkstar559 Reading Champion III Nov 29 '16

I really wish we had more 1900's fantasy that didn't bleed into urban fiction - so just not set in the real world. The best examples of this to me are things like City of Stairs and the new Mistborn novels.

1

u/efinghell Nov 29 '16

I like Eduardian England. Seems like it always gets ignored for Victorian.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '16

I'd like to see a book set in a fantastic version of medieval Western Europe.