If you're a bit-player, I'm a walk-on. I was looking at the Forbes list of wealthiest people in the world, and was startled at how many of the I know personally:

#1 - Bill Gates, #12 Lawrence Ellison, #18 Michael Dell, #19 Steven Ballmer, #262 Steven Jobs, #277 Patrick McGovern, #552 Sergey Brin.

When I say I met them, what I mean, in every case but one, is that I interviewed them. Not like they'd remember me, or anything.

The one exception is Patrick McGovern. I worked for his company, IDG, for two years. Every December, he flew around the world to his company locations and delivered Christmas bonus checks in person. He'd call each employee by name, shake each one's hand, compliment them on some piece of work they'd done recently. It was pretty damn gracious, I thought.

I've been thinking about my politics recently. I'm as anti-big-multinational corporation as a good liberal should be - and yet I have worked for big multinationals for much of my career, and been extremely well treated by them. That doesn't make me a hypocrite though - it makes me say, if my company can do that well for me, why can't all companies do that well for everyone?

Oh, dear, I've hijacked the thread. I also seem to have become Jonathan Vos Post.

Patrick, is the comparison to Harry Potter superficial, or is there a genuine similarity in style between Clarke and Rowling? From the NYT article, it sounds like Clarke is more "literary," but that could be marketing. I haven't read the Starlights yet. (Those who have might add their two cents, if they like.)

The only real similarity between Clarke and Rowling is that Rowling appeals to a zillion people who don't normally read genre fantasy, and Clarke's publishers believe and hope that the same will be true of Clarke.

It could happen. I've heard a fair bit of enthusiasm about Jonathan Strange from people who don't normally care for the genre. Answer hazy, ask again later.

Answer hazy, ask again later. [Outlook good. You may rely on it.]

At 800 pages, perhaps much later, although I bet you read fast. My next question was going to have to do with creeping Anne Rice-ism (I heard she fired her editor), but I'll wait on an answer for that one too. Thanks.

Goodness--I am there, too, a mere mention, nameless. It's a book I have been thinking about purchasing. I did like her three stories in Starlight. (And I TRIED to be in all three myself, but alas, the editor dug in his heels and bounced me out of number 2.)

Jane (the lady with 170 books as mentioned in the article. Though it is now well over 250.)

Good grief that article was puffy. If I hadn't read and enjoyed her in Starlight 1, I'd have been put off trying her.

Jane-- 250 books (!!) Zowie. You must write with both hands.

(Which would be interesting, come to think of it. Would the right hand draft mathematical treatises, and the left spoof Plum Sykes? I have an aunt who can write backward with her left hand-- perfect mirror writing. Blake warned us about folk like her.)

I think your name runs afoul of the NYT house style.

Well now. Would they refer to their own arts correspondent Lawrence Van Gelder as "Gelder"?

[suppresses comment about the common -er form use of Lawrence Van Gelder's last name-segment wrt how artists might feel if he criticized them harshly, more because he couldn't make it work than because it was in such Very Poor Taste]

They could have a rule with a specific exception for those types of names, Patrick. Remember, this is the paper that put the word 'gay' in quotes when it referred to homosexuality until the 90s IIRC; didn't they also refer to Meat Loaf as Mr. Loaf?

In other words, "But that would be stupid" isn't much of a counterargument when it comes to NYT house style rules.

Fran, this is not a good place to spread the word about your free Ipod.

No, I'm not clicking through to your links.

The description of the book sounds more like Chrestomanci than Potter.

This article is yet another piece of heartening evidence that great swathes of the literary establishment are taking sf and fantasy seriously. I observed the same thing in another, recent Times article, comparing Asimov's robot stories and novels with the movie "I, Robot." Neither article gave any hint that sf/fantasy was somehow an unseemly activity for an adult to be engaged in.

Ironic that edgy Salon Magazine doesn't seem get this, while the the stodgy old Times is help to this fact, as is the stuffy New York Review of Books, which recently ran a Michael Chabon article analyzing high fantasy. You may have heard of Michael Chabon; he's written fantasy, and for comic books, spoke at ComicCon a couple of weeks ago, and, oh yeah, won a Pulitzer.

I was so engrossed by the review I was nearly late for the meeting I was supposed to run at Mythcon. I want passionately to read this book. Want want want.

MKK

Patrick wrote:

The only real similarity between Clarke and Rowling is that Rowling appeals to a zillion people who don't normally read genre fantasy, and Clarke's publishers believe and hope that the same will be true of Clarke.

To which I have two major objections:

1. The Harry Potter series is not fantasy (and if it was, it most certainly wouldn't be genre fantasy, which tends to be of a Tolkienist persuasion). The books are boarding school novels cum bildungsromans cum mysteries, set against a fantasy backdrop. With the help of the most elementary search and replace function, one could set the books in space, with Harry discovering that he is an alien, and tell exactly the same story. Whatever X-factor it is that's made the series such a crossover success, it isn't the fantasy setting.

2. Because of the important role that marketing and PR have played in the later phases of the Harry Potter juggernaut, it's easy to forget that the series started out as that elusive, inexplainable artifact - a genuine grassroots phenomenon, fed by word of mouth. If I understand your meaning, Patrick, Clarke's publishers are trying to artificially induce what in Rowling's case was a natural event. Perhaps I'm being paranoid, but that sounds to me like a recipe for backlash before the book is even published. There's something almost crass about the way Bloomsbury announces that the book is 'backed by a huge marketing and publicity campaign', that the foreign language rights have been sold to 19 countries, or their decision to publish 250,000 hardcover copies.

I'm actually quite intrigued by what I've heard about Strange & Norrell, and I look forward to reading it, but I think articles like this are a disservice to both Rowling and Clarke. If nothing else, the comparison to the Potter books served to deeply confuse this potential reader as to the novel's target audience.

Abigail, Patrick never said Potter was genre fantasy. He said it appeals to people who don't normally read genre fantasy (which AFAICT doesn't take a position on whether it "really" is genre fantasy or not). Possibly part of that appeal is that it ISN'T the Tolkein-light stuff that's all over, or sword-and-sorcery. (I suspect that in publishing terms it may still count as genre fantasy, but I'm no expert and cannot say.)

And while it may be true that Bloomsbury is trying to artificially induce a natural phenomenon, Patrick didn't say that, either. He said they were hoping it would appeal to those same people. (I doubt my 12-year-old friends will read it, but a lot of adults read Potter.)

And of course they're trying to market it as effectively as possible. You don't publish something on the sense that "gee, maybe there'll be an unexpected completely natural grass roots phenomenon that will catapult this onto the best-seller list; let's hope so, huh?"

With all due respect, I think this is wrongheaded. Publishers make a point of emphasizing their marketing campaigns, foreign rights sales, and high announced print runs because, frequently enough, it works. It convinces booksellers to take more copies and get them out in front of actual customers. Call it "crass" all you like, but publishers don't do it because they're crazy or vulgar, they do it because it's relatively effective.

Grass-roots success is a fine thing, and to the extent that Harry Potter's popularity started out that way, I'm pretty sure Bloomsbury know it, since they're Potter's UK publishers.

As to whether the Harry Potter books are "really" fantasy, and whether genre fantasy is "Tolkienian," I suspect we're just not on the same page. I certainly don't think you could quite so easily transform the Potter books into some other genre and come up with something that felt the same way to read. Then again, I've never had much patience for fastidiously formalist definitions of any genre. Genres aren't engineering specs, they're collections of effects.

(Xopher slipped in while I was posting. And a big shout-out to "Tolkein", a writer from the same continuum as "Delaney" and "Azimov"...)

(I will add that lots of stuff gets published as genre fantasy that isn't any more Tolkienish than Susanna Clarke's book. I mean, come on.)

AAARRRRGGGH!!! [beats self over the head with leatherbound copy of The Silmarillion]

WHY can't I spell that man's name right?!?!? Not like I haven't spent cumulative years of my life looking at pages with his name on them! My brain just refuses to accept the fact that the obvious spelling is right...I type it correctly, and it looks wrong, so I change it--wrong.

I usually catch myself before posting with 'Neilsen Hayden' in there (I said usually). Damn high-school German. Bless Preview.

Publishers make a point of emphasizing their marketing campaigns, foreign rights sales, and high announced print runs because, frequently enough, it works. It convinces booksellers to take more copies and get them out in front of actual customers.

Do publishers this frequently make so much out of an 800 page, footnote-laden fantasy by an unknown author?

But I take your point, and I didn't mean to suggest that publishers should hide their marketing efforts, or that the publishing business should be held to some higher standard. The reality of the situation might not be crass, but it is the reaction I'm having, as I flash back on several books in recent years that have been marketed first as a product and second as a book. Mostly I'm thinking of The Da Vinci Code. A poorly written, badly researched, unexciting thriller that nevertheless shot to the top of the charts, with the help of a $1M marketing campaign (and a relatively controversial subject). Maybe this is just me being contrary, but when I heard the details of S&N's launch, I immediately connected it with a low-quality, high-yield bestseller (yes, I do recognize that the latter doesn't always imply the former, but I paid money for Da Vinci. I'm scarred.) Not to mention that these marketing campaigns remind me of nothing so much as your standard Hollywood summer action movie ad campaign, which tries to sell each effects-laden film as an 'event' which shouldn't be missed. Somewhere in the shuffle, I think, a deserving book might get buried.

And I'm also worried for Clarke. If S&N is anything less than the biggest genre seller of the year, her career is probably over. Wasn't it right next door that, only a few months ago, commenters were shaking their heads over Jane Austen Doe's willingness to accept a $100,000+ advance on her first book?

Sorry, I forgot to add this:

When I wrote "Bloomsbury announces that the book is 'backed by a huge marketing and publicity campaign', that the foreign language rights have been sold to 19 countries, or their decision to publish 250,000 hardcover copies", I neglected to mention that I only learned the last of those facts from the NYT article. The first two I read on the book's official website, and the first I learned in what looks like a one-page ad available to download from that site. The ad also includes a description of the book's plot - below the line about a huge marketing campaign, which is in letters just a little bit smaller than the title. The text of the plot description, meanwhile, is so small that I could barely make it out on my computer screen.

It's possible that this ad is intended for bookstore buyers. In that case, why is it on the website, which is geared towards potential readers? If the ad is intended for readers, then it seems to be telling them that they ought to buy the book because a lot of other people are going to buy it.

Which is where we get to crass. Instead of telling people 'this book is good, so a lot of people are going to buy it', Bloomsbury seems to be saying 'a lot of people are going to buy this book, so it must be good'.

Since I once wrote a book listing what I considered to be the thematic sub-genres of fantasy, and spent a lot of time defining "fantasy" as well, I have to sound off: sure, the Potters are bildungsromans and mysteries and school stories ... but they're fantasy because magic works in them. Period. The fact that they aren't Tolkien ripoffs is not diagnostic. (And an aside: J.K. Rowling's work does have a resemblance to Tolkien's in one respect: the names. Albus Dumbledore could easily be Bilbo Baggins' next-door-neighbor. She really has the touch).

Regarding Dearly Beloved in the sidebar, it would probably work at least as well as the spam it emulates.

I for one intend to read Clarke's book as soon as I can find time to read an 800-page novel. I was tremendously impressed with her stories in Starlight. At long, long last, a post-Tolkien historically-based fantasy writer who actually has a feel for the historical periods she's writing about. A corrective for the mind addled from reading Lisa Goldstein and Freedom & Necessity.

Xopher: if, as your post seems to imply, you are a veteran of high-school German, then why do you have trouble with Tolkien's name, which is German in origin? I'd have thought graduates of high-school German would know that what's pronounced keen would be spelled "kien" rather than "kein" - or don't you pronounce it that way? I've never heard anyone SAY tol-kine unless they were sarcastically reproducing the misspelling, but maybe I've missed something. After all, Fritz Leiber, which should be pronounced lye-ber, got so wearied of people saying lee-ber that he gave up correcting them.

Patrick: when visiting that alternate continuum, don't forget Frederick Pohl. And L. Sprague de Camp alphabetized by surname under S, which I swear I have seen on bookstore shelves more than once.

The last heavily-hyped big fantasy novel by an unknown (to me) author I bought was Perdido Street Station, although that was Miéville's second novel, not his first (King Rat).

A desultory google doesn't show much surviving hype, but I seem to remember reading at the time of Miéville getting a huge advance and of big print runs in hardback.

Good book, too.

Oh, and Miéville is quite venomous on the subject of Tolkien and the effect his popularity has had on the genre. Abigails comment above: The Harry Potter series is not fantasy (and if it was, it most certainly wouldn't be genre fantasy, which tends to be of a Tolkienist persuasion) is the kind of thing which would make China's head explode.

Because I'm wrong, or because I'm right?

I don't think Tolkienist fantasy is the only way to go - Miéville is a great example of fantasy that isn't merely a shadow of Tolkien, but there's also Peake, Crowley, Gaiman, Pratchett and many others. However, the books most readers think of when they think of the genre are the endless series of Tolkien impersonations, with dragons and scantily-clad women on the cover. As much as I love Tolkien, his influence on the genre is regrettable - he's taught several generations of readers (and writers) that fantasy means something like The Lord of the Rings. In my original comment, I was pointing out that the fantasy elements in Harry Potter aren't the ones you'd expect to find in genre fantasy (or possibly, they are the same elements, but their treatment is very different).

That's interesting about Perdido Street Station. I had no idea there had been so much hype surrounding it. I read it based on recommendations by others, and because I liked King Rat. I wouldn't say that the hype hasn't survived though. We can hardly expect the publishing house to keep pushing the book four years after it came out (they might want to focus on Miéville's newer novels, for one thing) but PSS has become a modern classic of the genre.

Calimac, have you read Tim Powers' The Anubis Gates? It's a great, intelligent fantasy that takes place in early 19th century England.

Wait a minute, which Tolkien books have "scantily clad women" on their covers? I missed those.

I'm also confused about how Harry Potter is "not fantasy," or at any rate not "genre fantasy, which tends to be of a Tolkienist persuasion", and yet Perdido Street Station "has become a modern classic of the genre."

I don't mean to pick on you, but honestly, either "genre fantasy" is a rubric that excludes Harry Potter, Perdido Street Station, and other books that don't fit a narrow "Tolkienist" mold, or (just possibly) it's a category wide-ranging enough to accommodate Perdido Street Station, Harry Potter, Tanith Lee, Neil Gaiman, Ellen Kushner, Robert Holdstock, Gene Wolfe, and bunches of other not terribly "Tolkienist" authors.

I might also go on to observe that either publishers are wicked because they never devote promotional efforts to unknown authors, or they're wicked because they do promote unknown authors thus subjecting those authors to the dreadful risk of being perceived as "overhyped." Bottom line: publishers, wicked, no good can come of it. Best to stay home and watch TV.

Calimac - If Tolkien (hah!) were a German, his pronunciation of his name would indeed clinch the spelling for me. But he was English, and the English AFAICT pronounce two languages correctly: English and French. Sarajevo was sarah-JAY-vough on the BBC; Nicaragua was nick-a-RAG-you-uh. (I personally try to say JAG-you-are for the car, since it really is English, while pronouncing the animal more or less correctly, though not with the correct accent - which should be Nahuatl, not Spanish, and I don't even know what that sounds like, to be honest.)

That said, I'm not sure why. There are lots of "ee" pronunciations that are spelled 'ei' in the Anglophone world. Half of the Schroeders in America are shRAIDers and the other half are shROADers. Maybe my brain just says "German name with English mispronunciation" and "corrects" to the wrong spelling.

But in any case, very few people IME, and in America, say TOLL-keen. They say TOLL-kin, which gives no help at all.

Patrick, I think I've confused both of us in my interpretation of the term 'genre fantasy' as opposed to 'the fantasy genre'. When you spoke of Harry Potter appealing to readers who didn't read genre fantasy, I connected the term to Robert Jordan, Terry Brooks and their ilk. The Harry Potter books, however they might be classified genre-wise, do not treat their fantasy trappings in the same way that these books do, which is why I objected to classifying them as genre fantasy. I see that you might have meant that the books appeal to people who don't read books in the fantasy genre. Either way, I still feel that the fantasy elements in Harry Potter have at best a tertiary importance to the plot - my objection to categorizing them as 'genre fantasy' was only an aside - and that while they could be classified as fantasy novels, it isn't that quality about them that appeals to so many readers.

I might also go on to observe that either publishers are wicked because they never devote promotional efforts to unknown authors, or they're wicked because they do promote unknown authors thus subjecting those authors to the dreadful risk of being perceived as "overhyped."

Clarke's publishers aren't just promoting her. They're selling her as the next J.K. Rowling. And you haven't addressed my point about the difference between promoting a novel - to the reading public - on the basis of its merits and promoting it on the basis of the amount of money its publishers are willing to throw at it. Neither one makes Clarke's publishers wicked (although it wasn't me who complained about publishers not getting behind their books) but the latter makes me uncomfortable.

As for Tolkien's covers, The Lord of the Rings has had some wild covers in its day - I wouldn't be surprised if some of them did feature half-clad women!

"And you haven't addressed my point about the difference between promoting a novel--to the reading public--on the basis of its merits and promoting it on the basis of the amount of money its publishers are willing to throw at it."

I thought I did address this. Perhaps I didn't underscore the fact that a trade book publisher's customers are booksellers, not (at least in a direct sense) "the reading public." I can assure you that those customers, those booksellers, are extremely interested in knowing what kind of resources the publisher plans to "throw at" a book.

Look, I know very well the moral hazards and drawbacks of the system as it exists. I'm trying to get across that it exists for reasons, not because it never occurred to anyone in publishing and bookselling that there might be problems and downsides to these methods and techniques. I also think that when we, as readers, are trying to discern what might be worth our attention, we do ourselves no favors by indulging in indie-rock-hipster habits like deciding that anything that's being heavily promoted must a priori be no good.

Maybe the difference is that I tend to assume people are as likely as not trying to do good work with the resources at hand, within the system in which they're stuck. Call me kooky.

Abigail, your assertion that Potter "most certainly" can't be genre fantasy because it is not Tolkienesque would make China's head explode because it is a complete surrender of the genre to the tide of derivitave crap.

To paraphrase Amis:

"It's all Tolkien!"
They tell us with great scorn.
Bott's Jelly Beans?
Well then, it isn't "genre"!

Maybe the difference is that I tend to assume people are as likely as not trying to do good work with the resources at hand, within the system in which they're stuck. Call me kooky.

Patrick, you're kooky. As am I. More kooky people!

Seriously, this is the flip side of what I've been pointing out to people for years, which is that people will game any system you put them in. It's an argument for making the system carefully designed so that it accomplishes ITS goal when the system-gamers accomplish theirs.

I was thinking of people who game the system to their own selfish advantage. What I forgot to think about until I read your "kooky" statement above is that others will game the system for the general good. I'm ashamed to admit I needed reminding of that.

Abigail: Ah yes, The Anubis Gates. Yes, Powers did grasp the period well. But that book was over 20 years ago now (I haven't read any subsequent historically-set books by Powers), and I'm still reeling from the sheer incompetence of the highly-praised work of intervening years by other authors, such as what I mentioned above. IIRC, Freedom & Necessity was dedicated to TNH as "the ideal reader of this book." I'll say. The TNH who eviscerated American Psycho would have sliced & diced Freedom & Necessity.

Xopher: Ah, I see. Rather the way I keep in mind that the dromedary has only one hump by remembering that Ogden Nash was wrong: it is the other way around.

Calimac: quite. Or to summarize my verbose post on the topic: "I get confooooooozed!"

"I might also go on to observe that either publishers are wicked because they never devote promotional efforts to unknown authors, or they're wicked because they do promote unknown authors thus subjecting those authors to the dreadful risk of being perceived as "overhyped." Bottom line: publishers, wicked, no good can come of it. Best to stay home and watch TV."

Patrick,

There exist several items wrong with publishing today, but your comments are of the straw man sort. Publishing could be considered akin to Hollywood, but with more transparent accounting. The reliable big sellers (King, et alii) help pave the way (grease the skids) for the unknowns, the gambles. But it is the gambles that have the greatest leverage... In addition, I would suggest that publishers have (too easily) forgotten who comprise their true customer. Hint: it is not the Ingrams of the world, nor is it Amazon, B&N, or Borders. (BTW, my goal is not to bust your chops; I think you do a damned fine job -- the little I know and understand of your position. And I admit I am not involved in publishing.)

I enjoy attending the Con panels at which publishers showcase their wares. Although they are, without fail, bullish on every (forthcoming) title, this effort creates excitement, at least for me. I disagree that Clarke's writing career could be stillborn should this novel fail; there are many ways she might try again. (A bold publisher, a nom de plume, etc.) I like the fact that I recently was able to purchase a little known (not SF) novel originally published ~5 years ago. I suppose a publisher would term this book 'catalogue', and only begrudgingly keep it in print. (I would bet it is a steady, albeit not a big, seller.) I only knew about it due to the linkages that occur in life, and read it as soon as it arrived. These 'finds' are equally as enjoyable as awaiting the next blockbuster, hyped or not. Thus, I contend, it is the distribution to your readers that is critical; i.e., for you to get word out that this novel is available, or soon will be.

You guys do a fine job. Yes, I have read some bad novels and wondered "How ever did this get published?" But I then recall the amount of chaff you must sort through to find the wheat. Why should my reading experience be any different? And, of course, not all your publication decisions are based on artistic merit. Business is business, after all.

Sorry about the lengthy riff on the state of publishing as one reader views it. But your comments did encourage me... :-)

David

PS: Perhaps you can do something about the kooky cover art for SF and F novels. Is it solely me that notes the cover art traverses phases: angels one year, characters with levitating light orbs the next.

Abigail, your assertion that Potter "most certainly" can't be genre fantasy because it is not Tolkienesque would make China's head explode because it is a complete surrender of the genre to the tide of derivitave crap.

1. I did not assert that Potter is not fantasy because it isn't Tolkienesque. If you'll go back and read my original comment, or the clarifying comment I wrote just a few hours ago, you'll see that I mentioned that Potter isn't Tolkienesque as an aside. I believe, as I've said at least twice already, that Potter isn't fantasy (or at least not primarily) because the fantasy elements in the books are not as important to the development of the plot as the elements that come from other genres.

2. As I was saying to Patrick. I connect the phrase 'genre fantasy' with the sword and sorcery, buxom women on the cover, endless series of door-stoppers tradition. I've heard that sub-category of fantasy referred to as 'genre fantasy' on more than one occasion. It might very well be that the moniker represents a sad truth about the perception of fantasy, but I think it's also fairly accurate, in terms of percentages. Most of the fantasy I see on the shelves in bookstores, or online on Amazon, falls in the above category. That other, more innovative forms of fantasy exist doesn't change the fact that they are a minority. Miéville's problem is with the reality of the genre, not with its perception.

"As I was saying to Patrick. I connect the phrase 'genre fantasy' with the sword and sorcery, buxom women on the cover, endless series of door-stoppers tradition."

We've already heard from you that the fantasy genre is "Tolkienesque." Now it's "sword and sorcery" with "buxom women on the covers." Which is much like saying that mysteries typically entail wisecracking gumshoes in English country houses on Navajo reservations.

In other words, you're not really paying a whole lot of attention.

"Most of the fantasy I see on the shelves in bookstores, or online on Amazon, falls in the above category."

"I have sublime confidence in my ability to accurately judge books by their covers."

"That other, more innovative forms of fantasy exist doesn't change the fact that they are a minority."

"My sloppy purveying of highly generalized stereotypes is in fact a source of insight, if you look at it right."

David makes an interesting point in his PS. I haven't read too much SF over the last several years, but I never stopped to analyze why. I just assumed that my tastes had changed.

By way of context, back in '95 I got very serious about completing my formal education, completing my BA, and then going on and doing an MBA.

Until then, I had taken only one serious literature class since high school. I suddenly found myself deluged with a pretty standard set of Western classics. Since I was pretty busy with work, while doing a near full-time courseload at night, leisure reading fell by the wayside.

B-school is a meat grinder. It's not hard academically, but the workload, especially in the first year, is insane. Again, very little leisure reading.

Once I graduated, I suddenly found myself reading mainstream upper-middlebrow fiction (think The Corrections and anything by Haruki Murakami) plus lots of non-fiction.

Why no SF? First of all, I didn't know what was worth reading anymore. Secondly, I took a look at the cover art and found it hard to take the genre too seriously. And, finally, I was put off by the libertarian message that I remember being embedded in too much SF. I guess my recessive lit-snob gene had been activated.

Since I've been employment-challenged for the last few months, courtesy of the local library, I've started to delve back into SF. I've gleaned some reading suggestions from the comments here and on Making Light, which is currently making my head spin with the thread on Worldcon.

So, having drifted way off-topic, thanks for reintroducing me to a lost love (but I'm still anxiously awaiting the next Murakami book, regardless.) As far as the cover art goes, I'm thinking book covers might be the way to go... (It's hard to turn off that lit-snob gene! Sorry. I'll just assume that I'm not in the core target market for SF.)

Somewhere up-thread, Xopher said: But in any case, very few people IME, and in America, say TOLL-keen. They say TOLL-kin, which gives no help at all.

Yes, and even though people who I suspect know better than me say it "keen", my mouth just doesn't want to do that.

If it's really truly correct (preferably from the family itself; there are probably people who'd tell you how to pronounce my name from first principles, which is fine and good but isn't necessarily the way *I* say it, and that's what counts for names--witness the Teresa discussion here a bit ago), I'll try to retrain my tongue. But it's going to be hard.

* * *

Also, I want to say a word in defense of _Freedom and Necessity_, one of my very favorite books. I personally can't speak to its historical authenticity, but I have seen people whose opinions I respect say it was basically right (except for the attitude toward distance and travel). It's not universally reviled, is all.

I certainly don't revile it; I was one of its several editors. Quite the contrary, I think it pulls off some effects I've never seen any other novel manage. I realize that some people were driven batty by what seem to me small infelicities, but de gustibus. John Clute liked it, and he has a brain the size of a planet.

But I'm not going to get into a big point-counter-point on Electrolite about a book I worked on.

Kate: I'll try to retrain my tongue. But it's going to be hard.

Until the first Harry Potter movie came out, I had no clue how to pronounce 'Hermione.' In my head, it was coming out hermy-own. After the movie, the adjustment was rapid, so it might not be as painful as you think.

Rowling has said that her own favorite mispronunciation is the superb hermy-ONE.

Lately, my thoughts on the threads of fantasy have had to do with the collection of social concerns that the book deals with. The heirs of Tolkien (Brooks, Jordan, Eddings, et al.) are largely the concerns of medieval Europeans: who's the king? Where's the army? An invader from the southeast who doesn't share our religion must be destroyed!

The emerging class -- I won't say subgenre -- that includes some of Patricia Wrede, Caroline Stevermer, Susanna Clarke, and others, asks: What social role am I to play? What constitutes proper behavior, and what are the consequences of breaking that? Which social class has power, and how do they exercise that power? What are the roles and relations of men and women? This isn't to say that these questions drive the plot, but it's the motivation supplied by these questions that create conflict within the society.

A third thread, as yet disappointingly rare, draws on the concerns of American colonialism. My favorite example of this is Robin Hobb's Liveship Trader series. Here, the quite explicit questions are: should colonies of empires be independent? Is slavery a corrupting institution? Is immigration destroying our society or can we draw strength from it? It's like all the major American conflicts compressed into a few years.

China Miéville does not fit into this system; I haven't figured him out yet. (That's a good thing, and I think that's one reason his stuff reads as so fresh to me.)

Americans did not invent colonialism, and it's very much an issue in China Mieville's latest book, THE IRON COUNCIL.

I don't think the social concerns of fantasy are limited to the three you mention. FREEDOM AND NECESSITY (a brilliant and wonderful novel) is largely about the responsibility of activists in a corrupt society (that's not at all the only thing it's about); so is THE IRON COUNCIL.

You seem to lump gender roles and feminism into the category of what I would call fantasy of manners, but they are addressed in a completely different way and context in books by, say, Lois Bujold, Suzy McKee Charnas, Laurie Marks, or Tamora Pierce.

Where does Philip Pullman fit into your schema? Or Gene Wolfe? What about the social liberalism of many authors of urban fantasy, like Charles de Lint? How about British writers other than China, like Iain Banks or M. John Harrison or Mary Gentle, whose RATS AND GARGOYLES reads much like a precursor to PERDIDO STREET STATION?

Andy: A friend of a friend had the experience of reading a child's chart...the child's name was Onedar. "OH-neh-dar?" she asked. The child's mother became enraged: "That's WONDER," she snarled.

Illiteracy is a deadly scourge. It kills literate people.

Abigail, I have *never* heard "genre fantasy" defined as you do. I would say everything mentioned here has been genre fantasy. I don't read much fantasy, but I'm pleased to see that some of my favorite fantasy writers are mentioned above.

We read FREEDOM AND NECESSITY in my fantasy reading group, of which Calimac is a member. I adored the book which everyone else, especially him, hated. But then I usually dislike the things the rest of them like. I've gotten quite used to being a minority voice. It happened again at the recently passed Mythcon in a discussion of AMERICAN GODS. Everyone else loves it, and while I acknowledge it is interesting and certainly enjoyable in parts, there were things about it I thought emphatically wrong and others which could stand improvement. I seem to have very peculiar reading tastes...

MKK

Xopher, that's cute, but it sounds like it may be urban legend, particularly the "friend of a friend" source. Snopes documented a bunch of very similar examples going back to 1917. That doesn't mean poor Onedar doesn't exist, but it's reason for caution.

"The heirs of Tolkien (Brooks, Jordan, Eddings, et al.) are largely the concerns of medieval Europeans: who's the king? Where's the army? An invader from the southeast who doesn't share our religion must be destroyed!"

I have to admit, I'm struggling to think of the actual work of medieval literature for which this is a fair description. Beowulf? Gawain? St. Thomas Aquinas? Hildegard of Bingen? Okay, yes, there's some preoccupation with "true" kingship in medieval literature, and certainly in Tolkien. But real medievals tended to be just as preoccupied with all the other ramifications of feudalism. Hypertrophied focus on kingship alone is a phenomenon of the Renaissance. This cartoon of "medieval" preoccupations sounds like it comes from that worldview in which "medieval" is a synonym for "dumb rubes we're ever so much smarter than".

Tolkien certainly shares some of the concerns of pre-Norman England, as he'd have been the first to explain. For instance, as Tom Shippey has pointed out, Beowulf gets a lot of its force and flavor from the way it--often uncomfortably--yokes together the fatalistic heroic ideals of Anglo-Saxon paganism with latter-day Christian hopes of redemption beyond the grave. And so does The Lord of the Rings. Neither creation perfectly "works" in the sense of being philosophically or psychologically tidy. They're messy. They're full of powerful emotions that don't entirely resolve. Both of them are artistic responses to historical change.

If The Lord of the Rings is about anything discernably "medieval," it's the question of how one maintains hope and dignity in a darkening world. Which is pretty medieval, but hasn't got a lot to do with "where's the army".

Sorry to be so argumentive, but I've been in these discussions many times, and when you get old and cranky like me you start flailing about with your cane and shouting NO, NOT THAT AGAIN!

From the Encyclopedia of Fantasy's entry on Genre Fantasy:

"GF is almost always high fantasy, heroic fantasy or sword and sorcery, and its main distinguishing characteristic is that, on being confronted by an unread GF book, one recognizes it; one has been here before, and the territory into which the book takes one is familiar--it is Fantasyland....

The hallmark of GF is that it is set in a secondary world (in the broadest sense of the term). In less imaginative works this is just a granted--a Fantasyland derivative of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth."

And the Making Light thread On writing genre fantasy uses the term in a similar way.

Abigail's use of the term seems perfectly reasonable to me.

We've already heard from you that the fantasy genre is "Tolkienesque."

"Genre fantasy" != "the fantasy genre."

That said, I disagree with Abigail's main point about Harry Potter. I agree that it's a school story with fantasy icing, but I don't see how that implies that the fantasy element isn't driving sales; I would think that, if anything, it implies the opposite, unless there's some boom in non-fantastic school stories I'm not aware of.

"'Genre fantasy' != 'the fantasy genre.'"

I'm sorry, but this strikes me as the worst kind of scholastic bollocks.

Are we trying to sensibly discuss real things, actual events in the world, readers and booksellers sorting out the literary choices available to them and deploying rough-but-useful labels for various concatenations while at the same time publishers and authors attempt to define and signal to particular groups of readers? Or are we playing a silly set of word games?

Exactly what purpose is served by this hothouse-flower distinction between "genre fantasy" and "the fantasy genre"? Except insofar as the term "genre fantasy", as now defined, gives us another tool with which to (1) make unsupported generalizations about things whose appeal we don't understand and (2) demonstrate our superiority to those who like those things?

For heaven's sake, that Encyclopedia of Fantasy definition, taken as literally as you're saying we should, excludes Conan the sodding Barbarian from being "genre fantasy," because Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age is certainly no "derivative of J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle Earth.

Exactly how does this aburdly precious distinction between "gray cats" and "cats that are gray" tell us what's actually going on? How does it make us smarter?

Abigail, tell me again why I should take you seriously? Harry Potter isn't genre fantasy? It isn't the sort of thing readers are hoping to find when they go looking for genre fantasy? Meanwhile, you say, a "Tolkienist fantasy" is the sort of doorstop that has dragons and scantily-clad women on the covers?

There's an obvious question begging to be asked here: How much of this stuff have you actually read?

Feel free to demonstrate how wrong I am by explaining where the works of Poul Anderson, Fritz Leiber, Lord Dunsany, Zenna Henderson, Keith Roberts, Jack Vance, Tim Powers, Roger Zelazny, Jane Yolen, Terry Pratchett, Steve Brust, and Glen Cook fit into your schema. Extra points will be awarded if you can make your theory cover the Bordertown cluster and the Alvin Maker series.

Meanwhile, David Bratman, I'm afraid the TNH who eviscerated American Psycho was delighted with Freedom & Necessity, in manuscript and in finished version. The closest I came to nitpicking it in detail was to discuss 1849 style, spelling, and usage with the authors. Having thus hopelessly compromised myself, I completed my ruin by picking out its cover art.

Sorry about that.

I'm sorry, but this strikes me as the worst kind of scholastic bollocks.

Tell it to John Clute. I'm just the messenger. "Genre fantasy" may not be the most felicitous term, but it's out there and in common use (as the Making Light link posted demonstrates). If I had to guess, I'd say that he wanted a way to say "generic fantasy" without the pejorative connotations.

For heaven's sake, that Encyclopedia of Fantasy definition, taken as literally as you're saying we should, excludes Conan the sodding Barbarian from being "genre fantasy," because Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age is certainly no "derivative of J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle Earth.

I'm pretty sure that Clute intends C.t.s.B. to be excluded, although not for that reason.

Exactly how does this aburdly precious distinction between "gray cats" and "cats that are gray" tell us what's actually going on? How does it make us smarter?

Would you agree that Jordan, Feist, Eddings et al. are part of a recognizable subgenre? If so, what would you call it? The only other term I've heard is "big fat fantasy," but I have a hunch you'd find that even more objectionable.

I have no stake in the term "genre fantasy," except that it's the term I know.

For me John - what was his middle initial again? - Campbell settled this distinction a long time ago - Genre is open to anything that happened from before the big bang or any other creation to after the heat death or other end of this or any other universe and everything in between - see e.g. Tau Zero or Cities in Flight for subsequent times and the three headed monster stories or Tolkien or The Last Question or your choice for earlier/later times and creation stories.

Mainstream is a tiny subset of genre that restricts itself to one planet and only a few species for a brief period.

Then too it seems to me an argument might lie that there are Conan stories with a Pictish setting that have at least some common origins with Tolkien. Be hard for me to find published references to Middle Earth before Lewis and That Hideous Strength but they may exist -

Oh, and Patrick? That piece of medieval literature where they're fretting about the location of the army, and there's an invader from the southeast who doesn't share their religion and must be destroyed, is The Song of Roland -- which I, personally, have always thought the single dreariest major work of medieval fiction. Bleah. Give me Gawain any day.

Are you still feeling Delphic on the Clarke, PNH, or are you game for hard questions like "are all 800 pages more or less contributing literary fruitiness, with time off for good behavior?"

(Assuming you are legally and morally allowed to answer such a question at this time, natch.)

Add me to the list of people who’ve heard “genre fantasy” used as something more specific than “the fantasy genre”. It seemed, from context, to mean something along the lines of Tolkien-derivative swords-and-sorcery, I think the sort of thing Diana Wynne Jones was mocking in The Tough Guide to Fantasyland (which I’ve not read, just had enough bits read to me on a long car trip that I was put off getting the thing myself, so if it’s mocking more than just that, well, then I need another example).

The phrase is out there, not something Abigail made up just now. If I were God-Emperor of critical language, it’s not the term I’d have mandated, but nobody voted for me.

Abigail, saying that Harry Potter isn't "genre fantasy" because it's so much more of a mystery/boarding school novel is like saying that the Mallorean isn't genre fantasy because really, it's just a quest story. The fantasy genre isn't a plot style; mysteries, quests, comedies, tragedies, and every conceivable plot in between has been written as a "genre fantasy." If the term "genre fantasy" is to have any useful meaning (or any other genre/sub-genre term for that matter), you can't arbitrarily decide that any plot element X is THE deciding plot element that defines the genre. Otherwise you are going to spend all your time trying to adjudicate the countless genre-benders, and inevitably go stark raving mad.

Harry Potter is a "genre fantasy" AND a mystery AND a boarding school novel. Like PNH said so astutely, "Genres aren't engineering specs, they're collections of effects." It's possible to draw on more than one collection of effects at a time. Witness China Mieville, Neil Gaiman, Susanna Clarke, Terry Pratchett, J.K. Rowling, Bruce Sterling, Lois McMaster Bujold, Gene Wolfe, ad nauseum.

It sounds like the thing that's really concerning you is being identified as someone who reads "genre fantasy," a label you'd rather avoid (based, from what I can gather, on your impressions of the books' covers). You're afraid that if people think Harry Potter is "genre fantasy," you'll get cooties.

I'm glad Tim Walters got that out there, because I was starting to feel alien for understanding what was meant by the term "genre fantasy." Unlike most the people using it, though, I don't think it has especially pejorative or derivative connotations. I'd say that Wolfe's The Knight is genre fantasy, for instance.

Teresa, you didn't ask me, but I feel compelled to answer anyway: Leiber's "Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser" stuff is genre fantasy, as is Zelazny's Amber. I haven't read Leiber's other stuff, but at least some of Zelazny's other stuff (Lord of Light) isn't. I'm 95% sure Cook's Black Company is, but haven't read it. Brust's Taltos novels are close, but don't quite fit. I want to say that Dunsany is, but that's clearly insane and unsupportable, so I'll just think it quietly and wrongly. Vance, Powers, Pratchett, Henderson, Bordertown, and Alvin Maker are definitely not genre fantasy -- they're fantastic SF, magic realism, British humor, SF magic-horsey wish-fulfillment, urban fantasy, and historical fantasy, respectively. I haven't read Anderson, Roberts, or enough Yolen to say about them.

Xopher:

Seriously, this is the flip side of what I've been pointing out to people for years, which is that people will game any system you put them in. It's an argument for making the system carefully designed so that it accomplishes ITS goal when the system-gamers accomplish theirs.

The Framers of the U.S. Constitution thought that was a pretty good principle for setting up a government system.

David M. Gordon: So what, specifically, do you think is wrong with the publishing systems? Do you think books cost too much? Are they too hard to find? Are good books not being published? Do you feel you're not hearing about enough good books?

Me, what I see is that there are far, far too many good books for me to ever read. And they're easier to find than ever before. When I was a kid, we got books either from the library, or from one of two B. Daltons or Waldenbooks in the nearby malls. Each of these bookstores was about a 20th of the size of a present-day Barnes & Noble or Borders. Each store had one shelf unit labelled "science fiction," into which was mixed sf, fantasy, and media tie-in novels. You got your books from those places, or you did without.

Now, however, if someone mentions an intriguing book to me, I can generally track it down online within minutes, order it immediately, and have it in my hands within a week. And that's no matter how odd or obscure the book might be.

Xopher: A friend of a friend had the experience of reading a child's chart...the child's name was Onedar. "OH-neh-dar?" she asked. The child's mother became enraged: "That's WONDER," she snarled.

You sure your friend of a friend wasn't pulling your leg? That was a running joke in "That Thing You Do." Excellent movie, by the way. Rush out and see it now.

Teresa: "Feel free to demonstrate how wrong I am by explaining where the works of Poul Anderson, Fritz Leiber, Lord Dunsany, Zenna Henderson, Keith Roberts, Jack Vance, Tim Powers, Roger Zelazny, Jane Yolen, Terry Pratchett, Steve Brust, and Glen Cook fit into your schema. Extra points will be awarded if you can make your theory cover the Bordertown cluster and the Alvin Maker series."

Apropos of nothing, I've read at least one work of each one of the authors and series you cited, and I still consider myself too ignorant to participate meaningfully in this discussion.

But that doesn't stop me! I laugh at danger! Ha ha!

I've always used the phrase "high fantasy" to describe the kinds of books that people here are calling "genre fantasy."

Er, speaking as someone who's read, and loved, and enthusiastically blurbed and supported the Susanna Clarke novel (and waited patiently for it for a decade) I think it'll do just fine, because people will read it and many of them will love it and tell other people about it. It's funny, and smart, and intelligent and tone-perfect, in a way that most fantasy readers will enjoy, and so will people who know they don't like fantasy.

It won't be Harry Potter, primarily because it's not a series of children's books that adults also like. It's one book, written for adults who like books.

The Bloomsbury people bought it for the right reason (they loved it) and they're probably the best publishing house it could have. (They're my children's book publisher in the UK, and the impression I get from her editors is that they would be publishing it if they thought it would sell 5,000 copies.)

I could be wrong, and it could stiff -- not badly or embarrassingly (a month ahead of publication it's at #15 on the Amazon list) but I can't imagine that even if it were a famous flop it would be the end of Susanna's writing career. (I don't think she wrote it to have a writing career. Mostly I think she wrote it to find out what happened next.) And she's a good enough writer that even if her next book doesn't have a first printrun of 250,000 she'll do fine; she'll not want for people who would like to publish her work, and I doubt that Bloomsbury would let her go.

Incidentally, the public site -- the one aimed at readers, rather than the trade -- is http://www.jonathanstrange.com, which is all about the story, the book and the author, and not about printruns.

...

Mary Kay -- I'd not worry about the American Gods thing if I were you. Most people who don't like it really don't like it - so you certainly aren't alone.

I'm going to (once again) bring up the GOOD gene fiction v. BAD genre fiction argument.

Having been a World Fantasy judge last year, I realized (once again) that some stuff that might be considered just genre fiction--if you just look at the covers or the medieval setting or the who-is-the-king kind of plot--can be lifted by its gorgeous writing. See Patricia McKillip or Robin McKinley and their ilk. And of course the reverse is also true. Bizarre and interesting settings may be well let down by the writer's inability to put one word after another in any beautiful or meaningful way. (I refuse to name names here.)

Also, Rowling has captured another kind of children's book as well as the aformentioned--the boy's sport book. Her real contribution to the field, I believe, is the invention of quidditch. All the rest is well borrowed. She herself, in an interview ( which I read or heard on the BBC) said that she never considered the Potter books as fantasy. I thought it disingenuous when she said it, and even more when critics try it on. My God, woman, there are wizards and witches and warlocks and flying brooms and spells and house elves and three-headed dogs and. . .

Jane

I think I have been talking at cross purposes with Abigail, since I have never heard the term genre fantasy used as she does. I certainly agree that Potter, Miéville and Tolkien himself do not belong in the category she describes, which I label (in my head) "comparable to Tolkien at his best", and the denizens of rasff call Extruded Fantasy Product, or EFP.

I do think the term genre fantasy is a really clumsy one to use when the category being discussed is such a narrow and derivative subset of the fantasy genre.

Despite never having heard the term genre fantasy used in the sense Abigail intends, I was able to read and understand Teresa's
piece On writing genre fantasy which Tim refers to above. The point of it is that when writing genre fantasy novels it is not enough to set a bunch of standard genre fantasy characters in a standard genre fantasy setting.

The clear meaning is that it is possible to write a genre fantasy novel which is something else, and indeed the only worthwhile genre fantasy novels are something else.

This is an odd piece to cite as evidence that "genre fantasy" means the standard characters in the standard setting.

...real medievals tended to be just as preoccupied with all the other ramifications of feudalism... This cartoon of "medieval" preoccupations sounds like it comes from that worldview in which "medieval" is a synonym for "dumb rubes we're ever so much smarter than".

Sidenote: Terry Jones' Medieval Lives has been running periodically on the History Channel - it is one pin that pops the "dumb rubes of the Middle Ages" balloon.

LarryB, you are in for a real treat (as it sounds as if you might already have discovered...)! There are some great SF books being written lately. I'm delving into Neal Stephenson right now -- yum! Just finished CRYPTONOMICON, and it was excellent. I also recommend Linda Nagata's work, Nancy Kress's BEGGARS trilogy, Vernor Vinge's A DEEPNESS IN THE SKY. etc etc.

I'm like you, though -- I like the arty covers. But I'm told they definitely have a neg impact in the genre. Go figure.

I also want to see adult books with more interior illustrations.

-l.

Thank you Avram, Neil, Jane.

I also think of "genre fantasy" as something slightly different from "the fantasy genre". To me, "genre fantasy" is "books which fit into that commercial category and packaging style that was broken out in the 1970s-1990s by a number of houses and editors, most notably Judy-Lynn del Rey." The Harry Potter books fall squarely in the middle of that category -- which is to say, you can sell them as genre fantasy without fibbing at all.

Whereas, while I now understand the distinction many people appear to be making between "genre fantasy" and "the fantasy genre," I think it has to take some kind of prize as a distinction that confuses more than it clarifies.

The point of it is that when writing genre fantasy novels it is not enough to set a bunch of standard genre fantasy characters in a standard genre fantasy setting. The clear meaning is that it is possible to write a genre fantasy novel which is something else, and indeed the only worthwhile genre fantasy novels are something else.

That doesn't seem very clear to me. If I said that hitting all the right notes wasn't enough to play Chopin successfully, would you take that to mean that I thought you should play wrong notes?

Clute disavows pejorative intent, and even goes so far as to say "the constraints of GF can bring out the best in some authors," citing Tad Williams as an example. I haven't read Williams; my examples of high-quality GF would be Tigana and the aforementioned The Knight (thanks, Mike).

If I ran the zoo, the term would be a little broader, and used merely to distinguish things that sit comfortably on the "Fantasy" shelf from the wider realm of fantastic literature (magic realism, postmodern fabulation, straight myth and fairy tales, etc.). But for better or worse, that doesn't seem to be the standard meaning.

Tigana. Ah, Tigana is an excellent test-case for my sadly tattered theory. The dominant social question in Tigana -- please note I do not say plot or even theme of the book -- is whether people have a right to self-determination. In my mind, this marks it clearly apart from books that concern themselves with kingship, and as a work that draws on the Enlightenment.

Abigail's original point was a rather subtle one about the differences between reality and stereotyped perception. Too bad her argument was lost in definitional noise, but it seems to be coming back out.

My own thought on it is that she's half-right: Harry Potter's fantasy trappings are not much more than that, and it wouldn't take that much change to remove them. But that doesn't make it extraneous that the books are fantasy: I believe that's a large part of their appeal, however superficial the fantasy elements may be.

I find the same thing in Extruded Fantasy Product (or "Tolclones" as we often call them in the Mythopoeic Society). That their fantasy elements are not integrated into the story was observed by Ursula K. Le Guin in 1973; still, it's clear that their readers love those elements.

Neil Gaiman has answered one of Abigail's points: the website discussed is full of marketing data not because the publishers think the book is about its marketing, but because the site is aimed at booksellers, who need to know this stuff: there's another site aimed at readers which is actually about the book.

Teresa, perhaps you were so delighted with Freedom & Necessity that you were not able to apply your critical faculties to it. This happens, even to the best of us, and you are the best of us. I've taken my detailed creebs to LJ, and anyone who wants to read them can follow the link.

I'd like to assume, before I write any more, that no one on this thread suspects me of being a self-hating fantasy reader any more. I'd also like to assume that everyone now understands that I was simply confused by Patrick's use of the term 'genre fantasy' to encompass the entire fantasy genre, not just the Tolkien-derivative parts of it. Feel free to let me know if I'm wrong in either of these assumptions, although I can't promise to respond.

That said, Calimac opined:

Harry Potter's fantasy trappings are not much more than that, and it wouldn't take that much change to remove them. But that doesn't make it extraneous that the books are fantasy: I believe that's a large part of their appeal, however superficial the fantasy elements may be.

Do you mean to say that the books appeal to people because they're a sort of "weak" fantasy? That's a little like something my mother mentioned to me today. She thinks that the appeal of the books (and the possible appeal of Clarke's Strange & Norrell) has to do with the placement of supernatural elements in a normal contemporary setting, where magic is neither remarkable nor surprising. I'm not so sure how I sit with this idea. There are massive quantities of fantasy novels that posit the same situation - almost all the urban fantasy sub-genre, for starters. Is it possible that the Potter books are a good primer for readers who might be interested in these books? That they contain enough non-fantasy elements to appeal to readers who aren't comfortable in a strictly fantastic setting? It's something to ponder, at any rate.

We could have a long, involved discussion about how (or even whether) to categorize a novel that exhibits strong elements of more than one genre. I still feel that the fantasy elements of Harry Potter are nearly incidental, although I can see how my suggestion that a series which features magic and wizards isn't fantasy might have struck some readers as absurd. I certainly wouldn't try to introduce someone to the genre by giving them Harry Potter, any more than I would give Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon or David Brin's Kiln People to someone who wanted to get into reading detective novels.

Alexander, I like your idea of looking at books through the questions they ask, although I think you may be generalizing with your three questions. China Miéville, I think, seems to be asking questions about the relationship between the individual and society. In both Perdido Street Station and The Scar (I haven't read The Iron Council yet) society is treated almost as a living organism, one which often consumes its inhabitants. The main crux of his novels seems to be, does the very existence of a civilization excuse it from acting morally? Is it better to tolerate an evil society or to live with neither the benefits nor costs of civilization? Armada and New Crobuzon are vicious, destructive societies, and yet the heroes of both novels act with endless self-sacrifice to protect them.

Heresiarch:

It sounds like the thing that's really concerning you is being identified as someone who reads "genre fantasy," a label you'd rather avoid (based, from what I can gather, on your impressions of the books' covers). You're afraid that if people think Harry Potter is "genre fantasy," you'll get cooties.

I'm sorry, I just find it quite funny that someone would assume that I would be embarrassed to be seen reading the Harry Potter books because they are fantasy novels and not, as is more common, because they are children's books (and, by the way, there have been plenty of discussions about their placement in that genre as well). As it so happens, I publicly read books of both genres, although not so much 'genre fantasy' (as I define it. That is, Tolkien-derivative fantasy) because it doesn't appeal to me. I've never been hassled for reading any of them, by the way, although a guy did once exclaim in horror when he saw me pull out a copy of Daniel Deronda.

I suspect that the term "genre fantasy" is an attempt to avoid the rudeness of referring to "generic fantasy" - since 'generic', once simply the adjectival form of 'genre', is now a pejorative meaning not only 'common', but actually 'schlocky'. This usage significantly conflicts with the definition used by professionals in publishing (see TNH's comment above), to the great detriment of communication.

One reason I'll probably never get published is that I believe adding more words is often helpful. If Abigail had said "Harry Potter is hardly the cheapass Tolkien-derivative, sword-and-sorcery, go-get-the-magic-whatsis, thud-and-blunder kind of generic fantasy schlock you see in the racks at the CVS," no one would have contested her statement. (Of course, she may not have wanted to make that strong a statement, or interpreted Patrick's use of the phrase 'genre fantasy' that strongly either. I'm just saying.)

Mitch - bang on on the Constitution. Exactly such a system. I suspect Onedar is an Urban Legend, too, but significantly predates the film you mention.

Heresiarch - forgive me if I ignore your comment in favor of delighting in your name. I'm one too.

I don't understand Calimac's and Abigail's comments about stripping out the fantasy elements in the Harry Potter books. It seems to me that there are some things you can't change without radically altering the books: The parallel-but-different society living among normal society, but invisible to it, with the distinction between the two societies a matter of being born with (or without) the powers. The strange powers and abilities. The weird monsters and plants and devices.

You could turn this into an X-Men-type setting, retaining the boarding school setting, the separate society, and the strange powers, but you'd have to stretch it a bit to get the monsters and devices. You could try a mad scientist setting, but you'd lose the born-with-abilities aspect to it, unless you made it something like Foglio's Girl Genius setting. But then you're faced with the fact that mad scientists are basically just a modernized version of the wizard archetype to begin with.

I think what Abigail might be getting at when she says that Harry Potter could be told as a story without the fantasy elements is that the plot is more similar to the basic boarding school story-- a boy or girl arrives at boarding school, makes friends, plays sports, has a conflict with a teacher and another student, optionally defeats an evil plot or saves someone's life, and then comes back the next year to do it all over again-- than to plots more common in fantasy, such as those structured around a quest or war or revolution.

However, that just makes Harry Potter a cross-genre series, similar to other fantasies which borrow their basic plots from mysteries or Mafia stories or romances. To rewrite it as a non-fantasy boarding school series would require re-plotting the whole story and rewriting almost every single sentence-- as much effort as it would take to remove the boarding school elements and rewrite it as an urban fantasy in which there is no Hogwarts.

Abigail, if I may, I think part of the general objection to your dissection is this: With "fantasy" such a squidgy and mutable term in the first place, many of us tend to define it with an inherently inclusive rather than reductive sentiment.

Once you start to argue that certain books "aren't really fantasy" because they contain elements of other genres or famous series, why stop? Why should "boarding school story" elements disqualify Potter, when there are fantasy nautical adventures, fantasy westerns, fantasy crime novels, fantasy technothrillers, fantasy espionage capers, fantasy psychological thrillers, fantasy Horatio Alger tales, fantasy epistolary novels, and fantasy romances, for example?

The thing about purity testing for aesthetic tastes is that it's arbitrary as all hell (regardless of good intentions!), and riduculous when taken to its logical conclusions. You can argue anything and everything out of any genre if you're persistent and reductivist enough:

"G.R.R. Martin doesn't write fantasy, he's just re-doing the War of the Roses with dragons and zombies."

"Steven Brust doesn't write fantasy, he just does noir thrillers and Dumas romances with swords that eat peoples' souls. "

"Neil Gaiman isn't a fantasy writer; he just writes Clive Barker stories with more talking animals and fewer entrails on the wall."

"Clive Barker doesn't write fantasy, he just writes O. Henry stories where people have sex with insects and die a lot..."

You get the picture.

It might not be as insulting as the old "This can't be fantasy, it's actually good" line of crap, but, with all due respect, it's about as useful.

"Fantasy" is best described the overlapping heart of a literary Venn diagram; if you try to make it one of the exclsion zones on the edges of the diagram, you end up with a few thousand authors and novels left out no matter what you do, and you go stark raving mad trying to parse it all down to a perfect taxonomy.

Just to sort of mildly defend Abigail: I kind of see where she's coming from.

I eagerly grabbed up "Devil's Engine" and "Devil's Tower," by Mark Sumner, because at the time I was watching a lot of Western movies, and the Sumner novels are set in an alternate American Western frontier where magic works. Wizards get into duels like gunslingers. I figured, cool, what's not to like?

But the books didn't quite work for me, and I think part of the reason was that they were too much high fantasy, not enough Western. For one thing, the hero of a Western should be an older warrior--well, older by pop culture standards, in his late 20s at least. He's a seasoned fighter and something of an outcast to the community. His actions cause the community to form around him, but he himself remains an outsider, often--as the saying goes--riding off into the sunset at the end.

The Sumner novels use a standard high fantasy storyline: the callow boy who everyone picks on, who grows up to be the king, or a powerful wizard, or both. He gathers a band of other outcasts with him, and they become a little community, with him as their leader.

Like I said: didn't quite work for me.

On the other hand, I did enjoy the books enough to read both of them, and I'm disappointed that, AFAIK, there haven't been any others.

Just wanted to let you know that when the NYT article appeared, one of my co-workers approached me and asked if I by any chance had an advance copy of the book. I told her I did and she offered my lots and lots if I would give her a copy. I told her it was mine, all mine.

David, please don't excuse me for being so pleased with Freedom and Necessity that I let my judgement lapse. It makes my scales itch.

Abigail, courage and self-esteem are both good things in their own right.

Mitch-

I was recently told that a third Sumner "Devil's" novel will be serialized in the fantasy magazine Black Gate. Don't know if it has a book publisher yet or not.

Scott Lynch has it right, by the way. If the Harry Potter books share elements with boarding school stories, that doesn't mean they aren't fantasy. A murder mystery set at a boarding school would still be a murder mystery. Otherwise you get a system where some publishing categories trump others: being set at a boarding school assigns it to the category of school stories, whereas having wizards, giants, flying broomsticks, spells, charms, divinations, and all manner other fantasy paraphernalia doesn't make it fantasy. Which is obviously nonsense.

If Harry Potter isn't fantasy, then what is Buffy?

One of the characteristics of good, lively stories is that you can jack them up on one side, slide out the original setting, and install a new one. I've seen Shakespeare's plays successfully recast as Nazi power struggles, and as rockets-and-planets science fiction. You could refit the storylines and characters from The Sopranos as far-future skiffy, or dress it out in poniards and doublets, or turn it into mutants and superheroes all in color for a dime, and they'd still work.

Well, except for the dime part.

Abigail: That last paragraph of mine was a low blow, and I apologize. Pure speculation on my part, and totally wrong.

Xopher: Hmm, if I can convince people to ignore what I say because they like my name, then I ought to be well on my way to heresiarchy. After all, cults are all about cool names.

Mitch says (about some fantasy stories I haven't read): The Sumner novels use a standard high fantasy storyline: the callow boy who everyone picks on, who grows up to be the king, or a powerful wizard, or both.

The Kid, The Natural whose gun just leaps from his holster into his hand, is a standard character in westerns, and the hero of more than a few.

I read Louis L'amour westerns where the Kid was the hero, much picked upon until the Plot revealed his innate skills with a six-gun, before there was a "genre fantasy" sub-genre of the fantasy genre.

Niall: I haven't read many westerns. I was discussing western movies.

I can't help but think of the punchline to the story Neil Gaiman tells in the introduction to The Dream-Cycle of H.P. Lovecraft, of artist Dave Carson a little the worse for drink, counterpointing a rather heady and erudite HPL panel discussion: "F**k all that. I love H.P. Lovecraft because I just like drawing monsters."

Bildungsroman and boarding-school tales my pasty geek arse. F**k all that; I read Harry Potter 'cause it's got wizards in it. Now tell me again what the "true" appeal is?

Xopher, nuthin' wrong with words, especially for a writer. ;) And I think you've just seen a lovely and memorable example of how of few extra, well strung together words at the right time could save a whole lot of them later.

I may worship at Avedon's shoes, but Scott Lynch rocks. At least today.

Jane

I'm swear I'm not being contrary here, Teresa, but it never occurred to me to think of Buffy as fantasy. Horror, maybe, but never fantasy.

But I actually think the comparison between Buffy and Harry works in my favor. In both series, the protagonist is born into our world, but possesses strange magical powers which separate them from the rest of us. In Buffy, however, that special power is the point of the series. The one theme that continued to recur throughout the series (long after the 'high-school is hell' metaphor was dropped) was the question of how an abnormal person could live a normal life. Buffy's power separated her from her family, her friends, her lovers and her humanity. Her life was about the struggle to hold on to these things. She only succeeded by changing the world - making her abnormality normal.

Harry's innate ability, on the other hand, is treated by Rowling as downright ordinary. He's one of thousands of wizards, one of hundreds of Hogwarts students. Some of them are more talented than others, but all of them possess magical power, and take it completely for granted. After the first few chapters of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry becomes practically jaded. His magical studies are neither solemn nor of great importance to him - he'd prefer goofing off with his friends to learning how to transform a hedgehog into a pincushion. Harry doesn't strive to be normal because he perceives himself as normal - a normal teenage wizard. The things that make Harry special within the wizard world have very little to do with his magical powers. They are the circumstances of his birth, his ancestry, and most importantly his personality. This was the point A.S. Byatt missed in her infamous takedown of the series in the NYT last summer. The magic in Harry Potter is ordinary! She wailed. Well, yes. What's your complaint?

Scott and Teresa mistake me, however, when they suggest that the very presence of non-fantasy elements such as the boarding school setting causes me to reject categorizing the books as fantasy. It's the importance of those elements, versus the importance of fantasy elements, that leads me to my conclusion. Despite what Avram and Rachel believe, I do think it would be possible to transplant the books outside of their fantasy setting (into an X-Men environment, as Avram suggests). Removing the story from a boarding school, however, would be almost impossible without completely re-plotting the series, as Rachel put it. I just don't see the fantasy elements as being that important to the plot.

Take the two novels I mentioned earlier, Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon and David Brin's Kiln People. Both could easily be categorized as detective novels - they feature futuristic detective investigating a murder. The point of these novels, however, the fundamental question, as Alexander puts it, is definitely a science-fictional one. Brin and Morgan create worlds in which technology has changed the meaning of individuality, personhood, and the connection between mind and body. In order to explore these worlds, they examine the greatest offense one human being can offer another - murder. What does murder mean when the creature you're killing is nothing but a copy of someone else, or when they're moving in someone else's body? The detective plot moves the story along