A History of Epic Fantasy: Appendix A - Timeline of Notable Books

With work proceeding on the book version of A History of Epic Fantasy, I thought I'd share a tidbit with you here.

This is the first appendix, a timeline of notable, influential or discussed works in the history of epic fantasy or other subgenres which have had a reasonable degree or profile or impact on what came after. The list is, of course, highly subjective but I think this covers both the expected, major works and a number of lower-profile, interesting books. The list is not based on quality, which is why you may find a few lesser-regarded books on here which were, nevertheless, massive sellers. These are also the books that (mostly) will be discussed in the main body of the text.

With a couple of exceptions, only the first volume of a series is listed because otherwise the list would be fifty times longer than it is right now.

Timeline of Key Books:

c. 760-710 BC: The Iliad and The Odyssey, Homer

19 BC:            The Aeneid, Virgil

8 AD: The Metamorphoses, Ovid

1485:   Morte d'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory

1725:   Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift

1854:   The Rose and the Ring, William Makepeace Thackeray

1858:   Phantastes, George MacDonald

1862:   Goblin Market and Other Poems, Christina Rossetti
1896:   The Well at the World's End, William Morris

1900:   The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Frank L. Baum

1922:   The Worm Ouroboros, E.R. Eddison

1924:   The King of Elfland's Daughter, Lord Dunsany

1926:   Lud-in-the-Mist, Hope Mirlees
1927:   Kull the Conqueror (short story series), Robert E. Howard

1932:   Conan the Barbarian (short story and novel series), Robert E. Howard

1934:   Jiriel of Joiry (short story series) by C.L. Moore
1937:   The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, J.R.R. Tolkien

1938:   The Sword in the Stone (The Once and Future King), T.H. White

1939:   Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser (short story and novel series), Fritz Leiber

1946:   Titus Groan (Gormenghast Trilogy), Mervyn Peake

1949:   The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia), C.S. Lewis

1950:   The Dying Earth (Dying Earth), Jack Vance

1954:   The Broken Sword, Poul Anderson

1954-55: The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

1961:   The Dreaming City (Elric), Michael Moorcock

1962:   The Letter for the King, Tonke Dragt
1963:   Witch World (Witch World), Andre Norton
1964:   The Book of Three (Chronicles of Prydain), Lloyd Alexander

1965:   Elidor, Alan Garner

1968:   A Wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea), Ursula K. Le Guin

            Dragonflight (Dragonriders of Pern), Anne McCaffrey
            The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle

1970:   Nine Princes in Amber (Chronicles of Amber), Roger Zelazny

            Deryni Rising (Deryni), Katherine Kurtz
            The Crystal Cave, Mary Stewart

1974:   The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, Patricia A. McKillip

            Dungeons and Dragons (roleplaying game), Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson

1976:   The Riddle-Master of Hed (Riddle-Master), Patricia A. McKillip

1977:   The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien

            Lord Foul's Bane (Chronicles of Thomas Covenant), Stephen Donaldson

            The Sword of Shannara (Shannara), Terry Brooks

            A Spell for Chameleon (Xanth), Piers Anthony

1978:   The Stand, Stephen King
1979:   The Neverending Story, Michael Ende

1980:   The Shadow of the Torturer (Book of the New Sun), Gene Wolfe
1982:   Magician (Riftwar Saga), Raymond E. Feist

            Pawn of Prophecy (The Belgariad), David Eddings

            The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower), Stephen King

            Suldrun's Garden (Lyonesse), Jack Vance

            Daggerspell (Deverry), Katharine Kerr

1983:   The Colour of Magic (Discworld), Terry Pratchett

            The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley

            Harpy's Flight, Megan Lindholm (Robin Hobb)

            Cloud Warrior (Amtrak Wars), Patrick Tilley

1984:   Legend (Drenai), David Gemmell

            The Black Company (Black Company), Glen Cook

            Dragons of Autumn Twilight (Dragonlance),Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman

            Stormwarden (Cycle of Fire), Janny Wurts

1986:   The Wizards and the Warriors (Chronicles of an Age of Darkness), Hugh Cook

            The Anvil of Ice (Winter of the World), Michael Scott Rohan

1987:   Arrows of the Queen (Valdemar), Mercedes Lackey

            The Eyes of the Dragon, Stephen King

            Wolf in Shadow (Sipstrassi), David Gemmell

            Godslayer (Renshai), Mickey Zucker Reichert

1988:   The Dragonbone Chair (Memory, Sorrow & Thorn), Tad Williams

            Dragon Prince (Dragon Prince), Melanie Rawn

            The Crystal Shard (Icewind Dale), R.A. Salvatore

            The Labyrinth Gate, Alis A. Ramussen (Kate Elliott)

            Sheepfarmer's Daughter (Deed of Paksenarrion), Elizabeth Moon

1989:   Shadowrun (roleplaying game), Jordan Weisman

            Guards! Guards! (Discworld), Terry Pratchett
            Sandman (comic series), Neil Gaiman

1990:   The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time), Robert Jordan

            Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay

            Homeland (Dark Elf), R.A. Salvatore
            Good Omens, Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett

1992:   Earthdawn (roleplaying game), Jordan Weisman

1993:   Small Gods (Discworld), Terry Pratchett

            Curse of the Mistwraith (Wars of Light & Shadow), Janny Wurts

            The Last Wish (The Witcher), Andrzej Sapkowski

1994:   The Ruins of Ambrai (Exiles), Melanie Rawn

            Wizards' First Rule (Sword of Truth), Terry Goodkind

1995:   Assassin's Apprentice (Farseer), Robin Hobb

            Hawkwood's Voyage (Monarchies of God), Paul Kearney

            The Lions of Al-Rassan, Guy Gavriel Kay

            The Baker's Boy (Book of Words), JV Jones
            Northern Lights (His Dark Materials), Phillip Pullman

1996:   A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire), George R.R. Martin

            The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, Diana Wynne Jones

            The Roof of Voyaging (Navigator Kings), Garry Kilworth

1997:   Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Harry Potter), J.K. Rowling

            Dark Lord of Derkholm, Diana Wynne Jones

            King's Dragon (Crown of Stars), Kate Elliott

1998:   Colours in the Steel (Fencer), K.J. Parker

            Heroes Die (Acts of Caine), Matt Woodring Stover

            Ship of Magic (Liveship Traders), Robin Hobb

1999:   Gardens of the Moon (Malazan Book of the Fallen), Steven Erikson

            A Cavern of Black Ice (Sword of Shadows), J.V. Jones

2000:   Ash: A Secret History, Mary Gentle

            Perdido Street Station, China Miéville

2001:   Kushiel's Dart (Kushiel), Jacqueline Carey

            Cities of Saints and Madmen, Jeff VanderMeer

            The Magician's Guild (Black Magician), Trudi Canavan

            Across the Nightingale Floor (Otori), Lian Hearn

            The Curse of Chalion (War of the Five Gods), Lois McMaster Bujold
            American Gods, Neil Gaiman

2002:   The Scar, China Miéville

            Eragon (Inheritance), Christopher Paolini

2003:   The Etched City, K.J. Bishop

            The Weavers of Saramyr (Braided Path), Chris Wooding

            The Briar King (Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone), Greg Keyes

2004:   The Darkness That Comes Before (Prince of Nothing), R. Scott Bakker

            Night of Knives (Malazan Empire), Ian Cameron Esslemont

            The Year of Our War (Castle), Steph Swainston

            Banewreaker (Sundering), Jacqueline Carey

2005:   Elantris, Brandon Sanderson

2006:   The Blade Itself (First Law), Joe Abercrombie

            The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard), Scott Lynch

            His Majesty's Dragon (Temeraire), Naomi Novik

            Scar Night (Deepgate Codex), Alan Campbell

            A Shadow in Summer (Long Price), Daniel Abraham

            The Final Empire (Mistborn), Brandon Sanderson

2007:   The Name of the Wind (Kingkiller Chronicle), Patrick Rothfuss

            The Cardinal's Blades (Cardinal's Blades), Pierre Pevel

            Spirit Gate (Crossroads), Kate Elliott

            The Summoner (Necromancer), Gail Z. Martin

2008:   The Steel Remains (Land Fit For Heroes), Richard Morgan

            The Ten Thousand (Macht), Paul Kearney

            The Crown Conspiracy (Ririya Revelations), Michael J. Sullivan

            The Painted Man (Demon), Peter V. Brett

2009:   Pathfinder (roleplaying game), Paizo Publishing

            Nights of Villjamur (Legends of the Red Sun), Mark Charan Newton

            Retribution Falls (Tales of the Ketty Jay), Chris Wooding

2010:   God's War (Bel Dame Apocrypha), Kameron Hurley

            Under Heaven, Guy Gavriel Kay

            The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (Inheritance), N.K. Jemisin
            The Way of Kings (Stormlight Archive), Brandon Sanderson

2011:   Prince of Thorns (Broken Empire), Mark Lawrence

            The Dragon's Path (Dagger and the Coin), Daniel Abraham

            Tome of the Undergates (Aeons' Gate), Sam Sykes

2012:   The Killing Moon (Dreamblood), N.K. Jemisin

            Range of Ghosts (Eternal Sky), Elizabeth Bear

            Blood Song (Raven's Shadow), Anthony Ryan

            The Heir of Night (Wall of Night), Helen Lowe

2013:   Malice (Faithful and the Fallen), John Gwynne

            The Grim Company (Grim Company), Luke Scull

2014:   The Mirror Empire (Worldbreaker), Kameron Hurley

            Prince of Fools (Red Queen's War), Mark Lawrence

            The Emperor's Blades (Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne), Brian Staveley

            Promise of Blood (Powder Mage), Brian McClellan

2015:   The Fifth Season (Broken Earth), N.K. Jemisin

            The City Stained Red (Bring Down Heaven), Sam Sykes

A HISTORY OF EPIC FANTASY - The Book Version!

I've had quite a few people asking me if there will be a book version of the History of Epic Fantasy articles. I am pleased to say that yes, there will be. This will also not be just the blog articles collected into a .pdf to make a quick buck, but will be a thorough rewriting and re-editing of the entire series. The book version will also be larger and feature more content on authors, themes, series and ideas.

No, this still won't be the cover.

The book version will follow the blog format of looking at the history of the genre through mainly a chronological perspective, with some asides into thematic areas. There'll also be a look at other areas of fantasy and how that relates to the epic field. There'll be more space for more authors, so writers I had to leave out of the blog version for time reasons will get coverage, such as Peter V. Brett, L.E. Modesitt Jnr., Elizabeth Moon and so on.

The book version is being shopped around by my agent (Ian Drury at Sheil Land, just in case any publishers out there are interested) but if we get no interest from that quarter, I will certainly be self-publishing. The interest from readers and even quite a few fantasy authors in this project has certainly been high, and resulted in a massive explosion of hits (tens of thousands of them over the same period last year) for the blog, not to mention the fact that epic fantasy has never been bigger than now, so I'm confident there is commercial potential in the idea.

If anyone has any ideas for the book version, they will be gratefully received. I've had a suggestion that we could look at including more and maybe iconic artwork from fantasy covers and series. Unfortunately, the licensing fees for this would likely be prohibitive, but if a professional publisher picks up the book then it might be possible to do something alone those lines.

I've also had people requesting a science fiction version (although in that case a "History of Space Opera" might be the equivalent). This would certainly be fun, but there are already quite a few good such books out there. Although older, Trillion Year Spree by Brian Aldiss and David Wingrove is worth a look, as is the 1995 SF: The Illustrated Encyclopedia by John Clute, which arranges the history of SF into handy chronological charts, thematic essays and profiles of hundreds of prominent authors in the field. In fact, one of the inspirations for the History of Epic Fantasy series was the baffling lack of any such comparative material for the epic fantasy field, despite its much greater sales and popularity. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction is certainly a resource everyone should be using for SF, although that is not a linear, chronological look at the field.

I would also like to take this opportunity to extend my thanks to everyone who read and commented on the article series. Your feedback has been appreciated, and has inspired some of the changes that will go into the book version.

A History of Epic Fantasy - Contents & Link Guide

Here's a handy link list to all of the parts of the History of Epic Fantasy series.

Part 1: Pre-Modern Fantasy
Jonathan Swift, George Macdonald, William Morris, Frank L. Baum, E.R. Eddison & Robert E. Howard

Part 2: In a hole in a ground there live a hobbit...
J.R.R. Tolkien

Part 3: Dying Earths and Magic Wardrobes
C.S. Lewis, Fritz Leiber, Mervyn Peake, Jack Vance


Part 4: The Lord of the Rings
J.R.R. Tolkien

Part 5: The Influence of Middle-earth
Book lengths, worldbuilding, maps, language, peoples and themes.


Part 6: Fantasy in the 1960s and 1970s
Michael Moorcock, Ursula K. LeGuin, Anne McCaffrey, Andre Norton, Poul Anderson, Patricia McKillip, Roger Zelazny


Part 7: Let the dice decide
Gary Gygax, Dungeons and Dragons, roleplaying games


Part 8: The Birth of the Modern Genre
Lester and Judy-Lynn Del Rey, Terry Brooks, Stephen Donaldson


Part 9: The Second Wave
Gene Wolfe, David Eddings, Raymond E. Feist

 

Part 10: Funny Fantasy
Piers Anthony, Diana Wynne Jones, Terry Pratchett and Discworld

Part 11: Heroism and Cynicism
David Gemmell and Glen Cook

Part 12: Fantasy of Many Colours
Ursula K. LeGuin, Katherine Kurtz, Anne McCaffrey, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Janny Wurts, Mercedes Lackey, Melanie Rawn, Megan Lindholm

Part 13: Dragons and Drow
Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman, R.A. Salvatore

Part 14: The Arrival of the Mega-Epic
Tad Williams and Memory, Sorrow and Thorn

Part 15: Slipstream Fantasy
Stephen King, Patrick Tilley, Hugh Cook, David Gemmell, Shadowrun

Part 16: Fantasy, History and Mythology
Jack Vance, Guy Gavriel Kay, Garry Kilworth, Mary Gentle, Jacqueline Carey, Naomi Novik, Pierre Pevel,

Part 17: Spinning the Wheel
Robert Jordan and The Wheel of Time


Part 18: The Influence of the Dragon Reborn
Length, magic systems, gender roles, narrative expansion,

Part 19: Fantasy of the Nineties
Andrzej Sapkowski, Kate Elliott, Terry Goodkind, J.V. Jones, Paul Kearney

 

Part 20: The Game Begins
George R.R. Martin and A Song of Ice and Fire

Part 21: Ice and Fire
The influence of A Song of Ice and Fire

Part 22: Cash or kudos
Fantasy on film

Part 23: Small screen fantasy
Fantasy on television

Part 24: You have been eaten by a grue
Fantasy in video games

Part 25: Hogwarts Rising
J.K. Rowling

Part 26: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Fallen
Steven Erikson, Ian Cameron Esslemont and the Malazan Empire

Part 27: Assassins & Living Ships
Robin Hobb and The Realm of the Elderlings

Part 28: The New Weird
China Mieville, Steph Swainston, Jeff VanderMeer, Mark Charan Newton

Part 29: Dark Fantasy
Matt Stover, R. Scott Bakker, Jacqueline Carey

Part 30: Millennial Fantasy
Trudi Canavan, Chris Wooding, Joe Abercrombie, Scott Lynch, Patrick Rothfuss, Richard Morgan.

Part 31: The Universe as a Playground
Brandon Sanderson and the Cosmere

Part 32: The Mystery Man of Fantasy
K.J. Parker

Part 33: The Colour of Money
Economics in fantasy: Raymond E. Feist, George R.R. Martin, Steven Erikson, Terry Pratchett, Daniel Abraham.

Part 34: Modern Fantasy
Kameron Hurley, N.J. Jemisin, Mark Lawrence, Elizabeth Bear, Anthony Ryan.

A History of Epic Fantasy - Part 34

In 2015 epic fantasy is in the best health it's been for a long time. Game of Thrones is the most popular drama in the world, publishers are putting out more books and series than ever before and fantasy video games are shifting vast quantities. Even better, the genre is evolving and getting more original, casting aside the trappings of the past to explore ever more interesting ideas about people, magic and worlds.

God's War & The Mirror Empire

Few authors have arrived with such ferocity as Kameron Hurley. Her first novel, God's War (2010), is an SF-fantasy hybrid where technology is replaced by the use of magically-controlled, genetically-engineered bugs, who are manipulated and directed by wizards. Her world is gripped in a centuries-long war between two rival cultures both following radically different, differently-descended versions of Islam (one male-dominated, the other female). Cultural and gender issues are explored against the backdrop of an action-packed, well-realised story featuring Nyx, the most conflicted and amoral protagonist to be seen in many a year. Two sequels followed.

More traditional in its epic fantasy construction - if only nominally - is The Worldbreaker Saga, which commenced with The Mirror Empire (2014). This chronicles a fantasy world that is being invaded by forces from its own parallel universe, where invaders can only cross over if their counterpart in the other timeline is dead or never existed in the first place. Angry matriarchs do battle, armies clash and massive plant-monsters abound. It's a fantasy series that does things differently to the norm whilst also ensuring the more basic tropes of the genre are engaged with.

In between, Hurley has found time to write insightful and passionate essays on the nature of genre fiction. The most notable of these is the Hugh Award-winning "We Have Always Fought: Challenging the Women, Cattle and Slaves Narrative", which argues for a more nuanced and complex view of the role of women in history, and in genre fiction which apes it.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms & The Killing Moon

Nora Jemisin exploded onto the scene in 2010 with The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, a mind-bending story of floating cities, gods imprisoned to be used as weapons, and a young woman searching for her destiny. Original and thought-provoking, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and its two sequels in The Inheritance Trilogy (2010-11) are representative of a new breed of epic fantasy which is more bizarre, strange and original whilst also delivering fascinating characters and a well-described secondary world.

Jemisin's second published work (although written earlier), The Dreamblood duology (2012), is set in a fantasy kingdom heavily inspired by Ancient Egypt but which also steers clear of cliche: no pyramids or mummies here. The duology revolves around a form of magic that is drawn from people when they sleep, but when a contagion is relased that kills people as they sleep the sect known as the Gatherers must investigate. The result is a more traditional epic fantasy (if only relatively) than The Inheritance Trilogy but one that still riffs of different cultures and fuses elements of religion and war to a murder mystery investigation.

Jemisin's latest work is The Broken Earth Trilogy.

Prince of Thorns

Released in 2011, Prince of Thorns achieved almost immediate success. The UK publishers packaged free copies of the book alongside George R.R. Martin's A Dance with Dragons and canny use of social media was made to promote the novel. The book gained an unfair degree of notoriety when on early review criticised it for graphic sexual violence which simply does not exist in the novel, but it went on to become hugely successful.

The novel is set in a post-apocalyptic future where Europe has been partially drowned by rising sea levels. Magic exists, but is apparently a form of highly advanced technology. Computer AIs play a key role in the story. At a key point, a horrific magical weapon turns out to be nuclear device. This is the traditional "rationalised fantasy" story, where the magic is actually explained by science. But the setting takes a back seat compared to the thorough exploration of the main character, Jorg Ancrath.

Jorg is an unapologetically amoral murdering prince who holds no qualms about killing those who stand between him and his goals. He has a rough loyalty to his men and a highly idealised obsession with the woman he loves. As the initial Broken Empire trilogy (2011-13) progresses, Jorg seems to learn and grow, but not necessarily in the healthiest or most positive of ways. His politicking, ruthlessness and military acumen leads to success, of sorts. He is an easy character to despise, even if you admire his ingenuity. It's a difficult balancing act with Mark Lawrence pulls off with huge success.

His subsequent series, The Red Queen's War (2014-16), follows a Flashman-esque coward and fop who is thrust into the middle of epic events (some of them crossing over with the Broken Empire series) against his will. His next series, The Red Sister, will be set in a new world with a female protagonist.

Range of Ghosts

Elizabeth Bear published her first SF novel, Hammerhead, in 2005, after several years of writing acclaimed short fiction. She won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2005 and has gone to win many further awards, including three Hugos. She has written in multiple generes, including science fiction, cyberpunk and general fantasy, but her most notable work of epic fantasy is The Eternal Sky Trilogy (2012-14).

This trilogy is set in a world that echoes the Middle and Near East during the Middle Ages, revolving around the struggle for power and dominance in a Mongol-esque horde. At the same time, events are unfolding beyond the Khaganate's borders which gradually engulf multiple people from radically different cultures. As epic fantasy set-ups go, it's a fairly standard. However, the author uses excellent, original prose and vivid characters to create a story about different cultural groups learning to work together for a common goal. The setting, with a sky that shifts depending on the dominant socio-religious make-up of the land, is original and interesting despite its echoes from our own history.

Blood Song

One of the biggest shifts in writing in the 2010s has been the explosion of self-publishing. At the vanguard of this in genre fiction were SF author Hugh Howey (writer of the Silo series starting with Wool) and fantasy author Michael J. Sullivan, whose Ririya Revelations series, throwing back to an older, more traditional form of fantasy, was a major success.

The success of the Ririya series inspired the publishers, Orbit, to take another look at the self-publishing sphere. With collaborative websites where self-publishing writers could look for feedback and Amazon providing avenues for self-publishing to work, there was lots to choose from but one book stood out. Blood Song (2012) by Anthony Ryan is a fairly traditional epic fantasy, with a band of brother warriors, feuding empires, massive battles and so on, but it is notable for its above-average prose and rich characterisation. The perceived wisdom about self-publishing was that books that couldn't get a publishing deal were inevitably rubbish, badly-written or self-indulgent. Blood Song proved this was not the case, and along with its sequels in the Raven's Shadow series has been a huge success.


Other recent fantasy series of note include Helen Lowe's Wall of Night series, John Gwynne's Faithful and the Fallen quartet, Brian McCellan's Powder Mage series, Luke Scull's Grim Company, Sam Sykes's Aeon's Gate trilogy and Brian Staveley's Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne.

If the way epic fantasy writers release their series is changing, so is the way fantasy readers are consuming them. Forums and blogs drove a lot of readers to good new books in the 2000s, but this decade social media has come to the fore. Thriving communities on Facebook, Twitter and Reddit allow readers to find recommendations and pick up books, and the Goodreads site has been hugely successful in getting readers to compare their bookshelves and talk about their finds. Writers of all stripes need to engage with these resources to publicise their books and spread the word, and fantasy writers in particular seem to be very adept at this.

From the dawn of the modern genre of epic fantasy over a century ago to the current explosion of creativity, epic fantasy has always been a hugely popular but critically under-appreciated genre, despite the creativity and intelligence many writers have brought to it (others, who have just wanted to ape Tolkien or Martin, not so much). But today it feels like the genre has finally come of age, no longer shackled to just retelling the same story of farmboys and kings and wizards in a vaguely medieval world again and again. In print, in the cinema, on TV screens and in video games, the genre is being used to tell increasingly interesting and challenging stories. Long may this continue.

A History of Epic Fantasy - Part 33

They say money makes the world go round, or in the case of 2008, fly out of control, keel over and explode. But it's also kind of boring to talk about for any length of time. Economics and trade routes, as we learned from The Phantom Menace, does not make for a compelling drama.

That may not be entirely true, however. Economics is the driver of history, demanding technological progress and inspiring political change. War may be the crossroads of history, but often it results from economic demands: the need for more resources, more territory or more people.

Fantasy and economics at first sound like uneasy bedfellows: "You must journey to West of the Moon and East of the Sun, but be aware of the tollboth on the Starlight Bridge and make sure you exchange your currency before entering Fairyland, their banks have harsh rates." But epic fantasy, with its focus on worldbuilding, dabbles in the art of money more often than you would suppose.

Some authors are better at this than others. Some authors will have heroic adventurers fighting against the forces of evil but then at the end of the book the local plucky king will summon up an army of ten thousand men in five minutes. C.S. Lewis did not delve hugely into Narnia's socio-economic foundation. But other authors have looked into it in surprising detail.

The action of The Hobbit is driven by pride and honour and revenge and nationalism, but it's also driven by money. The dwarves of Erebor have been impoverished by the loss of the Lonely Mountain and its wealth, and it's partially to reclaim that wealth that Thorin's Company sets out on its quest. Later, when the mountain is retaken, the people of Laketown understandably request a (probably negligible) piece of the action after the dwarves inadvertently awaken Smaug and he destroys the city in response. Otherwise there's a good chance the Laketowners will starve. The Lord of the Rings takes this to new levels, with Gondor's military weakness (despite its substantial size and population) pointed out to be a result of incessant military adventuring with Umbar and the Haradrim and issues with the lack of decent trading partners as a result.

So economics can provide a character motivation - Conan and Cugel the Clever's adventures are inspired more by financial needs than heroism, or in the latter's case, sheer bad luck - but can also provide the background to the entire action of the book. Several recent fantasy sagas and novels have delved more into this area.

Rise of a Merchant Prince

Published in 1995, Rise of a Merchant Prince is the second novel in Raymond E. Feist's Serpentwar Saga. The primary storyline of this four-book series involves the sinister Emerald Queen raising an army on the distant continent of Novindus and, aided by magic, demons and mercenaries from another world, sailing it across the ocean to invade the Kingdom of the Isles. In the second book in the series a young man named Roo Avery becomes a financier, banker and provider of goods and services in the city of Krondor. The threat from across the sea recedes into the background, with the kingdom and city preparing for war, as Roo rises from obscurity to wealth and success, but finds it cannot bring him happiness.

These sequences are strongly influenced by the history of London and Amsterdam, particularly the explosion in their mercantile power in the late Renaissance, early pre-modern period. This period, covered in exception detail in Neal Stephenson's historical Baroque Cycle, saw the development of what Sir Isaac Newton called "The System of the World," the birth of the modern capitalist system, and the bewildering situation as kings and emperors and popes found that their word was no longer enough to get things done but the word of a banker could shift mountains. In Rise of a Merchant Prince the same transformation is taking place, and it's fascinating to see princes and generals having to argue with bankers about how to finance their massive armies and defensive walls and all that other good fantasy furniture.

Arguably, Rise of a Merchant Prince is Feist's last unambiguously "good" novel (even the very next one, Rage of a Demon King, sees Feist getting into structural issues, workmanlike prose and continuity errors that would blight the remainder of the Riftwar Cycle) and the last one he wrote that did something remarkably different. But it did show, unlike The Phantom Menace, that economics can make for a good fantasy novel.

A Dance with Dragons

A Song of Ice and Fire has done a lot of things, but one thing it hasn't really been credited for is focusing on the economic realities of medieval life. Medieval warfare was cripplingly expensive. Taking peasants out of the fields might give you a large army, but training and equipping them could be ruinous for all but the very richest lords. Throwing a massive tournament might be cool, but it might also throw you into crippling debt. And if your kingdom is threatened with invasion at short notice, you might need a politically inconvenient foreign loan to help you defeat it, at the cost of your economic independence for the next few decades.

One of the primary players in A Song of Ice and Fire, and arguably the most successful, is Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish. Unlike most of the characters in the series, Littlefinger is a self-made man. His birth on the smallest of the Fingers, a rocky and barren peninsula, was so low he might as well have been a peasant. His prospects would have been poor, but he made himself useful to Lord Arryn by taking control of the taxes in Gulltown and making the port turn a comfortable profit. As Master of Coin in King's Landing, he increased the crown's incomes tenfold (although King Robert Baratheon's expenditures went up by almost the same amount) through canny deals and tax ideas. His grasp of the political game is as assured as the economic one as well.

Almost as astute are the Iron Bank of Braavos, a formidable and utterly independent financial institution. Located behind the impregnable fleets of Braavos, the Iron Bank almost single-handedly brings down the rule of Queen Cersei Lannister when they call in their debts in the Seven Kingdoms overnight when she tries to delay payments, making them also more amenable to striking deals with the Night's Watch and the rival King Stannis Baratheon. What seems like a reasonable, short-term decision made smugly behind the walls of the Red Keep turns out to be a horrendously bad one on the global scale.

A similar issue of short-termism arises when Daenerys Targaryen conquers the city-states of Slaver's Bay and ends the practice of slavery. A laudable, humane decision. However, Daenerys struggles to find something viable to replace it. The former slaves are now paupers living on the streets, the former slave-owners hate her and the economic system of most of the known world has been disrupted, leading to distant nations who've never heard of Daenerys sending ships and armies against her. In reality, slavery and serfdom were phased out in Europa and America over the course of more than a century, as economic realities shifted and allowed much greater expenditure on labour. Trying to do it overnight in a bloody revolution sounds cool, but it throws the system of Essos's world out of balance with nothing to correct it. Ironically, many of the slaves end up living far worse-off lives after Dany's arrival than before.

Midnight Tides

The fifth volume of Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen introduces the Empire of Lether, a mercantile superpower dominating its continent. Lether is a capitalist nation, believing in the free market but under a strong central government that can field impressive armies due to effective taxation. Lether is a nod at traditional Western notions of capitalism, accompanied by witty commentary on the notion's crazier aspects from the characters of Tehol and Bugg. When the Crippled God empowers the Tiste Edur tribes of the north to invade the Letherii Empire with an unstoppable new force of sorcery, the Letherii are unable to hold them back since they can't buy them off. Later books indicate that the greed and venality of Letherii culture has started to corrupt their conquerors, and it's only when the cynical Tehol takes control of the empire and begins reshaping it to his whims that it appears that the Empire's self-destructive ways may change.

Steven Erikson does satire very well throughout the Malazan novels, but Midnight Tides (2004) is the one that arguably hits the hardest. The target - American-style Darwinian capitalism - is an easy one but Erikson still makes some excellent points about economic imperialism.

Making Money

Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels tackle many features of modern life through a satirical fantasy lens, so it's unsurprising that economics come up a lot. It can be seen in Small Gods ("Thou shalt not submit thy god to market forces!") but it forms a running thead through the Moist von Lipwig story. In this sequence - Going Postal (2004), Making Money (2007) and Raising Steam (2013) - the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork decides to recruit a former con artist to help him transform the city from a post-medieval slum into a modern powerhouse. He does this by placing Lipwig in charge of first the postal service, then the banks and then the new rail service linking Ankh-Morpork to more distant cities. In each case, Lipwig's natural charm and wit allow him to succeed in furthering his own fortunes and that of the city. A future novel may have put Lipwig in charge of the city's tax services, but Pratchett's sad passing in 2015 prevented this from being explored further.

A Shadow in Summer & The Dragon's Path

Fantasy author Daniel Abraham exploded onto the scene with his Long Price Quartet (2006-09), set in an unusual fantasy world where magic - and thus power - is based around the control of the andats, spirits bound to the control of sorcerers - poets - but who hold tremendous power. The books examine the social, political and economic consequences of the Khaiem city-states holding such power over other nations, such as the empire of Galt, and the ramifications of what happens when a way of neutralising the andat is discovered. The Long Price Quartet is arguably the finest epic fantasy series of the last ten years, with its focus on character, morality and tragedy, and is helped by the depth with which the premise is explored.

Abraham has since gone on to greater success as part of the writing team known as James S.A. Corey, he is co-creator of the Expanse science fiction series and its ongoing TV adaptation. He has also been writing his own solo epic fantasy series, The Dagger and the Coin (2011-16), commencing with The Dragon's Path. This five-volume series is much more driven by its examination of economics, banking and finance. One of the main characters is a banker working in an institution based on the Medici bank, whose financial acumen is as critical (if not more so) than the military power wielded by the great nations. However, even this power is challenged by the rise of a disturbing religion and its increasing stranglehold on one of the great empires of the continent.


Other fantasy authors have delved into matters financial, such as Scott Lynch's excellent The Lies of Locke Lamora and K.J. Parker's superb The Folding Knife. Patrick Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicles novels feature lengthy - and some may argue too lengthy - sequences deling with student financies in a magical institution. Brandon Sanderson's novels usually nod at the economic underpinning behind each of his worlds (although so far a magic system based on money hasn't quite materialised, although coins are used as weapons by some of the Mistborn characters). It just goes to show that a good fantasy author can make even the most mundane facet of ordinary life work in a fantasy context.


Our story is nearly complete. We have travelled from before the 20th Century into the early 21st, and looked at the rise of the genre and its explosion into being the most popular genre of the modern age. All that is left to do is bring the story up to date.

A History of Epic Fantasy - Part 32

In 1998 Orbit Books in the UK published the debut novel by a new author: Colours in the Steel. The first volume of The Fencer Trilogy, it was very well-received. However, the author, K.J. Parker, declined to tour or do any public appearances for the book. Interviews were conducted only online by email.

As the years passed, Parker's output became ever more critically-acclaimed. Orbit began publishing the novels in the United States to growing sales and critical acclaim, whilst the small Subterranean Press began publishing acclaimed editions of Parker's novellas and short stories. This culminated with back-to-back World Fantasy Award wins in 2012 and 2013 for the novellas A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong and Let Maps to Others. The mystery of "Who is K.J. Parker?" went from a minor meme to a major fantasy mystery, with bloggers posting detailed guesses of who the author might be.

Finally, in 2015, the author came clean. K.J. Parker was really Tom Holt, a bestselling British comic author. It had actually been a popular guess for a few years that Parker and Holt were the same person, so it wasn't a major surprise.

Tom Holt (born 1961) published his first novel, Expecting Someone Taller, in 1987. The novel was about Malcolm Fisher, an auction clerk, who inadvertently kills the giant Ingolf (in the form of a badger), keeper of the Ring of Nibelung and the Tarnhelm. Coming into possession of these items, Fisher becomes King of the World, to the irritation of Wotan (Odin), King of the Gods. The result is a comical farce involving Norse gods, valkyries and Rhinemaidens.

Holt published fourteen novels and a satirical autobiography of Margaret Thatcher over the next eleven years, but always had a hankering to write something more serious. In 1989 and 1990 he published two novellas, Goatsong and The Walled Orchard, under the cunning and impenetrable pseudonym of Thomas Holt. In 1997 these were combined into a novel, The Walled Orchard, which was well-received. The book focuses on the real (if highly enigmatic) Eupolis of Athens, a playwright who is living in incredibly dark times (the Peloponnesian War of the late 5th Century BC) and can only get through them by writing comedies and using humour to try to deflect the misery of the period. The book also focuses on politics, love and the absurdities of war.

The book was well-received, but it was noted that it was very different from Holt's other work. So Orbit hit on the idea of launching Holt as a "new" author under a slightly more original pen-name, K.J. Parker.

Colours in the Steel

The Fencer Trilogy is the story of Bardas Loredan, fencer-at-law. In the first novel (1998) he is serving as a lawyer in the triple-walled city of Perimadeia, where the advocates fight with swords rather than words and arguments. A particularly tricky case is complicated when the "savages" of the plains somehow develop siege weapon technology (they just come into the city and work in the armoury for a bit and steal all of the ideas) and besiege the city. Bardas is drafted to help with the defence, to his despair.

The result is a war novel combining the grit of Gemmell, the humour of, er, Holt and a rich and fascinating eye for technical detail. The trilogy takes for its theme the idea of certain weapons and facets of war, and for the first book this is very much about swords and siege weapons. There is a lot of detail about how swords are forged and how trebuchets are made and operated. This isn't just medieval war porn, it's crucially important for the plot and the characters as well.

The Belly of the Bow (1999) focuses again on Bardas, this time returning to his home island to find his dysfunctional family (this is a major, major understatement) embroiled in a local civil war. This book is about longbows and shortbows and focuses on the idea that a bow is a supreme weapon because it can bend and flex...right up to the point where it snaps. The novel climaxes with a moment where Bardas snaps (in a moment that out-Red Weddings the Red Wedding before the Red Wedding ever appeared in print) and the reader is forced to confront the possibility that they've just spent two novels rooting for a guy who is a complete psychopath. As a moment of character reversal and revelation, it is supremely well-handled, and arguably marked the point where the name "K.J. Parker" went from "just another fantasy author" to "something special." This process continued in the third volume, The Proof House (2000), based around the forging of armour, in which our battered protagonist tries to find a new home in a vast, rapidly expanding empire. The trilogy as a whole is fantastically characterised and is heroic without aggrandisement, cynical without despair and realistic without bitterness.

Following the Fencer Trilogy, Parker followed up with the Scavenger (2001-03) and Engineer trilogies (2005-07). The former is about a man who wakes up with amnesia and has to survive whilst being pursued by enemies he doesn't know for deeds he cannot remember. The latter focuses on an engineer in exile who plots a complicated revenge on those who wronged him.

After that work Holt switched to writing stand-alones. The Company (2008), The Hammer (2011), Sharps (2012), Savages (2015) and The Two of Swords (2015), the latter published as a serial, all showcase Holt's wit, keen observation of character and event. However, it was his 2009 novel The Folding Knife that arguably encapsulates his work the best.

The Folding Knife

The Folding Knife is set in the Vesani Republic, the closest analogue to Republican Roman in Holt's world (all of his books take place in the same world, but at wildly varying points in its history with different levels of technology and different borders and absolutely no maps). The book follows the story of Basso, First Citizen of the Republic, who achieves his position thanks to his supreme skills of diplomacy, economics and politics. However, his inability to create a happy home life and his inability to mend a long-simmering feud with his sister both distract him. As his career progresses, so does his arrogance and overconfidence, resulting in disaster.

On the one hand this is a pretty straightforward novel about hubris. But on a deeper level it's an exploration of family, of responsibility and how not having to see violence or conflict first-hand makes it easier to start wars and send people off to die when you don't have to live with the consequences. It's also a book about economics, and Basso's ability to keep borrowing long past the Republic's ability to pay through creative accounting makes one suspect that this novel is also riffing off the 2008 global financial crisis, which would be a rather different source of inspiration for a fantasy novel.

It's the most contained and representative of the Parker books and makes a fine place for a reader new to this author to start.


Holt is one of a small number of authors who asks an important question about epic fantasy, a genre that likes to steep itself in realism when it comes to determining how many miles an army can cover in a day (less so about how a 30-ton reptile can stay in the air without adequate life-generating wings): how the hell does anyone pay for these massive mile-wide castles, vast numbers of troops and hire expensive mages with unique (and therefore expensive) powers?

A History of Epic Fantasy - Part 31

In 2005 Tor Books released Elantris, the debut novel by 29-year-old Brandon Sanderson. Although it had a reasonable amount of coverage for a debut novel, it wasn't heralded as the "next big thing", just a solid opening volume from a new writer. That changed the next year when Sanderson released The Final Empire, the debut volume in the Mistborn trilogy. That really changed a year later when Sanderson was announced as the author who would be completing Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time sequence after Jordan's sad death from cardiac amyloidosis.

Since 2005 Sanderson has published nineteen novels,  co-written (from Robert Jordan's notes) the final three Wheel of Time novels and also published ten novellas. He blogs and podcasts frequently, attends conventions and juggles multiple series and projects, as well as playing a lot of the Magic: The Gathering card game. His prolific output and relaxed and friendly interactions with fans have earned him a tremendous fan following. His solo novels have now sold over six million copies, with the Wheel of Time books adding another twelve million (at least) on top of that.

Sanderson core work is The Cosmere, which is the setting for almost all of his adult, original fantasy fiction. To date, this comprises the Mistborn books, Elantris, The Emperor's Soul, Warbreaker and The Stormlight Archive series, as well as the forthcoming White Sand graphic novels and Dragonsteel series (amongst others). According to Sanderson, the Cosmere is a compact dwarf galaxy which is home to a number of worlds inhabited by humans, who in this universe originated from a planet called Yolen. At some point in the past they migrated to other worlds (or were possibly recreated on other worlds) and were then cut off by the shattering of a being/entity/force called Adonalsium into sixteen "shards" of immense power. Those who came into possession of the shards each became a being of immense power, effectively gods, but they also became consumed by the nature of each shard, for good or ill. Each shard has a different form of magic or power related to it, in some cases wildly varying in capabilities.

Sanderson kept this "hidden background" was kept a mystery for his first few books. It wasn't until eagle-eyed fans spotted a mysterious character called "Hoid" appearing in apparently completely unrelated books that they began to piece together a much bigger picture. According to Sanderson, Hoid is one of a handful of individuals who can walk between the worlds using magic. He arrives on each world at a period of crisis, observes events, and then moves on. In some cases he is a background observer, almost impossible to spot. In others, such as the first two Stormlight books, he is  much bigger and more proactive character. Although this hidden background will rise to the fore and become more important in future books, it remains a relatively low-key (and, for some fans, still invisible) part of Sanderson's appeal.

Mistborn

Sanderson's most well-known set of books is the Mistborn series. This opens with an initial trilogy: The Final Empire (2006), The Well of Ascension (2007) and The Hero of Ages (2008) before jumping forward several hundred years for a quartet consisting of The Alloy of Law (2011), Shadows of Self (2015), Bands of Mourning (2016) and The Lost Metal (forthcoming). Two additional trilogies are also planned.

The Mistborn novels take place on Scadrial, a planet that is choking under cloud cover produced by incessant volcanic eruptions. The people of the Empire are kept under the tight control of the immortal Lord Ruler, who is opposed by a band of rebels. Eventually these rebels gain a major victory, but in doing so inadvertently unleash a much greater threat. The initial trilogy deals with these events and introduces the setting's magic system which is based around the ingestion of different types of metal to produce sorcerous effects. This initial trilogy is standard medieval fantasy, but in a post-apocalyptic world. The follow-up novels, which were not originally planned but organically grew out of an idle project Sanderson began to kill some time, are set 300 years later when the setting has moved on and is now more reminiscent of the American Old West. The second trilogy is planned to take place in a more contemporary-like world, with skyscrapers, TVs and electricity, whilst the final trilogy will be more futuristic and will use magic and technology to achieve FTL space travel.

The Mistborn novels have fast-moving action, some well-drawn characters and some intriguing ideas, but the core draw is the worldbuilding. This challenges the notion many fantasies have of being stuck in stasis where nothing ever changes, or change very slowly, or where magic stymies scientific progress. Sanderson, like Jordan before him, suggests otherwise and that magic itself will become part of the scientific method in such a setting, losing its supernatural overtones as it becomes understood as a natural process of the world.

The Stormlight Archive

The Stormlight Archive is Sanderson's latest major magnum opus, planned to consist of two tightly-connected five-volume series. The books published to date are The Way of Kings (2010) and Words of Radiance (2014). The third book, Oathbringer, is expected in early 2017. This series, like Mistborn, is set on a world with a specific geographical feature, in this case massive highstorms that sweep across the planet from east to west. Both the human inhabitants and the wildlife have adapted to deal with these immense storms, but their nature and origin are unclear. There is a bit more of a thematic element as well, focusing on caste systems, slavery and ethnic divisions which are forcing the peoples of Roshar to work against one another rather than the gathering true threat.

This is a much bigger series than Mistborn, with each novel expected to weight in at a massive 400,000 words or so. There are multiple magic systems drawn from multiple sources, the geographic spread of the story is much vaster (an entire supercontinent, generated from a Julia fractal set) and there are many more characters and cultures involved. The novels both have a main storyline and "interludes", self-contained short stories and vignettes establishing settings, characters and ideas that will not be further explored until much later in the series.

The Stormlight Archive has been heralded as the heir to The Wheel of Time in terms of its size, scope and epic reach, and it looks set to replicate that success with its huge sales as well.

Sanderson has written books beyond these, including a superhero trilogy, the YA Alcatraz series and more, but it's The Cosmere mega-series (already being called The Dark Tower of epic fantasy), which will eventually encapsulate more than forty novels, that will be his most famous achievement. He writes fast-paced action stories with a maturing and increasingly satisfying prose style and some vivid characters, all set against a vast, cosmic backdrop which is stunning in scope.


Sanderson is one of the best-known authors to emerge from the 2000s, but there is another author who started writing in the 1980s and publishing in the 1990s, but it was only in the 2000s that they achieved a breakthrough in the United States, won a series of awards and gained a fervent and passionate fanbase...without anyone knowing who they were.