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I'm Gabrielle Mathieu. I'm the host of the New books Network Fantasy and Adventure
Channel and I'm a fantasy writer myself. I'm here today to talk about
book memes in fantasy novels and this one's about-well I can't say it because
I would be breaking a copyright rule but it's a famous song by REM and it's about
the... Okay don't sue me. I'm wearing black because this is about how a lot of
novels build up to climaxes where evil is about to take over the
world, and not just this world, the entire worlds, the galaxies, the universe, the maw
of evil is gaping ,swallowing everything down, and my question is why? I mean
originally that worked really well with the Lord of the Rings where Sauron the
black mage is coming back and he's returned.
He's evil. He wants to get rid of everyone for whatever reasons that evil
creatures want to do that well, that was was a long time ago
gee about 80 years ago, when the concept came up and it worked. It worked in the
movie even though Sauron, the depiction, did look like, well you know, I can't,
don't want to say it on the Internet but it looked kind of vulgar but basically
we got that. But now it's just become a meme like Hollywood blockbuster novels
and behind me I have three books I did enjoy them all so I am NOT here to trash
these books. There is "Prey of the Gods" by Nicky Draydon, which I could best describe
as for a few choices a mashup it's brilliantly bizarre
We've got "Poison City" which is coincidentally also set in Africa like
"Prey of the Gods" It's urban fantasy and horror by
author Paul Crilley. He was not on a New Books Network show but Nicky was.
Then there's something I read a couple of years ago by the famous Laini Taylor.It's YA
fantasy, Gods and Monsters. I'm sure most if you're familiar with that. Like I
said, I enjoyed all these books for various reasons, but I think with all of
them I had a little bit of a letdown when the stakes got higher because what
I enjoyed was the individualistic aspects of each book. Prey of the Gods
is definitely not YA; it begins with a discussion of an impending circumcision
which is actually pretty funny and there is also the attraction between two young
guys that's described well. I liked all the unique elements of the story but
then when it came to the big build-up, the explicit climax , huge robots
strolling around .You know I don't even remember the particulars but I can read
an excerpt here where one person is saying "You can stay here and hide if you want
but I'm going on. We're talking about the end of the world as we know it. I'm no
hero. And at that point I was just like hmm, okay where are we gonna go from here,
now we're going to the land of the dead. Everyone has their own land of the
dead, but it just seemed like a Hollywood movie that's getting bigger and bigger,
heading to that explosive climax and in that sense it became a little more
predictable. As well with Poison City. It was very funny in its own way and I
was really taken up with the tale of the hard drinking detective and his
alcoholic dog. Yeah he has a talking dog, a spirit dog, but you know at a certain
point it was getting quite suspenseful, and then our hero or antihero
detective, he finds himself in up pulsating, I think the word is
coruscating, mass of flesh with pus-filled carbuncles and it all gets
very heavy and very evil and all the sins of the world are coming together and
mankind is about to be eradicated, and at that point again I felt like we kind of
lost the lightness and the uniqueness of the novel. Where, in a way, the scarier it
was supposed to be the less scary it was somehow. Of Gods and Monsters
I remember reading that and found the first book really entrancing and then
second and third book, it's been a while but when we're getting into a lot of
those fights against good and evil again, I was a little more bored and I think
the reason that's happening is probably because of low fantasy, which George RR
Martin is the best example of, but there are many other writers in the genre and
they're not all so horrific with the flaying and the maggots and the *** nuns
which is pretty heavy. In low fantasy there are magical elements but it's no
longer so black and white. It's not about one band facing the the horror out there,
at ultimate horror, and these people alone are responsible for the fate of
the known universe, every last worm under every rock, every
far-flung gas faced, gas-based, is what I meant to say, life form off of Saturn
everything depends on this one person to save the world and otherwise there is
going to be horrific deaths and the void will swallow everyone. Well if the void
swallows everyone where did everyone go and how can a void be a void if there is
no longer matter to compare it to, I managed to do
that when I was writing my Berona series which is coming out soon. Berona's Quest
series. Shameless plug, by the way, here's my first series: the Falcon Flies Alone
and the other Falcon books. They're on Amazon. Anyway, when I was writing that the
first time I wrote it, when I was like, 16, that's just a really long time ago, you
know I also had the abyss, the pit swallowing up everyone, one young girl faces down
the darkness all alone with her band of merry friends, so okay she's not quite
all alone but only she has the key to mankind
survival and now that I've rewritten it about 20 times I am so past that so
that's my discussion today about common memes in fantasy and I'd like to hear
from you guys. Do you guys enjoy that kind of build up to a climactic battle
between good and evil, or is it not so much your thing any longer and if you do
like it what's an example of the book that you think did it really really well
the questionnaire appears at the end we'll talk to you next time bye