Fantasy Rules the World

Stan Nicholls assess the current state of the SF and fantasy markets.

If you want to enrage a hardcore SF fan, tell them science fiction is just a branch of fantasy. I know. I was that fan.

Before taking up full-time writing nearly 20 years ago, I was paying for some dreadful sin in a previous life by earning my living as a bookseller. Specifically, a science fiction bookseller, and SF was king in those days. Fantasy didn't really exist as the distinct literary genre we now recognise until the mid to late '70s. On current estimates, it now represents about 14% of the UK book market, and an even higher proportion in the US. By comparison, the sales of science fiction seem to be lagging. Why?

To some extent, the answer is that all fiction categories are cyclical and subject to the ebb and flow of fashion. The present parlous state of horror fiction is a good example. Abundant in the '80s--some might say grossly over-published--at the moment the bulk of it is dependent on small presses and the Internet. In time it will probably revive. Other genres suffer terminal decline--look at Westerns.

But there are indications that a fundamental change lies behind fantasy outselling science fiction. The two forms appear to be swapping roles.

Science fiction was always the supreme literature of ideas. It could be innovative, caustic, inspiring. Often it was downright subversive, if only because it's easier to advance radical views in a field with minimal literary respectability. SF has had a lot to tell us about our present condition, albeit dressed as far-flung futures or alternate worlds. It still does, but to a much lesser degree. The torch is passing to fantasy.

This is largely because fantasy has reached a level of maturity where it can plausibly incorporate topics relating to the real world, and do it with the kind of gusto that used to be the exclusive province of SF. In my own small way I was able to utilise this mellowing in my Orcs: First Blood trilogy. Principally action-driven fantasy adventures, the books also touch on such issues as religion, nationalism, racism and the nature of violence. They indulge in a little deflationary ribbing directed at the conventions of the genre itself, although benignly I hope. I make no claims about how well this is done. The point is that fantasy has reached a point where it can be done at all.

There's a theory, articulated best by American author David Eddings, that SF is most popular in economically prosperous times, while fantasy comes into its own during fiscal depressions. The implication is that SF is optimistic and outward looking, while fantasy is more insular and based on the old moralities; the famous "comfort factor". Given the relative affluence of the industrialised nations at this time, the theory looks redundant. But maybe Eddings was on to something. Perhaps it isn't an economic argument any longer but, for want of a better word, a spiritual one. In an increasingly complex, materialistic culture, it's not hard to see the appeal of a form that offers a kind of certainty in its handling of fundamental themes, such as good versus evil. And this still applies to a great deal of fantasy, even as it stumbles into its adulthood.

Rationalists might say that the popularity of fantasy over SF is an expression of an anti-science, anti-progressive New Age millennialism to be tutted about. Speaking as a rationalist myself, and someone who applauds the benefits science has brought, I disagree. You don't have to be a Luddite to feel uneasy about some of the uses science is being put to. Or to want to escape occasionally into landscapes of pure imagination that don't necessarily depend on conventional logic.

It could be that one of the factors that soured SF writing was the movies and TV. The original Star Wars trilogy was wonderfully entertaining and visually stunning, but it was based on pulp SF that didn't reflect the state of the literature even then. Star Wars took the superficialities and left out the really profound ideas. Star Trek was the same. They fostered an arguably shallow image of SF that's had a knock-on effect in the literature.

The prospect of The Lord of the Rings film, due for release Christmas 2001, consequently fills Tolkien enthusiasts with a mixture of anticipation and dread. No one doubts it will be technically accomplished. But will its adaptation of a 50-year-old book sequence, marvellous as the originals are, do anything to further the cause of contemporary fantasy? And if they present us with another Phantom Menace , in other words blow it, the result could be a downgrading of the literature in the eyes of potential readers. Modern fantasy, the latest incarnation of storytelling's most enduring form, has so much more going for it than thud and blunder.

Right now, science fiction isn't the broad church it used to be. Fantasy comfortably embraces talents as diverse as Terry Pratchett, Raymond Feist, JK Rowling, Terry Brooks, David Gemmell, Storm Constantine, Robert Jordan, Tad Williams, Robert Holdstock, Freda Warrington ... any number of names from a long list that readily comes to mind. Sci-fi's present tragedy is that, some notable practitioners aside, it presents no such immediately recognisable rota.

Don't misunderstand me--I cut my teeth on science fiction and continue to adore and devour it. I persist in occasionally writing it. I've no doubt it will be in the ascendancy again. But meantime I think it might not be a bad thing that it's withdrawn to lick its wounds and figure out a new direction. That gives fantasy a chance to emerge from SF's shadow where it's languished for too long as a bastardised sub-genre. Both will be stronger for it.

What we need now is a little less disdain from the literary establishment, and an acknowledgment that both genres have as much to give as anything in the so called mainstream. Even if one of them is a branch of fantasy.