Sixth grade was not fun for me.
We had moved from a middle class suburb outside of Cleveland to a small university town in Virginia about a year before. The Cuyahoga River had recently caught on fire and Lake Erie had been declared a “dead lake” by environmentalists, so my parents decided it was time to move to a quiet little town in the country. All they knew of the South was Andy of Mayberry, so I’m sure they had visions of quirky little shops, neighborly talks across the back fence, and a nice, peaceful place to raise their daughter. Our new home had all of that. Unfortunately for us, all of the above applied only to the townies, not the outsiders who worked at the school.
My parents had made a huge mistake, and looking back I think they realized it almost as soon as the moving van pulled up and disgorged our possessions. Our accent was wrong. I didn’t say “yes ma’am” and “no ma’am” every time an adult woman addressed me. Mum had the audacity to give instructions to the workman building a new townhouse for us instead of letting Dad do all the talking. We had a Cairn terrier instead of a coonhound. We didn’t go to the right church (or any church, after my parents toured the available choices and were horrified by the emotionalism and insistent questions about being saved). And I, unlike the good little girls who’d lived there all their lives, raised my hand in class and expected to be called on, and I refused to let the boys get off the school bus first.
Fifth grade had been a horror show; the curriculum was at least ten years out of date, the teacher hated me on sight, and chronically infected tonsils kept me out of school for over a month. Add in that I was a mouthy little Northerner who read a lot and wore glasses, and you can see why I was soon the class pariah. Things got a bit better in sixth grade thanks to a nice young Language Arts teacher named Mr. Kenney, but it still was rough.
Then one day during a free period I picked up my Language Arts textbook and opened it to the most wonderful story I’d ever read. It was called “Riddles in the Dark.”
Yes. That “Riddles in the Dark.”
For some reason I still don’t understand, my crappy little school in a backwater little town had bought sixth grade Language Arts textbooks that included a chapter from The Hobbit. I ripped through it, enthralled by the story of Bilbo Baggins outwitting Gollum. I’m not sure I would have known, or cared, if a bomb had gone off directly over my head. I was in that story in a way that I’ve been in maybe five stories in my entire life, and when it ended with Bilbo dashing out of the mountain toward yet more adventure, I nearly went crazy. And the second Mr. Kenney took us to the library for our scheduled afternoon session, I ran straight to the fiction shelves, snatched up The Hobbit, and clutched it to my scrawny little eleven year old chest as if my very existence depended on it.
Thus began my love affair with heroic fantasy. I read The Hobbit that weekend, and then checked out The Lord of the Rings the next week and read the entire thing over Thanksgiving. Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain soon followed (I still get the shivers reading about Math son of Mathonwy’s heartbreaking last stand against the Cauldron Born), followed by so many others over the years. I’ve been to Narnia and Earthsea and Lyonya and Skala and Lankhmar and Damar and Gondor, adventured with Will and Paksenarrion and Kelson and Aerin and Hari and Tamir and Arha and Frodo and Taran. I’ve seen wonders that have expanded my mind and stimulated my imagination, and I’ve worn out so many copies of my favorites that beloved fantasies were among the very first e-books I loaded onto my Nook last year.
And for those who think that fantasy is escapism, I say pfui. Maybe Frodo is a little guy with furry feet who has to throw a piece of jewelry into a volcano, but what is more human than his battle to keep his sanity and his soul while dueling with utter evil? And is there a more compelling martyrdom than Paksenarrion, Paladin of Gird, willingly offering herself to a cult that worships a god of torture so the prophesied king can escape? Or a more joyous reclamation of self than Arha remembering that she is Tehanu, or a more painful transformation than Prince Tobin allowing himself to be burned away to reveal Queen Tamir, come to restore balance to her battered realm? Heroic fantasy may not seem to be about our world, but it most certainly is about us.
That doesn't mean that it's all good - far from it. For every tale of wonders and heroism and sacrifice, there are a dozen mediocre quest trilogies about an ill assorted band of companions seeking the Dingus of Ultimate Doom. Almost as disappointing are stories that are clearly based on a roleplaying campaign; that fellow Kossack RA Salvatore has managed to write compelling stories based on Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson’s world is all but miraculous considering how bad most game-based fantasy is.
Even worse are the fantasies that should be good but aren't, either because of bad plotting, poor writing, or a nasty underlying worldview. Instead of Lankhmar or Atuan or Damar, the unwary reader can end up smack in the middle of a place as thrilling and romantic as Oil City, Pennsylvania, with characters about as exciting and noble as the bored high school student who forgot to tell you to retract the antenna before sending your brand new hybrid SUV into the bowels of Sparkle Car Wash.
In short, the pretty cover with the sword-wielding mage may be a great read, or it may be mediocre trash. Or it just might be yet another one of the Books So Bad They're Good.
Herewith follow three prime examples of wretched heroic fantasy. All are surprisingly popular, and all three authors have hit the bestseller lists and gone on to long and profitable careers. But all of them, for reasons that will become clear, lack that certain something that distinguishes good from bad.
The Sword of Shannara, by Terry Brooks – At first glance, Terry Brooks’ debut novel should have been glorious. Long-time SF editors Lester and Judy-Lynn Del Rey chose it as the first book for their new publishing house, and they pulled out all the stops: gorgeous color cover and interior illustrations by popular illustrators Greg and Tim Hildebrandt; a big publicity push that landed it on the New York Times bestseller list for five full months; an initial run as a quality trade paperback that preserved the detail of the wonderful art. The plot had it all, too, as Shea and his companions set off on a quest to battle evil and save their land: battle scenes, self-sacrifice, interesting non-human races, even a wizard.
It’s too bad that the heroic plot, fascinating lands, and noble characters bore a suspicious and unmistakable resemblance to their originals analogues in The Lord of the Rings.
Terry Brooks reportedly wrote The Sword of Shannara in law school. Perhaps he specialized in corporate law instead of intellectual property rights, or maybe he was so busy studying to pass the bar that he didn't realize what he was doing. Regardless, the similarities to Tollkien are so blatant that most critics slammed the book as Tolkien lite, while readers hungry for more Middle-Earth bought it, started reading, and soon were either laughing hysterically or screaming in rage.
Even worse were the character names. “Shea Ohmsford” sounds like a backup singer for Peter Frampton (and looked like one, if the illustrations were any guide). “Allanon” is way too close to “Al-Anon” for comfort. Perhaps the silliest is Shirl Ravenlock, one of two prominent female characters, who, despite her name, is a redhead.
That’s right. A woman named “Ravenlock” with red hair. Is it any wonder this masterpiece went down in fannish history as “The Sword of Sha-na-na”?
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson. 1977 was a big year for heroic fantasy. Not only did The Sword of Shannara come out to high sales and critical brickbats, JRR Tolkien’s epic The Silmarillion was published at last, four years after Tolkien’s death, to even higher sales and (mostly) critical acclaim.
This was also the year that Stephen R. Donaldson inflicted Thomas Covenant on an unsuspecting world.
For those who don’t know him, Thomas Covenant is the anti-hero of Donald’s epic trilogy The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever; his epic trilogy The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant; and his epic tetralogy in progress, The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Covenant is a writer who is regularly whisked into the Land, a fantasy world packed with Giants, fell creatures, extraordinary landscapes, heroes, villains, and the hideous Lord Foul the Despiser. Although the Land, like most heroic fantasy, bears the stamp of Tolkien, the creatures, plot, characters, and races are clearly Donaldson’s own.
Unfortunately, Covenant himself, the center of all these wonders, is a whiny, self-centered jerk. He complains about being a leper, complains that he doesn’t understand the Land, whines that he thinks he’s dreaming, repays a family’s hospitality by raping their teenage daughter, is nasty to his ex-wife and his lover, and is so full of self-loathing and misanthropy that the reader wonders why he’s lived long enough to have adventures instead of shoving his head into the nearest oven. One critic remarked with awe that Covenant’s thirty-plus year run of bitching, moaning, complaining and being an all-around ass has to set some record in speculative fiction.
If that weren’t bad enough, the first few books seem to have been written with the aid of a comprehensive thesaurus. Nothing sparkles when it can coruscate. Fire erupts in gouts (often coruscating). “Clench” is used so often, in so many contexts, that one reader proposed that it be the key word in a Thomas Covenant drinking game. Later books in the series are less overwrought, but Donaldson still slings synonyms around like no one’s business, usually while the characters are clenching something.
Worst of all, Donaldson gives Thomas Covenant special powers due to his white gold wedding ring…even though white gold is nothing more than an alloy of regular yellow gold and nickel. Enough readers commented on this that Donaldson eventually came up with an explanation for white gold being so powerful in the Land, but I’ve always wondered if at least part of the reason white gold was special was because White Gold Wielder sounded so much cooler than Nickel Alloy Wielder as the title of the last book in the second trilogy.
Sword of Truth series, by Terry Goodkind. A few weeks ago a macro of an ostrich wearing glasses and making snide remarks about bad books made its way about the Internet. The macro could, of course, be customized to suit one’s literary preferences, but a great favorite was one that slammed a fantasy writer named Terry Goodkind. Since I’d heard only vague rumors about Goodkind and his work, I decided to do a little investigating to see if the ostrich was right. I found a copy of one of Goodkind’s Sword of Truth books in the “unsold” boxes at my church book sale, looked up the basic story on-line so I'd have an idea of what was going on, and started to read.
I am never doubting that bird again.
I knew I was in trouble when I opened The Pillars of Creation and found myself reading the following dedication: “To the people of the United States Intelligence Community [sic], who, for decades, have valiantly striven to preserve life and liberty, while being ridiculed, condemned, demonized, and shackled by the jackals of evil.”
That’s right. Evidently the only people who criticize the "United States Intelligence Community" are "jackals of evil," while the CIA, FBI, NSA, Homeland Security, etc., etc., etc., strive to protect an ungrateful country.
Isn't that special?
And before anyone thinks that maybe, just maybe, the dedication is an anomaly, let me assure you that it gets worse better. Much, much, much better.
Here are some of the dubious delights one finds in a Terry Goodkind book: characters flatter than the year’s first pancaked skunk. Prose so clunky it appears to be wearing wooden shoes and clomping about in the mud. A protagonist so self-righteous that he has no qualms about mowing down an anti-war demonstration because they’re trying to stop him from attacking his enemies. An evil married couple who are clearly based on Bill and Hillary Clinton, down to their initials. An allegedly loving woman who threatens to cast her own sister back into a pit where she was gang raped. Moral clarity....
You read that right. “Moral clarity.” Just like in an Ayn Rand novel. And guess what? Terry Goodkind is a real, genuine Objectivist, possibly the only one writing fantasy today. And like his literary and philosophical idol, it seems that he views his fiction as a means to impart moral clarity, self-interest, and selfishness masquerading as doing the right thing on the unsuspecting public. Despite this (or perhaps because of it?), The Sword of Truth series has not only sold approximately 25 million copies worldwide, it was the basis for the Legend of the Seeker TV series, which ran for two seasons, won an Emmy for best score, and may be revived thanks to yet another of the “save our show!” campaigns like that one that rescued the unabashedly liberal Star Trek forty years ago.
Personally, I couldn’t finish The Pillars of Creation, although I now understand why it didn’t sell to a congregation of Unitarian Universalists. There is only so much I’m willing to do for the cause of terrible books. The curious are directed to M_McGregor’s livejournal for a long, hilarious look at what happens when one grafts Objectivism onto heroic fantasy. Trust me, it’s better than The Sword of Truth.
So – what about you, gentle readers? What are your favorite lousy fantasies? I’m at a convention tonight fangirling good fantasy writers, so the floor is yours. What are your favorite Fantasies So Bad They’re Good?