In the past decade a new breed of authors has come along to dominate and further define the grimdark fantasy sub-genre: Joe Abercrombie, Steven Erikson, Mark Lawrence, and R. Scott Bakker (among others). I discovered Bakker's work about ten years ago (2005), beginning with his first novel, The Darkness That Comes Before. It was a revelation. I remember trying to describe to friends how different his Prince of Nothing trilogy was from the usual epic fantasy. It wasn't easy to do. Bakker's work was more philosophical, more psychological, more brutal, and of course it was darker. Reading Bakker's trilogy energized me — it made me believe that the fantasy genre was still alive and kicking, and that I need not stick to works written in the 70s or earlier to get the kinds of adventure for which I hungered. Like Martin before him, Bakker offered sword-and-sorcery thrills with a whole lot more: a literary sensibility that was often too rare in the context of epic fantasy.
Once I devoured all of Bakker's trilogy, I discovered Martin's Song of Ice and Fire saga (which I had totally missed until then). People I knew online and offline were raving about Martin's books so much that I decided there was NO WAY they could be that good. But when I dove into A Game of Thrones in 2008, I immediately discovered to my amazement that YES, THEY ARE THAT GOOD. I blazed through the first four Song of Ice and Fire books in a matter of months. What I didn't know was that my two favourite new writers, Bakker and Martin, were soon to be considered co-founders of a new fantasy sub-genre that didn't even have a name yet.
At the 2010 World Fantasy Convention in Columbus, Ohio, I joined in the recording of a podcast discussion with several authors from Black Gate magazine (along with its publisher John O'Neill). We had an amazing discussion for over two hours about "modern sword and sorcery" — which authors were bringing back the tradition and even doing something new with it. I remember Howard Andrew Jones singing the praises of Joe Abercrombie and Jason M. Waltz touting the genius of Steven Erikson while I kept insisting that everyone simply HAD to read the work of R. Scott Bakker. I think I actually RAVED about it. I tend to do that sometimes with the books I love.
We thought we were talking about the New Breed of sword and sorcery. We had lovely arguments about what defined and did not define sword and sorcery, never coming to any sort of final agreement. We all loved this much-maligned genre and we all saw that it was coming back, yet it wasn't quite the same. It had evolved, grown, progressed, become something greater than it used to be. Something dark, powerful, and undeniable. Something more important then ever.
It was only recently (five years after that great World Fantasy Convention discussion) that I had a strange epiphany. I normally don't pay much attention to genre labels. I simply write/read what pleases me. I draw upon influences, experiences, and dreams, hoping to create something worthwhile and maybe even original. Like my contemporaries in that Black Gate discussion, I had grown up on sword and sorcery. But, just like us, that genre had grown into something more mature, something vital that befitted the times in which we lived.
My epiphany was this: Grimdark fantasy is the new "sword and sorcery."
The old sword-and-sorcery label has been consigned to history for the most part. This new breed of authors — including myself, I discovered — has taken that dead genre and spun it into something new and alive. What spurred my realization was the reading of a brand-new R. Scott Bakker story, "The Knife of Many Hands," in Grimdark Magazine. Then I started seeing articles and posts about Clark Ashton Smith being a progenitor of Grimdark with his Zothique stories in the old Weird Tales. I realized this whole thing had come full circle and despite the preference of sorcery to the sword in my own works, my stories were grim and my worlds were dark.
Grimdark does not prohibit any certain styles or author voices. Within the broad genre category of grimdark fantasy there is room for different voices, different flavours, and a plethora of different approaches. Grimdark simply implies a certain approach toward the fantasy world and its inhabitants. Readers are free to choose those writers whose particular styles appeal to them, and to disregard those that do not. This is only as it should be, and has always been, regardless of genre labels.
It's been said that perception is reality. Case in point: If you say "I read sword and sorcery" to a fantasy fan today, they will likely assume you mean the kind of adventure-based fantasy that was published in the 60s and 70s, which was itself a throwback to the glorious pulp era of the 20s and 30s. Conversely, if you say "I read grimdark" to that same fantasy fan, they will likely assume that you mean any number of contemporary writers working in this new subgenre grown from old and cherished roots. A genre that is more inclusive, more diverse, often more literary in its depth, and more suited to the tastes of twenty-first-century readers.
Yes, "sword and sorcery" is an outdated term today, one that may never gain back the status or popularity it enjoyed during the last century. But that's okay. What's in a name?
Grimdark offers everything sword and sorcery did, and so much more.
Grimdark is the new sword and sorcery. [GdM]
John R. Fultz is the author of The Testament of Tall Eagle, released in June 2015 from Ragnarok Publications. His acclaimed Books of the Shaper trilogy include the novels Seven Princes, Seven Kings, and Seven Sorcerers (Orbit Books). John's short stories have appeared in Year’s Best Weird Fiction, Weird Tales, Black Gate, That is not Dead, Shattered Shields, Lightspeed: Year One, Way of the Wizard, Cthulu’s Reign, and other fine publications.
Connect with John over at:
www.johnrfultz.com
www.facebook.com/testamentoftalleagle
Purchase John’s latest release, The Testament of Tall Eagle, over at:
www.ragnarokpub.com
www.amazon.com
www.barnesandnoble.com
An Interview with Brandon Sanderson
Tom Smith
[GdM] What is your opinion on the grimdark subgenre, and do you see the growing of the grimdark subgenre as a positive or negative for fantasy as a whole? Are there any grimdark authors whose work intrigues you, or that you already enjoy?
[BS] The grimdark movement is good for the genre, in that the biggest problem with fantasy is not having too many things happening, but too few. Meaning, this is the genre of imagination. It is the genre where anything is possible, and we will die out and lose readers if we are not doing different things. If people come to fantasy and only find the same thing over and over, by the very nature of the fact that we come to the genre to explore and define new things, that will cause big problems. So having a variety of movements and types of fiction within the genre is very healthy, and very strong for it.
Grimdark also has some very prestigious roots. I'm not sure how your magazine defines it, but I would definitely define The Black Company as grimdark. I would also define Michael Moorcock’s Elric and even some David Gemmell as grimdark. These are fantastic writers from our past, and it’s good that their genre is more widely acknowledged and accepted these days as a valid place to be writing. I get the sense that back in the day, people really didn’t know what to do with some of these types of stories. Elric was so bizarre, having this kind of terrible but sympathetic antihero as your main character. What do you do with that? It was a very different tack for fantasy.
As for what I read, well, I've read those classics. I think that Abercrombie is an excellent writer, who I would like to read more of—what I've read I have enjoyed. I don't know if you’ll count Brian McClellan, because he’s not quite there. He’s kind of halfway between grimdark and epic. But I certainly think he’s a fantastic writer, and I've been enjoying what he’s writing. I will say that for my own personal tastes, I really like books where there are still clear heroes. That’s not at odds, necessarily, with what grimdark is trying to do. But certainly having a lot of shades of gray is definitely a big part of the grimdark movement. So I don’t often find myself in a grimdark book when I'm looking for something to read. I'm usually looking for something more like Terry Pratchett, where I say,
“Let’s lighten things up a bit, not darken them.”
[GdM] Are there any books or movies out there that are so creative or innovative that you wish you had thought of it first?
[BS] Oh, yeah. I read them all the time. I think, “Ah, that would be so cool.” I’ll just list off a few. I've mentioned Brian McClellan. I envy his writing style. I envy Pat Rothfuss and the idea for a really dominant single first-person voice in this mix of a classic heroic fantasy with an epic fantasy. That is super cool. There are many other authors who I just envy. I've always thought—though we don’t really include him in the genre as often as we should—that Michael Crichton’s ideas were excellent. Generally I would read one of his books and think, “Wow, that is a great idea. That story almost writes itself. That’s amazing that he came up with that.”
But at the same time, once I read something by another author who said, “I don’t wish I had written this first, because then I wouldn’t have been able to read it and enjoy it as I have.” There’s definitely an aspect of that to me. I don’t want to have written these other good books.
The one I envy the most is Sabriel by Garth Nix. His use of magic and worldbuilding for when people travel to hell in the afterlife is just so cool. For years I've thought, “Ah, if I could have designed that magic, I would be happy.” But at the same time, then I wouldn’t have been able to read it, enjoy it, and appreciate it.
[GdM] You’ve always been very gracious with your fans. Were there any life experiences that you had that prepared you for a huge rise in popularity?
[BS] I'm not sure if any specific life experiences prepare you for this. As a writer, you just want to have money for ramen, right? You spend your whole career thinking, “Man, if I can make enough that I'm not starving, and I get to be a writer, then life is perfect. Then I will have no complaints.” And indeed, that was my perspective for the longest time. I didn’t want to be famous. I wanted to be able to keep writing and not have to get a different job. So, being as successful as I've been has been both cool and also overwhelming.
I will say that I had some very good experiences with other authors when I was younger that have colored how I interact with readers. There were lots of good ones, but I'll only list one. Katherine Kurtz came to the very first science fiction convention I ever attended when I was a teenager, a high school student. I met her in the hallway as she was waiting for her next panel, and she sat down and talked with me for a good hour about being a writer. Meeting a professional writer and seeing that she was a regular person, and being able to ask her questions, was life changing for me. So I try to be available to give other aspiring writers that kind of experience.[GdM]
Review: The Vagrant by Peter Newman
Tom Smith
There has been a lot of hype over Peter Newman’s debut novel The Vagrant. How did a relative unknown get invited to the Grim Gathering with the likes of Joe Abercrombie, Mark Lawrence and Peter V. Brett? While attempting to keep this review relatively spoiler free, I will say this about The Vagrant, which seems laden with so much promise – it delivers. The plot flows smoothly, the character count is low and these two things allow you to concentrate on the Vagrant and his mission
In a post-apocalyptic world gone mad, with the majority of the population tainted in varying degrees by an otherworldly demonic presence, the Vagrant has managed to stay untainted from demonic influence and inspire others to follow him in his mission–to return a magical sword (a holy relic of sorts) to what remains of the leadership of his knightly order. The mission is complicated by the fact that in the world he lives in everyone has the potential to be an enemy and very few people can be trusted. Luckily, the Vagrant is a man who is capable of handling almost anything by himself. Although to be fair, having a magic sword never hurts...
The Vagrant’s setting seems very similar to many modern Grimdark worlds in that it seems likely it is our world after an apocalypse, not a new or different secondary world such as Westeros or Faerun. While the post-apocalyptic trope has been used frequently to provide the backdrop for the medieval setting that sets the stage for so many Grimdark fantasy stories, Newman keeps it feeling fresh by presenting it from a different point of view and not showing all of his cards at the beginning of the story.
The demonic villains in The Vagrant are presented as kind of a hybrid combination of the corelings (in Peter V. Brett’s Demon Cycle) and Cthulhu in that they are possessed by a sort of demonic taint that corrupts everything it comes in contact with, often driving the host mad in the process.
Newman opens the story with the Vagrant carrying a baby and trailing a goat on a rope behind him. This was a great opening. Very creative and I loved it. The goat provides a sort of comic relief to a dark tale and seems to be more than a typical goat, but it never really gets fleshed out during the story. The baby turns out to have a history with the Vagrant that is revealed over time.
As the story progresses the Vagrant and his companions realize there are more than one group of competing villains chasing them as the Vagrant fights an internal struggle to stay true to who he is. We also find out that while the Vagrant tries to avoid a fight whenever possible, it isn’t because he’s not good at fighting. Quite the opposite; when his back is against the wall is when he seems to be at his most dangerous.
The Vagrant tends to have a very polarizing effect on the other characters he encounters in the story. A majority of them, those possessed by demons, try to kill him. Others are drawn to the light and goodness in him. First he turns a man who tries to kill him into a friend and then later befriends a heavily tainted aberration. These two unlikely traveling companions join him, the baby, and the goat on his mission. Newman definitely defied the common tropes by putting together this unlikely group of travel companions. I don’t think you could get much weirder if you tried.
Although I enjoyed The Vagrant very much, the point of view that the story is told in that didn’t connect with me. The title character is mute, and when told in the third person, I feel that we miss out on the kind of inner thoughts that would have made the story even better if told in the first person. Most of the backstory you get on the Vagrant is told through flashbacks, and even these are a little sparse on information relating to the Vagrant’s past. I think it’s a positive reflection on Newman’s storytelling ability that The Vagrant is so entertaining despite this.
Ironically, I didn’t find the title character to be very Grimdark at all. The Vagrant is a knight in the traditional sense of the word – a classic do-gooder. He is driven by duty. He has an important mission. And try as he might to stick to that mission, he is morally unable to pass by people who need help (if he is able to provide it) to complete that mission. Definitely not the type of moral ambiguity that we’ve come to expect and even treasure from the protagonists in a typical Grimdark story. Make no mistake though, there is plenty of Grimdark to be found in many of the other characters. The Vagrant is fluid, engaging, and thoroughly enjoyable. It’s an easy read, and Newman keeps the story going at a nice even pace without getting bogged down by implementing an extravagant magic system that takes many pages to explain.
All told, I enjoyed The Vagrant, and think it is a very promising start for a new face in the Grimdark arena. I look forward to reading more from Peter Newman in the future.[GdM]
Excerpt: A Crown for Cold Silver
Alex Marshall
It was all going so nicely, right up until the massacre.
Sir Hjortt’s cavalry of two hundred spears fanned out through the small village, taking up positions between half-timbered houses in the uneven lanes that only the most charitable of surveyors would refer to as “roads.” The warhorses slowed and then stopped in a decent approximation of unison, their riders sitting as stiff and straight in their saddles as the lances they braced against their stirrups. It was an unseasonably warm afternoon in the autumn, and after their long approach up the steep valley, soldier and steed alike dripped sweat, yet not a one of them remo
ved their brass skullcap. Weapons, armor, and tack glowing in the fierce alpine sunlight, the faded crimson of their cloaks covering up the inevitable stains, the cavalry appeared to have ridden straight out of a tale, or galloped down off one of the tapestries in the mayor’s house.
So they must have seemed to the villagers who peeked through their shutters, anyway. To their colonel, Sir Hjortt, they looked like hired killers on horseback barely possessed of sense to do as they were told most of the time. Had the knight been able to train wardogs to ride he should have preferred them to the Fifteenth Cavalry, given the amount of faith he placed in this lot. Not much, in other words, not very much at all.
He didn’t care for dogs, either, but a dog you could trust, even if it was only to lick his balls.
The hamlet sprawled across the last stretch of grassy meadow before the collision of two steep, bald-peaked mountains. Murky forest edged in on all sides, like a snare the wilderness had set for the unwary traveler. A typical mountain town here in the Kutumban range, then, with only a low reinforced stone wall to keep out the wolves and what piddling avalanches the encircling slopes must bowl down at the settlement when the snows melted.
Sir Hjortt had led his troops straight through the open gate in the wall and up the main track to the largest house in the village... which wasn’t saying a whole lot for the building. Fenced in by shedding rosebushes and standing a scant two and a half stories tall, its windowless redbrick face was broken into a grid by the black timbers that supported it. The mossy thatched roof rose up into a witch’s hat, and set squarely in the center like a mouth were a great pair of doors tall and wide enough for two riders to pass through abreast without removing their helmets. As he reached the break in the hedge at the front of the house, Sir Hjortt saw that one of these oaken doors was ajar, but just as he noticed this detail the door eased shut.
Grimdark Magazine Issue #4 ePub Page 3
