THE CAREER NOVELIST
ins have bombed. In addition, to sustain book sales over time there
must be a level of fan devotion to the movie, show, game, or what-
ever that is quite extraordinary. Publishers may be growing more
discerning about what they license.
I hope so, anyway. Now let us examine some genre megatrends.
There is something of a dichotomy between science fiction and
fantasy. Science fiction began, in its Golden Age, as a literature of
rationality, optimism, and wonder. While some novels of the fifties
and sixties forecast a dark and gloomy dystopian future, even these
were concerned with change, science, and what was to come. SF
looks forward, presupposing progress.
Fantasy, in contrast, is a literature of escape, retreat, and return
to myth and mysticism. It is an expression of our discontent with
the technological world and the future we are heading toward.
Critics decry fantasy literature's turn from rationality, and are
alarmed by its embrace of authoritarian social systems.
It is odd, to be sure, that our scientists, inventors, engineers, and
programmers seem to be the group of readers most willing to be
swept into magical worlds whose ethos is so unlike ours. Still,
humans need comfort and order. Part of us is not rational. We want
to believe in magic. We long for dreams to come true. Call it cow-
ardly or pre-Oedipal, but fantasy literature undeniably taps into a
primary facet of human nature.
What does that mean for writers? It strikes me that during eco-
nomic booms, when we feel good about ourselves, we are more will-
ing to look forward, to think. During times of recession, when we
feel discouraged about the future, we long to escape.
That is simplistic, I know, but I have noticed upsurges in fantasy
sales during periods of anxiety, and the nineties certainly qualifies as
one of those. Indeed, fantasy has been on a roll since the Gulf War
recession of 1990-91. And not just any sort of fantasy: most folks
want only the most traditional and escapist "high" or "epic" fantasy,
the type that finds its roots in the work of J. R. R. Tolkien. While there
is an audience for urban fantasy, in which magic bursts into our
present-day world, it is not nearly as popular as the traditional stuff.
Will there be a return to science fiction, a new Golden Age? I
expect that there will someday. Human beings, and especially