I think I am a very impatient reader. The book I am currently reading is High Fantasy, and I feel like it is taking me forever to get through it. I love reading, and I'm not a biased reader when it comes to Urban vs High. However I do think that High Fantasy is a disadvantage as the times become faster.
I guess first, you have to know the difference between Urban and High fantasy. High Fantasy is where the writer has created everything in the world, and it is uniquely named, run, and has a distinct existence separate from the world in which we know and live. This world may have its own laws, language, society, races, and even cosmos. Some high fantasy can even parallel our own world, but it has to be separate. I was shocked as I entered into reading this most recent novel, I had to struggle to remember what the last High Fantasy book was that I read. I know now that my absolute favorite author, Tamora Pierce, is a High Fantasy author. Usually, I do avoid the genre.
Urban Fantasy is that which the characters interact in this world, the one where we know. This has many faces, shapes and forms in which to play. Just because this world has rules, doesn't mean that an Urban Fantasy author can't manipulate or even break them. Urban Fantasy, like Jim Butcher, takes place in the heart of a city, or on the side of a mountain that we all know. You can have Historical Urban which takes history and adds a new perspective to what "actually" happened. Most Urban Fantasy allows for the ignorance of those who don't know magic exists thus preserving the plausibility factor. Novels like Percy Jackson, and The Alchemist (Michael Scott) even claim some of the most famous people in the world as their own.
There is a weird subsection, I suppose, that mingles the two. Harry Potter for instance has all the characteristics of both, right? They have their own world parallel to this one, and yet live fully on our planet, in our world. You could make arguments that this is just a subsection of Urban Fantasy, but this Urban-High takes new levels in their novels.
My argument that High Fantasy is at a disadvantage, is that fact that it takes so bloody long to create an accurate picture of the world, characters, magic, laws, etc...that some readers maybe bored with the novel before they even get started. I think this is my problem, I am toughing it out and reading this novel in hopes that I won't regret it. That said, Character development cannot be sacrificed in High Fantasy, for the sake of world development. Also it could be said that Character Development can't be taken for granted in a world that we already know.
Okay...soap box over.
High fantasy may be at a disadvantage due to the excruciatingly long world-building process. However, this can happen in Urban Fantasy as well, when the author assumes the reader's familiarity with the modern world and fails to expound upon it. For example, if a book takes place in LA and the author simply states that, gives three locations the main character visits within the city, and expects the reader to fill in the rest... well, it's awful! Adequate world building, be it in high or urban fantasy, can be tedious or poorly done. Personally, I prefer to struggle through 50 pages of high fantasy world building than suffer through an entire urban fantasy novel where the author assumes I can fill in the blank. The latter makes me bored throughout the WHOLE novel.
ReplyDeleteAnd then there's Butcher. Aaah... <3
I completely agree!
ReplyDeleteButcher = <3!!!
This rant was inspired by a book I'm currently reading, and will most likely get this worst review of yet.
I am currently half way through it and no action has happened... literally...