That’s just a broad comparison, though. There are obviously many more subtle variations to be worked within, which can produce some very intriguing (and narratively succulent) tales.

For some reason I can accept the mix of real world and fantasy on screen better than in print. I never read the Dresden Files, but I kind of liked the short-lived TV series, and must confess I was a big Buffy fan. Maybe I want or expect different things from the two mediums. Expect and want more from a novel because it’s more of an investment time-wise than a half-hour TV show?

;o)

Just like many people in RL are hoping that someone (let’s call him the One True Scientist) will invent this wonderful technology that will prevent the polar ice caps from melting, and until this saviour arrives, we can just go on like we always have, because after all, we are only the simple folk, who can’t change the world anyway.

> I’m not a big fan of urban fantasy or “magic in our world stories” mostly because they don’t trigger that disconnect.

For me, it’s the insufferable feisty tone and irrational attitude of the (female) protagonist that I can’t, well, suffer.

But I love The Dresden Files (very likeable character, telling his story in a wonderful wry tone). And Tanya Huff, “Summon the Keeper” is rather good too (lot of bizarre characters and bizarre events). And the Vampire Files (mixing vampire with Chicago prohibition era + mystery noire + a Sherlock Holmes like detective.)

OK, so let’s imagine you are an ordinary person in the Culture, not one of the protagonists going through all that bad stuff … BUT really, I just can’t believe it would work. Machines do all the work, people only dabble in things (like studying to be an architect even though the machines are a lot better than a human architect can ever be) because oh, they felt like doing this for a while. Not because they want to achieve anything, not because they need the money, not because they want to make the world more beautiful, not because they seek admiration or recognition.

Sorry? I don’t believe it. I don’t believe people would get their bums out of their cozy chairs and their eyes away from the screen (where they’re playing some future equivalent of WoW) for long enough to do anything constructive, if there isn’t some reason — ambition, survival, the wish to improve society, etc. — to make them.

Trying to imagine how schools would work… how would you get the students to learn anything if they don’t need it and can have every comfort in life without ever doing any hard work? (And studying is hard work.)

A 7th grader (who could get an A if she only put in some small amount of effort) told me recently: I don’t need Math. When I grow up, I’ll work in my father’s company, where I can play computer games all day. — Ah, but he’s not going to pay you for that. — Sure he will.

Now that’s escapism ;o)

Whether it’s SF or F, if the world is well-crafted, I can (and want to) suspend rational belief, sit back and enjoy the ride. But I do need a disconnect with the real world to reach that mindset.

I’m not a big fan of urban fantasy or “magic in our world stories” mostly because they don’t trigger that disconnect. If I’m on another world, plane, or planet, my little mind will happily accept that the rules are different, but if I’m sitting in Starbucks and a (insert faery creature, or sexy bloodsucking being of choice) walks in, well…let’s just say I’ve really got to be in the mood.

Bank’s entire “Culture” is cold, merciless, meaningless (i.e. the lives of the people living in it seem totally meaningless.)

Really? I have exactly the opposite reaction. Here is a place wherein people can find their own meaning without having it handed to them by either tradition or destiny. I’d like to live there.

If a fantasy novel starts off by showing a man having his private parts gnawed off by rats (as punishment — wouldn’t it have sufficed to have him whipped to death?) then into the bin goes the book.

Cheap effects like that turn me off. There are better ways to evoke fear in a fantasy (or scifi) world; I like subtle, sly: mind games, intrigues, dagger in the back, poison in the drink, breaking an opponent with no more than a look and a word.

As a young teen I came across a book on medieval torture methods in my dad’s library (the part hidden behind the sofa.) I really don’t need that kind of detail in my everyday reading — which, after all, is for pleasure — under the pretense of “more realism.”

What I want out of a novel is some optimism (being a pessimist myself.) If the main character is in a dreadful place surrounded by dreadful people and the only thing he is fighting for is mere survival, I wonder: why bother. Just open your wrists and get it over with.

I liked Harry Potter 1-5 well enough, but stopped halfway through the sixth part. One reason because it was boring (nothing happening at all) but more grievously, I didn’t feel comfortable at Hogwarts anymore. Everyone was just bitching at each other, even Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Not a nice word to each other, no sticking together to stand up against the (unfortunately absent) threat. Hogwarts was no longer a place I wanted to be.

Call me an escapist, but I don’t enjoy depressing novels. I thought “Use of Weapons” by Iain Banks was brilliant, but it’s also brutal, without the slightest glimpse of hope. Bank’s entire “Culture” is cold, merciless, meaningless (i.e. the lives of the people living in it seem totally meaningless.) One such novel per year is really more than enough for me. I need something to lift my mood after that.

Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security and the rights of property, and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths

Someone who seriously disapproved of democracy would probably be somewhat stronger.

If your hero is urging democracy, give your villains some serious arguments against it.

That’s interesting, because as a child—as young as four—I dreamt of escape as well, but it was always on a spaceship to a “real” world. My dreams were always SF based because they had to be in some way possible. Fantasy held very little appeal to me even then (possibly because I still would have been undersized and undermuscled in a society where brains did not seem to count in about the same way they didn’t count in the schoolyard). Now that I’m an “adult” I find the idea of telepathically bonding with anything (much less a dragon) rather an alarming idea.

On a personal note, what I find amusing is that I can watch a fantasy film with nary a hiccup, but I can’t get through the first fifty pages of most fantasy novels. At least, not those with a feudal, quasi-medieval aesthetic.