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Tami - If I may join you on the random tangent, I spent two years with a drow-based MMORPG, called Menzoberranzan, as a DM, builder and general setting designer. The canon setting caused some to have rather immature expectations and many new players simply took it as a chance to revel in psychopathic behaviour. However, they didn’t stay long since the server wasn’t set up to cater to them. Similarly, the MMORPG wasn’t designed for ‘questers’ because that would mean building new areas and new NPC’s, and subsequently increasing the size of the overall module and putting a strain on the server.

Therefore, as a designer I was limited to the city and quests/adventures that could be performed regularly but still seem fresh. The setting moved to being more concerned with trade, preventing disease and fire, maintaining order and playing politics. In the end, finding love, finding oneself and finding a place in society was more important to the players then saving the city from imminent destruction. (After all, there are only so many times that seemingly insurmountable odds can be overcome.) My favourite game was between myself, playing the wizardly mentor, and one player, playing the apprentice, and involved our two characters sitting in a study discussing time travel and whether it was practical. The game was enjoyable since both characters only used the knowledge they could obtain from the setting.

Your MMORPG sounds fun.

I totally agree! However, this takes me off on a random tangent…

I’m playing a new MMORPG called Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, and they have eschewed the bloated, epic storyline in favor of a system of smaller, more real-world scenarios. Thestra, the continent I play on, reminds me a lot of Deverry. Villages, small towns, and farming communities have sprung up where the land is rich. The smaller communities have (at best) tenuous contact with their closest neighbors, and volunteer militia patrol as far as they dare. When I ride in to help the common folk (I’m a Paladin), I feel more like John Wayne riding to the rescue than just a player putting another notch on her quest book.

After experiencing lots of games with rambling gods-and-dragons story lines, it’s very refreshing to see a more believable world design.

However, I will quote the following as I think it illustrates Katherine Kerr’s point very well: “Harry Potter, an orphan who learns on his 11th birthday that he is a wizard … must not simply avenge the dual murder but also save the entire world from the ultra-evil Lord Voldemort,” How exactly, I wonder, does this description ‘transcend genre?’

In my opinion, the above description places the HP books squarely in the middle of the fantasy genre.

Erin poses an interesting question or two:

What is it about genre fiction that frightens some people so much? Are they embarrassed to admit they like to read fantasy, romance, horror, etc? If so, why?

Easily my favourite English course at uni was on Popular Fiction, i.e., genre fiction. When we came to study fantasy, my favourite genre (I do read a lot of lit as well, and some other stuff, too), on interesting theory was the idea of Play. I’m not sure if I can explain it clearly, but I’ll give it a shot. It’s pretty obvious, though the theory side of it is more or less forgotten now, sadly.

When you’re little, you play. You imagine, you create, you invent and you play. Play games, play make-believe, play dress-ups, play anything!

When you get older, you learn that to prove you are no longer a child and should be taken seriously, you put aside the Twister and the skipping rope and turn your back on the castle that’s really some straw bales concealing a hole in the middle from which you plot to overthrow your enemies with mud balls, and grow up. You learn that to indulge in anything frivolous like that is embarrassing. The divide between “childish” and “adult” is very clear.

Happily, fantasy is hugely popular now, as is playing with your kids, making a fool of yourself at certain choice moments, and not being ashamed to enjoy playing Risk instead of Trivial Pursuit.

If anyone knows more about this theory and can expound on it, please, my memory needs jogging!

Still, especially among academics, fantasy remains largely scorned and sneered at for being trite, cliched, two-dimensional, you name it. Personally, I think they really love it, but are afraid of losing credibility, because to have fun while reading must mean you lack the depth of thought to really, truly understand! It’s all just snobbery.

(And I agree with Brendan: all fiction is genre fiction, and Katherine is right: of course The Road is sci-fi!)

http://www.aurealis.com.au/issues.php?show=23