Great fantasy epic writers: why all British?

Cafe Society
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Walking back from The Prisoner of Azkaban earlier today, it occurred to me that seemingly all writers of the classic vast fantasy epic series are British (Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and now J.K. Rowling).

Why is that? Or have I been missing out on some great books all this time? Or are there similar epics/genres in other languages? Books that haven’t made it to this side of the Pond? Is there something in particular about the British literary tradition that produces fantasy epics with healthy doses of mythology? We didn’t get to finish the discussion, but jeevmon was trying to put together some thoughts on British borrowings from the Scandinavian epic verse tradition, thoughts left over from the WWII struggle between good and evil, and that sort of thing. Please ruminate at will.

(Note: I am by no means trying to discriminate against anyone’s favorite fantasy author. But it seems that although there has been much more cross-cultural cross-pollination in, say, the music world, the British and American literary traditions have remained much more distinct. Lots of American kids, myself included, grew up reading C.S. Lewis and Tolkien, but I have yet to hear of an American or other English-language author writing in the same sort of fantasy/mythology vein. But maybe I just don’t get around enough.)

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Is Piers Anthony British? He’s got a somewhat of a following.

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Check out Robin Hobb’s series of nine books about the Farseer world. There are three trilogies that make up one huge, sweeping epic story full of magic, derring-do, mythic themes, and all that good stuff. Throw in richly realized three-dimensional characters – and lots of them – page-turning plotting, surprising twists, and a superbly realized fantasy world, and you’ve got one hell of a ripping good read.

Start with the “Assassin” trilogy. Then read the “Liveship Traders” trilogy. Finish with the “Tawny Man” trilogy. It’s all really one immense story.

I just finished the last book tonight, and damn! but I wish there was more.

4

A couple of counterexamples:

James Branch Cabell
Jack Vance
Gene Wolfe
Robert E. Howard

But yeah, it does seem that a large percentage of the heavy hitters in fantasy have been British. ISTR it was Lin Carter who argued that a major factor in this was the British educational system, which had a focus on providing a rich education in classic literature.

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Gene Wolfe
Stephen R. Donaldson

Both are not British and both have written classic, epic fantasy series. As for the older stuff, well, the genesis of the genre as we know it today was pretty much in England.

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Throw in Raymond E Feist (NOT the more recent books) and maybe Robert Jordan as counterexamples.

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I’m kind of embarassed that I know this, but Piers Anthony was born in England and spent the first few years of his life there. However, he grew up primarily in the US.

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He also doesn’t deserve to be called a writer of classic, vast, fantasy epics IMHO :).

However another American who does qualify ( so far ) - George R.R. Martin.

  • Tamerlane
9

There is also ( gag ) Terry Brooks. However whether the Shannara books deserve the appellation of classic is a matter of debate ;).

  • Tamerlane
10

And for more Brits, add Lloyd Alexander and T. H. White.

Certainly there are Americans who’ve written great fantasy, also, but the U.S. has what, ten times the population of the British Isles, or so? One would expect, then, to see ten times as many American authors as British in any given field. The fact that one doesn’t seems to indicate something.

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Ahem.

Guy Gavriel Kay.

Canadian, Jewish and as epic as they come.

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Well, there’s imitation Tolkien and then there’s other forms of fantasy series.

Listmania! Epic Fantasy Series

Americans include (some already mentioned) Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Brian Daley, Terry Goodkind, Harry Turtledove, George R. R. Martin, Robin Hobb, Glen Cook, Terry Hickman and Margaret Weis, R. A. Salvatore, Robert Asprin, Lyndon Hardy, Raymond Feist, Ursula K. LeGuin.

A good start, but only a start. How about John Crowley, or A. A. Attanasio, or Roger Zelazny, or Mercedes Lackey, or Nancy Varian Berberick, or Anne McCaffrey, or Orson Scott Card, or Robin Wayne Bailey, or Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, or Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear’s native American series, or Randall Garrett and Vicki Ann Hedron, or a token Canadian Guy Gavriel Kay, Poul Anderson, S. M. Stirling with various collaborators, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Eric Flint, David Drake, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Emma Bull, Steven Brust, Lawrence Watt Evans, Peter Beagle.

I’m leaving out scores, either because they don’t do series, or they are borderline sf, or are modern fantasy, or do comic fantasy or I’m just not bringing their names to mind.

American bookshelves are flooded with fat epic fantasies. Many of which have deliberately tried to distinguish themselves from British fantasy tropes, while others are almost slavish imitations. I don’t think anybody likes them all, but that just means the range is great.

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What Hunter Hawk said. It’s kind of hard to weave complex, compelling tales of mythic fantasy, with an epic sweep, using “Scooby Doo”, “The Flintstones” and “Leave it to Beaver” as your source material.

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Well, if you venture outside of Sword and Sorcery fantasy you’ve got George Lucas. Star Wars was pretty big and epic, as was Indiana Jones.

Most are British though. This is an interesting question that I’ve thought about a lot myself.

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Add Terry Pratchett into the fanasy but probably not epic category for british authors.

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Minor nitpick - the U.S. has a population of ~280 million; the population of the U.K. is ~60 million, so it is more like 4.5 times as many, though your point still stands.

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Wow, I’m feeling sheepish, and you guys sure have given me a hell of a reading list! I’m unfamiliar with most of the authors mentioned (except have read and loved my dog-eared copy of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon,* and have heard of Anne McCaffrey, Terry Pratchett, Orson Scott Card, Stephen R. Donaldson, Poul Anderson, and have read some bits of Piers Anthony and a bunch of short stories more in the sci-fi/fantasy vein… (And saw *Star Wars,[/]I of course, but could never really get into the books.) I was more of a sci-fi than a fantasy reader when I was going through that stage, but haven’t read much along those lines in years.

But hey, cut me some slack – I was a Spanish major as an undergrad, and so my post-high school fiction reading has mostly not been in English. (You folks who love fantasy and mysticism should check out the short stories of Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortazar, and of course the author whence comes my username, Isabel Allende.)

Am I totally crazy, though, to think that, say, Poul Anderson or Marion Zimmer Bradley just haven’t gained the kind of classic status that C.S. Lewis or Tolkien has, and the latter’s best-known work is based on British legend anyway? I still think there’s something to this whole deal.

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No, you’re not crazy, Eva Luna. If people are still reading Marion Zimmer Bradley 50 years from now, then her books will be classics. I suspect that very few of the authors mentioned will achieve “classic” status. LeGuin will make it and deservedly so, IMO, though she doesn’t write epic fantasy of Tolkien’s sort. Maybe George R.R. Martin, too, but I’m not betting on that.

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Robert Jordan. The Wheel of Time series.

A fellow bibliophile lent me the first book in this series a few years ago. I had never heard of it. I read it and enjoyed it. Then he lent me the second book. I read it and was hooked. I had to find out what happened next. He lent me the third book, then the fourth book, then the fifth book. That’s all he had. So I went to the bookstore and bought the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth books. With each book the plot got more and more elaborate and engrossing. As the ninth book wound towards a close, I started to wonder: when is this series going to end so I can find out what happens to everyone? I looked online and saw that the series’ ending had not even been written yet!!! :eek: I read two more books and then decided I would wait until it was all finished (if it ever would be) and then start all over from the beginning. Hasn’t happenned yet.

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Huge list of Americans before, I would have figured one of the following two reasons:

  1. Americans make up the greater bulk of well-known science fiction authors and typically write more of that

  2. The series that you mentioned are the most well-known to people who don’t read a lot of fantasy and you don’t read a lot of fantasy (i.e. you were unafmiliar with most of the authors in one of the previous posts).

Of course, I just got started reading fantasy myself, but that’s my two cents.