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PUTTING A TAG ON IT

(1961)

I’VE ALWAYS KIDDED myself, and until recently had convinced myself, that names were of no importance and that what really mattered was the Thing Concerned, not the tag which was put on said Thing. Although in principle I still agree with the idea, I am having to admit to myself that names are convenient and save an awful lot of wordage. Thus with “Science Fiction”: a much disputed tag, agreed, but one which at least helps us to visualize roughly what someone who uses the words means.

We have two tags, really—SF and “Fantasy”—but I feel that we should have another general name to include the sub-genre of books which deal with Middle Earths and lands and worlds based on this planet, worlds which exist only in some author’s vivid imagination. In this sub-genre I would classify books like The Worm Ouroboros, Jurgen, The Lord of the Rings, The Once and Future King, the Gray Mouser/Fafhrd series, the Conan series, The Broken Sword, The Well of the Unicorn, etc.

Now all these stories have several things in common—they are fantasy stories which could hardly be classified as SF, and they are stories of high adventure, generally featuring a central hero very easy to identify oneself with. For the most part they are works of escapism, anything else usually being secondary (exceptions, I would agree, are Jurgen and The Once and Future King). But all of them are tales told for the tale’s sake, and the authors have obviously thoroughly enjoyed the telling.

The roots of most of these stories are in legendry, classic romance, mythology, folklore, and dubious ancient works of “History.”

In a recent letter, Sprague de Camp called this stuff Prehistoric-Adventure-Fantasy and this name, although somewhat unwieldy, could apply to much of the material I have listed. PAF? Then again, you could call it Saga-Fantasy or Fantastic-Romance (in the sense of the Chivalric Romances).

What we want is a name which might not, on analysis, include every book in this category, but which, like “Science Fiction,” would give readers some idea what you’re talking about when you’re doing articles, reviews, etc., on books in this genre. Or for that matter it would be useful to use just in conversation or when forming clubs, launching magazines, etc.

Epic Fantasy is the name which appeals most to me as one which includes many of these stories—certainly all of the ones I have mentioned.

Most of the tales listed have a basic general formula. They are “quest” stories. The necessary sense of conflict in a book designed to hold the reader’s interest from start to finish is supplied by the simple formula:

A) Hero must get or do something;

B) Villains disapprove;

C) Hero sets out to get what he wants anyway;

D) Villains thwart him one or more times (according to length of story); and finally

E) Hero, in the face of all odds, does what the reader expects of him.

Of course E) often has a twist of some kind, to it but in most cases the other four parts are there. This is not so in Jurgen nor in White’s tetralogy admittedly, but then Jurgen is definitely an allegory, while in The Sword in the Stone and its sequels it is the characters which are of main importance to the author. Jurgen only just manages to squeeze into the category anyway.

Also, it can be argued that this basic plotline can apply to most stories. Agreed, but the point is that here the plotline tends to dominate both theme and hero, and is easily spotted for what it is.

Conan and the Gray Mouser generally have to start at point A), pass wicked points B) and D), and eventually win through to goal—point E). Anything else, in the meantime, is extra—in fact, the extra is that which puts these stories above many others. The Ringbearers in Tolkien’s magnificent saga do this also.

Now, the point is that every one of these tales, almost without exception, follows the pattern of the old Heroic Sagas and Epic Romances. Basically, Conan and Beowulf have much in common;