[Suzerain of Sheol]

On the contrary, as I mentioned in the first post, there's a lot of authors now who are aware of this issue and trying to do something about it, so it's a fairly good time to be an anti-fantasy fan. :p

[Serra Britt]

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever
I remember reading these books at my dad's request. I almost felt the author wanted you to hate Thomas. I wasn't particularly fond of the first one but the rest were rather good from what I remember.
As for fantasy books that don't follow the standard mold, it's really hard to write it well and still be a sellable story. Most people like their endings wrapped up nicely and anti-fantasy seems like it wouldn't do that.
So saying I might have to look into some of these books later :3

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Well, yeah, that's the whole point of Covenant. I once saw a parody cover of one of the books with the title replaced as "Asshole Leper Rapist". But the point is missed unless you read the entire series to see how he changes, and yet remains true to himself.

And, yes, there's a distinct negative correlation between these sorts of books and marketability. Most of those authors I mentioned are not very successful.

Steven Erikson got a $1,000,000.00 advance for his series, but that's only 100k per book, and I'm not even sure if he's sold enough to earn much in the way of royalties yet.

Scott Bakker is apparently having a hard time even making ends meet from his writing, and Glen Cook has worked as a mechanic all his life.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

Donaldson was suggested to be my a number of people, both fantasy fans and intellectual types. It was a while before I was able to get the name of the book though, with the author (need to thanks Sheol for that). Not that far into the first book though. Need to consolodate my reading, and possibly start reading one book at a time instead of five. Things might move quicker.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Oh, don't thank me yet. You haven't got to the part that puts most people off from the book yet. Or, at least, I don't think you have.

It's a shame, but Covenant is one of those series that gets better with each installment. LFB is easily the weakest book. Malazan suffers the same problem with Gardens of the Moon having been written ten years before the second book, Deadhouse Gates.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

It's not a hard read so far, and I'm pretty sure I haven't hit the part you're talking about but I'm expecting not so nice things given what you've said so far. At the moment, I'm just past the little "don't bother trying to fight me" speech in the cave.

[SanguaLuna]

I enjoy fantasy books, but I cannot only tolerate them for so long. I don't like cliche fantasy, so I try looking outside the box to more romance books. I know that sounds odd but some are less cliched and take an idea, and do something different to it.

I am also planning on writing my own series of fantasy novels, but without the cliche outcome. Most of it will be in modern times, most of it will have fantasy creatures BUT my version of them, not what everyone considers them... It will associate a lot with history, mythology and religion. I am really trying to bring a real world feel into it... Plus it is more science fiction then fantasy.

I am particular about what I read. I like the works of JRR Tolkien, Madline L'Engle, CS Lewis and the like. They are my first favorite authors.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

It's weird, but a lot early fantasy was less derivative and cliche than what came after. Once Lord of the Rings got huge, everyone was trying copy Tolkien, and the genre is only now starting to climb out of his shadow.

Either that, or cliche stuff sells better and is more popular, while more imaginative material collects dust on the shelf, making publishers turn there noses up at it, which is a much more depressing thought. I don't think that's true, though.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

People like familiarity. Consdier Sherlock Holmes for example. He's a very flat character. He doesn't change, doesn't develop, and typically reacts to the same way to the same things. That predictability becomes an endearing part of the character. It happens in TV shows too. In some ways, books tend to get formulaic for the same reason. I think the shared worlds books put out by TSR, then Wizards of the Coast are like that, and it seems they also take up the bulk of the shelf when I walk to the fantasy/sci-fi section in the bookstores.

It wouldn't surprise me if publishers make efforts to put what might be called a "good" fantasy book in a different genre, for the reason that fantasy and sci-fi tend not to be taken all that seriously. Tolkein books are found in fantasy but he has his name to beat out the genre, while half the time I've seen books by G.G.Kay, also fantasy, worked into general fiction. The same goes for Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake which has been considered sci-fi and speculative fiction, yet I have never seen it in that section. As a result of this, the "fantasy" genere tends to stay within it's sterotype while what some would believe are the better fantasy books wind up elsewhere.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Hmm. Well, all the books I mentioned above are pretty definitively fantasy, I'd be very surprised to find them in any other section. I mean, they have all the elements: elaborate secondary world, functional magic, predisposed focus on wars and battles, and all the rest. They just... somehow manage to do it differently, whether by adding elements of philosophy or anthropology, or by making those secondary worlds less black and white than the usual genre fare.

For some reason, I can't see publishers marketing these books as anything but fantasy, the elements are just too strong. I get what you're saying, quiet, but those works are a bit less-tightly genre-bound, no? When something involves warrior-monks and sorcerous warfare, as the Prince of Nothing does, no amount of philosophy and psychology (which is the main focus of the books) is going to make it something other than fantasy. Which is hurting Bakker's sales, I've read.

Not to mention, now that these sort of books are coming out, a lot of authors are admitting that their stories originated in DnD and other RPGs and were an outcry against the tropes and norms of that game. Malazan and Prince of Nothing are both fairly obviously inspired by that sort of TSR/WotC fiction, and while they reach higher, they're still standing very firmly on the shoulders of what has come before.

[Echo-chan713]

I was never a fan of fantasy like Lord if the Rings type cause it just doesn't make sense to me. I'd rather have a story that's taken place in earth in areas that I know of than to create a world :P

The closest fantasy that I can read without being confused is Harry Potter

[Suzerain of Sheol]

I suppose it's a matter of preference. The classic argument against that is "why would want you to read about what you already know?" but there's pros and cons to both types of stories.

Though, I rather like being challenged by books, so sprawling alien settings that ask me to trust the author and be patient while learning new details appeal to me. If a book is too simple, I tend to get bored and end up thinking it's not worth my time. But the complexity has to have a purpose. Making a story inaccessible for the sake of making it inaccessible is stupid and tasteless. There has to be a reason behind it.

Anyway, fantasy as a genre is useful for externalizing abstract conflicts, sort of turning traditional modes of literature inside-out. I find it can present themes a bit more vividly thanks to this, though it requires a skilled author to take a fantasy story above simple entertainment (which is what this thread is really about.)