Raymond E. Feist fans are only a short time away from stepping back into the fantasy world of Midkemia, with the author’s new book At the Gates of Darkness due out in some areas in early January 2010.

The book continues the epic Riftwar Cycle, which now spans several dozen volumes. Feist has a strong track record of publishing a new book in the series almost every year, stretching back to the fan favourite Magician in 1982.

At the Gates of Darkness is the second book in the Demonwar Saga arc, after 2009′s Rides a Dread Legion. Its blurb is as follows:

“Recent events have shocked and devastated the Conclave of Shadows; the discovery of the Demon horde that is following the elven invaders of Midkemia; the rise of the mad magician Belasco, and the personal cost paid by Pug and his family.

But grieving for lost loved-ones must wait. The followers of the Demon prince have almost succeeded in bringing him through the dimensions. The Conclave must regroup and find a way to meet the approaching evil, whilst trying to stop civil war from destroying Triagia before the demon horde even arrives.”

The book was first announced in February 2008, and Amazon has it shipping in April 2010, but Feist’s official Crydee site has recently updated the UK/AU/NZ cover art for the book and listed the Australia and New Zealand dates, at least, to New Year’s Day (January 1), 2010.

Commentary
Oh god. Is Feist STILL writing this thing?

Like many fantasy fans, I hopped off the Feist train many moons ago, in fact as far back as 1998′s Shards of a Broken Crown. I can’t exactly remember what precisely was happening in the seires at that point, so I really can’t situate At the Gates of Darkness in terms of current plot or what’s happening with the characters.

It’s not that Feist is a bad writer. In fact, quite the opposite: he’s arguably one of the fantasy greats. However, I couldn’t continue to read his books, because it seemed to me that the same character archetypes and plot points kept on coming up again and again. It got boring after a while.

This seems to be a recurring problem with writers who pump out a book every year. Sure, the books might have a steady following of fans, and bring in the dollars, but are they really that good? Normally not. Normally it takes a bit longer than a year to put together a really interesting work of art in the genre. Witness how long it takes the likes of Janny Wurts or George R. R. Martin to put out their books. And they are considered amongst the grand masters.

I would be interested, however, to hear from any Feist fans out there who are still reading the Riftwar Cycle. Is it worth persevering through? Does Feist return to his form later on?

The fantasy genre is chronically marginalised by its immature image by book critics and readers alike, fantasy author Janny Wurts has argued in a recent podcast interview.

“I don’t think I would have used the word ‘misunderstood,” Wurts said in an interview with fellow writer Gail Martin on the Ghost in the Machine podcast published in late July. In an argument she admitted was “inflammatory”, Wurts said she would instead describe attacks on fantasy as “chauvinistically slurred”.

American Wurts is one of the best-loved fantasy authors currently writing. She is best known for her epic series The Wars of Light and Shadow, but also for the Empire trilogy that she co-authored with Raymond E. Feist, and her previous Cycle of Fire trilogy.

In the interview, Wurts slammed the idea that fantasy books, with their central swords, magic and dragon archetypes, are fiction for children or immature adults:

“And one of the big complaints that these people who blog and sit on their fat butts and never write a word of fiction in their life but think they know it all, and yes, I’ll be inflammatory, what they forget is that the reason why certain of these books keep coming around, why you have the Belgariad, why you have Robert Jordan, why you have The Sword of Truth series, why you have Terry Brooks, is that those archetypes are an entry level point for certain people at a certain age in their life.”

Actually, said Wurts, as they grow older, readers grow beyond the simple archetypes. However, the image of fantasy as infantile remains:

“And so the fantasy that begins to outgrow those very basic, good and evil, world is black and white concepts, which is definitely a teenage mindset, are marginalised because the people who would appreciate them are taught very very severely, don’t touch that. It’s dangerous.”

Commentary
Wurts is right; with very few exceptions, fantasy in general is often considered to be material primarily suited to children or immature adults.

Personally, I’ve often been gently teased by other adults for my predeliction for fantasy books, especially epic series such as The Wars of Light and Shadow. Instead of reading fantasy, such armchair critics often suggest, I could be reading material which pertains more directly to every day life and less to imaginary worlds.

It’s an experience that I’m sure many fantasy fans share and one that extends to the science fiction genre. Despite the extremely adult themes and motifs explored in world such as Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek, for example, such fiction is also often seen as less than adult.

Occasionally, stand-out works such as The Lord of the Rings, the Harry Potter series or even Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight books are able to break out of the genre, so to speak, and achieve the sort of mainstream success that many fantasy authors ultimately aim to achieve. However such successes are rare, and as Wurts notes, “the problem is that we don’t sell the massive numbers the further we depart from the archetype and the more we start looking at those archetypes with a more mature view”.

Janny Wurts

However, I would argue that Wurts perhaps ignores the reality that fantasy is becoming increasingly mainstream as time goes on, a trend driven especially by the new wave of urban and romantic fantasy books that are increasingly taking the market by storm. You have only, for example, to walk into any major bookstore these days to find massive displays of books claiming to be “the next Twilight”.

Sure, many of these books are not case in the traditional dye of swords, magic, dragons and so on. But many of them do contain such archetypes below the surface if you’re prepared to look. I would argue many of these books are acting as so-called “gateway drugs” to draw readers into the more traditional fantasy universes envisaged by Wurts and compatriots like Robin Hobb, George R. R. Martin and more.

Secondly, there is a lot of evidence to suggest that the more adult fantasy books which Wurts discusses in the podcast (which her books are certainly examples of) are drawing their own large audiences.

Nobody could accuse the books of George R. R. Martin, for example, of being aimed at children … they blur all lines between black (evil) and white (good) and frequently rely on sex, drugs, alcohol, murder, even incest, to push their plots forward. Giant US television studio HBO is even producing a series based on his A Song of Ice and Fire epic … you can only imagine how his shades of grey character Tyrion Lannister will come across on the small screen.

Wurts’ own Wars of Light and Shadow is considered a must-read and a masterwork among fantasy fans of any ilk. Personally I can only regard it as one of the best fantasy series ever written. The books are currently being re-issued with new, and I would say improved, covers.

What do you think? Is the fantasy genre chronically misunderstood, or do its authors simply misunderstand their own influence?