Generation Gaps

It's tough to be a parent sometimes. Especially when you and your kids have similar interests. Or at least, one of your kids. The oldest one and I don't have much in common except that we're both male. So, that's something, I suppose. And the youngest, being autistic, has that in common with me, although he's much further into his own world than I ever was.

But it's the middle one, Tanner, that mirrors me in a lot of ways. And yet, even our similar interests diverge in key areas. For example, we both love to read fantasy. But it's like pulling teeth to get him to read the classic fantasy books such as Howard, Leiber, or epics like Homer and Gilgamesh. I know, he's a teenager, and they like different things. I know that I loved reading books like that when I was his age, but then, I was weird. Still am, according to my wife.

We also like gaming, specifically role-playing games like Champions and D&D. He's asking some of his friends if they will join in a game with us, which should be a lot of fun. I'm going to be trying to teach them some old-school style gaming. I haven't looked at the newer editions of D&D since 2007, but from what I have heard, they can get pretty wild with the character options. Maybe it's the 'get off my lawn' old geezer in me, but if playing a dwarf or an elf isn't fantastic enough, you're pretty jaded. Fortunately, he does want to play an elf, so we'll see how it goes with his friends.

The thing is, there's just so much out there to see in fantasy fiction, but it has really become formulaic and rote. I mean, everything seems to be either a Lord of the Rings pastiche or a Harry Potter ripoff. The more 'creative' stories are basically mashups of the two big stories. And that's disappointing, because there is so much more that can be done with fantasy. I'm trying to do things a bit different in my writing, but it's tough to get traction with an audience that only knows one or two possible versions of fantasy writing.

Still, it's worth the effort, because we need to break out of the ruts that we've found ourselves in. Science fiction doesn't have to be Star Wars/Star Trek or cyberpunk. Fantasy doesn't have to be kids in a school or an epic quest to find or destroy something. And the genres don't need to be separated and walled off from each other; that's what the pulps were all about, mixing and meshing things together in wild and creative ways that were really entertaining. And yet, for the past forty or so years, no one has known about that sort of writing.

It's time to bring some of that creativity back. I'm doing my part with my newest book, Apprentice, the first book of the Shadowmage Saga. Take a look, and see if it sparks some imagination in you.