Essayage

[gothwalk]

[Poll #320925]

Comments

[juuro.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall you complaining about what people do to your clickbox-polls. I think I am confirming your fears.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

Very true, but in this case, I want an order of preference to emerge, rather than just identifying the most popular.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Mostly because I know a bit (or in isolated cases a lot) about gender, bestiaries and depictions of nature, and urban archaeology of the medieval period, so I'd be interested to see how it compares.

[morenasangre.livejournal.com]

My original thesis topic (rejected...jerks...) was the on the new symbology of myhic fiction, particularly on the parallels between the woods of old fairy tales and the cities of the new. I clickied the option for the city in fantasy because it reminded me of my research and work on that topic.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

Excellent stuff. Don't suppose you have any references knocking around for that material, beyond the obvious novels?

I have some stuff half-planned about the likenesses between de Lint's First Forest / Dreamlands, and Mythago Wood, which might or might not fit into the de Lint v. Holdstock essay.

[morenasangre.livejournal.com]

Actually, yes, I do. I'll pull 'em out when I get home tonight and post the bibliography I put together for my thesis proposal.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

Excellent. Thank you very muchly!

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

I like telepathic animals in SF *and* F, from a reading point of view (when they're well done and not just another Pern clone..)

[malinaldarose.livejournal.com]

You got some topics, apparently. I was trying to come up with a few, per your request the other day, but nothing really gelled into a good topic in my head.

Though they may yet, in a few years.

[sshi.livejournal.com]

I have to admit a firence bias towards the city in fantasy, becuase I have a definite interest in the subject - Itaught a course on the representation of the city in visual media last year, which was a whole load of fun. Did you have any particular aspect in mind - the medieval city or city states or something like fantasy utopias? (and if you want ideas for reading, let me know!)

[wyvernfriend.livejournal.com]

an all of the above moment 8); Oh BTW I have a huge chunk of Andre Norton books which have a lot of telepathy in SF!

I like PSI-Fi

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

I intend to interrogate your library this evening.

[whitecrow0.livejournal.com]

I voted for the City and Masculine/Feminine because they are my very favorite subjects out of your list, but my second favorites are animals and DeLint, and I wouldn't mind reading about telepathy, either. So do all of them. ;}

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

There have been far too many cases where a writer presumed to be male was praised for the "masculinity" of his writing -- and then turned out to be a woman.

I'm not basing anything on the gender of the writers, actually, but on characteristics of the writing. There are two distinct styles of writing I can see in mythic fantasy in particular; an inward-focussed, relationship-and-people-oriented style which I'm calling feminine, and an outward-focussed, idea-and-cool-stuff-oriented style which I'm calling masculine. If better labels are available, please let me know.

As best I can see at the moment, Charles de Lint's books and short stories fall firmly in the feminine style, Robert Holdstock's in the masculine, Diana Wynne Jones in the feminine, and Neil Gaiman in the masculine - grabbing easy examples. Mercedes Lackey is harder to place, and may not actually be in the genre in any case.

Hey, when's this essay due? If you're going to write an essay about fantasy fiction, it would be helpful if you had a copy of The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, and I just happen to have a copy in my Dublin bedroom...

It's not an OU essay at all, but one for my own purposes, which is why I'll end up doing all or at least most of them anyway. But the Encyclopedia of Fantasy would be much appreciated anyway.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

Guh. Wild i tag on the loose!