Mayan Southwestern fantasy. Cool stuff. Louis L'Amour, of all people, also wrote some things in this vein.
This is, of course, the answer to the author's question, coupled with the reality that most successful commercial fantasy is deeply rooted in Anglo-Saxon, English-language legends and myths. Sadly, today's fantasy genre still consists primarily of pale Tolkien clones , hearkening back to lost tales of knights and wizards and dragons and orcs and elves that are primarily - if not uniquely - English in tradition. Try to tell similar stories based on African or Mayan myths and you may earn praise from trendy, Leftist reviewers, but you'll sell about 150 copies.
Thus, if you aren't an Anglophile, you will find fantasy literature tough going. Obama probably detests it. :)
Mayan Southwestern fantasy. Cool stuff. Louis L'Amour, of all people, also wrote some things in this vein.
What do you think of the Wheel of Time?
“commercial fantasy is deeply rooted in Anglo-Saxon, English-language legends and myths.”
Yes, that was exactly what I was thinking. It is not so much inherently Christian as it is inherently English. Tolkien’s Roman Catholicism and Lewis’s liturgical Anglicanism allowed for great drama in the religious service. Even their fellow writer, Dorothy L.Sayers, indicated that the “dogma is the drama” in the Church. Of course, this type of perspective does not sit well with Christians for whom all these mythical type figures are just reworked pagans. Thanks for the thoughts.
Funny that Tolkien wrote from a compulsion that there was a dearth of English mythology. He “borrowed” quite liberally from numerous non-Anglo sources. Not to disparage his works-he is one of my favorites, but he would be the first to admit that his whole-cloth “mythology” was composed from time-worn patchwork.
His own work, and some of Lewis’s, often blur the distinction between fantasy and mythology. However, neither set out to supplant the truth of Scripture with their fantasies. The sensational adaptation of their works and their adoption by the masses is reflection the modern hunger for truth, but a denial of the ultimate Truth’s reality. Lewis’s treatise on the harm to Christianity by gentility is more apropos by the moment. For they hold to a image of the truth while denying its power.