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>I know, because I'm an editor, and that's what I'd say.

Stopped reading there.

fantasy: something set in the past, or a strange time, that deals with quests and magic and dragons and elves etc

that's pretty much what i think of when people mention fantasy, and it doesn't interest me at all.

however, fantastical elements, to me, simply means things happen which couldn't normally happen, and i am very interested in that.

>>3419780
Technically, I'm a reviewer. But I do get editorial credit on the masthead. That better?

>>3419783

I generally think of fantasy as the adult version of what Tolkien called "fairy stories".

Tolkien would have disagreed with the need for fantastic elements, since he accepted true stories, told in a certain way, in his fairy story definition.

>>3419775 (OP)
I think this whole "fantasy must have dragonz" is born out of people who exclusively read schlocky books bought at the local wargaming-shop.

Which is blatantly wrong because that would exclude Low Fantasy from the genre. Take something tremendously succesful like ASOIAF - aside from the cold opening, the supernatural is not very prominent until the dragons enter the scene (and even then, 'magic' is left as something vaguely defined and mysterious to most people). The series gets way higher on the scale as time passes, but I'm sure nobody would claim A Game Of Thrones is not fantasy.

A more interesting question might be how to distinguish between urban fantasy and magical realism.

>>3419788
Hey, I've been meaning to ask a few questions to a guy like you.
I've been writing a fantasy novel, it's almost complete, I just have to finish polishing it. Here's my problem :
The story, while set in a fictional, kinda 18th century world, features very little fantastic elements. The only thing I got is a fleshed out mythology and some light, subtly narrated intervention by the gods themselves, otherwise there's no magic or elves or flaming sword waiting for a chosen hero to draw it from its stone pedestal or any stuff like that.
So, when I start sending my manuscript to agents, do you think I could still label it as fantasy ? I don't read much of the genre myself so I'm not sure yet about this kind of specifics, but I've written it more like a cape et d'épée novel in a fictional world.

>>3419792

Please: dragons, magic, frozen undead, sentient trees, zombie mothers; ASOIAF went off the fantasy deep end long ago.

But anyway. Fantasy is just a broad genre. I don't know... I'd be tempted to say setting is the most important. Most things set in a European medieval / early modern setting in a made-up land are liable to be labelled fantasy.

>>3419783
>fantasy: set in the past

Urban Fantasy.

>I think this board and others like it have pretty well established that all literature, and all discussion of it, is neckbeard shit

But that's not true. If anything, most English majors get pigeonholed as hipsters. The avid fantasy fan is typically judged harsher, ie. "neckbeard."

But those kind of sweeping generalizations are toxic to discourse, anyway. I typically regard fantasy as any text containing fantastical elements. I don't read much of what your typical /lit/izen derisively labels fantasy (ASOIAF, LotR, and, uh, really can't think of any other titles off the top of my head), but I do read a lot of magic realism, and I'm very interested in literary texts dealing with mythology (Iliad, Odyssey, Metamorphoses, Poetic Edda, etc) all of which certainly fit the parameters of fantasy, and I rarely see any of those texts chastised as "neckbeard shit."

I think what /lit/izens call fantasy is a poorly defined pejorative used to mock the tastes of the Other. Occasionally, a few autists spring up who think the "purpose" of literature is strictly mimetic, but I'm inclined to think they're trolling.

People need to realise that fantasy can mean flying one-eyed bandits wielding frozen dildos attacking a kingdom established on the trade of hardcore erotica

>>3419803
>Please: dragons, magic, frozen undead, sentient trees, zombie mothers; ASOIAF went off the fantasy deep end long ago.

Which i believe i also stated. My point was that if the series had ended with just
GoT it would still be fantasy.

>>3419816
Would read and review favorably.

>>3419801
Definitely label it as fantasy, unless there is a strong romantic element. Fantasy is what sells these days, and in the eighteenth century they believed in a lot of fantastic stuff, so it really wouldn't interfere with the world like it would in the nineteenth.

Is this the classical eighteenth century of Johnson and Milton, Pope and Goldsmith? because that could be interesting. In fact, somebody really should write a fantasy where Johnson and his circle are wizards.

harry potter's manboi snatch
slammed shut
"alohamora, alohamora"
the old man whispers
tickly grey beard absorbing
hero's anus juices flowing
a shiver now
the broomstick pries
and
POP!


a poem from the "Shit-piss aquarium" collection by ProgressivePoet, lauded genius and diversity scholar. (c) 2013

If I pick a bunch of fantasy stories at random from collections on my shelf i get:

"Delusion for a Dragon Slayer" by Harlan Ellison
"Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk" by Franz Kafka
"The Island of Doctor Death and other stories" by Gene Wolfe
"The Palm Wine Drinkard" by Amos Tutuola


All good enough stories, all fitting some editor's definition of fantasy.

I'd have a hard time putting any of them into what I'd call traditional fantasy classificatons though, and this is not exceptional. Google the ontents of "The Book of Fantasy" or "The Fantasy Hall of Fame" and you'll see what I mean.

I think a lot of people might be associating fantasy with what is popular at the moment, or maybe just what films (or games) well.

There's no doubt that comics as a medium tends to be all about superheroes, even though there are a lot of non-cape comics out there, but I doubt this has happened to fantasy. I wonder if it's percieved as having happened though because of Conan and Gor an LOTR and ASOIAF.

When I think fantasy I think of many things. I reserve judgement until I've understood the context of the world and story of the individual work.

>>3419775 (OP)
>If you ask an editor what constitutes fantasy, they're going to say "fantastic elements or setting is crucial to the story" I know, because I'm an editor, and that's what I'd say.

Why is that such a deflationary definition? It's horrible really--you're basically saying: fantasy is fantastic. If the definition of fantasy is crucial to addressing the bad feelings and misunderstandings of fantasy literature on this board, why start with such a weak definition?

Wouldn't your first goal be to straighten that out? What do you mean when you say fantastic? If we look it up, Webster tell us it basically means not real. Isn't that fiction as a whole? But, here that only begs the question more of how fantasy is distinguishable from other forms of fiction.

Is it possible to reverse engineer the genre to see what constitutes fantasy?

A lot of talk about ASOIAF as "minimal" fantasy. But what do you have to talk out of the series before it stops being fantasy and some sort of alternate history kind of novel?

What would that exercise tell us about the genre?

>>3420012
Well, ASOIAF is going to be fantasy in the broad sense, just as Utopia and Islandia are, even if you take out all the fantastic elements, since the places and the people never existed.

But ASOIAF is basically an adventure story and maybe a psuedo-histroical romance anyway: the fantasy elements are basically window-dressing or stand-ins for plot-convenient technology, in the same way horses substitute for cars in westerns and phasers for guns in science fiction.

In a more mainstream fantasy story, even if the fantastic elements aren't the backbone of the story, they are essential to it: Remove Grendel from Beowulf, or Smaug from the Hobbit, or have Gregor transform into a stroke victim and you've changed the whole story, no matter what kinds of substiturtions you make. And I don't know what you'd get if you take magic out of Peter Pan.

This is just the sort of thing LeGuin was talking about in "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie". When you can change not just a few elements, but literally just a few nouns (wand to gun, cloak to sweater) you really don't have fantasy. You have fancy-dress historical, or even contemporary.

What this says about the genre is basically what it says about all genres and a lot of non-genre writing: it can be faked.

Think about the western and science fiction as they're portrayed in popular non-written media. How often is the setting and technology and language just there to dress up a conventional love story or murder mystery or revenge saga? How often are the trappings of the old west or deep space simply plot devices and local colour?

It's possible to write hack in all genres or none, and it's also possible to tell a pretty good story even if you are hacking.

But I think fantasy is the hardest to do this with. The reader is a lot more likely (to use a metaphor from a good fantasy) to look behind the curtain. Or to check to see if it's just gregor in a rubber suit.

>what's fantasy to you guys?
>and please no "it's neckbeard shit"

but thats what it is. Overused world tropes that are 1) irrelevant 2) complete wish-fulfillment 3)used as a premise for stories that get even stupider

fantasy could be good but so often it fails by being so absurdly cliche. The massive churning out of tolkien hackjobs worldwide has crippled the mental association for all eternity. Not only that, but the fanbase has been cultivated and they expect idiotic cash-cows on tier with harlequin content.

Call it "magical realism" or some other shit to try and get away from it, but for gods sake don't call it fantasy

>>3420089
>Irrelevant
Source?
>Complete wish-fulfillment
Source?
>Used as a premise for stories that get even stupider
Example?

>>3420096
Source? What? Not him, but that makes no sense.

>>3420100
>Source
>Says who*

>>3420103
>>3420096
You're an awful troll. Try again.

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>>3419775 (OP)
A fantasy has the same faults a standard soap opera has, the plot and interest relies ENTIRELY on conflict too make it interesting. Fantasy replaces soap opera relationships with epicness, but it's basically the same thing. Fantasy has the extra problem that because of the epicness it doesn't leave any space for subtler things like underlying themes, scene atmosphere etc.

Not only fantasy has to deal with this, also videogames and action movies suffer from this. If conflict is the hook, it will almost always overshadow other more complex and subtle elements.

If the hook changes from conflict too exploration, fantasy becomes labeled science fiction very quickly.

Extra credits did a good episode on labelling video games, which also is applicable to films and books. It isn't the theme that makes it a certain genre, it's the hook, the reason that you enjoy a certain piece.

>>3420096
>Irrelevant
They usually don't aspire towards any kind of interesting drama or plot element beyond rehashing stale old cliches
>Complete wish-fulfillment
see: the majority of fantasy novels I've read and experienced (sizable). Magic is analagous to making shit up and requiring no consistency to do it, or having a consistency that is tedious and irrelevantly nuanced
>Used as a premise for stories that get even stupider
Magic turns into fantasyland. You usually start to see Tolkien tropes etc popping up, but once you've hit D&D mimicking you've hit rock bottom

>>3420096

try every fantasy novel released in the past 20 years.

>>3420111
How can you possibly know why a person is reading a fantasy book? To say that they don't have "scene atmosphere" or "underlying themes" is equally preposterous.

>If the hook changes from conflict to exploration, fantasy becomes labeled science fiction very quickly.

All of my what...

>>3420118
Alrighty then, name fantasy books where the plot is not working too a battle or fight.

>>3420115
>They usually don't aspire...
Such bullshit.

So, it loses if it has no consistency, but if it has consistency it also loses because consistency is tedious?

And then opinions everywhere. Whatever bro.

>>3420124
you're done.

>>3420118
I wasn't saying they don't have scene atmosphere or underlying themes, I am saying that they are mostly done poorly and are being overshadowed by the main conflict. That's why most fantasy isn't rated high-literature.

Fantasy is just a form of genre fiction. Literary fiction that contains fantasy elements, e.g. One Hundred Years of Solitude, is still just literary fiction with fantasy elements, rather than actual Fantasy. A book being labelled Fantasy inherently implies a certain lack of literary merit.

>>3420122
The Metamorphoses by Kafka
Ovid's Metamorphoses
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
Bulkagov's The Master and Margarita

and on, and on, and on...

>>3420128
most literature isn't rated high literature. less than one percent I'd say.

>>3420147
None of those books are fantasy. Literary fiction transcends arbitrary genre boundaries.

Genre only exists as a marketing device, and books like that are not mere consumer products (like, e.g., The Name of the Wind) but high art.

>>3420147
And yet I have never, never, neverever heard anyone refer to any of those books of fantasy. Nobody. They sure as hell have fantasy elements, but nobody refers to them as fantasy. Because they don't feel like fantasy. Get my jig?

>>3420147
Yes, but there are conflicts requiring resolution in those books. And an internal conflict between two sides of a moral dilemma is just as much a conflict as a bunch of trolls storming a castle.

To say that Markheim's argument with the devil/angel over the death of the old man isn't a fight, and so fantasy contains some books without conflict is silly. Almost all fiction is about conflicts either external or internal or both. Fantasy is no different from "the Red Badge of Courage" or "War and Peace" in that sense.

Genre Fiction is defined by its setting while Literary Fiction is defined by its thematic content. If a novel contains a fantastical setting but is, overall, more defined by its thematic content, the book can not be lumped under the Fantasy tag.

>>3420162
>Genre only exists as a marketing device

Genre exists for classification within the categories of Genre.

>>3420162
Exactly> Literature transcends genre boundaries, and genre is just a marketing device anyway. Fantasy is anything with fantastic elements crusial to the story, and it doesn't matter whether there's a unicorn on the cover or it says "Fantasy" in big letters. To say Beowulf is not fantasy just because it's in the classics section is as ludicrous as to say "Gone with the Wind" is because Tara is a made-up setting.

>>3420167
Sure it can. Valley of Gwangi is a fantasy, a western, a romance, science fiction, an adventure story and horror, if you happen to be afraid of being trapped in a burning catherdral with a tyrannosaur. lots of things fit in lots of genres.

You can't say beowulf isn't a classic of literature just because there's a dragon in it, or that it's just a fantasy, because it does.

>>3420174
Do you know why book stores so not keep their ASOIAF and Beowulf copies on the same shelf? Because interest in one of them doesn't necessarily suggest an interest in the other. In fact, more often than not, ASOIAF fans would bloody hate Beowulf, and vice versa. Because they do not belong to the same genre. Hell, they barely belong to the same medium. ASOIAF is primarily entertainment (Genre Fiction), Beowulf is primarily art (Literary Fiction).

Literary fiction is for people who have liberal arts degrees and don't want to completely waste their money. That's why the market exists.

Literary fiction is also for insecure posers who want to appear cultured.

>>3420179
>You can't say beowulf isn't a classic of literature just because there's a dragon in it, or that it's just a fantasy, because it does.

You are completely misunderstanding my point. Beowulf is not Fantasy, it's an ancient folk tale. It fulfills a completely different role to ASOIAF or whatever.

>>3420182
This comment says more about you than the "posers" it attacks.

>>3420181
This is a valid point, but not for the reason you think: If you removed all the fantastic elements from both, ASOIAF would be very little changed, but Beowulf would be unrecognizable.

Beowulf is far further along the scale of "mundane to fantastic" in the fantasy direction than ASOIAF.
If you were presented with them never having been exposed to them before and told that one was a fantasy and the other was not, which one would you pick? Lets assume you'd read the major fantasies of the last hundred years and were using that as your basis.

>>3420192

what does it say about me?

"Fantasy" as a genre tag did not even exist until the early 1900s or late 1800s. It does not just refer to books containing fantastical elements. To belong to the Fantasy genre, a book must contain certain narrative properties, such as an action-based plot and a general tendency towards simple escapism. Fantasy works can not be thematically challenging, because that's not what fantasy fans want to read. One Hundred Years of Solitude does not sell to fantasy fans. And ancient folklore is another thing altogether.

>>3420206
To put it another way, a genre is more defined by its audience than any one aspect of its content. It isn't just a preference for fantastical settings that unites fantasy fans, it's also a preference for light entertainment and escapism.

>>3420206
Where do you get this? Action based plot? General escapism? I've been reading fantasy for fifty years and have never heard those criteria suggested.

>>3419903

These works all come from collections with the word "Fantasy" in the title. And they're simple escapism and have no thematic complexity?


You're going to have to give me a definition of fantasy that isn't just geared to what you think is petty. Your definition eleminates easily 99% of the stuff published with the genre name on it from being fantasy.

>>3420209
Kafka's Metamorphosis, for instance, not not satisfy these criteria (it is far too thematically challenging), and therefore does not belong to the Fantasy genre. Metamorphosis's thematic content would make it more appealing to a fan of, say, Crime and Punishment than, say, Wheel of Time, therefore it is grouped in the same genre as C&P, i.e. "Literary Fiction".

>>3420215
Have you even read any lit crit published in the last decade?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Fantasy

Here's the most generically titled collection I could find.

All neckbeard crap? All escapism? would you expect to find it in the "Fantasy" section?

check the contents.

>>3420218
"The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories" is just as thematically challenging, as is Delusion for a Dragon Slayer. I'll have to give you Tutuola under that definition, though I by no means stipulate it.

>>3420225
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Fantasy

>an anthology of appromixately 81 fantastic English short stories, fragments, excerpts
>'about fantastic literature. ..simply a compilation of stories from fantastic literature which seemed to us to be the best

You didn't even read the first paragraph of your own source moron. They compiled "fantastical stories" not "fantasy" those are two completly different things. It's okay to enjoy other things then literary fiction, just don't act like the thing you enjoy IS literary fiction.

>>3420225
It might nominally fall under the fantasy blanket, but the truth is that the people who browse the Fantasy sections in book stores would not pick it up in a million years. Have you ever seen a Borges book filed under Fantasy by a retailer? I describe that "Book of Fantasy" as a collection of stories containing fantastical elements, rather than a collection of Fantasy stories.

>>3420237

In other words you're only interested in dividing books up by their target demography and not their contents.

>>3420239
Their demographic is determined by their contents. You are only taking into account one facet of their content, the setting, and it's giving you an extremely skewed idea of what genre actually means and the service it provides.

>>3420239
That's not what he's interested in, that's how it's done in the real world, right now. Same goes for movies and games. You can whine on about fantasy not being respected enough, or you accept that there are two genres, cheesy, crappy, neckbeardy fantasy and genuinely good literature with fantastic elements.

Because no matter how hard you whine, that's the way it's gonna be. The only thing that will change is if you accept it or not

>>3420231
I've bought, or been given to review, every major fantasy book published in the last forty years. I own the Book of Fantasy, all of the Karl Edward Wagner collections, The compilations of Mammoth and every best of the year, greatest hits or awards collection out there. I'm not speaking without knowledge here. I could literarily write a book on the subject, and if my review columns were ever to be collected, i would have.

You have to understand that nobody uses your definition but you; you seem to be talking about the subgroup of Sword and Sorcery that we call "Thud and Blunder" fiction. It's a tiny minority of what's out there, believe me.

>>3420248
There are hundreds of genres. most bookstores have dozens.

these two:
>cheesy, crappy, neckbeardy fantasy

>genuinely good literature with fantastic elements.


I don't recall seeing.

Genre is _all about_ demography. Bunching two books together because of superficial similarities in setting, despite hugely divergent thematic concerns, completely defeats the purpose of having genres.

>>3420231

And anyone who seriously tries to differentiate "fantastical stories" contained in "the Book of Fantasy, from what he considers to be "actual fantasy" should probably not be throwing the word "moron" around too liberally

>>3420166
Then what's the point of criticizing fantasy for conflict if it's apparent in all fiction? Unless you're a different poster, in which case I don't think you understand the point of the above conversation.

>>3420162
>Literary fiction transcends arbitrary genre boundaries

The irony is strong in this one. You realize that what is and what is not "literary fiction" is just as arbitrary, right?

>>3420165
So all of those stories whose plots are driven by fantasy aren't fantasy because they don't "feel" like fantasy to you?

it really is something else when you take one second to dissect a sweeping generalization (all fantasy = bad) and all the naysayers fall into grossly subjective and arbitrary whining

>>3420269


It does seem that the discussion is sort of getting hijacked by this one guy who seems to want to say that all fantasy either is, or must be judged by, the satndards of John Jakes, George Martin, and Robert Jordan.

It's possible that he just hasn';t read a lot of Fantasy, and that's been his impression of it.

Also, if he were to say that all "Sword and Sorcery" was like that, he'd have a better leg to stand on.

He'd still have to deal with Beowulf though.

Personally, if I had to pick the defining Fantasy series of Twentieth Century America, I'd Go with Frak Baum and Ruth Thompson's "Oz" books. And I don't think I'm alone in that.

A little off topic, but I was reading this blog:

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2009/08/oh-no-lemgthe-mammoth-books-of-xlemg-no

And it bugged me a little.

The author is apparently upset that there aren't any women or minorities in a science fiction collection. I'm assuming she means in the stories, but she might include the authors as well.

Would that really be important to someone looking for a genre book to read?

I mean are black gay women looking for fantasy books with black gay female dragons or elves?

I was thinking there really aren't a lot of books with hillbilly scientist bodybuilders either.

Should I be offended?

>>3420557
I'm pretty sure the editors pick the stories based on their appeal to the audience as a whole, and possibly their feedback in their first publication. It's probably at least somewhat meritocratic so the absence of female or minority based stories might just mean none were in the best stories that year. also, If i have a character named John Harrison, and his race doesn't figure into the story, why should i mention it?

>>3420557
Holy fuck that article made me cringe.

The problem with the Fantasy Genre is the readership--the fans. There are 2 things they do that annoy the heck out me:

1. Poor Recommendation.
Don't give me a list of arthurs or books, and only tell me I should check them out because they're 'good'. If they're really good then you should make the effort to explain why. Don't pass off onto me that I'm suppose to like them solely because they're fantasy, that's obnoxious. If you want other people to read your shit learn to give a brief annotation and highlight a dramatic feature that you found intriguing. It's that simple. Stop with the hollow listing of shit I should read.

2. Obsessed Speculation.
Don't latch on to some minutia and flood the conversation with your endlessly speculation. Your OCD with Fantasy shouldn't be what the conversation is all about. That's off putting. You can have your speculations, but that doesn't make it right for you to shove them down other people's throats. Learn to be modest and effective in your speculations. It would also help to have a little background in constructive criticism. Stop with the long winded surfeit of your fetish.

Also, /lit/ is not your club house. /lit/ is a wallering mud hole for sick minded people to vent. Most come here to rant because of the offer of anonymity. If you want to talk with like minded fans go to any of the other fantasy forums on the internet. If my view about something upsets you-- Fuck you, my opinion is my prerogative.

>>3420557

I get your point but black gay women probably ARE looking for black gay fantasy.

>so the question I have is: what's fantasy to you guys?
Neckbeards trying their damnedest to emulate Tolkien.

>>3422346
>emulate Tolkien
It would be awesome if people actually did this.

Unfortunately, they're not emulating Tolkien, they're emulating RPG rulebooks with Tolkienish flavor.

>>3422694
A good [point. I think the current tunnel vision people have for fantasy has a lot more to do with games than Tolkien. Off the top of my head, the only really close Tolkien rip off was the Shanarra books

>>3422694
I don't know, I think the licensed fantasy set in the D&D game worlds (DragonLance, Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft) is probably generally better than Joe Neckbeard's Generic Fantasy Trilogy. At least those world's have years and years of shared lore to draw upon.

>>3422930
That's kind of the problem though: It's like Star Trek Novels: we get the literary equivalent of kids playing with action figures. Working in a shared universe can be a crutch for a bad writer, or a place for a good writer to learn but The really good stuff is usually original. Now I know you're thinking of Rothfuss and Paolini as your Joe Neckbeard prototypes, and you're not far off, but there's leGuin, Bellairs, Paul hazel, etc. Who did damn good jobs with their own stuff, not to mention Wolfe and Vance to drag the old guys in.

I'm not saying there can't be decent fantasy in a shared universe series, but I think it would be like picking peanuts out of a turd to find it.

The standalone books, short stories and even a few longer works are where I'd go. And I'd start with the short stories, to get an idea of the author's style.

>>3422926
>Off the top of my head, the only really close Tolkien rip off was the Shanarra books
Even that wasn't really anything like Tolkien. It was basically an RPG campaign based on the plot structure of LOTR. Surely the plot structure is not what's interesting about LOTR!

>>3422938
I mean, I'm not saying the GOOD original unis aren't usually better (Zelazny immediately comes to mind as one of the most interesting post-Tolkien fantasy series). I'm just saying that in those shared world fantasy settings, there's a certain level of internal consistency that I find interesting. It's almost like a comic book universe with a shared canon across all the novels. I jizz for deep continuity.

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I'm writing a fatasy novel, so here's what's fantasy for me:
everything that isn't common in our world.

First of all, adventure: ancient places and temples, forgotten realms, incredible structures. A journey, a quest.

Then, magic, the extraordinary, the arcane and, why not, mix it with "modern" science.

Semi-divine beings.

New races, creatures. Maybe even dragons.

And an ancient evil that is awaken.

And a very, very complex lore.

Maybe it's clichè, but that's how it works, it's a genre.
I'm not an english native speaker anyway, so my concepts may not be that clear.

>>3422972
What the fuck is wrong with that horse?

>>3422972
You should completely mix it up and add the Matrix to it. If I were the machine intelligense from the matrix, I would have made a permanent medieval magic-using culture. That way agent smith and elrond being the same guy would'nt throw anybody off.

Say you've got a starship moving at sublight speed and everybody is in a sort of slow suspended animation, then the computer goes haywire when it's raising the kids to colonize the planet, and when it's supposed to be educating and training them to colonize a primitive frontier world it starts defaulting to a hodgepodge of fantasy things instead of history, so their virtual world is wierd and fantastic. The few human programmers in the loop would be fighting it and trying to get it back to a normal system without crashing it and killing everybody, and they'd also be dying because theyre very old. they'd have to take kids who are immeresed in that reality and train them to take their place before the ship gets to its destination.

Just a thought, but it would incorporate all your elements without conflict.

>>3422972
>And an ancient evil that is awaken.

An ancient evil has awoken and realizes it's a shit job so goes out on a quest to fine a replacement,

>>3423020
It's spavined, and badly. No way she rode it there. looks like front an rear legs too.

>>3423055
>an ancient evil awakens, hits the snooze, and sleeps for another thousand years.

>>3423020

To be honest, the dog looks a bit munted too.

>>3422972
Sharalla rose, startled, as the Forest god appeared. The horns upon his head curved back from his deep walnut brow in graceful arcs, and the furls of his long black curls exuded a scent like wild honey and rosehips. His voice was the song of bees in the tall grass on a hot august day.

"Well?" he arched an elegant eybrow and casually adjusted himself beneath his leaf-patterend tunic. His cloven hooves scratching idly at the turf.

"Um, Hail, Oh great Wardell, Um, recieve this sacrif--uh, sacrifice!" She satmmered and gestured toward the horse, scurfing in its hobbles as it sought a comfortable position on its spavined and jack-splinted legs.
"That?" the god frowned. "That nag looks like it'd be lucky to make it home if you don't carry it yourself. Did you walk it up the mountain?"

>>3423114
"Uh.." She looked from the horse to the god and back, her heart in her throat and her own legs feeling none too steady. His shadow fell across her rising chest as he stepped between her and the sun. The musk and sweetness of his odor became overpowering.
"Look, horses aren't even an acceptable sacrifice for me: I'm a wilderness god and a fertility god. Farm animals are not really my thing." He eyed her smiling now, she was acultely conscious now of the low-cut leaf patterened leather garb the girls had dressed her inbefore sending her. And were they gigling behind their solemn instructions. She began to think they might have been.
"You look like a school teacher or a seamstress. Who sent you here? The Guild of Feminine Solace?"
Saharalla nodded dumbly. Inwardly cursing her trust of theose damned Fancy-women.
"I, Uh, Seek..." She began.
The god waved it off.
"Of course I'll grant whatever boon you ask that is within my power, but we haven't arranged for an apeopraite sacrifice. Are you a virgin, by chance?"
She was acutely conscious of the great bulge in his tunic. She shook her head, breathing a bit easier.
"Not even anally?" The eyebrow was skeptical.
"Uh, ah, well..."
"I thought so, schoolmistress. Arrange yourself over that log there.'
"But, but, don't you require, um, a blood sacrifice?"
"I'm about to get one." The god shrugged off his tunic.

On the way back down the hill, she was glad of the horse to lean against, and the horse was gratefull for the slow pace. There was no way she could have ridden.

>>3423115
>"Look, horses aren't even an acceptable sacrifice for me: I'm a wilderness god and a fertility god. Farm animals are not really my thing."
Drop the sitcom dialogue lines, they're very grating.

>>3423164
Ewxcellent point. Too much Zelazny and Joss Whedon exposure I guess.

>>3423051
I really, really like the concept, but I don't really like the idea of mixing such genres.
When I talked about technology, i was thinking about a steampunk world, like airships and things like that. No 1800 London though, just..some steam-powered machines during middle age.

>>3423217
Shining brass pushrods and calipers gleaming in the moonlight, The Autodray "Behemoth" shrugged off the miles and hills, the drifts and grades between Stepney and Arden. In the high box atop the tender-cart, the Kobolds laughed in the heat that would have melted a lead sigil as they shovelled the fine Newcastle anthracite into the chutes that ran down to the hellblaze beneath the shining bullock hump of the old 'dray.
From his own seat at the tiller-bar, Sean Paidrig Morton could feel the heat as a breath of cinder and dry air, and the tiny men's laughter was like the tinkle of brionve bells rising out of a well at midsummernight.
He drew his driver's cloak about him a little tighter as the tracks curved and the november chill came around into his face full. There was less soot and steam, but more mist and frost. Behind him the brakers sat with their hands on the padlevers, waiting for a signal from himself. But the semaphore slabs said clear track for ten miles, and he could see about half that far himself, even with the mist and the twilight.
In the Passenger box between the brake cart and the tiller stand the new ambassador was hidden, and there were boards of Oak, Ash and thorn lining the carriage, to insulate her a little from the cold iron of the rails. Soon the moon would rise and the power of the iron would be less. Sean wondered if even now he were to turn his head and catch the sight of her face looking out at the port, what he would see. A thing of branch and vine and moonlight, crudely shaped like a woman? Or a creature of beauty beyond dreams, that would spoil him forever for earthly wife, and send him dreams that would frustrate him unto madness? He resolutely watched the mist, piling up before Behemoth's tall green funnel-stack."

This kind of thing?