Assessing the sword-and-sorcery "glut"
Jason Ray Carney recently weighed in on an issue that’s been on my mind, too: The glut of new sword-and-sorcery fiction. Asks Jason:
Because of the glut of new sword and sorcery, I find myself buying new books with a wistful sense of "One day I'll find time to read this." Am I alone?
No, you’re not alone Jason.
I’m feeling a little bloated myself.
I’ve recently read A Book of Blades, New Edge #0, Worlds Beyond Worlds, a handful of issues of Tales from the Magician’s Skull, and Sometime Lofty Towers. Not all brand new, but new enough.
But I haven’t made a dent, and the titles just keep coming.
Sitting unread in my office are:
Die by the Sword
Multiple additional copies of Tales from the Magician’s Skull
Lord of a Shattered Land
War on Rome
Not to mention my Howard Days haul, which includes Kagen the Damned
More are on the way. I participated in the recent kickstarter for Swords from the Shadows, so I expect that anthology in the mail soon. I also backed New Edge and issue no. 1 is well under way. I know I’ll be backing Neither Beg Nor Yield next. Baen is ramping up its act, as is Titan.
I feel guilty that I haven’t bought A Book of Blades vol. 2 (yet). I’d like to get more volumes of Swords and Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy, as I greatly enjoyed vol. 1, but I have to pump the brakes somehow. I’ve got two daughters in college.
And on top of everything else I’m way behind on Whetstone.
It does feel rather like a glut.
Is this a bad thing? Again I agree with Jason; while “glut” is not a particularly positive descriptor, it does also mean we have a plethora of choices.
Just a few short years ago it was hard to find any new sword-and-sorcery, save for the likes of online stories from Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Swords and Sorcery magazine, and the occasional title from DMR Books. It was a dark time, with glints of light in the stygian gloom. Parched S&S fans were starved for a cool drink.
But now the drink feels if not like a firehose, then a 40 oz. big gulp. It seems like new kickstarters are popping up every fortnight, announcing new anthologies and projects.
In comparison with trad fantasy, or YA, the number of new titles we’re seeing in S&S would probably not qualify as a blip. But those markets are not S&S. They’re far, far larger, and can bear the output. When you’re playing in a small pool this flood of titles is a lot.
Again, I stress that this is so far from a crisis that it’s ridiculous to even think that way. It might not even be a problem. If you have plenty of 1) expendable cash and 2) time, and love to read, it’s great. If you lack either cash, or sufficient time, less so.
If you’re a publisher trying to make a living the glut is a problem, unless the market keeps expanding. Because right now we’re short on readers. And that is the real issue.
Unless you grow the pool of readers by 20x (or preferably, 200x) no writer or publisher is going to be able to make enough to sustain a full-time living writing S&S. Here is an interesting article from 2016 on self-publishing and the kinds of numbers you need to make a middle-class income. I doubt any new anthology is moving these kinds of numbers.
The issue is definitely not the passionate community of creators, including writers but also artists and editors. Everyone who wants to write or create, should. But they also should know they are publishing in a very small community.
Perhaps I’m using the wrong barometer for health, and that readership and revenue aren’t the real indicators, but quantity and quality of output, and passion of the community. But again quantity is a problem: when there are this many new titles in such a small community some will go unread. Assessing quality is also difficult: Conversations will be shorter, and shallower, as we quickly switch focus to the next new title. And I’m not sure that’s great for discussion and thoughtful reviews. There isn’t much talk over what makes for good writing in this space.
Back to optimism and possibility: One way I can see this evolving is editors raising the bar for the stories they’ll accept, and getting more specific about what types of stories they want, thematically or stylistically. New Edge is doing this with its lean into diversity and inclusiveness; Neither Beg Nor Yield with a never surrender attitude.
Maybe one day we’ll see a “Year’s Best” anthology that we can hand to a new reader and say, “start here.”
All this is coming at a time where I’m feeling a bit burned out on sword-and-sorcery, and reading horror and memoir at the moment. Make no mistake, I’m a lifelong reader and nothing will extinguish that flame. I’ll be back. But I need a pause to get caught up.
Long story short, I’ll eventually get to Lord of a Shattered Land. Soon, I promise.
Because of the glut of new sword and sorcery, I find myself buying new books with a wistful sense of "One day I'll find time to read this." Am I alone?
No, you’re not alone Jason.
I’m feeling a little bloated myself.
I’ve recently read A Book of Blades, New Edge #0, Worlds Beyond Worlds, a handful of issues of Tales from the Magician’s Skull, and Sometime Lofty Towers. Not all brand new, but new enough.
But I haven’t made a dent, and the titles just keep coming.
Sitting unread in my office are:
Die by the Sword
Multiple additional copies of Tales from the Magician’s Skull
Lord of a Shattered Land
War on Rome
Not to mention my Howard Days haul, which includes Kagen the Damned
More are on the way. I participated in the recent kickstarter for Swords from the Shadows, so I expect that anthology in the mail soon. I also backed New Edge and issue no. 1 is well under way. I know I’ll be backing Neither Beg Nor Yield next. Baen is ramping up its act, as is Titan.
I feel guilty that I haven’t bought A Book of Blades vol. 2 (yet). I’d like to get more volumes of Swords and Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy, as I greatly enjoyed vol. 1, but I have to pump the brakes somehow. I’ve got two daughters in college.
And on top of everything else I’m way behind on Whetstone.
It does feel rather like a glut.
Is this a bad thing? Again I agree with Jason; while “glut” is not a particularly positive descriptor, it does also mean we have a plethora of choices.
Just a few short years ago it was hard to find any new sword-and-sorcery, save for the likes of online stories from Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Swords and Sorcery magazine, and the occasional title from DMR Books. It was a dark time, with glints of light in the stygian gloom. Parched S&S fans were starved for a cool drink.
But now the drink feels if not like a firehose, then a 40 oz. big gulp. It seems like new kickstarters are popping up every fortnight, announcing new anthologies and projects.
In comparison with trad fantasy, or YA, the number of new titles we’re seeing in S&S would probably not qualify as a blip. But those markets are not S&S. They’re far, far larger, and can bear the output. When you’re playing in a small pool this flood of titles is a lot.
Again, I stress that this is so far from a crisis that it’s ridiculous to even think that way. It might not even be a problem. If you have plenty of 1) expendable cash and 2) time, and love to read, it’s great. If you lack either cash, or sufficient time, less so.
If you’re a publisher trying to make a living the glut is a problem, unless the market keeps expanding. Because right now we’re short on readers. And that is the real issue.
Unless you grow the pool of readers by 20x (or preferably, 200x) no writer or publisher is going to be able to make enough to sustain a full-time living writing S&S. Here is an interesting article from 2016 on self-publishing and the kinds of numbers you need to make a middle-class income. I doubt any new anthology is moving these kinds of numbers.
The issue is definitely not the passionate community of creators, including writers but also artists and editors. Everyone who wants to write or create, should. But they also should know they are publishing in a very small community.
Perhaps I’m using the wrong barometer for health, and that readership and revenue aren’t the real indicators, but quantity and quality of output, and passion of the community. But again quantity is a problem: when there are this many new titles in such a small community some will go unread. Assessing quality is also difficult: Conversations will be shorter, and shallower, as we quickly switch focus to the next new title. And I’m not sure that’s great for discussion and thoughtful reviews. There isn’t much talk over what makes for good writing in this space.
Back to optimism and possibility: One way I can see this evolving is editors raising the bar for the stories they’ll accept, and getting more specific about what types of stories they want, thematically or stylistically. New Edge is doing this with its lean into diversity and inclusiveness; Neither Beg Nor Yield with a never surrender attitude.
Maybe one day we’ll see a “Year’s Best” anthology that we can hand to a new reader and say, “start here.”
All this is coming at a time where I’m feeling a bit burned out on sword-and-sorcery, and reading horror and memoir at the moment. Make no mistake, I’m a lifelong reader and nothing will extinguish that flame. I’ll be back. But I need a pause to get caught up.
Long story short, I’ll eventually get to Lord of a Shattered Land. Soon, I promise.
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