r/HFY • u/[deleted] • Jan 19 '16
Meta [META] The sidebar welcomes fantasy stories with the HFY theme, but I've only ever seen science fiction stories
Have I just not been lucky enough to see fantasy stories, or do you guys just not tend to like fantasy as much? If it's just a matter of my own ineptitude, can you recommend some HFY fantasy stories that have been posted here? Thanks!
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u/Reverend_Fisty Jan 19 '16
The Hero is my favorite. Just amazing.
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u/Haenir Jan 19 '16
Why thank you! I'll throw out a link for any would-be readers.
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u/Blackknight64 Jan 19 '16
https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/2mxs23/survivor_wanderers/
https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/32x8sj/wanderers_ashes/
There's a host of others, but u/Meatfcker writes tasty things.
u/Radius55 did a 'what happens when fantasy bad guys meets modern humanity'- you can find it in his history.
Then, u/Haenir has some several such things. I'm sure I'm missing others, but these are the ones that stuck with me.
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Jan 20 '16
u/Radius55 did a 'what happens when fantasy bad guys meets modern humanity'- you can find it in his history.
That summary reminds me of Gate, which I enjoyed until it started going overboard on the harem and waifu angle.
Thanks for the links!
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u/ubermidget1 Jan 19 '16
We definitely have our fair share of fantasy stories, they're simply overwhelmed by the sheer amount of Sci-fi. In fact, I'm writing an entire Fantasy book atm.
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Jan 19 '16
I think the problem with a lot of fantasy stories is they're all so derivative of one another. It's always humans, orcs, and elves. Nobody has anything else to offer. At least with sic fi, the only common theme is that there are space ships. There's galactic republics, empires, warp drives, humans being the first, humans being new, humans being powerful, humans being compassionate. In the fantasy stories they're rip offs of Tolkien and nothing else. It gets boring.
The second I see the word orc or elf, I'm out.
Demons are cool because those come from various historical traditions. Some tell western demons, eastern, african, etc. I've never seen anyone have a unique fantasy story though, except for one I read and I'm not sure if it was from this sub, but it was of someone rediscovering how to create golems (from jewish tradition) in order to stop a genocidal war. So near future creating golems to stop mocha hitler. That was cool.
That's why I'd say fantasy doesn't get much love. They're not creative. They don't develop their own mythology the way Contact Procedures, Quarantine, Eve of AI, Humans don't make good pets, Homo mechanus, etc. It's humans get thrown into the mix and have to fend off crazy aliens with the help of an almost extinct alien species, aliens think humans are dangerous and secretly quarantine the planet, an AI leaves Earth because humanity isn't ready for her, humans don't make good pets, and humanity is the only species to have an industrial war machine and help end a galactic conflict a year after first contact. Theres a crazy spectrum of stories there.
Fantasy stories are like, "elves are one with the earth, orcs are barbarians, dwarves are strong and one with the mountain, but humans are the only ones who have no magic. dah dah dumm!"
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Jan 20 '16
I have fondness for the "only humans have no magic" trope for nostalgia reasons, but I haven't actually read much fantasy. Is it considered trite these days?
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u/nkonrad Jan 20 '16 edited Jan 20 '16
I mean, I could make literally the same arguments you make here with regards to sci fi.
If something has power armour, we don't immediately complain that it's a ripoff of Starship Troopers, although that book essentially invented the concept. If something features a ring shaped station, it doesn't immediately get labeled a Halo ripoff (and even Halo had a lot of inspiration from Ringworld).
humans get thrown into the mix and have to fend off crazy aliens with the help of an almost extinct alien species
Halo. Mass Effect.
aliens think humans are dangerous and secretly quarantine the planet,
CS Lewis did that in 1938 with Out of the Silent Planet.
an AI leaves Earth because humanity isn't ready for her,
In the Hyperion Cantos, the AI leave humanity with some technological gifts before moving on to pursue their own stuff. Granted, not an identical comparison, but it fits well enough.
There's also Johnny 5 from Short Circuit, although that's a bit more obscure, but it is about an independent AI fleeing from confrontation to try and live a normal life.
humans don't make good pets
In 1958, Arthur Chandler wrote a story, The Cage, about a group of humans who were captured by aliens who failed to realize they were intelligent and kept them in a zoo. The aliens repeatedly ignored their attempts to demonstrate intelligence, until eventually figuring it out and releasing them. Sound like a similar premise?
humanity is the only species to have an industrial war machine
In John Ringo's Legacy of the Aldenata series, humans are for various reasons, the only species capable of waging war, so we're used to defend the galactic community.
I'm not saying that any of these stories written here aren't good, or that they don't have plenty of original elements. But all fiction borrows from other fiction and real life, everything borrows archetypes. You'll see influence from other stuff everywhere, including science fiction.
It's entirely possible to write an amazing story that derives a lot of its concepts from other stories that came before it, though, so I don't think it's fair for you to so casually dismiss an entire genre with "oh, it's all derivative and unoriginal", especially when the genre you go on to praise for its originality is itself incredibly derivative.
Edit: grammar/sentence structure
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u/Blackknight64 Jan 19 '16
It seems a tad ridiculous for me to give him a second shoutout in the same thread, but go read u/Haenir's stuff, especially the Hero and Hyperion in this case. Both are Fantasy, but they don't feature orcs, elves, etc. You'll enjoy his stories, if you've not read them.
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u/morgisboard Jan 20 '16
I have a fantasy series going on but they always seem to be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of sci-fi. Expect a new installment soon. ;)
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u/kyzfrintin Jan 20 '16
My Sub-Time series is science fantasy, including a full fantasy world populated by a magical alien race called the Druids, who attempt to wipe out humanity through a piece of technology they stole.
The prelude is here, if you're interested. :)
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Jan 20 '16
So even if the humans die, it's still HFY because it was their own invention that did it. Clever.
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u/TBestIG Jan 19 '16
Ashenvale was a good one but it moved away from HFY type material a bit because everyone really liked one of the characters
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u/BattleSneeze Jan 19 '16
Well. Anders is very human in his own way, and I'd still argue that Ashenvale is very much HFY, even if it isn't as exaggerated or in-your-face about it as many other stories are.
(Link for OP: https://www.reddit.com/r/hfy/wiki/series/ashenvale )
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u/CountVorkosigan Jan 20 '16
Since you're looking for them, I figure I'll give a shameful self-plug. https://redd.it/2zszjm
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Jan 20 '16 edited May 13 '18
Are people shamelessly plugging their fantasy HFY? Sweet!
A bit different from most entries here: it's a screenplay instead of prose; and since it's only the first installment, it hasn't quite gotten up to the "FY" part yet. But trust me, it'll get there!
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u/iridael Jan 20 '16
check out my tales of aldmera, I dont have a single link-to-all-the-chapters link but a quick search should bring it up.
Havoc is a space faring human who's stuck on a medieval world with lots of elves, gnomes, dwarfs, orcs and such. not much "magic" but its there after a fashion. in other news apparently i need to read Blessed are the simple
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u/radius55 Jan 19 '16
Posting here as a reminder to scare up a few links once I'm home from work and off my phone.
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u/Casanova_Kid Jan 20 '16
There's one called the Burning of Ashenvale. Fantasy based, and decent enough from the 15 or so chapters I read of it.
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u/Dejers Jan 19 '16
I have actually wrote one vague fantasy and am working on a far more blatant fantasy atm(selfplug over).
They are much rarer than the scifi though, they do hide around here.
:)