Let’s talk a bit about secondary worlds.
A “secondary world” is a consistent fictional setting that is neither Earth, nor any other “real” location (Mars, for instance). It may closely resemble historical Earth, or it may be wildly different, but either way, it’s clearly not our reality in some shape, form, or fashion.
The bulk of traditional fantasy is set in a secondary world. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire, Eddings’ Elenium, and Brust’s Vlad Taltos novels all take place in secondary worlds that bare no relationship to Earth at all.
Classic fantasy such as The Lord of the Rings, the Conan stories, and Moorcock’s Elric, might ostensibly take place on ancient Earth, during some forgotten epoch, but honestly, these settings are so far outside anything resembling historical Earth–including completely brand new, made-up geography, society, and history–that they still qualify as secondary worlds.
That’s not to say that all fantasy is set in secondary worlds, of course. There’s plenty of historical fantasy as well, from Howard’s Solomon Kane to Wolfe’s Soldier of the Mist to the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Historical fantasy may be slightly more rare than secondary world fantasy, but there’s still a massive amount of both.
Okay, that’s traditional fantasy. Now let’s look at contemporary fantasy.
The Dresden Files. Harry Potter. American Gods. War for the Oaks. Twilight. Megan Chase. Contemporary fantasy taking place in the real world, or “parallel versions/alternate histories” of the real world, almost seem to outnumber the number of real-world cities in which they could possibly take place.
Now, list for me the books that are set in a modern-age secondary world.
Anyone? Anyone at all? Don’t mind the crickets…
Yeah. It’s entirely possible that such a thing exists, but I can’t think of any. Honestly, not one. As popular as contemporary/urban fantasy is, I cannot think of any books that take place in a secondary world. Some of them include fictional places within the real world, such as Green’s Nightside, but it’s still rooted in the real world.
We have secondary worlds that resemble Medieval Europe, or the Renaissance, or mythic Greece, or Persia, or China. We have secondary worlds that resemble the Victorian Age. We have secondary worlds in sci-fi and space opera (Star Wars, for instance).
I honestly cannot think of any secondary fantasy worlds that resemble, but are clearly distinct from, the modern real world.
I suppose some people would ask “Why bother?” I would respond with “Why not?” Why do people write traditional fantasy in secondary worlds, rather than historical periods? Because it allows for more creative freedom in certain respects–you can make up cultures, events, faiths, and the like without worrying about how they fit into history–and because it’s easier, since it doesn’t require anything approaching the same level of research.
The same should be true of contemporary fiction. How much easier would it be to make up my own city, rather than having to research the actual locations/streets/neighborhoods/politicians/history of a real one? How interesting a story could I write if I could completely make up my own history and religion and cultural specifics in a setting that still overtly resembled the world outside my window?
And yet, once again, I just don’t see it out there on shelves. Even contemporary fantasies where the world is very different from the one we know–Anthony’s Incarnations of Immortality, for instance–are still set in altered versions of our world. Sometimes very altered, granted; but never a true, full-fledged, “no connection to our Earth” secondary world.
Am I wrong? Are such books out there in any real numbers, and I’ve just somehow missed them? And if I’m right, why? Does the lack of real-world grounding remove what much of the contemporary fantasy audience wants? Would it be defeating the purpose? Is the sub-genre still new enough that most authors haven’t felt the need to break out of the “confines” (and I use the word loosely) of the real world to tell their stories? Does it just feel too much like cheating? Does it somehow feel emotionally “wrong” to use the trappings of the real world without its history and locations?
What is it about modern-set fantasy that seems to demand the use of the real world, when everything past and future so easily lends itself to made-up, secondary settings?
Could Battlestar: Galactica be an example of what you are talking about. Except for the FTL and Cylons that it. And Caprica even mimics more of a 50s mentality with a lot of futuristic technology. I mean there’s a connection, but it’s more “Earth is a myth.”
OK, I’m completely confused.
So you are looking for fantasy books that are set in a “modern age” but not connected to Earth, right?
I would think that the possible problem with that is our modern age is defined by technology, while fantasy generally has some element of magic to it. Contemporary fantasy set on earth can explain that away by saying that the magical practitioners are such a small percentage of the population, that the humans are the main influence on this world and since humans can’t do magic, they created technology in order to heat, cool, communicate, etc.
But if you have a world where a significant portion of the population can simply wave a hand, say a word, think really loudly, and meat gets cooked, people get transported, and lots of soldiers get killed, why develop technology as we know it? And so if you have a world where technology never developed the way we know it, you have a world that looks nothing like our modern world.
Unless … you have a different thought of what modern is?
It’s not 20th century modern, but Martha Wells’ Ile-Rien books range from semi-Elizabethan (The Element of Fire) to 18th/19th centuryish (Death of the Necromancer, and the Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy). Paula Volsky wrote several early modern/French revolution/19th centuryish (Illusions/The White Tribunal/The Wolf of Winter/etc) secondary world setting books as well.
I can’t think of any explicitly 20th century-analogue secondary world fantasy, though. Perhaps I should write some.
John: BSG is sci-fi, not fantasy. So even if it were set entirely/primarily on Caprica, it wouldn’t really be what I’m talking about.
Heather: But why couldn’t you tell a similar story in a secondary world? You can have humans (or other technology-using races/cultures) being dominant, with magic-users or magic creatures being rare. Or heck, even have both technology and magic exist simultaneously, as some Earth-set contemporary fantasies (like Incarnations of Immortality) do.
You may have alluded to a possible answer in the post, revolving around the “no connection to our Earth” comment. I think part of what makes many urban fantasies and modern thrillers worthwhile is that they’re grounded somewhere that exists, there’s some sort of connection. The reader may never have visited that place, but they can Google it up and check it out for themselves if they’re sufficienty curious.
Dresden’s in Chicago. Rice has vampires in New Orleans. Setting the books in a real place in the modern day grounds the readers in something familiar. Maybe it’s one of the unwritten ‘rules’ of urban fantasies, that you need to ground the reader in something real even as you present them with whatever twist makes it different (vampires exist, werewolves exist, magic exists, whatever).
Set a modern-day Dresden in the city of Jalfa on the planet Murpo, and you’ve immediately increased the workload for the writer and the reader. Now you have to explain how everything works in Jalfa and on Murpo, and have to show how their modern day is the same as our modern day, only somehow it’s happened on another world.
Maybe it’s just easier to use elements of a real setting with a modern-day fantasy. Maybe it’s akin to calling a duck a duck even if you might want your secondary world to call a duck a goomba. Heck, even Star Trek had captains from Iowa and France.
As for the question “Does it somehow feel emotionally “wrong” to use the trappings of the real world without its history and locations?” I’d say, yeah, probably. History provides context. Without that context, the trappings are less meaningful.
Ed McBain has the 87th Precinct novels. It is based in a city that is like New York but, isn’t New York City. His are Police Procedural/Detective novels.
AThen there is Robert Parker’s Jesse Stone novels. He is Chief of Police on an Island that is like Martha’s Vineyard but, again isn’t the Vineyard.
Is this what you’re writing of?
I’d argue that such a world exists, just not in proper literary fantasy. It’s not *completely* alien, as it’s a version of Earth, but the world of DC Comics is very different. Gotham City, Metropolis, even entire new nations that don’t exist on our Earth. And it’s definitely a fantasy setting still.
B.J., owner of http://chum.ly/
In terms of novels, I can’t think of any contemporary fantasy stories set in a secondary world. A few come close, but they are mostly just “Earth, with extra stuff tacked on”.
In regards to -why- there isn’t more, I would look at it like this:
Based on real world:
- Do research on locations and history, make sure everything is accurate enough to not anger anyone. Easily done with a bit of Google-Fu, and it has the added benefit of drawing on the shared consciousness of the readers. When you say “Times Square”, people will instinctively have a mental image of what you’re talking about without you having to explain that part in detail, letting you focus on more important story aspects instead.
Secondary world:
- Spend time writing up new setting, taking notes, probably researching historical examples of what you’re trying to achieve with your setting or details thereof. You then have to describe everything in enough detail for the reader to get the -context- of your locations and cultures, forcing you to focus on that rather than the central story. When you say “Ooblarg Octagon” (as opposed to Times Square), you have a serious amount of explaining to do, as noone will understand that right off the bat.
So at least in my view, using the real world as your stepping board, even with the research needed, is actually easier than making stuff up from scratch.
Damontcs: And yet, it’s the exact opposite in traditional fantasy. Many fantasy writers–I dare say “most”–find it easier to write their fantasy in secondary worlds, rather than historical Earth periods. The freedom to make up the rules of society, geography, religion, and culture is seen–at least by some–as outweighing the benefits of a heavily researched period.
What I’m getting it is, I’m trying to figure out why that holds true for traditional fantasy but not contemporary. I don’t disagree that it “feels” wrong, but I haven’t put my finger on *why* it feels wrong, or why it seems to be such a common viewpoint as to be *almost* universal. (As I said, there may be a *few* exceptions, but–at least in fantasy–I’ve yet to find any.)
B.J.: Still doesn’t count, I’m afraid, though I see where you’re coming from. It’s still Earth, albeit a “parallel” or changed Earth. I’m talking about a *completely* secondary world. The basic equivalent of Feist’s Midkemia or Weiss and Hickman’s Krynn, but with a modern-day setting.
Again, I understand why it’s not common; I’m just bewildered as to why it’s apparently *nonexistent*. You’d think that *some* writers would find the creative freedom of making their world up whole cloth to outweigh the advantages and emotional resonance of a modified Earth.
I think there’s just as much creative freedom using the real world as there is creating a whole new one. And as mentioned before, it’s easier for the writer to not have to create an entire world whole-cloth and feed it to the reader.
Maybe we writers are just lazy. Why create a whole new world when we have a perfectly good one every reader is familiar with?
A good example might be “Enchantress from the Stars” by Sylvia Louise Engdahl. I contains 3 separate civilizations, one primitive (medieval earth), one more advanced than we are (space travel, colonization), and one extremely advance civilization that has elements of both medieval earth (traditional fantasy, i.e., magic) and advanced civilization (i.e., space travel). The story is told from the main character’s point of view who is part of the 3rd civilization. See http://www.sylviaengdahl.com/efts.htm for a preview and FAQ. It is an excellent, thought provoking read.
Okay, it took me a day, but I think I figured out a category of literature that my fit (or at least be close): the whole “character lands in an alternate universe” genre.
For example, I believe Oz may be close to a contemporary (for it’s time) fantasy world. So is Wonderland. The world in Miyazaki’s film Spirited Away also is a fantasy world that is basically modern (though rural modern, rather than urban modern). While these kinds of stories usually involve characters from the “normal” world traveling to the fantasy world, the fantasy world themselves are secondary.
In fact, I think most allegorical stories (maybe even back to Aesop) could be seen as “modern” secondary worlds (though again, where “modern” is relative to the time the story was written)
@Ari
That sentiment (that fantasy writers find it easier to make up everything for medieval stories) to me actually supports what I was trying to say. I still think it’s all about context, common knowledge and common imagery. Ask anyone on the street about medieval times, and they will say that it’s something with knights and horses and crusades, if you’re lucky. That’s usually the scope of the “on-hand” knowledge that people have about that time period. This means that a historical medieval novel, even a well researched one, will still have to explain basically everything, because there is not a lot of ‘common knowledge’ to draw on… and if you have to explain everything anyways, you might as well make up your own stuff so that it suits your story needs, and so that you can cut out most of the research phase.
In the case of a modern world setting, there is a whole lot more, because it’s the time that people are living in now, or at least remember within their close lifetime (or that of their family). When you ask people about WWII, the Prohibition Era, hell, even the 80’s in all their glory and horror, people automatically have a lot more knowledge or feeling for those places. People know what to expect, or maybe even demand from such a setting, and turning that completely on its head by setting it in a secondary world might be too much. Both in terms of world development, and in terms of overwhelming the reader.
The lure of modern fantasy, at least in my opinion isn’t so much the fact that ‘there’s dragons and shit’, but the notion that behind what we -think- is the normal world, there is something fantastic. Hell, that’s the central selling point of the World of Darkness.
Using WoD as an example, moving that setting to an entirely secondary world would pretty much ruin that. Our version of earth is what defines ‘normal’. You need this normalcy to highlight the fantasty aspects of the setting. By placing that in a secondary world, you remove that baseline – it’s a different world, anything can happen and to the reader, there is no ‘normal’ here, since everything is new and strange. Losing the normal lessens the fantastic aspect of the story.
Also, I thought of a book series: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Dark_Materials, of which The Golden Compass movie is a part, is probably as close to contemporary fantasy in secondary world as you can get in popular-ish culture at least.
Damon: You’re probably entirely correct, both about ease of use, and about the reasons contemporary fantasy appeals to the market. And like I said, I agree that writing the other would just sort of “feel” wrong.
But I’m still astounded that nobody seems to have thought otherwise. (Though you’re right that His Dark Materials seems to come close.) I’d have thought that, given the prevalence of contemporary fiction, that there would be at least a fractional minority of writers who’d want to give it a shot.
I find myself tempted to try to write one now, just to see what it’d be like. But maybe not too tempted…
Well, that minority might be there for all we know, but just not getting their books published due to the very unconventional nature of the books.
I have to admit that I’m tempted to do something with a contemporary secondary world as well now, but I most likely won’t, at least not in the foreseeable future. Too much work involved for my liking at the moment.
For someone hoping to publish material similar to that being discussed, the post/comments here have been very discouraging.
I can’t really put my finger on it, but I think it has a lot to do with technology. Setting something in a contemporary setting gives it a grounding, something we can base it around. If we’re talking about something that’s set in Blumiscipia, which is just like America except it’s got dragons and is on an island, why not just call it America but have it on an island with dragons? It’ll make it easier for your readers and yourself.
However, I would like to say to Ureni, I’m probably wrong. Show me why, please!
It seems like you are defining contemporary fantasy as fantasy that is set in the modern world, and then wondering why it isn’t set in some other world?
Then classifying anything that is technologically equivalent to, or farther along than, or completely different from our current world, as science fiction.
So I am not sure what you are looking for.
What about Jeff Vandermeer’s Finch? Or China Meiville’s The City and the City?
Or Michal Ajvaz’ The Other City?
These are three I can think of off the top of my head. The apparent technology is on par with that of something between the 1940s and the 1960s. Perhaps even more recent than that. And honestly, most of the literary fiction being written today is either so super contemporary that become irrelevant in a year or it doesn’t break the 1980s threshold.
But these three books are recognizably fantasy, even though they tend towards the Weird or the surreal instead of magic and elves. Also, if you read all of Gormenghast, there is recognizable contemporary/near future technology.
I think what you are looking for is being done, it just looks different.
The extra apostrophe in the title is just killing me, dude.
I agree with Robin – I can’t understand what you’re getting at. If it’s a real secondary world with no connection to ours, how is one to indicate that it’s “set in the modern day”? From what reference point? What markers can you add to clue the reader in without it being labeled “Earth with a twist”? Short of coming out and saying “Hey, this is totally set in our contemporary time, but everything is super-different! Let me infodump about how different it is!” how is anyone going to know? The above commenter’s mention of “totally normal person transported to an ALTERNATE UNIVERSE!!!!” is the only way I can think to do this even halfway gracefully, and it’s a cliche for a reason.
(And why does it matter when a secondary world is set? Does saying Star Wars is from “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” actually add anything to the story? It might as well be our own deep future, what with all the humans and SFnal technology running around.)
I think it’s easiest to call it “secondary world, urban fantasy”. It’s almost self-explanatory if you know what urban fantasy is and what secondary world fiction is.
Ureni has it right, but to clarify:
I’m looking for something that is
A) Recognizably *fantasy*. That is, it must involve magic/the supernatural in some for or other.
B) Something that is *contemporary*. It must be a tech-level close to modern day Earth. It can be a little behind, or a little ahead, or even a mixture thereof. But *close*.
Those two are, to me, the defining factors of “contemporary fantasy.” Now, I’d like to see that set in a world that isn’t Earth. Different cultures, history, religion, geography. Something as different from modern Earth as Midkemia or Hyperboria are from Medieval Earth.
If I’m dismissing some suggestions as sci-fi rather than fantasy, it’s because they lack any, well, *fantasy*.
Interestingly, Brandon Sanderson is talking about doing a second MISTBORN trilogy set on the same world, but where time and technology has moved on and they have cars, skyscrapers, electricity etc alongside the metal-burning magic. He’s also mooted a third sequence which would actually involve space travel, but with the magic still around.
Another possible example is THE WHEEL OF TIME’s Age of Legends backdrop, where cars, planes and televisions (albeit true-3D holographic ones) exist alongside the One Power.
Another contender might be Chris Wooding’s TALES OF THE KETTY JAY sequence, which is not quite as technologically-advanced as our modern society, but not far-off. They have magic-fuelled aircraft (including warships, frigates and fighters) and magic-powered golems (robots by any other name), although overall the books might fall a little more into a fantasy-steampunk crossbreed.