Yesterday I stumbled across Dave Cesarano’s 15,000-word catch-up overview of epic/high fantasy from 1977 to 2011. I found it usefully informative, as someone who hasn’t taken much notice of newly-published epic fantasy books since Thomas Covenant t’wuz a lad, and who thus welcomed hearing a fan’s succinct plainly-spoken overview of how it all turned out.

It turned out badly, it seems. On the one hand, a cadre of sour Tolkien-haters racing ever-downwards into despair, gore, rape and angst, all chasing an adolescent’s shallow idea of what “edgy” and “realism” is meant to look like. On the other hand, waves of badly-written lacklustre Tolkien pastiches, foaming out to ever-wider lengths at the behest of cynical publishers. And in between the two, the slowly widening chasm of tone-deaf political axe-grinders.

That’s the impression that I came away from Cesarano’s essay with, anyway. Possibly there are other weightier surveys of the epic fantasy novels of the period, akin to Joshi’s sweeping critical take on the history of recent weird fiction. Though I don’t know of any offhand.

But if Cesarano’s fan-viewpoint is to be trusted, and I’ve no reason to doubt his sincerity, then evidently I didn’t miss much in terms of the big post-Covenant works. Except perhaps for Tad Williams’s Memory, Sorrow & Thorn series (though he’s on record was wanting to infuse “politics” into the genre), and some Marion Zimmer Bradley. Elsewhere I hear good things about Ardath Mayhar’s first Dunsany-like book How the Gods Wove in Kyrannon, and her later Crazy Quilt: The Best Short Stories. Also Jon Brunner’s The Compleat Traveller in Black (1986) and David Gemmell’s debut novel Legend (1984). If I’d have heard about those in the mid 80s, rather than the gloomy-but-worthily ‘grown up’ Thomas Covenant books, which killed my interest, then I might still be reading fantasy.

Anyway, here are the links for Cesarano’s “The State of Fantasy Since 1977”. Keep in mind that he’s talking about epic fantasy novels here, and is not straying off into short-stories, anthologies, fantasy-steampunk, schoolboy wizards etc.

Introduction: The State of Fantasy in 1977.

1. Fantasy: 1977-1989. (If you’re short of time, just start with “1982”).

2. Fantasy: 1990 – 2000. The Age of the Doorstops and Gimmicks.

3. Fantasy: 1999 to 2011. Disillusionment and Nihilism.

Conclusion: Fantasy: 1977 to 2011. Wrapping It All Up.