I recently began reading Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle, and one of the things I found most interesting was the general complexity of the milieu, in contrast with the Average Fantasy World.
One would argue that this is because Stephenson’s book takes place largely within a genuine historical context, which is nothing if not complicated, and was probably even more complicated in reality than even Stephenson is able to convey in his mammoth tale.
I can’t help thinking, however, that if your average “made up” fantasy universe even attempted to contain societies and sub-cultures as convoluted as those which genuinely belong to world history — we simply wouldn’t believe it. It would seem to preposterous that such things, such conspiracies, cults, alliances, betrayals, splinter groups, and relationships, could really occur.
In the historical context, we accept it, because we have heard of many or most of the events and personages, know that they are real, and we have no choice but to accept the general complexity of the milieu whole cloth.
I’m reminded of Robert Jordan’s Eye of the World series — perhaps a bad example, because I consider it to be a pretty bad example of good fantasy writing to begin with (sorry, any Jordan fans out there). Jordan’s world tries to be complex, but mostly winds up being broadly stereotyped pastiches of our own historical cultures, simplified and then cut-and-pasted into his universe. That city-whose-name-I-forget, for example, where the “great game” of court intrigue is played non-stop, seems like nothing more than a crude parody of Versailles, for example. The religious army which begins to loom large, nothing more than a parody of the Spanish Inquisition. I could probably go on, but it’s been a long time since I read them, and I’ve no intention of subjecting myself to that torture again.
Tolkien is a better example. I happen to like Tolkien very much, but even his fully realized imagined historical setting is profoundly simple in its people groups and cultures compared with our own histories.
In both cases, both Jordan and Tolkien, this is not necessarily a criticism — just an observation. The reasons for this, I have already speculated on — I think if our fantasy writers attempted to create worlds as convoluted as our own, we simply wouldn’t believe it.
The other problem is that it is very difficult to create a genuinely unique fantasy culture — I don’t think many writers even attempt it. Most fantasies that I’ve read contain cultures which are more or less deriviative of real historical cultures, whether they be far-eastern, Native American, or some sort of European culture or another. Again, this is not meant as a criticism, just an observation. The point, in this case, is that the more “complicated” someone might try to make one of these derivative cultures, the more it would come to resemble the real culture it was based on, until the story approached historical fiction with the names and maps changed around, and that’s all.
The Baroque Cycle, so far, is excellent. I’m a bit of a prude, however, and I’m not a big fan of some of the language Stephenson occasionally uses, nor some of the situations he describes, no matter how historically accurate they might be. In general, so far, the sheer excellence of the story and writing have out-weighed these objections (which are somewhat Puritanical, I admit… which is a bit ironic, as you’ll agree if you’ve read it), and I’ve continued to read. The main subjects — the development of mathematics, physics, and modern finance — have proven quite fascinating so far. I wish my other history books were this interesting.
