The Genre Explorers discussion

This is the thread for nominations for March's groupreads.

MARCH'S GENRE: Mythic Fantasy
NUMBER OF GROUPREADS: 2

1. You may nominate one book, no restrictions other than that it must fit the genre (see next post)

2. Please be prepared for being discussion leader if your nominated book wins. I may not be able to read all groupreads that month for various reasons.

3. Nominations will end on Jan. 20th


Nominations:
- Shomeret: Ice Land by Betsy Tobin (2008, 364 pp)
- Elena: Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman (2005, 387 pp)

INSPIRATION AND INFORMATION

This seems to be a relatively newly defined genre. I didn't manage to find any lists on listopia or any info on the genre in my literary dictionary (or indeed on fantasy in general which is shocking!)

However, I have found this site about fantasy and here is their entry for this genre:

bestfantasybooks.com

There is actually a GR group devoted to this sub-genre at https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/....

Take a look at their shelf and discussions and it can probably give you some ideas.

Shomeret, that group is devoted to Mythic Fiction, not Mythic Fantasy, and as such it unfortunately seems most of their reads don't fit this particular genre. They do have some that do though, so thank you for the link, had not thought of checking if there was a devoted group for it :)

Mythic Fiction seems to be a broader subgenre and as such it has nothing to do with Fantasy specifically. I think equalling Mythic Fiction with Mythic Fantasy would be a bit like equalling, say, Historical Fiction with Historical Romance. Hope that clarifies things :)

I nominate by Juliet Marillier. I hope this one's okay. It's shelved as both mythology and fantasy.

I want to nominate Ice Land by Betsy Tobin. It's a fantasy novel dealing with Norse mythology.

@Ally, I read the description and skimmed the top reviews. It's my understanding that Mythic Fantasy has ancient mytholgical gods as part of the plot, which doesn't seem to be the case with this book. But I honestly have NO idea about this genre, maybe someone else knows?

@Shomeret, That seems interesting, I like that it takes place on Iceland, you don't see that often.

If someone know about this genre, I'd love to hear, as I really don't know anything about it other than the link I found.

I'd like to nominate The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. I think this fits as the plot builds on Greek Mythology.

I interpret mythic fantasy as fantasy dealing with myths which aren't always about gods. Sometimes they deal with mythic heroes who are mortal. That said, I think that Ally's nomination deals with fairy tale content rather than mythic content. It's not quite the same thing.

Yes, The Lightning Thief is mythic fantasy. I should also point out that it's YA and the first book in a series. That doesn't disqualify it, but those who don't read YA or would prefer to avoid series should know about those aspects.

Shomeret wrote: "I interpret mythic fantasy as fantasy dealing with myths which aren't always about gods. Sometimes they deal with mythic heroes who are mortal. That said, I think that Ally's nomination deals wit..."

Thank you for your input! That makes sense, and it's also the impression I got from the book.

Great to hear that it fits the genre. Ah yes, that it is. I usually don't feel like bothering with YA, since I'm not a teen anymore. I tend to get annoyed with them. However, this one I would like to read. I was a bit conflicted about whether or not to nominate a YA book, since they have genres of their own in a sense, but I'm not clear on where I stand yet. Would you guys like a discussion thread or possibly a poll to decide whether or not to allow YA nominations for genres that are not specifically YA?

About it being a series, as long as it's the first in the series, it's fine - I think it would be too restrictive to disallow it. It would exclude so many books, including some that are usually thought of as standalone, yet are still part of a series. And for instance, in a genre like mystery a huge number of books are part of a series.

I'm a member of Into The Forest, a group that deals with fairy tales and fairy tale re-tellings. Every month they nominate an adult book consistent with the theme of the month and a YA book consistent with the theme. So that's how they handle it. I agree that whether a book is adult or YA is an important distinction, and that the group should be polled on it.

Shomeret wrote: "I'm a member of Into The Forest, a group that deals with fairy tales and fairy tale re-tellings. Every month they nominate an adult book consistent with the theme of the month and a YA book consis..."

It's an interesting idea, but I think I'll keep to one genre each month and not all genres have YA equivalents. But a poll on whether or not YA books should only be allowed when a YA genre is chosen would probably be benificial. So thanks for bringing it to my attention :)

I'd like to nominate for March either Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman or A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K Leguin.

My reasons: I've read before something of the work of Gaiman and I love it as a writer, so I think that he might have done something interesting within this genre.

On the other hand, I think that Ursula K Leguin is a classic of the genre. She wrote a brilliant world dominated by gods and how human struggled to survive. I don't remember much about the work (I read it several years ago), but I know that I loved it.

Aleta wrote: "@Ally, I read the description and skimmed the top reviews. It's my understanding that Mythic Fantasy has ancient mytholgical gods as part of the plot, which doesn't seem to be the case with this bo..."

No problem! I wasn't sure at first, but I clicked the link you provided(Thanks!). According to that site, all of Patricia McKillip's works are Mythic Fantasy. I know I own one of hers that I haven't read yet. I'll have to check. Maybe I'll nominate it.

Elena wrote: "I'd like to nominate for March either Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman or A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K Leguin.

My reasons: I've read before something of the work of Gaiman a..."

I think that Anansi Boys is mythic fantasy since it deals with an African myth, but Wizard of Earthsea doesn't take place in our world or deal with our myths. It's Epic Fantasy, a fantasy that takes place in an invented world.

Huuh. I kinda saw as Mythic Fantasy all fantasy that included dealing with ancient myths, being the myths from our real world or invented. But I can see your point. I'll narrow my nomination to Mr. Gaiman.

Obviously, I'm no expert on this genre, but the Earthsea series is listed in "Best Mythic Fantasy." http://bestfantasybooks.com/mythic-fa...#

I just thought I'd point that out. I'll leave it up to Aleta to decide! And we can only nominate one book each, anyway.

Lol, I didn't remember that we only get one nomination! Then my nomination it's settled on Anansi Boys. :D I'll let you decide if you prefer only the mythology of our real world or also fiction mythology.

Okay, let's see. How's this for a definition:

The nominations HAS to feature GODS as a part of the story (and not just a minor, but a real part of the plot).

How's that? It seems to be what most people agree on on blogs etc and that way we avoid the very loose definition where basically everything Fantasy counts. I think it's the most sure way of finding books that actually fits the genre.

That means that books that just have an invented mythology doesn't count - ie books like LOTR which fit other Fantasy subgenres better, won't be eligible here despite drawing on mythology and having an invented mythology, since gods do not play a part in the story as such.

This link I think sums up the subgenre pretty well. I've read The Fionovar Tapestry though (great trilogy!) and don't remember it as having much to do with gods, at least in the first two books.

What do you all think of that? :)

@Ally, Thank you for looking for another :) And I wasn't sure about my nomination either, this is a tough subgenre to nail down a definition of!

@Elena, I chose to only allow one nomination this time as it's such a new genre I couldn't really divide according to age or such like. And I agree with the others, Anansi Boys seems to be right on the spot with this subgenre. I read the first Wizard of Earthsea some years ago and don't really remember anything about gods. I listed Anansi Boys as your nomination! :)

Aleta wrote: "@Ally, Thank you for looking for another :) And I wasn't sure about my nomination either, this is a tough subgenre to nail down a definition of!

@Elena, I chose to only allow one nomination this t..."

Maybe you're right... I read it a long while ago. It was qualified enough for me to see that it appeared in the list you provided in message 2, lol. I'll be more thorough next time.

Hmmm.. I just took a look at the books from that link and can certainly see that several of them don't seem to have much to do with gods. I think it might get too fuzzy though, if we nominate any book that could fit and don't come up with a way to narrow it down for ourselves. Did you take a look at my proposed definition in the post above?

Edit - also, I tend to never really trust any lists, but rather the descriptions compared to definitions, which seems to help. It does take more time though and I completely get that most people don't have time to really research these things.

Also, now that I'm looking to Anansi Boys it kiiiinda seems to be a second part to American Gods... I mean, people say that it is not strictly a second part, but it's better understood or liked if you have already read American Gods...

Would you like to change it and read American Gods instead? I know that I don't mind either way. I'm terribly sorry, I'm in the middle of my exams and can't seem to manage my life!

I don't know. American Gods is a bit long for a one-month groupread when there's more than one book. As long as it's not strictly a second part, I don't really think it matters too much. It'll probably just be like people reading Huck Finn without reading Tom Sawyer first - it's in a way a second book, yet most people seem to like Huck Finn either way :)

Exams mess with your brain! You can't really be held accountable for anything that happens while getting too little sleep, too little fresh air and steam coming out your ears from studying too hard, which usually seems to be the case with exams ;)

I've read Anansi Boys. Plot wise and character wise it has nothing in common with American Gods. Probably the only thing they have in common is that they are both mythic fantasy by Neil Gaiman.

Well, if nobody's got a problem, it's settled then! Thanks for understanding, I'm such a mess during exams. :D I'll be more careful with the nominations next time!

Anansi Boys is on the list of nominations :)

I'm not sure whether to put my nom up there or not, until we figure out whether YA are allowed or not.

I just don't want us always selecting YA because there are mega-bestseller YA books in a sub-genre like The Lightning Thief which everyone will recognize. Since I read in almost every genre, for me exploration would involve finding books that are not the most popular or obvious ones. But that's just me. There are probably people here who have never read any mythic fantasy.

Actually, the nomination of Anansi Boysmakes me feel better about you nominating The Lightning Thief because Neil Gaiman is high profile enough to give significant competition to Rick Riordan in a popularity contest.

I agree with that. However, I started the bookclub so that people can explore genres and subgenres they might NOT normally read. While I don't usually pick a book based on genre, there are still some that I for some reason haven't tried even once yet. And most people seem to have a hard time breaking out of the genres they usually read.
Therefore I like it when we read some more famous examples of a genre as they often seem to be a good introduction to it and a good indicator of whether or not you'll like other books from the genre.
Also, it can be really difficult and/or expensive to find books that are not well-known in themselves or with a well-known author. This means that those books probably won't get a lot of activity or pull in a lot of new members.

But I do like to read books that are pretty unknown. I thought of maybe having a min. number of ratings for the nominations and then an extra groupreads just for unknown books where the nominator would have to lead the discussion themselves. Adding yet another groupread would require more members though, as can be seen from the activity level in two of the groupreads this month. But I have been seriously considering putting a min. of ratings on already, to make it more certain that everyone can get a copy from the library as not everyone have the money to buy new books.

A lot of consideration goes into the requirements for nominations as I also want it, when possible, to be a way of seeing how the genre has evolved through time, to give the best idea of it possible. With a new genre like Mythic Fantasy though, it would be possible to simply have a "high rating" and "low rating" groupread. I'd thought of that already and then completely forgot it. *sigh* There's a lot to keep track of with this group! :)

Anyway! This was quite the "little" sidenote. I don't think it's bad at all that the groupreads that win the polls are ones everyone recognizes, but I can certainly see the problem where, if YA nominations are allowed, we might end up mostlly reading YA books.

I think having an adult and a young adult group read is a good idea, but maybe not until we have more members? Until then, we could just do adult fiction unless we decide on the genre of the month to be YA. Say, YA science fiction, or YA romance.

Or, you could randomize the selecting of the BOM, insteading of voting. That way, the most recognized book wouldn't always be chosen.

As a general rule, I don't like to read YA books. I appreciate knowing in advance if a book is in this category.

Nominations are closed!

Since there are only two nominations that count (my own not included as the YA issue emains unresolved), they will simply be our groupreads for March.

They are:
Ice Land by Betsy Tobin
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

Guys, there's a discussion thread on the YA issue here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Ally and Terri, you'll find my replies there (as soon as dinner's been eaten lol)