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#1 | |
Gentleman and scholar
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Slate article: Lester Del Rey - The Man Who Invented Fantasy
First: Yes, the headline is hyperbolic and wrong. TBH so is lots of the article. But it was an interesting read nonetheless. It's about how the Del Rey imprint started and Judy-Lynn Del Rey brought in Lester, with Judy handling sci-fi and Lester pushing for fantasy, with three of his early successes being Terry Brooks, Stephen R. Donaldson and Piers Anthony.
The Man Who Invented Fantasy Del Rey did have a major impact on fantasy as a genre. Probably not a good one. It feels like much of the high fantasy Tolkien-clones are due to his input. Quote:
The only thing getting roasted in the comments is the author for being short-sighted. Last edited by ZodWallop; 10-01-2023 at 11:18 PM. |
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#2 |
Surfin the alpha waves ~~
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I read it earlier. I agree with His impact on Fantasy -- from Tolkien-inspired to Tolkien-reprocessed. I think that was his formula. And the paperback fantasy shelves at Waldenbooks and B. Dalton were packed cover to cover with work he got published. For better or worse.
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Brash Fumbler
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del Rey was clever enough to discern what the market wanted and give it to them. To us.
Was the writing juvenile? Often, yes. But so was the audience. We were adolescents having fun. There was a great deal of joy in a shlocky fantasy with a Daryl Sweet cover, or a Clone-an pulp-fest with a cover by Boris or Frank. And many of us matured into more literary tastes. But would we have done so without our youthful reads? And I still own my 1978 Tolkien Calendar. Sue me. |
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#4 |
the rook, bossing Never.
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I read Tolkien in the late 1960s. Others before and after. I read plenty of Fantasy in 1960s and 1970s (and since) that wasn't Tolkien themed.
Maybe the Del Ray titles were less common to non-existent in local UK bookshops (I left UK in 1983)? |
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Brash Fumbler
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You may be right. Selling paperbacks through shopping mall franchise bookstores was the 1970's version of Amazon.com in the US.
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#6 |
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In a bit of misplaced chauvinism, I'd thought the imprint was named after Lester.
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#7 |
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Del Rey started in 1977. I would bet that Sword of Shannara was available in the UK at that point. Same with The Covenant Chronicles. Maybe over there they just weren't published by Del Rey there.
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#8 |
Brash Fumbler
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Hmmm. I bet the date in the third paragraph should be 1974, not 1994.
Ironic! In 1974 I could walk into a shopping mall with a $10 bill, see a movie, buy a slice of pizza and a drink, and go home with a new vinyl record album or paperback book. |
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#9 | |
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Quote:
Besides, A Spell for Chameleon came out in 1974, so the author couldn't have been picking up Xanth novels in 1974. |
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#10 |
Brash Fumbler
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I guess fantasy was still going in '94. The Hogwarts bomb didn't detonate until 1998.
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#11 | |
the rook, bossing Never.
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Quote:
Futura for Shannara and Fontana for Covenant. I've maybe 3000 paper books. Plenty are Fantasy. I can't see any Del Ray. I did have some books maybe US import, the Dragonlance and related stuff. Picked it up at a chartity shop about 30c each and I gave them away after reading only one. Some of those seem like a bad clone of Tolkien, even down to supposedly humorous thieving Halflings that aren't called hobbits. |
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#12 |
Brash Fumbler
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Dragonlance. You're not wrong. But it was also a tie-in with a fantasy role-playing game.
Fantasy purists hated them. RPG purists hated them. And they sold bazillions of copies. These things usually don't make sense. See also "Beatles, The". |
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I'd argue, more charitably, that it made "high fantasy" a viable genre, which allowed both good (and bad) authors to take it up as a vocation where they might not otherwise have been able.
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Quote:
Del Rey was only available as US import - I've got loads. Other places for my fix were Andromeda in Birmingham and Forever People on Park Street in Bristol when I was at uni there in the late 70s. Last edited by maddz; 10-02-2023 at 04:05 PM. |
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