Bereavement

It's over. Harry Potter has finally come to its dramatic conclusion. For those of you who haven't read it, don't worry--I'm not going to give anything away. I think it's polite to wait a couple weeks after release, when those of us who have interest in knowing will probably have finished it.

I always feel like this when I've finished a series that really captivated me. Terry Brooks did this to me with his earlier work, the original Shannara triolgy. When I finished Wishsong, I was depressed for a solid day. Not because of the ending, which upon reflection probably did a lot to preserve the integrity of the books, but because it was simply over. The same can be said of Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's original Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy and Stephen R. Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. The power an imaginative and articulate author can weild is excruciatingly potent. Too much modern fantasy is mired in the predictable pulp stuff that was ported over from Science Fiction (the ray gun becomes the wizard's staff), so when something comes along that's actually thought out, that's planned and penned so excellently, the story becomes almost an obsession.

Ask anyone who's waiting for Robert Jordan to finish up The Wheel of Time.

So when you finally close the book, the last book, and the feeling of finality steals over you, and the sense of expectation and longing for the next one doesn't replace the hunger with which you devoured this one, what do you do? It's impressive and embarassing how attached we can become to our favorite characters, to needing to know more about a fictional universe. Though the pop culture craze over Harry Potter has made it easier to admit you're really a Ravenclaw at heart, what if you also know for sure you'd wear the Red Robes of Lunitari, or you have a really good theory on how to craft sa'angreal?

My answer would be to combat the longing by writing your own.

Unfortunately, this is also where authorial snobs like David Eddings say that they "don't worry too much about [that]" and suggest that the potential writer try something easier, "like rocket science..." Yes, he said that, in The Rivan Codex. Eddings is a mediocre writer who was able to capture interest with his first two series, but then lost it when people started to realize that he was regurgitating the same story with different proper nouns and crediting his wife with it in an attempt to sell more books. (Come to think of it, his wife's influence may have been why most of his female characters were so domineering and emasculating, yet the men were always lost without them).

In any case, rambling tribute to epic fanasy aside, the truth is that it is at best an unappreciated genre. Its devotees are often, like the gays, either closeted or just too far out there. Maybe Potter can change that, but I do not remain optimistic.