After writing until I was cross-eyed last night I took a break to play my favorite obsession — Dragon Age. As it was booting up there was a little tag about how the last Darkspawn blight had occurred 400 years before with the implication being that the Grey Wardens had fought off that blight with similar weaponry (and a few griffons).
Which made me wonder — if it had been 400 years why weren’t we fighting the Darkspawn with at least flintlocks? Which led to the crashing realization that most fantasy never takes into account progress.
In order to give a sense of history and depth to a book and the world that’s been created authors frequently refer to events in history from hundreds of years before. People carry swords made for kings long dead, etc. etc.
But it’s not credible. Somewhere in those intervening hundreds of years there’s going to be a di Vinci, a Kepler, a Gallileo, a Newton. Somebody is going to invent gunpowder. Question the origins of disease, contemplate the internal combustion engine.
Or can you argue that the presence of magic is what prevents the development of the scientific method, and stifles scientific research?
Then I realized this logical disconnect was why I prefer science fiction to fantasy, and why I don’t think I’d be very good at writing a Big Fat Fantasy Novel.
Just some random thoughts for a Sunday morning, and now it’s back to the script. Four or five pages to go! I can do this.
