First of all I must admit that I am biased when it comes to Fantasy Awards. I believe that anyone could have the talent and the skills to tell us a compelling story. So it won’t come as a surprise if I admit to you that I prefer the World Fantasy Award rather than the Fantasy Critics Award. The former is open and welcoming, the latter is a fine example of elitism where being a Literature Professor will make you more worthy of attention.
There is a general tendency among Fantasy fans and writers alike to consider this genre as something unimportant and trivial. Whether we like it or not, despite having spent hours in Middle Earth and Narnia, we still regard “War and Peace” or “Crime and Punishment” as higher literature, as REAL literature. It is an unfair bias we all carry to a certain extent, so I have mixed feelings regarding the Fantasy Critics Award (FCA from now on).
It is clearly sending a message out there that if you don’t have a Dr. or a Prof. before your name your creations are of lesser quality than those of academics, making them the de facto gatekeepers of the Fantasy and Epic Fantasy genres.
On the other hand, as readers we are all delighted when our favorite field of Literature gains public respect and notoriety. So having professors paying attention and homage to Fantasy is a reason for pride and satisfaction for all of us.
That’s the pickle, ins’t it? This year’s FCA went to Richard R. Matthews, a university professor of Literature that impressed the jury with his novel Diplomat of Uram. We all thought that this would finally be the year for Joe Abercrombie, or that Brandon Sanderson would repeat and be the first writer to get the award twice. However, once again we see this clear attempt to turn Fantasy novels into something more serious and academic instead of a pastime for young adults.
Don’t get me wrong. I loved Diplomat of Uram like everyone else. I think Richard R. Matthews is a very talented writer with new ideas and all that, but would he be getting all this publicity and notoriety if he wasn’t a Literature professor? That’s the worry for some of us. The idea that after Professor J. R. R. Tolkien and Professor C. S. Lewis elevated the genre, every effort was focused in that direction to say to the critics of Fantasy books: “See? It’s a serious genre worthy of respect! Literature professors are writing these books!”
