Question of the Week: Guns In Fantasy
It’s time for Question of the Week, which is intended for enjoyable discussions of interesting topics!
This week’s question – do you dislike guns showing up in fantasy novels? No wrong answers, obviously.
The inspiration for this question was a blog post I saw where the writer was complaining about the increased number of guns in modern fantasy novels and how it shatters her suspension of disbelief.
For myself, I have no strong feelings about it one way or another. I do think guns are best suited to urban fantasy environments – in CLOAK GAMES and CLOAK MAGE, Nadia goes through a lot of guns. Granted, my favorite type of fantasy is what gets called Basic Fantasy or Generic Fantasy, where a barbarian, a dwarf, an elf, and a wizard go to a dungeon and kill orcs and monsters. Firearms would definitely be out of place in that sort of setting.
That said, I think “guns in fantasy” is like any other story trope, and it just needs to be done well to be enjoyable. I suppose it’s a matter of setting the table for reader expectations. Like, if you have a medieval-style fantasy world like HALF-ELVEN THIEF, it would be weird to have guns suddenly show up. But if you create a setting that’s an analogue for 1880s America but with wizards, then guns wouldn’t be out of place.
-JM
Nope, fantasy is basically (IMHO) the “swords and sorcery” type of genre. Yes to ‘old fashioned’ weapons like bows & arrows / javelins / trebuchets etc., but a definite “NO” to guns (of any type), tanks, airplanes etc.
In the right setting firearms are fine in fantasy books.
Men at arms by Terry Pratchett and the Rigante series by David Gemmell are great examples of firearms in fantasy done well.
It depends on your definition of a gun because an energy rifle powered by a soul stone would be something that would fit into Andomhaim
Steampunk and such like genres are developing how to work with technology in fantasy, and I approve when it’s done right.
I particularly like what Moe Lane’s doing in The Fermi Resolution. If you start with the first published book — Frozen Dreams, which is a post-apocalyptic-North-America high-fantasy hard-boiled detective novel, it goes into how every wizard can make your own ammo blow up on you and the consequences.