Since I’m currently obsessed with the Locked Tomb series, I thought I’d write a bit about it (and gonzo SFF in general). Because, if I had a term to describe the Locked Tomb series it would be WTF. It’s incredibly weird and almost defies classification. It is outlandish and unconventional. Basically, it’s gonzo. And I like gonzo a lot. It’s why my favorite table-top RPG is Dungeon Crawl Classics.
I’ve also discovered that my Hoopla app has a TON of EC Comics Archives, including my favorite, The Vault of Horror. EC Comics are definitely gonzo, filled with outrageous horrors and violence that was often shocking in its era.
And then on top of this reading, I’ve been listening to the audiobook edition of the complete Clark Ashton Smith stories. Is he gonzo? He’s definitely grotesque and bizarre. So, yes, I would say his stories are pretty gonzo.
What exactly is gonzo (besides being an alien from the planet Weirdo who has an intense attraction to chickens)?
It came out of the journalistic style of writers like Hunter S. Thompson, but I’m using it in a broader sense to mean any work of nonfiction OR fiction that is bizarre, outlandish, exaggerated, fantastical, often darkly comic, digressive, and strange. This is how the term is often applied to an RPG like Dungeon Crawl Classics.
Enter Gideon the Ninth. A book that by my definition is exceedingly gonzo.
Gonzo and Gideon
The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir is my new obsession. When my book club selected Gideon the Ninth in January, I wasn’t sure I would like it. I’m usually game for anything, but there was something about the book’s vibe, it’s off-kilter, too-hip, weird-o, look-at-me vibe that made me wonder if it was gonna be all-style, no-substance.
Well.
Turns out it has SO MUCH FREAKIN’ STYLE that substance really could’ve been after-thought. Luckily, that’s not the case. Muir didn’t skimp on the substance either, and I found myself furiously turning pages from about the mid-point to the very end, reading at a breakneck speed to finish.
The characters (especially Gideon, but also a few other necromancers and cavaliers) were awesome, and I was so caught up in the narrative and the heartache and the mystery and the emotion, that as soon as we finished Gideon, I picked the sequel, Harrow the Ninth, as my selection for our book club’s next volume. Then, we kept going and read Nona the Ninth. Now I eagerly await the next (final?) book in the series.
Question: What if Fantasy Had Gone More Gonzo from the Start?
Well, this is a bit unfair, because fantasy in the 20th century has always had a bit of the gonzo about it. Fantasy, as a modern genre, started off as unconventional. Part of the knock against guys like Tolkien and C.S. Lewis was that they were doing something outdated, something that didn’t fit in with the modern world. They were defying conventions by going back to a much older tradition of medieval European literature and oral poetry for inspiration. For many 20th century critics, Tolkien’s hobbits and ents were ridiculous, unserious creations that said nothing to a “modern” audience. They were weird and not “serious” enough.
So, yeah. Gonzo.
Unconventional, outlandish, strange, unusual.
But as readers finally caught up to what he was doing, Tolkien eventually went from weird and outlandish to THE “top dog” of popular fantasy. His form of fantasy almost BECAME the genre. Running parallel to Tolkien-esque fantasy was Sword and Sorcery (of the pulpy Conan-type), which is also gonzo in its own way, but as the latter half of the 20th century continued apace, Tolkien-esque fantasy dominated more and more. By the 1980s and 1990s, epic, Tolkien-style fantasy defined the genre.
However, around the same time that The Lord of the Rings came out, another trilogy-ish thing was being born. Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast series was also published in the 1940s/50s, and it was DEFINITELY gonzo.
I’m not exactly sure how to describe Titus Groan, the first book in the series. I just started it recently and it’s a bit like Roald Dahl mixed with Poe mixed with an Edward Gorey illustration mixed with… I don’t know… drugs? All I know is it’s very British and very weird. Very gonzo.
Similar to the Locked Tomb, it’s hard to classify. It’s bizarre and grotesque and quite funny. The style is so singular and assured that it defies both classification and imitation. There’s nothing else I’ve read that’s quite like it (Muir’s series is similarly inimitable).
Frankly, it’s not the kind of book that could build a genre from its bones the way Tolkien’s work ended up doing. (Which isn’t to say that Tolkien imitators ever quite got his style right either. Though vastly different, both The Lord of the Rings and what I’ve read so far of the Gormenghast series are unique works that rely upon the unique craft and voice of their authors.)
Even if LOTR imitators hadn’t taken over the fantasy market in the late 1970s and throughout the 80s, we wouldn’t have had an explosion of Gormenghast imitators to fill the vacuum. “Gonzo” loses its gonzo-ness if it becomes a mass-produced commodity. And it’s always gonna be kinda niche. Mainstream fantasy — like mainstream prestige TV — can’t be too “out there” or else it makes it harder to sell.
And yeah, obviously I’m a little bit full of it because everything I’ve mentioned thus far is something that sold enough copies to be well-known and well-regarded. Even if The Locked Tomb books and Titus Groan are gonzo-weird, they’re not quite weird enough to put people off. The truly bizarre and “uncommerical” works are never heard of by most readers and probably never will be…
Gonzo, by its very nature, is niche. It’s why 5e Dungeons and Dragons is still incredibly popular and mainstream, whereas a game like Dungeon Crawl Classics is this off-beat, slightly mysterious and bizarre concoction of RPG goodness that only certain kinds of weirdos and freaks will enjoy (I say this as one of the weirdos and freaks).
It’s why there are a billion Tolkien imitators but only a handful of Gormenghast offspring.
Every once in awhile the bizarre and off-beat breaks through, but it’s that very off-beatness that means it can’t build a movement around itself. I.e.: Tim Burton is Tim Burton, Wes Anderson is Wes Anderson. Attempts at imitation will come off as lame and embarrassing.
I guess one of the reasons I love a lot of these gonzo works of fantasy is because they are so inimitable. They push the boundaries of genre and sometimes even taste itself. It’s why I think sometimes the most exciting art is the stuff that lacks the professional polish. Gonzo and punk are part of the same spectrum.
Self-publishing has opened a lot of avenues for writers, but I’m interested in the ways indie authors can be more “punk” in their approach to SFF. It’s one thing to try and follow the well-trodden path of writing stories that are like the bestsellers in the genre, but I’m excited by SFF that isn’t driven by market considerations or well-defined subgenre tropes. Self-published authors are purposefully eschewing the gatekeepers, which means they can make whatever art they want. With that freedom, with that punk spirit, there is room for more “gonzo.”
But in my own fiction, I sometimes wonder if I’m playing it too safe, despite being one of these indie author “punks.” Is there enough gonzo in me? Am I embracing the wild flights of fancy that come from my deepest, strangest imaginations? Or am I too afraid to push those weirder buttons for fear of turning off readers?
After all, gonzo is niche. It’s not for everyone. Gormenghast isn’t nearly as popular as LOTR, etc. Are my creative decisions driven by my “creative voice” or by some unseen critic that might be put off by anything too strange, too unconventional?
I’ll admit that with my novel Gates to Illvelion, I really tried to make an anti-mainstream book. It’s written a bit like a Lord Dunsany novel and a bit like Ridley Scott’s film Legend. Because it leans so heavily on a “fairy tale” tone, the characters are not easy to “connect” with; the story is strange and follows a kind of dream-logic.
It’s the book I wanted to write, but it’s also a book I knew would be risky. It doesn’t do a lot of the things modern fantasy novels do. That was by design, but that doesn’t mean taking such a risk was smart. I stuck my neck out over a volcanic chasm. It’s perhaps my own fault if I get liquified by magma.
The best fantasy — gonzo or otherwise — will always be marked by the idiosyncratic vision of its creator. That’s the appeal of The Locked Tomb series, of Gormenghast, of, yes, Tolkien’s Legendarium, of all the weird and wonderful SFF literature out there, from bestsellers to cult favorites, from fiction to RPGs.
I’d love to see more gonzo in SFF, but as long as creators are staying true to their artist visions, any story can be strange. In fact, the truer you are to what’s inside you, the more wonderfully strange your stories will be.
It’s a very strange thing, indeed, to take the images in your head and plant them inside someone else’s head simply by committing words to a page. It’s the weirdest of magic tricks.
And now it’s time for an ebook sale…
To celebrate the solstice and the official beginning of summer, my novels (ebooks) are on sale for $0.99 each:
The Thirteen Treasures of Britain
All three are pretty summer-y, perfect for beach reading. For less than three bucks, you’ll have plenty of fantasy (gonzo or otherwise) to enjoy!
And… that’s it for now. As always, thank you for reading!
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