When it happened with Star Wars, those imitators stuffed in roguish smugglers, evil empires, Dark Lords, and space wizards in robes. When that happened with Tolkien, those imitators peppered their work with Elves, Dwarves, Dark Lords, and old Wizards in robes. Books by authors that read A Song of Ice and Fire, or just watched Game of Thrones, and saw it was popular, so decided to make their own version of it. I’m not going to name any right now because I’m about to slag off on them for the remainder of this blog post, but if you read a lot of fantasy I’m sure you’ve come across books like that. In its wake, like any popular work of fiction, it inspired scores of imitators. Just like Star Wars shaped galaxy-spanning science fiction for decades, or The Matrix shaped philosophical science fiction, or The Dark Knight and Death of Superman reshaped superhero comics, Game of Thrones has gripped the collective consciousness of fantasy authors worldwide. There were attempts to break away from the Tolkienian model, some of which were successful or influential, but nothing really ‘broke out’ in the cultural zeitgeist up until Game of Thrones. Prior to Game of Thrones, epic fantasy as a genre was dominated by the work of J.R.R. It’s what happened to the fantasy genre in its wake. However, I do have a problem with Game of Thrones, and it’s not anything in the book or show itself. Seriously – I’m old enough to remember when Fantasy and Science Fiction shows and movie were niche and considered weird, as opposed to being the dominant cultural force. The most popular show on television is based on the kind of book I used to get mocked for reading.

Please, put the pitchforks down.Įven if I don’t enjoy the show this time around, I’m still excited. I’m not going to claim Game of Thrones is bad. I’m giving it another try just because I want to find out how the story ends and have a conversation at work again sometime in the next two months, and I’m enjoying it more this time around. Game of Thrones is a damn good show, even if it’s not to my liking.

I know you read the title and those opening two sentences and thought “oh God, here’s someone trying to score clicks off a ‘hot take’ that Game of Thrones is actually bad.” That’s not what I’m doing. Did you hear Game of Thrones season 8 came out on Sunday? If you say no, I’m going to either call you a liar or assume you live in a cabin in the woods without any internet because otherwise, I have no idea how you could escape it.

Is game of thrones low fantasy