Kevin's Watch

I’d like to read a fantasy series where the bad guys win and the good guys die. I know, I know, what kind of freak am I!? Well, I’m not really a freak, I just know that in the real world the bad guys often do win. And wouldn’t it be a fascinating departure from all the books out there to read a trilogy where the Despiser is the main character, to get into his/her head and know their reasons for wanting to destroy everything. Not to mention living through the destruction that would follow.

I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. Mayhap some of you have been thinking the same thing and will share your thoughts with me.

Another thing I've been thinking about for a long long time is in so many of the fantasy novels out there the story picks up many many years after the height of that worlds society, usually after a terrible war or atrocity has destroyed everything that made that civilization so great.

We hear bits and pieces about the Great Lords but never get the whole story. I am always left screaming in my mind for those stories.

Especially in the Wheel of Time series and TCTC. God what I’d give to read those books!

I think it would be a fascinating read. Am I alone?

I look forward to hearing what others have to say...
Matthew

Matthew, from what I understand regarding the Third Chronicles, some of what you want to see may be in there, as the Despiser is attacking time itself and the older period of the Land will be involved.

As for the bad guys triumphing, this is a hard sell. Unless you're an already well-established and proven successful writer who can call his own shots, what publisher is going to take a chance on the backlash from readers?

Off the top of my head, the closest thing I can think of are some of Michael Moorcock's fantasy novels, which aren't so much the bad guys winning as total anarchy ensuing and everything sort of coalescing back into itself.

Roland of Gilead wrote: As for the bad guys triumphing, this is a hard sell. Unless you're an already well-established and proven successful writer who can call his own shots, what publisher is going to take a chance on the backlash from readers?

Oh, I know what you mean, But still wouldn't it be a fascinating read! For instance if SRD wrote a prequel series where we got to learn and love the greatness of the land and then in the end watch it be blown to bits.

Hmmm...come to think of it that's how I felt when I read The Wounded Land! LOL

Thanks for your input.
Matthew.

Well, people think of themselves as good. Most do, anyway. So, when a person goes to read a fantasy book, that person is escaping their mundane life, and going to a world they fancy themselves in, doing things they wish they could do. And last time I checked, not very many people want to die horribly at the hands of an evil Emperor.....but it would be a fun read for the fantasy buff who is sick and tired of the good guy winning! You should talk to Tom C. on this list; he has just written a book of short stories, and some of them are exactly what you want. He is working on a novel, and I don't know how it ends, but I remember a lot of talks about a "Bad guy wins" novel.....

Matthew, that's how I felt when I read The Wounded Land, too. It took a lot of guts for SRD to write that and fundamentally change his wonderful setting of the Land.

That's why I think we readers are in for one wild and exhiliarating ride with these Third Chronicles, when SRD even throws time travel into his story.

dANimal is correct about the plot of my novel. It is a concept I have toyed with for years. I'm not certain devoting 800 pages to a novel that ends so bleakly will be well received but that is what I have chosen.

Well TomC I would certainly love to read it! I think it would be exciting.

It could even be done as a two book deal, with the first book being the destruction and the second done as the rebuilding and redeeming.

FaTeke wrote:Well TomC I would certainly love to read it! I think it would be exciting.

It could even be done as a two book deal, with the first book being the destruction and the second done as the rebuilding and redeeming.

That isn't really too far off the mark but the finale of the story is "planet shattering" in its intensity so a rebuilding is unlikely but the two main characters survive to engage each other in the future.

Hmm, I need to obtain your book Tom

Tom I don't know about fantasy, but some epic plots can have the "bad guys" win and still be well received. A couple of notable examples are the movies Spartacus and Braveheart. The "bad guys" not only win, but the protagonists die . . . and yet these films were (and still are) very popular, and Braveheart even won Best Picture.

I think getting a publisher to accept your concept would be the hard part, but fans might really like your approach. Good luck.

I would love to see a book where the good guys lose. I just finished reading Angels and Deamons (by the author of The Da Vinci Code) and during the whole climactic part I was just thinking to myself "He can't die, this is just a book. The good guy always lives" I almost wish he did die... to utterly stun me.

Roland of Gilead wrote:Tom I don't know about fantasy, but some epic plots can have the "bad guys" win and still be well received. A couple of notable examples are the movies Spartacus and Braveheart. The "bad guys" not only win, but the protagonists die . . . and yet these films were (and still are) very popular, and Braveheart even won Best Picture.

I think getting a publisher to accept your concept would be the hard part, but fans might really like your approach. Good luck.

Thanks for the encouragement. I think most of us have one great strory lurking about in the back of our imaginations and Omegabane of Randecore is mine. I have a great deal of work ahead of me before I can consider marketing the story but I write as often as time permits.

Just a note, I read a transcript today of a chat with GRRM and RE Feist that took place on Tuesday, and Feist said that the bad guy from his last two books will be the main character in his next book...

Anyone find a novel with the BadGuyMan POV since then? It deffinately is one of those ideas, Tom's right on that one...would be really interesting...

FaTeke wrote:I’d like to read a fantasy series where the bad guys win and the good guys die. I know, I know, what kind of freak am I!? Well, I’m not really a freak, I just know that in the real world the bad guys often do win. And wouldn’t it be a fascinating departure from all the books out there to read a trilogy where the Despiser is the main character, to get into his/her head and know their reasons for wanting to destroy everything. Not to mention living through the destruction that would follow.

(Sort of spoilerish, I guess, about the 2nd Deryni series.)



It's been a while since I read the series (planning to re-read this year), but in Katherine Kurtz's The Legends of Camber of Culdi series, pretty much every good guy gets his/her intestines ripped out. The bad guys definitely win that series.

This is a really dumb idea, in my opinion. What's the point? Just to buck convention? I used to think that was a good enough reason to do something when I was a teenager. But being a rebel is an empty thrill the older you get.

I think that the mythic hero tale is learning to care about something outside yourself. It's an archetypal journey of growing up, leaving behind childish, selfish origins and transcending yourself as an adult. If the "hero" does just the opposite, you've just violated the purpose for telling a fantasy story (which I think are all "mythic hero" tales).

Roland of Gilead wrote:Matthew, from what I understand regarding the Third Chronicles, some of what you want to see may be in there, as the Despiser is attacking time itself and the older period of the Land will be involved.

As for the bad guys triumphing, this is a hard sell. Unless you're an already well-established and proven successful writer who can call his own shots, what publisher is going to take a chance on the backlash from readers?

I understand that the Perry Mason writers decided he should lose a case for once. The backlash was so tremendous that they never made that mistake again.

Malik23 wrote:This is a really dumb idea, in my opinion. What's the point? Just to buck convention? I used to think that was a good enough reason to do something when I was a teenager. But being a rebel is an empty thrill the older you get.

I think that the mythic hero tale is learning to care about something outside yourself. It's an archetypal journey of growing up, leaving behind childish, selfish origins and transcending yourself as an adult. If the "hero" does just the opposite, you've just violated the purpose for telling a fantasy story (which I think are all "mythic hero" tales).

I desiagree.

Having a protagonist that starts out nuetral, then becomes super evil, then learns truth, then seeks redemption...that would be a real journey, a true bad-guy as there's no such thing, only people doing what people do...

Here's a series I know nothing about, but someone just mentioned it on another site, and it sounds like it might fit the bill. Apparently:

the Sundering duology by Jacqueline Carey ... looks at a Tolkien-esque story from the perspective of "Sauron"