Over at Fangs, Fur & Fey Jill Myles asked the question: What's the fantasy element that makes you steer away from what might otherwise be an excellent book?
My answer?
Fairies.
It's not that I object to books about faeries. I've read (and even written, though not published) books I've loved that center around the land of fey/fairy queens, etc. What I can't stand is when I'm reading an otherwise perfectly good vampire/urban fantasy book and some character introduces themselves as half-fairy or something similar. I can't explain it, but, for whatever reason, that makes my suspenders of disbelief go "BOOOOIIIINNGGG!" and, more often than not, snap completely.
What about you? What's your answer to Jill's question?
5 comments:
Elves. One must tread elves very carefully, and I don't ever want to encounter them outside high fantasy. It makes me crazy.
-Mel
I read a book that had every stereotypical thing about vampires, blonde women, goths, and Scots I have ever witnessed--the vampires poofed into little bats, the blonde was dumb, the goths were brooding pale guys with trenchcoats, and the Scots wore kilts and had the thick accent...I only got 20 pages into it; I had to put it down once I got to the ghosts who wrote messages in the dust. I couldn't tell if the author was trying to be funny, or serious.
Werewolves.
Just can't do 'em. Watched part of an episode of Supernatural last night with a werewolf. No body hair on that pretty werewolf chick. What's with that?
Awesome. Great responses. I totally agree about all the stereotypes. Vampires that turn into bats need a lot of explaination for me, too.
For me it's the standard fantasy setting - - - you know the one where you have to have a map in the front of the book and it shows some mountains and forests and dark evil places. There is no relative time period in human epochs, so the author can mix and match whatever feudal, monarchistic, or cooperative council governments he/she will. At the same time all technology will be trapped in the era where swords are the most effective weapon, yet intricate jewelry crafting and glasswork is possible and ubiquitous.
You can give me any kind of creature so long as the setting is strong and the characters believable.
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