Let's get this epic over with

kw: book reviews, fantasy, anthologies

A cousin of mine calls it "Thud and Blunder", the genre of sword-and-sorcery, impossible quests, mighty heroes, and supernatural conquests. The most recent epic series is the Harry Potter novels. The very word "epic" makes me think of interminable narratives, plots that always have a new twist (that is, a new reason for putting off the ending), and a villain who just keeps getting worse.

A couple of clever editors, David Moles and Susan Marie Groppi, have turned all this on its head. Maybe we should blame the editors of Readers' Digest Condensed Books, or maybe those masters of parody who can produce a ten-page piece that skims through all the tropes of a well-known work and renders them in hilarious caricature (Bored of the Rings comes to mind). What if the skimming technique is wielded seriously (or half-)? You get my most recent curiosity pick, Twenty Epics, edited by Moles and Groppi.

The writers of these mini-epics (that's a new oxymoron, folks), not having the leisure of a few thousand pages, seek evoke the atmosphere of an epic fantasy in a handful of pages. Most succeed. Twenty "epics" in 363 pages (minus two pages per item, of title material) leaves about sixteen pages each. The actual pieces range from two to 32 pages in length.

Just one or two actually evoke the environment of a classic epic adventure. Some bring the genre up-to-date with crack-head heroes or microscope-wielding, only slightly magical scientists in place of wizards, and some take it into purported futures. I suppose this could be extended to the X-Files or Men in Black sort of popular series: semi-epics in alien spaces.

Why is there a market for mini-epic treatment of archetypical themes? I think it has to do with Western impatience, coupled with a philosophy recently reiterated by Bill Murray, "Baby steps, dude, baby steps." Just consider the modern versions of education, both academic and martial, compared to their predecessors.

There was a time, lasting centuries, that anyone who became highly educated had begun by learning the ABC's from his (rarely her) father, or sometimes from a hired tutor. Then, using whatever books were available, a long period of self-study would, with luck, culminate with a tenure of several years at some university, usually sponsored by a nobelman. Acceptance of one's thesis brought one the title of Doctor ("teacher"). To this day, acceptance at an institution such as Oxford means one is expected to study on one's own, attend lectures according to a self-chosen scheme, and present a dissertation at some ill-defined date. But in most of the West, we have the the following:

• Primary or "grammar" school (6-7 years), sometimes broken up into K-3 & 4-6.
• Secondary school, usually broken up into 7-9 & 10-12 or 7-8 & 9-12.
• College, often pursued as Junior College leading to an AA, then "real" college leading to a BA or BS.
• Graduate School, usually an MA or MS followed by a DSci or PhD (or MD or JD or LLD).

That is four to eight stages that have replaced a two- or three-stage process. Then, in Japan one used to study Karate or Judo for four to six years before getting the first belt, a first degree (ichidan) "Black Belt". Ichidan is still, in Japan, the equivalent of a Bachelor's degree. But when I studied Judo in the 1950s, a series of belts resulted: green (1-2 years), brown (1-2 more), then black (2-4 more). And now, one dojo I know has the series yellow, light blue, green, dark blue, orange, brown, purple, black. Also, one no longer needs to dwell at a belt level for a year; I know a couple of 11-year-old "black belts", but they are really no more than halfway to the skills required for a genuine Japanese black belt. In this case, the scale has been both sliced into baby steps and dumbed down.

A few of the Twenty Epics make imaginative demands on the reader. One of note is the opening piece, "Two Figures in a Landscape Between Storms" by Christopher Rowe. Just two pages long, it evokes a mighty duel with an unexpected outcome, and leaves a tag for future mischief. I came away from reading the story with a growing feeling that I'd read something much longer and more detailed. Now that's great writing.