08-17-05 @ 9:17 am EDT

You know, I've lately gotten to thinking about how boring the Ameni Chronicles truly are. They're listed as a fantasy, but nothing fantastical happens in them, at least yet. The main characters are big furry guys with wings, but other than that, it could easily pass as any other old drama; almost everything in the plot so far (the only exception I can think of being Yekh'iet's powers, and that's pretty tame) could happen in real life, albeit in a much different (and much more melodramatic) culture. All I'm doing is writing a soap opera, just with furry guys instead of sexy men and women. :/

I even wonder if "fantasy" is the proper word to denote the story. It's the main genre I've listed it under (aside from erotica, but, duh). I wonder if it has enough of the fantasy element to even count? Does the mere presence of furries/anthros in a story qualify it as "fantasy"? I remember hating listing The Trench Rats in the fantasy genre because I DIDN'T view it as fantasy--it has some wonky elements, but aside from it being furry it's kind of realistic. I really wanted a "furry" genre to list it in and even requested this a few times but I guess it wasn't important enough for the SM to take notice. And by now, I realize that TR is MUCH more fantasylike than TAC.

I mean, come on! Try listing the important events that happen in the series and you'll see what I mean. "Tribes go to war. Slave miscarries. Somebody gets sick. Two leaders duel. Somebody tries to commit suicide. A bunch of people have sex. Repeat. Somebody kills his mount and eats it. Somebody is drugged in a bar and then beaten up in an alley. Another war. Hey look, it's a raid! And somebody dies. Orgy! Etc. etc. etc." How does that sound like fantasy??

So far, none of the Apsiu in the story practice magic. None, aside from Yekh'iet, display strange powers--and even Yekh'iet's power is very mild (she's kind of clairvoyant/precognitive). Nobody does anything superhuman (um...superApsiu?)--all of the flight and such in the story is perfectly within the physical bounds of this society--and flight, as well as a much more developed sense of smell, are about the ONLY things the Apsiu have over humans! Aside from the Apsiu and their Sha, there are no fantastical creatures, and the way the story is written, neither is seen as a fantastical creature--they just ARE. There haven't even been any appearances by gods like there are in the rest of my Kemet writing. Even all of the talk regarding the afterlife is purely theoretical. This truly perplexes me. All this time I considered it fantasy but there's hardly a thing fantastical about it! I really am confused as to whether it counts. Or if I should just give up and call myself a political soap opera writer. Strip away the fur and wings and tusks, and that's basically what you've got. A big old political melodrama. With lots of sex.

And "political soap opera" just sounds so frigging BORING! >_< How do people REALLY find things like sex, power struggles, sex, military coups, sex, make-ups and break-ups, sex, crossdressing, sex, genocide, sex, warfare, sex, family tensions, sex, slavery, sex, caste systems, sex, lots of really blathery stilted speech, sex, big wings, and sex so damn interesting? Or did I just answer my own question?

I can't believe I'm writing something so devoid of fantasy! Even my most realistic D4D crap has fantasy stuff in it. And that stuff is truly crap. >_< That one guy who advised me to try writing realistic fiction rather than fantasy to try to make better use of my "skills," what would he say if I forgot to mention that these guys have tusks and fur and wings...? "Great job!"?

I wonder if anybody else out there has written a "fantasy" that aside from having really weird main characters, isn't really fantasy at all. Do they get away with it? Is there ever a point when the reader stops reading and says, "Wait a minute. If these characters weren't blue, and didn't have horns sprouting out of their heads, and didn't walk on seven legs and communicate telepathically--this could be reality TV!"?