Things I Hate About Fantasy.

I hate history in fantasy novels.  Hate it, hate it, hate it. There are exceptions (there are always exceptions), but as a rule, the history laid out in most fantasy settings makes little to no sense.  It's too long, and not enough happens in it.  Tolkien is the worst offender, of course, being the source of a plurality of the tropes and storytelling tools employed by twentieth century fantasists.  Tolkien's Third Age of Middle Earth lasts for three thousand and twenty-one years.  Three thousand and twenty-one!  And the human kingdom of Gondor is as old as the Third Age (actually, very slightly older).  Now, we don't get a lot of insight as to the details, but it had one dynasty of kings that lasted for 2000 years, and one line of stewards that picked up the slack.  In that time, their naming traditions don't change.  Their architecture doesn't seem to change.  Their level of technology is a matter of guesswork, but it certainly doesn't show the level of innovation you would expect -- especially given that war has a tendency to encourage technological advancement.  Their society is almost as old as the written word is, here in the real world, and nothing changes appreciably in that span.  

Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books deal with similar improbable spans, but languages change, cultures evolve, technology advances, governments rise and fall, and people forget what came before.  Better.  It still happens too damn slowly for realism, I think, but it happens.    George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones is better yet, in that the span of time that is comprehensible to the people within the book spans centuries, not millennia.  I suspect but cannot be sure that apart from the wars, not enough changes in that span of time, but I am willing to extend the benefit of the doubt.  Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar is a kingdom 1300 years old, but its continuity and stability are to some extent divinely imposed.... again, not enough changes.  I'm not even going to bother discussing the Belgariad, or Shannara, or even Narnia (although the entire world of Narnia is only 2500ish years old, and there are regime changes, and I could make arguments that.... but whatever.).

History doesn't work that way.  The memories of peoples, societies, cultures does not stretch that span -- excuses can be made for supernatural stabilizing forces such as Aslan, the Istari, and the Heralds of Valdemar that keep kingdoms themselves relatively stable, but what bothers me most isn't the sort of... Pax Narnia, Pax Gondora, whatever, but the fact that the peoples themselves do not change.  Tolkien was a linguist, he demonstrably new better and did better in his linguistic worldbuilding elsewhere (and there are some changes even in Gondor, just implausibly too few -- call it 10% of the linguistic shift that should have occurred in that span of time and I think you are being generous).  Traditions and folkways change, religions change, values change, alliances change, and my God, technology changes.  Tehcnology changes everything.  Who can we plausibly trade with?  What tools and materials do we employ?  How many people can we feed, how do we heal or sick, how swiftly and reliably do we travel?  As these things change, and there is no reason in any of these books to believe that they would remain in stasis, everything about the structure of society changes around them.  It has to.  As different methods of doing things become popular (I am resisting saying 'as things get better' but I am thinking it), they change the world.  And it bothers me when authors do not show this occurring.

Am I, myself, guilty of this?  I certainly have been in the past, in adolescent writings that will never be shared with the world, and in the worldbuilding for some of my D & D games (the city of Corbedon has had the same seven ruling families for how long before the PCs came?  1800 years-ish?  Trovasa fell and was replaced by the Esperine Empire 3118 years ago?  Really?)  In The Hellion Prince I am trying to avoid it, by bastardizing real history for my framework.  The Allotment is a civilization culturally equivalent to the British Regency, obviously and deliberately.  It, too, has supernatural stabilizing factors, but whenever I have gone back and tinkered with timelines and what happened in the past, I have kept in mind that when the mage-lords came from Septicollum (what do you mean, it's Rome With Wizards?), they had the technology of Byzantine-era Europeans, and spoke pre-Chaucerian English or its nearest equivalent.  Measuring against real history has given me a feel for the rhythm of it -- how long governments last between major upheavals, how the standard of living changes, how population grows and what has to be done about that in a kingdom that's a very fixed 128 miles on a side, not all of that solid ground.

What bothers you about fantasy history?  What details niggle?  Or, alternately, what do you like and appreciate about the mythic scope of fantasy kingdoms and their stability?  Where am I wrong in my examples, what other examples or counterexamples can you show me?

Talk to me about this, if you would be so kind, for I am Interested In The Subject, and crave conversation.

1060 words on The Hellion Prince today.

And I''m not sure I'm done yet.  At this rate, I'll have Eleven done considerably earlier than Tax Day (it's shaping up to be a short chapter, which is good, because Twelve is going to be huge).

Also, if all I have to do to get an excellent discussion going is state my opinions very forcefully (I recall a similarly exceptional reaction when I decried lettuce in favor of kale and spinach), I will be vocal and biased on a daily basis, I promise.