I have never believed that Fantasy is a more nerd-laden genre than Science Fiction. It has the unfortunate label of being populated by a fair amount of "zit-ridden little brothers" hiding in our parents' basements. The perponderance of D&D being played by droves of Fantasy nerds has led to the belief that such level of nerdiness leads to a lesser form of genre fiction.

Fantasy, though, is a mature and noble genre.

I believe that Fantasy over the course of the last half-century has been less progressive than Science Fiction. (And I don't mean that in a derogatory manner). The tropic standards of Fantasy lead to it being comfortable with using "the old stand-by's," which makes Fantasy seem a lot like it's repeating itself. There have been a host of writers who push the boundaries (LeGuin, Bradley, Gaiman) and bring us something new, but there are also an equal number who perpetuate the cliche ideas that underlie Fantasy as a genre. They shall not be named (mostly because there are a sleugh).

Newer concepts like Steampunk, New Weird, American Magic Realism, Urban Fantasy (among a host of others)* have truly begun to push beyond the limits of what once was a rather "use only those things within the box" kind of genre.

I am glad to see that this new Gemmell Award has come around to bring to light those authors who spend the time to bring us something fresh with every new publication, rather than rehash an old Conan story and call it something new. Fantasy is filled with unique story concepts; the burgeoning imagination of the modern world should do something spectacular with it.

*I'll go into all of these in the continuance of my "definitions of the speculative fiction sub-genres" series, begun here and continued here.