The Seven Levels of Fantasy

Recently, I was doom scrolling my life away, and I saw that there was a video released about the rap genre called "The Seven Levels of Rappers." And it was a remarkably well-done video that I only had a couple of gripes with. Well done. But it made me think, why hasn't someone done "The Seven Levels of Fantasy Books"? I looked through the YouTubes and couldn't come across a single, gosh darn one. It's going to be made. So, in this video, I'm going to be giving my subjective opinion on what the seven levels of fantasy books are, with examples and definitions abound. And I highly encourage anyone else to make their own version of this, whatever you'd like to do, 'cause this is going to be a good old fun time. Let's enjoy ourselves.

Starting with level one. These are con artists and AI slop. If you had actually asked me a couple of years ago what level one of fantasy books would be, I pretty much would have adjusted down my 221. But unfortunately, in that time frame, I have both consumed AI slop content and books written by con artists. And it is truly a miserable experience. There is no appreciation for the craft and art of writing here. It is people trying to make money, believing crafting a story is somehow an easy path to success, or they're just trying to take advantage of a new technology and spew out crap as a side hustle. There is absolutely no care from the creator for the text put out because usually the creator behind it lacks the capacity to actually understand why people enjoy art. These are not worth your time to even read as bad reads. They're just miserable. I put it really well at the end of my "Mission Earth" review by the infamous L. Ron Hubbard. It's absolutely not worth your time. It's not interestingly bad. It's not so crazy that you can pull away some valuable insight into just how insane L. Ron Hubbard was. All that is here is an egotistical raving of a narcissist. And we have enough of that in our world. One could even say it's common. I want to stress enough that no matter who you are, if you decided to pick up a typewriter and start plucking away today, as long as your intent was to craft a story people could enjoy and you genuinely wanted to make it, the end result would be better than anyone in this category is capable of. You are a better author than these individuals. They don't even understand sentence structure a lot of the time. Calling it trash would be an insult. Level one is one chickette, the other was bronze. I heard their fathers had stocks.

And Level Two, I'm calling forgotten failures. These are books that are not entertainingly bad. They are not something that people can gather much from. Even if they had some commercial success, the impact they've left with fans or on the genre is borderline detectable, if there's anything at all. You often will still find unoriginal stories, poorly thought-out plots, no understanding of the beauty of writing. These at best are very rudimentally fine in terms of their stylization. And there's a trend I have found among books I would put in this category where the author is, well, they may not be a straight-up con artist, very ego-driven, believing that they don't need to put in the time and effort to become one of the greats, that they'll just naturally be able to spin out a book that shakes the foundations of science fiction or fantasy purely because, oh, these are dumb nerds and I'm pretty great, watch me do it better. You also find things like "The Fifth Sorceress" in here. Many times they are just telling the Tolkien story again. And then you will also find franchise failures here as well. Like, whatever the hell "Rebel Moon" was doing putting out books and comics, just stop. That's not passion-driven at all. And most importantly, while the con artists and AI slop might actually put a sense of revulsion in you, at level two, you very often are going to find yourself just going through what is a flat read. In terms of execution of things like world-building, it'll be minimal or incredibly derivative. If there are any original ideas, they will likely actually clash with the overall tone or any semblance of a theme that fails to be coherent once the climax is reached. This is the trash. It's stuff where you'll be very hard-pressed to find anyone ranking something from this category anywhere near their top 20 reads of all time, let alone a favorite. While there is AI slop in one, forgotten failures at least are human-driven slop. And an important note that actually differentiates one from two even more is two is commonly mocked or brought into circles like BookTube just to poke fun at because, you know, rant reviews are popular. Uh, one is hard to find. Like, you don't see a whole lot of people reading L. Ron Hubbard books because, like, you know, you actually have to know the genres well to eventually discover these things that, quite frankly, I would even say fans of the genre are kind of more ashamed of than anything else, which this is then going to take us to level three.

I specifically want you to pay attention to the name of level three. These are people who tell you stories. What I find very common at level three is an author had a good idea, but none of the experience or education required to execute it well in a storytelling format. And so it kind of just ends up feeling, while there might be an interesting idea or something positive at the core of the story, you're more just following the ramblings of someone trying to convey something without any technical ability to do so. Every now and then you might even come across a sentence or two that raises your eyebrow and you go, "Well, that was all right." But it's hard to feel too bad because many of the people who end up in this category are trying to chase trends, or their quote-unquote originality comes from them getting heavily inspired by one author and doing what they did before with a very minor twist. That being said, though, there's going to be a ton of people's guilty pleasure reads at level three. You're aware of the flaws. You know, it's not perfect, but it's got that special spice, maybe an element, maybe a quirk that appeals to you in a way where, yeah, in your brain, it's a couple levels up. Even if in public conversation, you might quietly just admit, "Yeah, it's not that awesome." Probably the most common problem, though, that keeps authors or stories chained into this space is the consistency of flat characters, except possibly one or two exceptions that are clearly the characters the author actually cares about, which is a level of nuance to writing that, yeah, those at the higher levels understand everything's got to feel alive. And so that breathing environment that you are so craving when you go into a fantasy world is unable to feel real because there's just cardboard most of the time filling in the personalities and by extension much of the world comes across rather lacking depth as well. You can also be lumped into this category just from having egregious violations of other kinds that end up sinking your overall works. Uh, many things I would put in here are the "Sword of Truth" series, "John Carter of Mars," "The Inheritance Cycle," and "Forgotten Realms." I know some people are going to be mad at me, including a couple of those names here, but if you look at what this video is trying to be, the levels of fantasy book, I am not saying level three is bad. It's mid. And if you look at the full scope of the fantasy sci-fi space and then also compare it to what "Forgotten Realms" is most of the time, yeah, it ends up right in here. And I will say "Forgotten Realms" is a good example of not every criticism I put from one of these categories is going to apply to every single book. For example, I think the scope of "Forgotten Realms" is actually well enough structured to be consistently a source of joy for that series. But very often at level three, you will find stories that completely fail to build their scope and presence on the page. That rambling through the story just makes it feel like you are never actually building something out. Nothing exists beyond the room the characters currently occupy. What is more common here is interesting concepts that are good on paper, but are rarely developed into anything truly amazing or epic. When I do that, boy, to the left and crack that thing. But I'm happy to say I consistently see authors over their careers work their way out of level three and into level four, which is what I would call true storytellers.

These are the authors who put in the time and effort before they put out a book to make sure they have understood the craft required to do so, meaning all elements of their books at least were given some consideration as it was being written: the characterization, the structure, the world. On top of that icing, the actual just knowing how to write, you will stop finding the common grammar, punctuation issues, misspellings that definitely exist in levels 1, 2, and 3. And I'll even say that you will find many people's favorite series right here in this category. Often because brain candy thrives here. Not everything within it is brain candy, but here you have stories that are not super challenging. They're never trying to reinvent the wheel, but everything has been executed well enough for if the certain author's style or the book's concept tickles that itch for you, absolutely. It can just fire up the charts to the top. Many people's first recommendations for science fiction and fantasy also fall into this category because they're not particularly challenging. You don't need to have an understanding of where the author is pulling their influence from because there's not really enough depth here and execution of ideas to have that, "Oh, that's a play on how Tolkien." But that being said, usually most of the cast of characters will have a consistent personality, a point in being there, and commercially many of these are going to be wavemakers, some will be even trendsetters. And what commonly keeps an author at level four instead of five is just inconsistency and also often depending on formula, especially if it's a series. This is why I keep the likes of "The Dresden Files" here, and even epics that some would call classics like "Shenra." I would safely assume that most of us have a level four story in our top 10. And there's no shame in that. There is a reason this is where we start seeing some seriously heavy hitters in terms of commercial viability. But almost all of these are going to pale in comparison to what you end up finding at level five.

This is where we start getting that true spice. It's no longer salt and pepper on the page that's keeping you coming back for another bite. And instead, there are whole new flavors that you are amazed by. These aren't storytellers. These are writers. Now, no one here is going to be executing their craft perfectly. Flaws absolutely still exist. But the major players in the space will have a style to them, distinct enough that many of them in the space end up being trendsetters, inspiring authors for generations after they're gone to keep trying to do what they accomplished here. You will encounter incredible prose, people who have on many occasions spent dozens of hours caring about just a few words within a paragraph and their placement, so concerned, maybe too concerned with how they will impact you as a reader. The stories here are going to have layers that end up making you smack yourself because on a second reread, you can't believe you missed this whole thematic line that the writer meticulously wove in throughout all of it. Tons of people, especially those who have only dabbled in the fantasy genre, are going to have many of their favorites here, and they're right to do so. I mean, there are people who have invented entire new elements to the fantasy genre that have thrived in the writer space, but many of them have one huge flaw. So many of these authors can even be frustrating to follow because while elements of their writing can actually take them well into the legendary space, they end up usually having one fundamental flaw to their work that sours it so that you can't drop it down into just being elevated above average. But you can never bring them up to the truly legendary space. For example, "Kingkiller Chronicle" prose on that sixth level. Yet the fact that Rothfuss writes both men and women the way that he does kind of prevents the books being brought into the conversation with those that could arguably be talked about as flawless. I actually think most of the books that you will see BookTube and Reddit obsessed with end up comfortably falling into the level five because things can be popular because they are good. And from here we're going to start touching on some stuff that's so good it ends up working against itself. But more examples I would say are "Stormlight Archive." We clearly have "Dark Tower," "Wheel of Time," "Gentleman Bastards," "Red Rising," "His Dark Materials," and even the likes of "Empire of the Vampire." I would say the biggest change though at this level from what we've seen before is this is where the writing can get so good that it ends up manipulating your emotions like an instrument. This is where a book might even start getting tears out of you because you're just so lost in the pages. None of the dancers and dealers and doers of dust. There's going to be in-betweeners. I would put "Powder Mage" hovering between a four and five. That's a result of the rubbery state that lists like these always have to exist in.

Yet so few of these authors would dare compare themselves to what I'm calling the legendary status. These are people who make genres. Entire genres have come from one individual's mind that put out a book and inspired new. And this is going to be the territory for fantasy where the actual genres are serving their peak purpose as well. Every single little detail woven into the story is there for a reason, constructed by the artist to make sure it's helping convey either a greater sense of being transported into the story or serving a purpose directly related to the themes or some subtle detail you're not even supposed to pick up on as a pattern within their writing. Here's where you start having authors who know how to communicate with you and almost the meta of their books. And many authors in this space actually want to challenge you, have you be uncomfortable as a reader, work harder, look deeper, to actually understand the why of certain things happening in their book. People who don't like this space can often sound similar to those who don't like super lyrical rappers. Yes, they have a point that it's not exactly an easy listen, but it almost feels disrespectful to the art form to not have an appreciation of what is being accomplished. It's a level of creativity that's not once in a generation, but is bordering near that territory. While you may have encountered living characters at level 5, you feel like you know better than some of your friends the characters that these legends are making by the time you are done with the series because each beat of emotional development for pro and antagonist, primary and secondary characters, is the most ridiculously human execution you can come across. And on top of that, you have a mastery of writing. You will encounter basically none of the flaws you see on this side of the board. And so tantalizingly, these levels of creatives, for specifically fantasy and science fiction, often have an obsession of doing endless research to try and put all kinds of real-world influences and historical equivalents into their world from reality. Which means you end up down this fanatical fan rabbit hole of constantly trying to dig up where these geniuses whose brains have captivated you got their ideas from. None of it is obvious, but it's all subtle enough to find. You'll tell yourself, "I'm going to bed at 9 tonight." And then it's 3:00 a.m. in the morning. You're halfway through a 600-page book. Your eyes are bloodshot and you're going to fail tomorrow. But it was worth it. It almost feels like the art comes first here before market viability, anything else. The creator of these stories is compelled almost to tell this story, and that comes across. Yes, there are massive mainstream successes here like "A Song of Ice and Fire." But George R.R. Martin did not write "A Song of Ice and Fire" thinking it could find the level of success it did in TV because nothing had done that before. It came from a genuine, "Oh, the War of the Roses, I'm going to make that dragons." Other creators like Ken Liu or Guy Gavriel Kay are more interested in challenging themselves creatively, doing something different than ever following a trend or filling a gap in the commercial market.

Okay, now I know I just said something there that's going to piss a lot of people off. Of these people, care about marketability, while these people are just being purely driven by artistic passion. That sounds horrifically mean to a whole lot of people who are obviously driven by just their artistic passion. I more mean that these people had a vision that almost feels like it had to come from that person, and that was the only thing they cared about. It is a story that almost feels like it's connecting you to another human being's mind because of how clearly you're getting the way they're thinking, the process of it all, all being conveyed through the medium of writing like nothing you've ever experienced before. I would say everyone who enters this space has to have their own unique feel as a creator. The reason I put Daniel Abraham in there is because it was mind-blowing to see a fantasy epic, something I had seen 30, 40 times before, suddenly done in a way where I'm encountering this rogue Kynigaru and thinking that's the story, and then learning it's the story of dueling dynasties, and then learning, no, it's actually the story of a country with invaders, and then is actually the story of a pantheon of gods. And it suddenly realizing, oh my god, thematically the whole point of this has been about how while we may be experiencing temporary things on the land, the land remembers us forever. And that is how it's like this messaging that reforms and reshapes itself. That was the kind of jaw-dropping experience where I just, legend. Robin Hobb's "Far Seer," Tad Williams' "Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn," Joe Abercrombie's "First Law," "Neuromancer," "Foundation." Every single one of those names has made me put down a book and go on a walk, not only for the events that happened in their story, but out of appreciation for just the detail they are willing to go into to make sure exactly the emotion they want to put in your head is there. Maybe there's even an odd choice of word. The kind of thing you see in rap where an artist will intentionally not rhyme something to make the real meaning of what they're saying pop out in your skull. They can do that with world-building elements, confidence, and even breaking rules because they know, okay, you're gonna understand I did that and here's why I did. It comes across, boop. Holy [ __ ] And it almost feels wrong to call the characters you'll find at this level just characters. To be frank, I have felt more extreme emotions reading characters in this territory than I have ever felt from friends I've known for years. That's not a criticism of my friendships. It's a showcasing of how extraordinary circumstances in the hands of an artist can result in something that actually makes it feel like your heart stopped beating. I've been advised to clarify my point here a little bit, and I think that's a good idea because the reason I would put Sanderson, for example, who has his notorious "Sanderlanche" up there in the great writer category is because, yeah, he's great at writing action sequences. The difference is here in the legends territory, my political opinions changed after I read "Neuromancer." And it took a while for me to process that, but there were so many different seeds carefully watered throughout the whole story that bloomed and stuck with me for months, years, that, oh my god, I'm now a different literal person. That's kind of the distinguishing factor. I do want to admit there can be flaws in terms of how things have aged within the legends space, but that's part of what makes them legends. They are flagpole signifiers often of the time they were written in and touchstones to come back to to better understand the best of what these genres had to offer throughout their history. They are not worldbuilders. They are world inhabitors. You are going on a walk with them through a fully realized vision, and they understand the artistry of writing enough to convey it with little to no hindrance. When I'm deceased, but then the beasts arise like yeast to conquer peace, leaving savages to roam in the streets, live on the run. Police paying me to give him my gun, which leaves just one level left.

And the big differentiator between six and seven for me, I am calling the unfinished curse. Now, there are authors who just sit at level six, and that's where they belong. But there are certain things constrained here that I want to drop down into seven. But to be a GOAT, I hate to say it, and I don't mean to dogpile onto something that obviously has external outside world factors contributing to it, but you got to finish what you started. And that is a very complex matter because of course, if you're trying to set out to only write standalone books, this barrier does not exist. But the GOATs who even wanted to write something huge and epic, honestly, even outside the form of writing, what makes them the greatest of all time is the fact that they understood what it required to get it done, followed through. And so they're able to take all of what made these legends and turn into a greatest of all time because the praise is here entirely plus the undefinable. At level seven, you have works that when you read them, there is a before and after time in my life when I read that, and it's going to affect me until the day that I die. Of course, subjectively, some people are going to feel that at five, but everybody does, damn near at seven. I think the most consistent thing I have said at reading at this level is essentially, "I didn't know you could do that." These people are able to do things with the art form of writing that I cannot put into words. What they successfully managed to accomplish artistically. Many times you will find life's work in the level seven category. The obvious example being "Lord of the Rings." You also have "The Broken Earth," "The Discworlds," "Frankenstein," and others that were not only perfect executions of brilliant concepts, but revolutionary to even think of at the time they were released and contributed something that even to this day, if it's centuries later, authors at every single level are attempting to reach that level seven status because they were inspired by those who occupy the space. Every generation or so when one of these people comes along, we can all appreciate it because it's an example of human creativity at its literal finest. Not only showcasing the extreme limits of what we can come up with conceptually, but the hard technicality that needs to be thoroughly mastered and then almost remastered to communicate impossibilities while simultaneously toying with the emotions of your reader to instill ideas, messaging, whatever, all under the guise of an imagined faraway land. What makes GOATs GOATs is no matter how far from Earth they take you, in every single word they put to the page, they're able to remember they're telling you a human story.

[Music] Taking my baby to school. And that is my seven levels of fantasy series. Let me know your thoughts in the comments down below. Like and subscribe if you have not already. Hit the Patreon if you want to support what I do here. And have a good one, y'all.