Grimdark is “a subgenre or a way to describe the tone, style or setting of speculative fiction that is particularly dystopian, amoral, or violent,” according to popular sources. It has spread thanks to the success of A Song of Ice and Fire, The Walking Dead, Dark Souls, and similar emotionally […]
Noblebright as a genre
11 posts
When most people hear the word “chivalry,” they think of men doing favors for women. When I hear the word, I think of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC_TFoGhqUU Arthur is trying to get the other knights to accept him as king. Some of them, such as Uryens, refused to have a bastard for […]
This blog post originally appeared on Nicholas Kotar’s site and is reprinted with permission. Ask pretty much anyone what is the one pop-cultural event that they’re waiting for more than any other this year. What do you think they’ll answer? The new “American Gods” show? Marvel Hero-du-jour: Episode 4,302? The […]
I first came across the term Noblebright a few months ago, and was intrigued by it. I imagined it would apply to works of High Fantasy, akin to Tolkien, (whose writing I love) without the gritty realism characteristic of Grimdark fantasy. Having read the definition of the term on C. […]
The words grimdark and noblebright arose as technical terms in the gaming world. There’s a certain amount of dispute about the exact definitions there, with a tendency to paint them in black and white terms (such as the slur that noblebright is all about rainbows and unicorns and flawless heroes). […]
Fellow indie author Bethany Jennings recently discovered the term noblebright and wrote a lovely blog post about it here. Please click through and read the whole thing. Here’s a snippet to entice you: There are the stories where there is no hope, no meaning, and no lasting joy to human existence, […]
When I wrote the first post about noblebright fantasy, I got a comment from author L. Jagi Lamplighter (isn’t that a wonderful name?!) about the superversive literary movement. I’ll post more about that later, but I thought I’d start with this lovely essay about why she writes fantasy (reprinted with […]
As I was recently wrapping up the fourth book in my historical fantasy series, I had the sudden, horrible feeling that I had just written grimdark. Not that I’m totally opposed to grimdark-some of my favorite fantasy authors probably fall into that category. But in general, I’ve made an effort […]
Everything written here is my own opinion. I hope you find some portion of it helpful; as for any portion you don’t find helpful — discard and disregard. My purpose here is not to dictate to the world what “noblebright fantasy” is, or how its heroes should behave; but rather, […]
C.J. Brightley gives me a certain amount of credit for noticing, and drawing attention to, the phenomenon we’re now calling “noblebright fantasy” – the deliberate opposite of grimdark. Accordingly, I thought I’d write a few words about one of the earliest places I encountered it: the works of the late […]
This post originally appeared on my author blog here. Several years ago I was fortunate enough to connect with another indie author, Mike Reeves-McMillan, who wrote a lovely review of The King’s Sword, which he described, tongue-in-cheek, as “cheerybright.” He meant that the world wasn’t perfect, but good characters […]