Epic vs High Fantasy

I don't know what this image is. I found it on a GIS for "epic fantasy" and because it looks cool, why not?

If you look on Infogalactic or Wikipedia, epic fantasy redirects to High Fantasy. But I wonder if they aren't really not quite the same thing. I mentioned in a post a few days or so ago that while the Riftwar Saga was always one of my favorite High Fantasy series, I had lost the first three (of four) books when I lent them to a friend who ended up moving across the country before giving them back. No problem, I thought—they're still in print. Sadly, what has been in print since the early 90s is the "Author's Preferred Edition" where he undid some of the good work that his editors had done in the 80s. I was always disappointed in them, and preferred the original versions where the editors did their job and actually improved the book in a few minor details, so I never ended up rebuying them. I did, however, recently find copies of the two volumes of Magician—Apprentice and Master in the original 80s printing and ordered them. I'm waiting on Apprentice to arrive, but Master already has. Pretty soon, I'll do the first re-read that I've done in quite some time of this series. The third volume, which I also need to get, is Silverthorn. I couldn't find the original 80s version of this one, but I think it's mostly Magician that had the more noticeable changes, so if I end up having to buy it in a more modern printing, I'll probably be OK (although it'll look out of place on my shelf with the other three in their 80s versions.)

Anyway, all that needless talking about myself aside, the reason I bring that series up in particular is that the third volume, Silverthorn, is probably a good example of a High Fantasy that isn't an Epic Fantasy, although as a semi-independent part of the greater Riftwar Saga, which is Epic Fantasy quite clearly, this may seem a bit odd. But because it is semi-independent and autonomous, and can be read quite fine as a stand-alone novel if you want to, it makes for a good point of contrast. Which is good, because much of High Fantasy is Epic Fantasy too, or aspires to be at least, so pointing out where they differ is nice to have a point of reference.

This post will contain some spoilers, so if you haven't read the Riftwar Saga and think that you will, you should probably quit now.

High fantasy is defined, primarily, by taking place in a secondary world that isn't Earth. This is what distinguishes it from low fantasy (not, as many believe, the relative prevalence of magic and fantastic elements.) In addition to that, it often, although not obligatorily features a Bildungsroman story, where the main character "comes of age." In the case of Bilbo and Frodo, they are already "of age" but are required to mature and develop significantly in a thoroughly different direction than the course of their life had been so far, but more commonly this starts with young characters who grow up literally and figuratively during the course of the story. It often features a mentor-wizardy character of some kind and a dark lord antagonist, and in fact, the good vs evil dynamic is a strong element of high fantasy (although most people would still consider A Song of Ice and Fire as high fantasy, even though it specifically rejects the good vs evil dynamic altogether and makes everyone... mostly kind of evil, as near as I can tell. That's because George Rape Rape Martin is a despairing nihilist, I think. Authors reveal more about themselves in their work than they wish to sometimes, I think.)

Vox Day separates Epic Fantasy from High Fantasy by suggesting that Epic Fantasy also needs the following traits: 1) an assumed adult (not YA) audience, 2) multiple POV characters, 3) a certain length; a trilogy seems to be the minimum, and 4) truly epic scope.

Silverthorn, then, deviates from this epic fantasy definition (although not from the high fantasy definition) in a number of ways:

• I don't remember if there were multiple POV characters because it's been a while since I read it. I'm pretty sure that both Arutha and Jimmy the Hand are both POV characters, and maybe Martin at times too, and there may even be a scene or two with Locky or someone else thrown in. But mostly, it's Jimmy, and to a lesser extent Arutha. Contrast this with the Wheel of Time, for instance, which has dozens of POV characters, and even a good dozen or maybe more that can be considered protagonists in their own right within a significant arc that's developed over multiple books. Certainly there's only one major story arc in Silverthorn, although both Jimmy and Arutha are main characters within it.
• While Silverthorn is of course the third of four books in the Riftwar saga, it's also self-contained and autonomous within it. While it does forward the "meta" plot of the saga, it's also the novel that touches on it the least (by far) and instead is very much the story of just what's going on in this novel. The "main" plot of the series overall almost feels more like a cameo than the focus here, making this a non-epic high fantasy tangent within an epic fantasy series.
• The scope and stakes are considerably less epic too. While both of the Magician volumes, as well as the final volume, A Darkness at Sethanon are about the clash of empires across time and space from separate world, and ancient evils in the form of the Valheru and their Pantathian servants, Silverthorn is really about one man (and his handful of trusted companions) making a raid into a dangerous territory full of dark elves to recover an antidote to save his princess who was poisoned by an assassin. While it's all very serious business, with a pretty great bit of horror thrown in to boot, it's not exactly epic in scope in the same way that the rest of the series is.

I had forgotten when I started writing this, but I remembered as I went through it; there is also another minor subplot where Pug and Tomas are wandering around trying to find stuff out. Some of it is pretty interesting, but it's just a background thing going on in the shadows of the main story. This is kind of where the links to the greater saga are more pronounced, but given that the entire little side-story with them feels much more like an afterthought than the main focus of the book, I don't think it qualifies to make the scope epic in its own right. It's a bit like the whole business with Gandalf during The Hobbit. Peter Jackson tried really hard to pump that up, but even in the movies, that subplot was clearly a subplot and attempt to tie The Hobbit movies more closely to The Lord of the Rings movies. 

For that matter, comparing The Hobbit (the novel, that is, not the movie series) to The Lord of the Rings is another good example, and probably a more iconic one anyway, of the differences between High Fantasy and Epic Fantasy; the former being "merely" high fantasy, and the latter being more clearly Epic Fantasy.