Check it:
http://entertheoctopus.wordpress.com/2008/07/29/why-no-heroic-fantasy/
This argument is getting old. Yes, yes, over and over again we’re told by “fans of heroic fantasy” that such fantasy is not being bought anymore, and if only someone would publish it, then we would all be rich in hearts and pocketbooks, or something. And yes, these people are almost always talking about short stories.
And you know who these people usually are? Short story writers, who consider themselves Heroic Fantasy Writers. They are complaining because they are not getting published in good venues, and complaining about some golden age they see in their mind of a period of time when Heroic Fantasy was being published.
Let’s take this argument apart, shall we?
1- Novel wise, Heroic Fantasy has been published practically to death, and still gets published all the time. Like Romance, it is a genre with a staple set of idioms that get repeated over and over again, the pleasure in the variation of the repetition.
2- Short story wise, Heroic Fantasy has never been insanely popular. Never. If you look over the old issues of any genre fiction magazine throughout the years, you will see that an equal number of heroic fantasy versus non-hf genre fiction is pretty much a steady ratio. You may decry out the name of Howard and Lieber- but the wrote lots of non-HF as well. In fact, their non-HF output far exceeds their HF output.
Basically, people have a strange recollection of history. Fantasy is a young genre (well, as far as modern riffs on fantasy is concerned, and HF is concerned), and it has a more varied and complex history than most people realize. The roots of fantasy fiction is tangled and complex, and just narrowing it down and saying “it all started with Heroic Fantasy” is a lie.
Not that I have anything against it, but I do have something against these proponents of so-called Heroic Fantasy calling every other piece of fantasy fiction a form of snobbery, and that this snobbery is keeping HF off the market. Bullshit. Bullshit on a shit plate. I can list a dozen short stories that contain HF and have been published in Pro Paying venues in the last year.
So, can we please talk about something else now? Something meaningful? Eh? Maybe one that does not involve a straw man? As much as I find scarecrows interesting (and also, one of the better Batman villains, including the Mad Hatter), they make for poor arguments.
All good! I’m just glad to be able to offer this writer who wrote me an opportunity to elicit the opinions of fans, publishers and established writers. Would you mind coming back by and leaving something to this effect – even a carbon copy of this statement? I think that he would find it interesting.
For what it’s worth, I tend to be an omnivorous reader. As long as I find it entertaining I’m up for it. I’m a fan of both Jorge Luis-Borges and Robert E. Howard, eh?
I did, sort of, heh, leave this as a comment on the page (I think?).
Oh, and I’m a HUGE fan of epic fantasy and heroic fantasy. HUGE. I’m just sick of this either/or debate.
I love Heroic Fantasy, but I rarely read it in short form. Novels seem the natural length for it, for some reason. Maybe it’s to do with worldbuilding and immersion. There’s a lot of work to do to get the reader to buy in, and it seems hard to do in a short story. To me, at least.
You also don’t see a lot of pure romance-genre short fiction. My wife writes some, and I was looking for romance short fiction (magazine) markets and came up with 0. Really. 0. That’s very odd considering it’s the most powerful and high-selling fiction genre of all. (I go off topic this far only so I can (hopefully) be corrected.)
But perhaps this indicates that some genres and sub-genres seem better suited to different lengths.
My wife writes Romance as well! Does she write historical? My wife writes historical, Regency romance. Which is funny, since I can use her reference books when I write steampunk. Hah.
Anyway, I love heroic fantasy, even in the short form. I think it can work, and I can list a ton of them in the last year or so. Most have been in Realms of Fantasy, Fantasy Magazine (in print more than online), a few in LCRW, a few in EV, and a whole bunch in F&SF. Also, one in Clarkesworld.
Yes, I’ve seen some good ones as well. I’ve also seen some bad ones
Numerically they seem rare to me. Or maybe I just skip over them. 
Me, for some reason, I can only write HF as a novel. Anything shorter and it falls apart.
My wife writes modern settings, gay romance mostly (since I enjoy reading about lesbians, I suppose this is only fair.) Seems like a mostly non-existant market, though. When she gets done with her current work, I’ve suggested that she should submit it to agents as Literary.
Actually, Gay romance is huge. Esp in the indie market. Tell her to check out Soft Skull presses. They have a gay romance line.
“Numerically they seem rare to me. Or maybe I just skip over them.”
My point is, short story wise, they’ve always been sort of rare. But I only think that’s due to the fact that its such a specific sub genre, while all the other subgenres of fantasy are looser in their interpretations.
Just hoping that people know that I’m quoting another person and opening up the thread for debate. It’s not actually my question or contention.
I figured as much