Well, now that's tough to say. Many Fantasy Novels have archetypes and while you could say Tolkien had them, I think it'd be hard to say he invented them.
The hero who is stronger than he realises.
The exiled king.
The wizard.
Many fantasy novels use these. Originality is hardly dead:
United States (2010) 328,259 (new titles and editions)
The thing is do you think all those make it onto Barnes and Noble's shelves?(For the recorder I wanted to say borders because it was shorter but...
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I hate to say but many of these recycled tales come to the forefront because it's what people buy. I read on my lunch break and interestingly enough I've started buying books at the store they're like $3 and I figure eh passes the time. I've been introduced to some great unknown authors.
some of my favorites out there right now:
Tim Wagonner- Nekropolis Series. It's basically a noire set in the city of the dead. waiting for the fourth book.
Glen Cook- Black Company series. Here's your fairly basic fantasy but where it wins is it's not over the top. I think the wizards here could be compared to Gandalf in the factthat they're not all powerful and specialize in illusion more than actually battle magic. sadly the tenth(and final) book kind of takes it from fantasy to sci fi which is a weird transition.
Matt Haig- The Radley's- Now this story on the surface is about a family of vampires but under that is a theme of denying your inner deisres and pushing down instincts really good I've read it four times in the past month.
Dean Crawford- Ethan Warner novels, now to be fair I've only read his first book but I want to read more his story is so vivid I acually cast it in my mind and knew which actors played what...
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what was the original question?