I have a question for those of you who share my love for science fiction and/or fantasy.

In many such series/books/movies they set up a universe in which we get to know the heroes over a period of a few chapters or the first season (whatever may apply), and at some point down the road, a line is drawn between good guys and bad guys, and the Hero has to go up against the big Bad in the end.

Often I find that I begin to like a series and find its universe intriguing. I wish it to keep going, I wonder what life would be like if that universe really existed, and so on. Then the big Bad is introduced, and I get a sinking feeling, knowing that now the Hero will Fight the big Bad and that’s it for the series.

I find that in increasing degree, I prefer the books/series about the everyday life in that universe. “The adventures of Merlin” (though a TV series) is a good example of this. Admittedly it does follow the young King Arthur-to-be and the wizard Merlin, who are both so important in legends, but never the less, they are young in the series and both are far from being who they will become and while there are villains there, there is no big Bad (so far).

In books like Harry Potter I would actually have liked it just as much without Voldemort and the Death Eaters. To me the magical world and the adventure of discovering it, the fun of exploring Hogwarts and the magical society in general would keep my attention. Also, a bit too much "chose one" for my taste.

I find the descriptions of everyday life in a world of magic, or in the future world, way more interesting than the epic stories.

Ever since I read The giver about 15 years ago, I’ve been interested in different society systems. What would life be like in that universe if it existed? What would my life have been like if I had lived there?

Anyone else feel the same way? What kinds of stories do you prefer?

I kind of like epic stories though, but with undertones of everyday life everywhere. I don't like "one big bad guy" though. I think the best scenarios are when there are many perspectives and someone who's a "villain" in one book/episode returns to help the "heroes" in another etc.

The few super villains there are must be limited in power imo and not demi-gods. They should dominate part of the story but not to the degree where it's like a Ragnarok final battle kind of thing.

The epicness for me comes out of the many ingredients combined. Casual everyday stuff and diverging storylines combined with epic moments that change the direction of the story.

A favorite cliché epic moment for me is always when two "villain" type characters with completely different personalities, style and objectives end up clashing as a coincidence. I like that more than a large "final battle" between a hero and a big bad demi-god.

I enjoy a story in which the society at large is introduced to a person and it isn't exactly a big good vs bad system as much as it is an introduction to another base of reality with it's own major events, storylines of individual people and their lives.

There is something about science fiction that makes me ill, the recursion. There is so much energy spent on building on other works of science fiction, old works of science fiction, instead of interpolating from current developments in science. This is intellectual incest. Don't the fans see that there is something fundamentally wrong with your genre when the parodies outnumber the earnest attempts?

The shiny science fiction main current of the 30s to 60s has been replaced by darker "gritty" stuff, supposed to be "realistic" by being bleaker than the present. What had been a warning to be cautious while it only appeared in low frequency became an affirmation of the status quo. Oh, look how bad they have it, you are soooo lucky to live here and now. Barf.

I would like to see some realistic SCIENCE fiction for a change, just some small clips showing a plausible glimpse of nice everyday life a few decades in the future. Some details about your room. The Food. Public transport. With meticulous research to back it up. I would also like to see more fictional societies with vastly different political systems, without it being preachy for or against. Example: What would life be like if people voted not only in regional elections, but also in age-group elections, and these age-group representatives would make laws that govern interactions between members of the same age-group?

Yes, that's a thing that bothers me, too. All that end of life as we know it, apocalypse thing doesn't appeal to me.

Something I really liked in both Alan Dean Foster.s "A call to arms" and Kristine Kathryn Rusch & Dean Wesley Smith's "The tenth planet" is that things were explained from the bad guys' POV as well. they were real creatures with real lives and real worries, they didn't just wake up one day and decide to become an evil overlord. They weren't evil per se. The creatures in The tenth planet were struggling to survive, and the Amplitur had their weird purpose.

Really I like anything. But I love a big universe that can support lots of stories and I can live in part time.
You might like Legend of the Galactic Heroes. It tells the story from the POV of both sides and there are no big bad guys.

I like a bit of both. For me, the point of reading a story is to go on a jounrey from point A to point Z. If that story can be epic and make the hair on the back of my kneck stand on end or whisk me away into a prolonged day-dream at the end of every chapter then so much the better. I love all things epic!!!

However I totally agree that to make the world feel real the author should describe the mundane everyday things in greater detail, though not falling into the trap of describing the same actions over and over. The author needs an intimate knowledge of how his characters live and how they interact with the world and culture they live in. I suspect a lot of fantasy authors don't spend too long reading up on ancient and medieval history so their knowledge of the kind of world they're building is limited to their imagination and is probably too plot/character focussed. Most of the audience have seen many a fantasy movie or read several fantasy books before so it's all too easy for the author to let their readers use past experience to imagine what the world is like without needing to tell them in explicit detail. I want to write fantasy one day, so an emphasis on daily living and historical realism is something I'll keep in mind.

I prefer a mixture of the two.