I'm convinced the world doesn't have more alchemical fantasy because alchemists deliberately tried not to communicate their ideas and theories to other people, at least not in print and/or comprehensible form, which makes familiarizing oneself with it damned hard.
Not that I'm speaking from experience or anything. <g>
Anyway, yes, it isn't so much the western-ness as the familiarity. But I would say the familiarity goes beyond the surface; sure, there's the western occult, but I think many of the basic ideas there have permeated fantasy (urban and otherwise) pretty thoroughly, so that even if you used that as your focus instead of vampires, it wouldn't feel all that terribly new. (For certain types of the occult, of course. If you gave me hard-core John Dee Christian kabbalism, that would be new.)
re: immigration -- see Mrissa's comment above. Go tell her to write that book. ^_^
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yati
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Date: 2007-11-07 03:55 pm (UTC)Not that I'm speaking from experience or anything. <g>
Anyway, yes, it isn't so much the western-ness as the familiarity. But I would say the familiarity goes beyond the surface; sure, there's the western occult, but I think many of the basic ideas there have permeated fantasy (urban and otherwise) pretty thoroughly, so that even if you used that as your focus instead of vampires, it wouldn't feel all that terribly new. (For certain types of the occult, of course. If you gave me hard-core John Dee Christian kabbalism, that would be new.)
re: immigration -- see Mrissa's comment above. Go tell her to write that book. ^_^