Why Men Need Fiction (And Why Publishing Stopped Giving It to Them)

I started noticing it in the early 2000’s: when I’d walk into a bookstore looking for a new awesome fantasy or scifi adventure to sate my hunger for the exciting genres of speculative fiction. Something with weight to it and most likely with a cover from someone like Frank Frazetta or Boris Vallejo. These were the books that, as a kid, I looked to for answers to the issues I was quietly wrestling with. I needed answers to questions like what kind of man I wanted to be, what I owed to the people in my life, what it meant to act with honor in a world that had largely stopped using the word. I was looking for the PKDs, the Robert E. Howards, the Tolkiens, or any of the classics I loved retold in a way that was familiar to me. What I saw was an ever-increasing catalogue of fiction written specifically for women. Subtle at first, a few titles scattered amidst the bulk, that would make me think ‘Cool. Women are finally digging fantasy.’ I had a false assumption that my stories, my books, would be left untouched. I was horribly wrong. By degrees, the trickle grew into a flood that soon drowned the entire section in titles with nonsense names and covers with strong, independent women looking fiercely into the middle distance. Not for me. So, I’d leave with nothing. Or on the rare occasions I found something under the rubble of romance fantasy, it didn’t quite fit.

It wasn’t that the books were bad…no, that’s not true. Most of them were bad. Derivative, uninspired, formulaic clones. But there was something else beneath the surface that was far more sinister. Gone were heroes, strong men, epic deeds, masculine virtues, and male identity. Almost all the protagonists were invincible, triumphant females and/or men in the process of dismantling themselves. The virtues I cared about, the story of a man overcoming himself and the world to become a better version of himself, appeared in the narrative only to be complicated, subverted, or shown to be illusions. The message, consistent across a hundred different titles, was that wanting to be a man of character was itself the problem.

This isn’t a controversial claim. It’s out in the open. But here’s the thing, though it’s openly stated and propagandized, the emasculation of masculinity cannot be named or looked at. That’s the real crime. For most of human history, stories were crafted, told, and preserved as beacons for future generations. Lights that showed them who they were and where they were going. This went far beyond simple escapism. Homer’s epics didn’t exist so the ancient Greeks could relax with a mug of tea and cozy into a forgettable story. They existed to transmit values across generations: what it meant to be brave, to be loyal, to endure. The Odyssey. Beowulf. The Icelandic sagas. King Arthur. Story after story after story built around men tested by adversity and defined by how they met it.

At some point, literary culture decided this was naive. That the proper function of serious fiction was to deconstruct, interrogate, and complicate. Models weren’t things to be upheld, they were outdated modalities meant to be criticized and torn down. The legitimacy of this artistic choice is highly suspect. But its proliferation has left an enormous gap in the market for stories that do something different: stories that show a man what he could become.

Men didn’t stop needing those stories. They stopped being able to find them. I believe men today still read, still want to read, but are left at a loss in how to do that. Mainstream publishing has abandoned them on all fronts, so they’ve sought refuge in anime and manga where heroics and ordeals haven’t entirely left the page. Indie publishing has potential jewels, but finding them amid the pile of slop and garbage is next to impossible. Men need a place they can find, a place they can trust, to deliver stories that speak to the lives they are trying to lead.

This is why Outlaw Star Press exists. Not to produce propaganda, not to publish wish-fulfillment fantasies, and not to pretend the world is simpler than it is. The best fiction in our tradition is the fiction we aspire to. The stories that are honest about hardship, failure, and the cost of trying to live well. Most importantly, these stories take seriously the idea that trying to live well is worth it. That courage is real. That honor matters. That the man who endures is different, in ways that count, from the man who doesn’t. All that it takes to embark on the adventure is one good story that tells him how.