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Notes -
A better comparison would be pulp from the last century. Howard, Lovecraft, Ashton Smith.
But the issue is that those books aren't very contemporary. I've read Path of Dragons recently, it's complete slop, and I dropped it after 1.5 books, but during that I saw a ton of inspiration from video games like World of Warcraft, and other stories. And you know what, it's still fun to see those references to video games I've played and experienced, rather than just another 18th century world that's as disconnected from me as it could be. Meanwhile I've read a Clark Ashton Smith short story recently and the writing style was great, far better than you'd find on RoyalRoad, but also clearly set in a specific time period.
There is a reason why Urban Fantasy is so popular, people want to read what's familiar.
Fanfiction, and RR specifically is easier to read because you come in with certain expectations. For example when I start a Wormfanfic I know who all the characters are, and they or the world don't need to be introduced. The same goes for a lot of RoyalRoad stories that basically play off the same rough world building. System Apocalypse, Xianxia. They all reuse a lot of concepts. And in turn this allows the subversion of those existing concepts as well.
And as a comparison. I would also say that authors like Pynchon, are closer to modern webfic in terms of style than they are to those older stories. Which also speaks to how ahead his works are. Crying of Lot 49 feels more contemporary and could've been made in the last 20 years despite having been written in '66. It also shows just how influential Post-Modernism was, and that escaping it is impossible.
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