Genre of the week: Fantasy

Alright, so we're stepping away from horror and into fantasy. I personally don't read very much fantasy, and don't write it, so I don't have a lot of experience with it.

However, with classics like Lord of the Rings in this genre, there's a lot to love. Some people associate fantasy as more of a kid thing with imaginary creatures, but it can be surprisingly dark at times. With popular games such as the Elder Scrolls series, just about every MMO, and Dungeons and Dragons, this genre has one of the largest fan bases surrounding it.

What's your opinion on fantasy? Are you a fan?

I enjoyed fantasy quite a bit. I have all the Harry Potter books and I also finished the first five books of A Song of Ice and Fire series (sixth book won't come out this year dang it! XD ). Besides books, I experienced fantasy in movies and games too. I like the worldbuilding and the different creatures, professions, and races you can think of.

^Yes for the man who has all the Harry Potter books, wingardium leviosa


I'm not into Fantasy that much, because even when writing fiction, I need a scientific base. But I do like reading certain fantasy books YAY HARRY POTTER

I'm not very into fantasy as such... I used to like it more when I was younger, but nowadays I kind of want to make things believable, at least by a stretch of imagination. So I prefer things that tickle your mind and make you wonder, but to write a mystery or power off as "magic" just like that is not really my style. Not when it comes to reading and not when writing. Usually :)

I kind of love everything so I'd have to say I really enjoy fantasy. Particularly I've thoroughly enjoyed The Once and Future King. It was a a bit slow and boring at times, but it was a book that played on very interesting concepts to say the least. I also loved Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings--both the books and the movies. I thoroughly enjoyed the Eragon books, too. To the point where I binge read them. When it comes to writing, I like Fantasy because you tend to be able to have a stronger grasp on the universe than you would in a book set in a real world setting. The same would go for Science Fiction as well, but it usually also is required to play on existing knowledge of the universe unless you can use Science to explain it away--and if that's done poorly it does not bode well for the book. That being said, I'm a bit off topic! Some of my favorite video games also happen to be of a fantasy nature--League of Legends, Skyrim, World of Warcraft, Diablo... etc. but some of them, particularly LoL and WoW also draw from many other aspects such as Sci-Fi to also create their story and the characters within. So it's arguably difficult to coin them as one precise genre but I'd say that Fantasy is the prevailing aspect of those particular games.

Fantasy is probably my favorite genre. I grew up reading it, starting with Harry Potter, and am another person who has the complete series. (Actually, I started with a lot of fantasy games, like Final Fantasy 6 or the Breath of Fire series.) When Harry Potter took forever to continue, I moved on to the DragonLance series, which is based on D&D. DragonLance is what solely defined my growth as a writer. I spent hours just reading the Annotated Chronicles, learning how Weis and Hickman started and developed the series.

I tried reading the Lord of the Rings series, but I'm not a fan of Tolkein's writing. Which is funny, because I read the Hobbit and enjoyed it. I haven't touched the rest of the series since high school, but maybe I will some day.

Young Adult fantasy is what I'm currently reading. The book series I'm about to finish is the Young Wizard series by Diane Duane, and it's been fun reading those. The first four books are better than the latter ones, but I can still read through them without discrepancies.

And my one of my favorite books is a young adult fantasy novel: Magic Street by Orson Scott Card. It's kind of a modern retelling of A Midsummer's Night Dream.

I love, love, LOVE fantasy! My favorites tend to involve epic quests, wondrous creatures, and magical powers.

In fact, I just recently unearthed my complete set of The Lord of the Rings plus The Hobbit, and am reading them again for the first time in a while. Dragonlance and the Dragonriders of Pern are also near and dear to me, to name but a few.

In the YA department, the Song of the Lioness Quartet will be close to my heart, and I hope to track down a complete set with all four books

Game wise, I am HUGE fan of Zelda, Dragon Quest, and early Final Fantasy

I grew up on fantasy. I enjoyed a lot of whimsical young adult fantasy novels whose names I cannot recall, though some memorable series from my teens included Harry Potter, Madeline L'engle's Time Quintet and the DragonLance novels. The latter especially made me want to become a fantasy writer when I was younger.

These days, I'm reading A Song of Ice and Fire, and I swear that it has ruined me for most other fantasy novels. The characters and world are so rich and engrossing, and it's just such high-calibre writing that really set the bar for me. The few times I've tried reading other fantasy since starting ASOIAF, I found myself being hypercritical and feeling completely unsatisfied. (They weren't very good books to begin with, though!)

~Psychic