I am using the word “fantasy” in a fairly broad sense, so that it comprises science fiction, horror, sword & sorcery epics, ghost stories, and so forth; basically any fiction whose basic premise involves something we know to be untrue.
I know people who absolutely, reflexively hate that such fiction. I know others who read nothing.
If you’re someone on either extreme, can you tell us why?
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“Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey … The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.”
Well, I’m not an extremist on either end. I enjoy pretty much all genres of fiction. I can tell why I enjoy fantasy, though. Ever since I was a kid I enjoyed reading mythology, fairy tales, legends, tall tales, etc. For me, the fantasy genre is just an extension of that.
Two, because it provides a different angle of looking at the world. I am generally a fan of fantasy in the “real world,” e.g., American Gods rather than The Wheel of Time, though there’s exceptions.
Hate, simply because its existence reminds me of other habits of my 12-year-old self which I haven’t been able to shake since then.
The OP’s definition seems broad enough to include, say, many of Jorge Luis Borges’ short stories, but I don’t include that in the “fantasy genre”, although I might have trouble explaining the difference.
I do not like (I ain’t gonna say hate) fantasy because I am not smart enough to remember weird-ass names.
Fantasy itself seems very cool and intriguing to me, but whenever I tried reading a book I forgot who the people were or where they were from because the names were so friggin weird.
Maybe it’s cuz I’m dumb…but that was always my problem
I have the feeling the love for most genres depends on what grabbed them when they were very young. The response I had to shows like Twilight Zone, Amazing Stories, and even Carl Sagan’s Cosmos (among many others) had profound impact on me. The ideas presented resonated with me. All good science fiction stories ask a “what if…” that is irresistible. On the surface it may be a good yarn, but underneath any quality science fiction story should hold allegory, extrapolation, ideals, perversion, consequence and warnings. It examines and explores where we are as a people, how we might react and where we might be headed. And every so often comes a truly novel idea explored.
Those that like these sort of genres cherish and hold the feelings of wonder, curiosity and awe to a great extent in their lives. And Science Fiction and Fantasy* can be a fantastic proxy for that.
That particular kind of sensation from more “grounded” literature is really hard to come by. I do have a soft spot for hard science fiction over any other sort. And I’m kind of peeved that Fantasy is so carelessly lumped in with Science Fiction. I realize most science fiction is a fantasy of sorts, but IMHO SF in general is far more visceral (yet intellectual) and illuminating than stories of orcs, elves, wizards, dragons and magic.*
** Not to diss Fantasy. I do like some of it, and have read some, and I acknowledge that there are some important works out there, but it just doesn’t resonate with me like most science fiction. YMMV
Then Robin Hobb might be for you. Some of her characters in the Farseer trilogy are named Shrewd, Patience, Chivalry, Regal, etc. But then there’s Kettricken and Burrich, but at least there’s not a Ketrukan or Baritch. I don’t like weird or too-similar names either, but that applies to all fiction, not just fantasy.
Sometimes with general fiction I get hung up on improbabilities, things that would never happen in real life. That’s not a problem with fantasy. I don’t question anything except the actions of the characters, and only if they go out of character. I can read it without a filter.
mbh’s quote explains it too. Dragons! Braiiiiiiiiiiins! Worlds where people live in treetops or along a river that encompasses the earth! Good stuff.
I would say I’m a moderately imaginitive person, but I just can’t take fantasy books, or games, or movies, or whatever. First of all, there’s very little I’ve seen which basically doesn’t just rip off Tolkien. Secondly, I’m not a very big fan of Tolkien in the first place.
I prefer to keep my imagination in the realm of the real … or at the very least, in the realm of the possible. That’s not to say that I don’t like things to go off the rails every once in a while and I do enjoy a lot of science fiction, but I much prefer things to have at least a basis in reality – it helps me relate better to the characters, I suppose.
Not to mention, there are to many paragons in the fantasy genre, you know? There’s always the same sterlingly moral and couragous characters in all of them. And why can’t one of them just be called Bob or Steve, or something? It’s always Gliffnoeund the Mongor Slayer from the Kingdom of Flugelshmoogel or some shit (John Carter excepted … but didn’t he even end up with some fucked up moniker too?).
Maybe I’ve read too much bad fantasy stuff to jade me, but there you go.
I’d say 90% of fiction I read is fantasy (the other 10% being mysteries and thrillers). I can’t say why I’m so enthralled, but as Tahssa said, if I wanted real life I wouldn’t need to be reading a book in the first place.
That stuff just doesn’t do it for me. Like Jack Batty, I like things to be more or less tied to reality. Plus the old saw that much of it is just bad fiction dressed up in spacesuits and dragonslaying wear.
I used to be really into fantasy when I was younger, particularily the endless series like Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, etc. At some point, as my tastes broadened, I realized most of the writers just weren’t that good (I used to read Terry Brooks and Dave Eddings, can’t stand either of them now). It’s a very, very formulatic genre, and I just can’t get into it as much nowdays. I do still like the occasional fantasy novel if it’s somewhat original and written well enough to hold my interest.
Used to hate it-in my teens I was very much a hard SF fan, and I looked down on anything which even remotely smacked of fantasy, and didn’t join a college club because I was offended that it had “SF and Fantasy” in its title.
But once I chanced to read the Amber novels, and I was hooked, and grew to love it. Read just about all the classics of genre, new or old. Fantasy generally speaking was often deeper psychologically than SF, and allowed my imagination to roam free, among other things.
But closer to the present day I grew to hate it again, bored silly by all the cliches and hidebound genre conventions. Have tried desperately to find something which broke the format, and in a few instances was successful (Sandman series most notably). But I haven’t picked up a fantasy novel in about 4 years going now, and don’t know when I will again.
I enjoy the settings, mentally recreating them and fleshing them out more with every book I read. I like it when characters have a different mindset from real-world people on account of having a wildly different culture and religion. I also like that characters can get bashed around fighting big monsters and then get magically patched up so they don’t spend the rest of the story laid up recovering from their wounds.
I like reading fantasy, grew up with it and still read a bit nowadays. It’s a very weak genre of fiction, though, by and large. There is so much of the fantastical and mystifying in every day life, that using a fantasy context for a novel is, in some ways, a bizarre cart-before-the-horse situation. Good writers can encapsulate this wonderment and awe of life in a short story about me going down the shops to fetch the newspaper, or driving to pick my kid up from school. It’s an interesting argument whether you think that the no rules, only constraint is your imagination set up of fantasy represents great freedom and scope for an author, or a debilitating limitation. I’m more on the side of the latter interpretation.
There’s an argument to be made that the novel as a whole is fantastical escapism. Say a tough, minutiae-packed monster like Ulysses - written to give Dubliners ‘one good look at themselves’ is actually wild escapist fantasy when compared with real life. In this light, fantasy novels are like the lunatic fringe of escapism can cannot really offer anything beyond being a fun read.
I still like reading some fantasy authors, just because there are some great writers who work in the genre. Not many, because most ambitous, properly talented writers want literary recognition and you don’t get any working in a genre ghetto, but enough have toughed it out to produce some really outstanding novels.
I like fantasy because it is more realistic than literary fiction. That is to say, fantasy authors are more aware of the major facts about human existence.
Authors of literary fiction may have the upper hand when it comes to minutiea. If you want six hundred pages spent exploring how a suburban housewife will the flaws from her relationship with her mother onto her relationship with her daughter, then literary fiction is your best bet. Personally I find nothing appealing in that sort of thing. I’ve never managed to finish a single New Yorker story in my life, and I’ve tried many times.
Good fantasy sweeps away the little details of life among middle-class white people in early 21st-century America, thus allowing the author to focus on larger themes. Tolkien teaches us how humans feel about themselves, their friends and family, their homeland, and their world. He explores how we react to extraordinary events and how far we go in service of what we truly believe in.
And yes, it is true that most fantasy written today is crap. To me that makes it all the more rewarding when I find something good.