I don’t like fantasy.
You heard me. I grew up reading Tolkein, CS Lewis, Madeline L’Engle, and loving them. I remember absorbing the Pern books all out of order and visiting different libraries to try and track them down (yes, I know technically Pern isn’t magic, bear with me). I read all fourteen Oz books and many of the series by other authors after Baum was gone. I adored Robin McKinley’s books, especially Beauty, which has to be my favorite fairy-tale retelling to this day. As a older verging-on-adult reader I found Xanth, and the Princess Bride (the movie, the book is… odd), and someone insisted I read a copy of Magic Kingdom, For Sale.
And then after a long gap, I started to read fantasy again… (read the rest over at Mad Genius Club)
Comments
3 responses to “Fantasy is Tough”
Y’know, you read enough books that I enjoy (Pratchett!) that I’m going to buy Corriea’s book. And yours. And because the title amuses me, “Magic Kingdom, For Sale.”
Have you heard of Shannon Hale’s “The Goose Girl” and its three sequels? I liked those about as well as Robin McKinley. Starting in the second book, their magic powers are shown to have scary side-effects, so you might enjoy the series also.
That does sound interesting. I stopped reading McKinley with Deerskin(?) because it hit a lot of traumatic trigger points. I can’t read her any more.
Good post, lots to think about. I write Celtic fantasy, and go with some of the Celtic tropes: there are only some magical humans, the sidhe are nearly gods, and the gods are nearly mortal. I understand cost, though, and the magic had a place, and a code in the society. Those that break it have to deal with the consequences, although it is possible for a society to become corrupt. That’s where my first book, The Cricket Learns to Sing, starts. I’d give an Amazon link, but I’m writing this on my phone, and it’s a pain. My other trilogy, set in the same world, but earlier, is more about the consequences of having great power and little self control.