“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.” –Dr. Seuss “You need to believe in things that aren’t true. How else can they become?” –Sir Terry Pratchett “Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli….” –George RR Martin “Humans need … Read more
First, think of your favorite fantasy book or series. Now, pick a single word that describes what made you love that story. Have the word yet? If so, skip down to the comments and enter it. Do not let the words of others influence you. In Worldcon in Reno, I pounced on many an unsuspecting … Read more
A fantasy writer must dredge up impossibilities to paint a mosaic of unbelievable wonder. Often, I have questioned if doing so required a whiff of madness. Not that I am the first to suspect a link between creativity and a fraying mind. “The lunatic, the lover and the poet Are of imagination all compact” – … Read more
I’ve been reading Strong Imagination, Madness, Creativity, and Human Nature, by Daniel Nettle. He suggests that to begin the monumental undertaking of writing a novel, in the face of overwhelming odds of failure, authors need to have hypomania, a mentality of boiling confidence and breathtaking vision. Anathema to this outlook is a case of the … Read more
I have a feeling that if I reanimated Oscar Wilde amidst the crackle of lightning in my laboratory and asked him what he thought about the fantasy genre, he would say, “I can’t stand it. It’s entirely too believable.” But that was his way. In fact, the one novel he wrote, the Picture of Dorian … Read more
I invited David Farland to share his thoughts on the themes of morality and good and evil in the fantasy genre, and he graciously accepted. David Farland is an award-winning, New York Times bestselling author who has penned nearly fifty science fiction and fantasy novels for both adults and children. Along the way, he has … Read more
I will be interviewing a series of fantasy authors with glittering minds, exposed on the Importance of the Impossible for your cerebral pleasure. The first cognitive delight is Richard Denning. Richard Denning works as a Family Doctor in the West Midlands, UK. He has always been fascinated by historical settings as well as horror and … Read more
Imagine an Amazon gift card floating into your well-deserving grasp. It weighs nothing, but holding it makes your fingers glow and tingle with possibility. Think of the hundreds of thousands of words you could buy with this store credit, of all those exquisitely crafted sentences flowing into the ravenous (and bottomless) well of your mind. … Read more
I share this quote by George R.R. Martin because it speaks to the greatness and inner vastness of the fantasy genre. The best fantasy is written in the language of dreams. It is alive as dreams are alive, more real than real … for a moment at least … that long magic moment before we … Read more
From crackling magic swords, to faeries zipping across the sky in streaks of color, to dragon fire, fantasy images inspire and fill the mind with the wonder of possibility, and impossibility. To celebrate the genre and those who write it, this site hosts expositions of cover illustrations for fantasy novels, of all subgenres. As the … Read more
