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 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
To spot certified Senior Fantasy Experts, pay close attention to persons garbed in refinement. They wear top hats to capture and hold their lofty ideas. Their monocles of x-ray vision allow for quick identification of secret passages in haunted mansions. And their walking sticks are in fact wizard staves sized for strutting. I asked this … Read more
Superficially, fantasy and myth seem like kissing cousins (winged, snake-headed, fire-breathing cousins), but how close are they really? First or twice removed? When Homer was known for his verse rather than his donut eating, people may have believed Cyclops did exist, that Hercules was a real person who did smother his family because Hera possessed … Read more
Reading fantasy is a vacation on five dollars a day. For the price of a sandwich, words transport you on an all-expenses-paid adventure into dark cities, enchanted forests, jewel-glinting caves, and snow-covered mountain ruins. True, you could visit Paris, but in the urban fantasy version, the catacombs would include red mood lighting cast by the … Read more
A paradox is when truth does a back flip, and the contortionist fact at issue here is that fantasy stories are memorable and resonate with the human experience, despite containing impossibilities that we have never encountered and never will be on this earth. I asked this week’s panel of experts why that might be. “Limitless … Read more
Asking Erin Hoffman “if fantasy was a form of modern myth” is like throwing a match in a wizard’s wagon of fireworks. She is the Gryphoness and the author of the Sword of Fire and Sea (Pyr), and I should have known her answer would be no less epic. So, fantasy and myth. They basically … Read more
