What do you think makes fantasy books special?
For some, it is world creation. The description of a new world totally unlike our own: its landscape, the laws of nature that dictate how it functions, its society and how it works, the rules and customs of its inhabitants, how they look, how they act, how they dress, what sort of creatures they are.
Entwined in this new world and often essential to the plot are its politics. The machinations of kings, queens, courtiers, tyrants, rulers or aspiring rulers. What fascinates us about this? The deviousness, the lies, the tension, and the cruelty? Perhaps it is just that politics means conflict and conflict is always at the heart of a good fantasy story.
Then again, it may be the protagonists that attract you: feisty female characters, youngsters coming-of-age, heroes and heroines transforming and developing through their adventures, weaknesses that become strengths, strengths that become weaknesses.
And what about their adversaries: evil kings, demons, tyrants, dragons, trolls, orcs? Should they be all evil or have redeeming characteristics, a story behind the creature they have become?
For others, it is the fantastical animals that play a role in the story: dragons, wolves, elves, dwarves, golems. But they are not just creatures. They have personalities, loves, hates, emotions that attract or repulse us.
And of course there are the artifacts: swords, gauntlets, grails, crystals, all of which must be found to save or destroy the world.
Not to forget the magic: mages, sorcerers, magicians and their apprentices, acting for good or evil. For me, the magic only works if it is given credibility through the world that has been created and its history.
It may be the journey that you enjoy. Full of obstacles and adventures, of relationships that form and change, of self-discovery and often self-disgust before finding a new way of being.
All leading to fights and culminating in battles. Conflict in all its guises. Do you love the drama of a grand battle between the forces of good and evil or do you prefer the spontaneity of the hero/heroine facing sudden attack?
What is it for you: world, characters, action? What’s your favorite thing about this genre? Do let me know in the comments below.