A friend recently loaned me a fantasy trilogy. (I am on the second book.) I started reading and was struck by how…80s…it read. I mean, this trilogy is from the 80s, but even if I hadn’t checked the publication date
Christmas: Fantasy?
Instead of our normal Friday subgenre study, I thought we’d take a look at Christmas stories and debate their genre. Christmas stories tend to involve angels, ghosts, flying reindeer, elves, and an immortal who has the power to visit every
Christmas Movies
Well, my husband has driven into work like a crazy person (we’ve got about a foot of snow and it’s still coming down) and as we get closer and closer to Christmas, I find it harder and harder to get
Subgenre Study: Mythic Fantasy
Ah, mythic fantasy, where Gods walk the Earth (or…not-Earth), where heroes are born, and where magic imbues the world around us. A simplistic definition is that mythic fantasy is fantasy that weaves mythology into the world. Usually each story focuses
Subgenre Study: Comedic Fantasy
Like we talked about a few weeks ago, comedic fantasy is a subgenre that can be combined with other subgenres. It defines the tone, not the setting, location, etc. You can have comedic epic fantasy, comedic urban fantasy, or even
Subgenre Study: Quest Fantasy
I would argue that this is not a subgenre, but apparently in some circles it is considered one, so here we are. I would say that the Quest is a plot point, not a subgenre, but I suppose it is
Subgenre Study: Historical Fantasy
Hello? Hello? Hey, is this thing on? If you have managed to stumble here on this, the most commercial of days, I hope that if you ventured outside into the consumerism that you met nice, friendly people full of holiday
Sungenre Study: Arthurian Fantasy
Arthurian Fantasy can be considered a subgenre of the subgenre of Mythic Fantasy (how’s that for getting somewhat meta?). Mythic Fantasy (which we have yet to get to), involves weaving mythological elements into a story’s world or plot. Arthurian Fantasy
Subgenre Study: Dying Earth
The Dying Earth subgenre is very similar to the apocalyptic fiction subgenre we explored earlier. The key difference between the two is that apocalyptic fiction tends to deal with some major catastrophe that is threatening all life, whereas in Dying
Harry Potter Re-read: Half-Blood Prince
Happy Halloween, Squiders! If we look at the entire Harry Potter series as a whole, where Order of the Phoenix is the Dark Moment and Deathly Hallows is the climax, then Half-Blood Prince is the lead-up. Sure, it has some
