#pagesunbound — Public Fediverse posts

Fantasy with Friends: Low or High Fantasy?

Briana and Krysta at Pages Unbound are hosting a fantasy discussion meme this year called Fantasy with Friends. Since fantasy is my favorite genre, I thought it would be fun to take part. This week, their question is:

Do you prefer low or high fantasy? Or both?

As a longtime fantasy reader I have certainly read both, but high fantasy will always hold my heart. I love being swept away on an epic adventure through a world that may or may not resemble anything I recognize at all. Part of the fun of fantasy is getting to explore a completely new and unique world.

Low fantasy does sometimes find a spot in my reading life. It often feels simpler and easier on my brain, so I like using it, as well as a couple of other genres, as something of a palate cleanser. I love the way high fantasy makes me think fast just to keep up, but sometimes it gets a little heavy book after book after book. Sometimes life just gets too messy and heavy. So I turn to low fantasy for the simplicity I find in the worlds. There are fewer rules to remember, and so much more is familiar so it’s easy to put them aside until they pop back up instead of having to store that information in a spot in my mind. I think it also allows readers to really focus on things like character development, the emotions, and the plot because the world building isn’t so massive.

But my favorite thing about fantasy is the world building. To me, any story can be nested in fantasy. A romance, a mystery, an adventure, academia. Anything. Fantasy, to me, is all about the world and the unexplained. It’s the strange worlds, the strange creatures, the magic, the weird. While low fantasy can certainly have all of that, I just happen to have a greater appreciation for those authors who build worlds from the ground up. I’ve been writing fantasy worlds since I was 10 (technically 8, but that was co-written), so I understand what a massive undertaking it is and just how much work goes into creating a working world. So that’s a big part of the reason why I love high fantasy.

I also just love the idea of stepping into the unknown. I love discovering something new, and high fantasy usually gives me that more than low fantasy. I love the feeling of feeling completely lost in a new world, because, very often, as I keep going, it suddenly starts to make sense and that’s just the most incredible feeling to me. I think that’s why I loved The Mask of Mirrors by M.A. Carrick so much. It was sometimes overwhelming, but, halfway through, things just started clicking, and nothing can take that excitement and sheer joy from me. It’s what makes high fantasy so incredible to me.

Then there’s just the sense of being swept off my feet into an extraordinary adventure, whether it takes me out into the wider world or confines me to a specific location. I find there’s something exciting about maybe finding a familiar story nested in a unique world or finding the adventure of a lifetime in a place I never thought could exist. I love how things can be bent and broken and somehow make sense. I do not like when things bend and break for the sake of the story, but, when it just works, it feels like magic all on its own.

And, at nearly 40 years old, I still find myself waiting to come into my powers or finding a portal that will take me elsewhere, so I consider high fantasy to be an acceptable way of doing what I’ve always dreamed of.

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Fantasy with Friends: Underrated Fantasy Books

Briana and Krysta at Pages Unbound are hosting a fantasy discussion meme this year called Fantasy with Friends. Since fantasy is my favorite genre, I thought it would be fun to take part. This week, their question is:

What is an underrated fantasy book you would recommend?

Considering I tend to read off the beaten path, most of the fantasy I’ve read is probably underrated. I’ve been reading fantasy for over 20 years, so probably a lot of the books I read back when I was a teen? It’s kind of amazing to see how fantasy has evolved since the 80s and 90s.

One of the early fantasy series I read has always felt like one of the more underrated of the author’s series. Readers tend to think of the Alanna when Tamora Pierce is mentioned, which I enjoyed as long as I read the first and last books. But I adored her Circle of Magic quartet, even to this day. My copies are probably close to falling apart, but I can’t bear to part with them. While I’m pretty sure Lark and Rosethorn, the two women caring for four orphaned and abandoned children with particular magics, were lesbians, there’s no focus on romance, which makes sense since these were written for children! Instead, it focused on the friendship between these four very different kids from different walks of life and the siblinghood they formed.

Jumping forward a bit, well, it’s probably most of the books I read. When I was in high school, there was no Goodreads and I definitely hadn’t even heard of Amazon yet. I didn’t even really start using the Internet until college in the early 2000s, so I literally had no clue what books were out there unless they were stocked in the bookstore and library. There were no reviews to peruse, and none of my peers were reading adult fantasy (some years ago, I did share the books that were popular when I was in high school…that I mostly didn’t read). My favorite turned out to be the The Watershed trilogy by Douglas Niles. Today, I don’t actually remember a whole lot, but it felt like quintessential fantasy. There were dark lands and evil beings and magical waters. There was romance and friendship. There were adventures and danger. I loved these books. They were so much fun to read. I remember the story and world building being relatively easy to follow, so, if you’re looking for old underrated fantasy, this series might be fun.

I ended up taking a long break from reading fantasy between college and when I became a mom for the second time, basically when I started book blogging. I had grown dissatisfied with fantasy and nothing was really piquing my interest. But, thanks to book blogging, I’ve enjoyed so many different kinds of fantasy books, from indie authors to traditionally published books.

I can’t fail to mention two fantasy authors I absolutely love (and, no, it’s not just because I’ve been a faithful reader of their blogs and have been following their author journeys for years!).

Jennifer M. Zeiger’s Hidden Mythics series only has two books so far, but she’s hard at work on the third. They’re perfect for YA and adult readers, with friendship and romance and family drama. But it’s the world building that gets me every single time. I’m in complete awe of how beautiful it is and how it manages to transport me. I normally see the settings in vivid color no matter what book I read, but these make me feel like I’m literally standing there with the characters. The attention to detail is incredible, and I always think these books are worthy of being traditionally published.

Lucia Damisa’s A Desert of Bleeding Sand series gets me in the heart every time. The third book is due to be published soon, and I am on pins and needles after the way the second book ended. I have a soft spot for African-inspired fantasy, and these books absolutely live up to every expectation. The romance is gorgeous, and yet these aren’t romantasy novels. There’s danger and war and enemies infiltrating. There’s friendship and family and loss. There are tenuous ties that are tested at every turn. These characters are stunning. And, yes, I know I mentioned Lucia’s books last time with the religion question, but, like Jennifer’s books, I’ll take every opportunity to mention them.

Other than those, I would have to say the Captain Kit Brightling books by Chloe Neill, especially for readers who enjoy Napoleonic and regency era books. Considering this series was basically canceled after 2 books, I’d say they definitely weren’t popular. And yet I had so much fun with them. They were exactly the light kind of reads I needed during the pandemic. These books are light, fluffy fantasy, blending RJ Barker’s The Bone Ships series and Jane Austen’s novels, a really fun blend that spoke to my fantasy and classics loving heart.

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