UK national newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, asked me to write an article on fantasy for those not familiar with the genre. The result is here.
Author, screenwriter, journalist
UK national newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, asked me to write an article on fantasy for those not familiar with the genre. The result is here.
Interesting article , have to admit I’ve never read Lord of The Rings.
I used to read mainly science fiction started on fantasy by reading Worlds End something made me stop and pick it up, glad I did.
(Nice to see good gay/bi characters by the way.)
Then I tried a few Charles De Lint books while waiting for the next one in the series. Read a few different authors since.
Be interesting to see what books introduced people to the genre most people I talk to seem to mention Lord of The Rings.
Would that be the same for readers of different ages ?
Wonder what non English readers choose ?
A lot of fantasy/SF/horror books have a greater impact at a certain age. I think Lord of the Rings works best coming to it in your early teens, and I’m sure wouldn’t be so affecting to the older reader first time out.
Those are good questions. I’d be interested to hear some responses.
I was lucky enough to have The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings read to me as bedtime stories, so I guess I started there too, but as for books I chose myself when I was older, I think I started with things like Stephen Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant Chronicles and Raymond Feist’s Fairietale. Also Bernard Cornwell’s Warlord Chronicles were some of the first fantasy books I read off my own bat – without recommendation from anyone else, also Robin Hobb’s Assassin trilogy.
Lord of the Rings as a bedtime story – that must have taken you from five to fifteen! I wonder if those Tolkien tales in your formative years gave you a taste for fantasy? For me, it was like having a door opened – once you’d looked through it, nothing else matched all those possibilities you could glimpse.
An interesting article Mark. I have read fantasy from a very young age and I think there are only a few things that spoil the genre, one of them (a pet hate) seems to have a huge influence, is the plot where a kitchen boy/girl (usually with an odd tattoo) suddenly, with no explanation, is able to wield a sword/magic or both and win the day – this kind of spoiled the genre for me for a while; hopefully your stories will help stave off such ‘plots’ in the future.