Fantasy

10 Major Awards for Fantasy Literature

/ Nicola @ Thoughts on Fantasy / 10 Comments
Compilation of fantasy and science fiction award (or awarding society) logos

If you like fantasy books, you’ve probably seen stickers or announcements highlighting the fact that a particular book has won a Hugo, a World Fantasy Award or another prestigious fantasy and science fiction prize. If you’re a big fan of the genre, you might even follow these awards more closely and vote in them.

I don’t usually vote (either because I’m not a member of whichever group organises them, or because I haven’t read all the shortlisted works and feel bad voting for one if I can’t fairly compare it to the others), but I do check out winners when I see them announced online. While an award doesn’t always mean I’ll like the book, it’s usually a good sign and it gets me interested, and I’ve loved several books I learned about through book prizes. I’m keen to start doing yearly round-ups of award-winning fantasy novels as a reminder of which books have been recognised. Continue reading →

What Fantasy Authors Can Learn from Marvel Studios

/ Nicola @ Thoughts on Fantasy / 37 Comments
Photo credit: marvelousRoland via VisualHunt / CC BY-SA

This week I’m excited to bring you a guest post from writer, English teacher and Marvel fan Josiah DeGraaf, who blends the fantasy and superhero genres in his writing. He takes a look at what fantasy authors might learn from the successes of genre-mixing in superhero fiction:

If you aren’t much of a superhero movie fan (or even if you are), the upcoming slate of movies Marvel alone is trying to push out may seem rather exhausting. 10 more films in the next three years with plans through 2027? It’s no wonder you have people like Spielberg predicting superhero films will go the way of the Western and burn out in the near future.

Yet, despite all the films churned out by Marvel and DC, moviegoers keep purchasing tickets without any signs of stopping. Superhero stories are a (relatively) narrow genre—and yet many viewers (such as myself) regularly see two to four superhero films a year, despite the criticisms Marvel’s received for weak villains and paint-by-number three-act stories.

How has Marvel been able to keep selling tickets without running into genre fatigue? There are multiple reasons, but there’s one I’d like to focus on: Marvel keeps the genre feeling fresh by mixing it with other genres. This is a skill that not only budding novelists can be taking advantage of—but a skill some of the best fantasy authors today are using to craft unique and brilliant stories. Continue reading →

Uncharted Territory: Things I Rarely See in Fantasy

/ Nicola @ Thoughts on Fantasy / 35 Comments
Uncharted Territory (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Because I write and think about fantasy fiction quite a bit (as the title of this blog might suggest), I occasionally notice interesting spots of “uncharted territory” in the stories I read and watch – i.e. concepts, ideas or character types I rarely come across. I don’t mean obvious things that no one would expect in the genre anyway, but small, specific things that I try to find examples of and am intrigued when I come up with close to nothing. So I thought these might provide good inspiration for a series of posts. Continue reading →

How to Make a Clichéd High Fantasy Cover

/ Nicola @ Thoughts on Fantasy / 79 Comments
Book Cover Magic. (Nicola Alter, CC BY SA 4.0)

I’m not averse to a few fantasy clichés on a book cover – they let me know at a glance that I’m looking at a fantasy fiction novel, and can be nice if used in creative or appealing ways. As with all clichés, however, they become eye-roll-worthy when used en masse, i.e. when several standard tropes are all packed into the one artwork. If a book tries to cover too many bases, it can start to look a little silly.

I’ve encountered a few covers that take it a bit far, but I thought it’d be amusing to go even further, and have a bit of fun with the tropes of my favourite genre… so here is my recipe for a no-holds-barred, all-boxes-ticked, epic high fantasy book cover (accompanied by examples from the most clichéd design I can muster). I’m no graphic designer, but I imagine that will add a nice level of unprofessional shine to my examples. Continue reading →

Three Year Blogiversary

/ Nicola @ Thoughts on Fantasy / 22 Comments
Photo by Julie Jablonski (CC BY-NC-2.0)

Thoughts on Fantasy just turned three! Well, it actually turned three back at the start of this month but I am bad at keeping track of these things, so I only just noticed. It’s strange to think it’s been 3 years since I sat there figuring out how to use Wordpress and nervously hit “publish” on my first post. At least I’ve done a little bit of redesigning this year, so things don’t look quite the same as they did back then. Continue reading →

Crows and Ravens in Fantasy

/ Nicola @ Thoughts on Fantasy / 24 Comments
Photo by Srdjan Jovanovic (CC BY 2.0)

Dragons are strongly associated with fantasy fiction, so much so that they have become a symbol for the genre. Given that these imaginary beasts only inhabit the realms of fantasy, fairy tale and legend, and thrill many a reader, this makes sense. However, I’d argue the humble crow or raven pops up in fantasy books and films just as often, even if it is sometimes in a more symbolic or background role.

Since I love crows, and recently changed the look of my blog to feature a crow rather prominently, I thought this might be a good excuse to take a closer look at these sometimes under-appreciated birds and their prevalence in speculative fiction. Continue reading →

Why Auroras Are Like Magic

/ Nicola @ Thoughts on Fantasy / 25 Comments
Photo by Visit Finland (CC BY-NC-2.0)

I recently ventured north of the Arctic Circle in the middle of winter. As you can probably tell from the title of this post, it wasn’t just because I wanted to frolic in the snow, ride husky sleds and marvel at the rare appearances of the sun (though I enjoyed doing all of these things), but because I wanted to catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights, which are more likely to be spied during the darkness of long winter nights.

Incredible videos like this one – a time-lapse of images taken from the International Space Station – had whet my appetite for auroras: Continue reading →

Poisons, Antidotes and Remedies in Fantasy

/ Nicola @ Thoughts on Fantasy / 13 Comments
Box of old vials containing arsenic, belladonna and other substances at the German Pharmacy Museum.

The dramatic regicide-by-poison in Game of Thrones may have placed them centre-stage, but poisons have always been rife in the fantasy and science fiction genres, along with antidotes and remedies.

Poisoning may simply seem like a convenient (if dastardly) way to kill a character, but poisons and antidotes are used in a variety of ways to add twists, tension, and complexities to fantasy plots. Continue reading →

The Most German Fairy Tales

/ Nicola @ Thoughts on Fantasy / 31 Comments
Houses in Bad Sooden-Allendorf, Germany. Photo by Nicola Alter (CC BY SA 4.0)

Germany has long been considered a land of fairy tales. The Brothers Grimm collection of Märchen popularised the tales they collected here, and plenty of German villages, houses and forests look like they might have sprung straight out of a story book.

But having moved to Germany a little over a year ago, I’ve become more aware of the smaller ways in which the famous fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm reflect their cultural origins. For the first time, I can see evidence of the roots they sprung from in the world around me – roots I wouldn’t have noticed while in my Australian homeland. Continue reading →

Two Year Blogiversary

/ Nicola @ Thoughts on Fantasy / 7 Comments
Photo by Kelly Sikkema (CC0 1.0)

So my blogiversary came and went in May and I completely forgot about it. I’ve been blogging for two years now, though it feels like I’ve been at it for longer… maybe it’s because my memories of pre-blogging days have gotten a bit faded at the edges, or because I’ve had a lot happen in the past two years (including moving to a new country!)… or just because I just have a terribly distorted concept of time.

Regardless, it has been 2 years, so as I usually do on my blogiversary (well, I did it last year, so I may as well make a tradition out of it), I’ve put together a list of the most popular posts on Thoughts on Fantasy from the past 12 months: Continue reading →