Are You Writing Serious Fantasy? - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

littlemanpoet · 09-25-2002, 08:20 PM

Even Star Wars was "a long long time ago". But Science Fantasy (I'm not talking about techy sci fi) is just as often in the future, whether one generation away or millenia. So I would say it need not be in the past, but it does have to have an otherness. Otherwise, why escape to it?

Fantasy IS about life and death. No matter if you're a strict Tolkien follower or your definition is larger. This is, I think, because fantasy is about life in its most simple and profound (notice I'm not saying simplistic) forms, where all the mundaneity is stripped away and we see things for what they REALLY are (even though so called "realists" consider fantasy lovers at best dreamers).

09-25-2002, 08:20 PM	#11
littlemanpoet Itinerant Songster Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: The Edge of Faerie Posts: 7,066	Even Star Wars was "a long long time ago". But Science Fantasy (I'm not talking about techy sci fi) is just as often in the future, whether one generation away or millenia. So I would say it need not be in the past, but it does have to have an otherness. Otherwise, why escape to it? Fantasy IS about life and death. No matter if you're a strict Tolkien follower or your definition is larger. This is, I think, because fantasy is about life in its most simple and profound (notice I'm not saying simplistic) forms, where all the mundaneity is stripped away and we see things for what they REALLY are (even though so called "realists" consider fantasy lovers at best dreamers).