Illustration by Jessie Willcox Smith from the 1920 edition of George MacDonald's novel The Princess and the Goblin
Speculative fantasy predates science fiction by centuries, but science fiction and horror grew very rapidly starting in the early 1900s, and accelerated in the pulp and early digest magazine period of the 1940s to 1960s. Recently, however, adult fantasy books have risen to rival science fiction and horror as major players in speculative fiction with classic series like The Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones), and The Wheel of Time. Add to those the new dark fantasies — which exist on the edge between horror and fantasy, like in the urban/suburban noir genre — and it becomes clear that fantasy is reshaping the literary landscape.
Beginnings
While originally, fantasy was referred to as ‘phantasy’ — from Greek phantasia, meaning “imagination” — the meaning has evolved along with the spelling in modern usage. The Cambridge dictionary defines fantasy as “a type of story or literature that is set in an imaginary world, often involving traditional myths and magical creatures and sometimes ideas or events from the real world, especially from the medieval period of history.” One identifying trait of fantasy literature is the author's use of narrative elements that do not have to rely on history or nature to be coherent. In writing fantasy, the author uses worldbuilding to create characters, situations, and settings that may not be possible in reality.
Fantasy-like stories date back to ancient times. The ancient Greeks produced fantasy tales aimed at adults such as Aristophane’s The Birds, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Apuleius's The Golden Ass, and Plato’s allegories. Stories such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, Greek and Roman mythology, Islamic stories like those collected in One Thousand and One Nights, and European epic stories like Beowulf are precursors of modern adult fantasy. In particular, Norse stories of dwarves, elves, dragons, and giants and the Welsh tradition of King Arthur myths have important influences in modern adult fantasy. Some prominent early examples of literary works that break out of mythological traditions include The Faire Queen by Edmund Spenser, A Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare, and the unattributed Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Fantasy departs from science fiction and horror by avoiding scientific extrapolation and emphasizing macabre themes in its story and setting. Fantasy is ”told for its own sake and…attempts to convince the reader that the unlikely or improbable (or impossible) matters being narrated are true….” [3] Fantasy predominantly features earth-like settings but with a different set of physical laws, typically including magic, imaginary creatures, or imaginary world views. In some fantasy stories, science or horror may be present in competition with magic. As an example, Larry Niven’s The Magic Goes Away series addresses the death of magic as people come to believe in science.
Mixed genres
At our bookstore, Xenophile Bibliopole & Armorer, Chronopolis, we include modern adult fantasy with our science fiction and horror. Modern adult fantasy includes sword and sorcery, heroic fantasy, adventure fantasy, and Tolkienesque fantasy. Generally, dragon stories are considered to be modern adult fantasy, even if they are superficially tied to science, such as Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern, Andre Norton’s Witch World, and Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover stories.
There are many works where the boundary between fantasy and other genres is not clear; the question of whether the writers believed in the possibilities of the marvels in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight makes it difficult to distinguish when adult fantasy, in its modern sense, first began to differentiate itself from mythology. Some early accounts skirt the line between historical fiction and narrative nonfiction.
Evolution
George MacDonald wrote Phantastes in 1858 and The Princess and the Goblin in 1872, which are considered “the first fantasy novel[s] ever written for adults.” (Searles, Baird; Reader’s Guide to Fantasy; Avon, 1982.) William Morris wrote several adult fantasy novels like The Wood Beyond the World in 1894 and The Well at the World's End in 1896 (many of which were rereleased in the 1960s as in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series). Starting around the beginning of the twentieth century, H. Rider Haggard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Talbot Mundy, and Abraham Merritt began writing adult fantasy novels.
In addition to science fiction, adult fantasy was the one of the major story types in the pulps and the digest magazine that followed, particularly for Weird Tales and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. The Weird Tales pulp trio of Robert Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, and Clarke Ashton Smith wrote adult fantasy from 1920 to 1940, in addition to horror. The modern fantasy of the 1950s and 1960s seemed to favor the ‘sword and sorcery’ and ‘Tolkienesque’ styles of fantasy. Sword and sorcery included Conan by Robert Howard, Talbot Mundy’s Jimgrim series, and The Werewolf of Ponkern by H. Warner Munn. Tolkienesque fantasy includes Tolkien’s works (of course), C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, and Ursula K. LeGuin’s A Wizard of Earthsea. This trend continued into the 1980s with Stephen R. Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant series (1970s to 1990s), Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series (1980s to 2015), and Terry Brooks’ Shannara books (1980s to present).
Modern fantasy
With the turn of the 21st century, we were introduced to a new generation of sword and sorcery, which includes significant new writers like George R.R. Martin, Joe Abercrombie, J.K. Rowling, Erikson and Esslemont, Felix Feist, Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan, Glenn Cook, and Gene Wolfe. In addition, there is a significant amount of new dark fantasy with witches, ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and other magical creatures.
Currently, young adult fantasy (usually emphasizing romantic fantasy) is also thriving. The urban and suburban noir genres position fantasy in modern society, within the existing modern world — with the addition of magic and supernatural creatures. Examples of urban/suburban noir include Jim Butcher’s Dresden Chronicles, local author Patricia Brigg’s Mercy Thompson series, and Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series. Some of these have even been made into movies or television series, films, games, and toys.
Adult fantasy has become a major subgenre of current speculative fiction, and has evolved into a major literary and film player, perhaps reflecting our need to escape the modern world. Whatever the reason, adult fantasy and the themes of the genre seem to have become a significant part of our collective imaginations.
Steven Woolfolk is certified by the American Board of Health Physics (1986, CHP). He is the owner of Xenophile Bibliopole & Armorer, Chronopolis, a rare books specialty bookstore in Richland.
