Genre question: Fantasy can be without magic, right?

There's a whole forum dedicated to such questions. You might get more answers in it: Science Fiction | Fantasy.

Laer Carroll said:

There's a whole forum dedicated to such questions. You might get more answers in it: Science Fiction | Fantasy.

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Yep. There are even some threads on this exact subject. Such as: Fantasy without Magic

There is a thing called Low Fantasy which is typically secondary world, somewhat primitive but has no magic in it. However, if you have some kind of tech (even low grade) you might actually be writing SF. It's hard to say without knowing more about the tech and what the speculative element is. (Since SF and Fantasy do speculate "what if?" even if they don't have space ships or wizards, respectively.)

Your book is fantasy if it is the sort of book that fantasy readers will enjoy.

And there are lots of books with no or little magic in them that are definitely fantasy. K.J. Parker's books and Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint novels, for example, have no magic. Guy Gavriel Kay's books usually have very, very little.

It might be magical realism?

I'm not sure what else you could possibly call it, unless it could be classed as some sort of alternative history?

It sounds like fantasy to me.

If it's completely set in a secondary world, with or without magic it would definitely be fantasy. There are plenty of non-magical precedents in the genre.

It does qualify as fantasy, but I think the agent's concern is figuring out the target audience. In my experience, middle grade fantasy readers tend to like their fantasy with magic. Fantasy without magic might be a tougher sell for that audience.

It might be the agent's problem with how to best market it, but it's best to not get too hung up on genre labels. A fictional pre-industrial world meets every relevant criteria for fantasy, magic or no.

Beanie5 said:

It might be magical realism?

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Magical realism is a bit different. As I understand it, it's a genre (or subgenre) that takes place in the real world, either in a historical or contemporary setting, and incorporates the real world magical traditions and supernatural world view of a particular culture or belief system in a realistic, accurate way. It also tends to be written in a style that is considered more literary than traditional genre fantasy.

There are secondary and alternative world fantasy novels that have little to no magic. Someone already mentioned Kushner's books. Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel books (a sort of alternative history setting) also have little magic as such, though the influence and real-world presence of gods is strongly implied, and there is prophesying, and references to immortals with special powers, and so on.

Note that these are adult novels, so it might be different for fantasy that's aimed at kids. But there have been successful kids books that are pretty fantastical in some ways that aren't usually shelved or classified as fantasy either, such as Joan Aiken's or Roald Dahl's works.

Thomas Vail said:

It might be the agent's problem with how to best market it, but it's best to not get too hung up on genre labels. A fictional pre-industrial world meets every relevant criteria for fantasy, magic or no.

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And it can work. Though I haven't read it, I've heard that there is no magic in The False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielsen. It's on that borderline between middle grade and young adult, but it might be worth checking out for a comparison title. It seems like it's done quite well.

See Mervyn Peake, The Gormenghast Trilogy, one of the classic cornerstones of Fantasy fiction. Peake was a fried of both Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, and definitely worth a look for anybody aspiring to write Fantasy. Or Lord Dunsany, even earlier, and an enormous influence on all three of the above-mentioned, as well as Lovecraft.

caw

Yes, many fantasies have no magic.

Baru Cormorant has none, I believe. Unless I'm badly misremembering. it's classed as high fantasy still.

I like fantasy without magic. So often the magic systems dominate and can detract from the story (unless they are used to further the story, which Le Guin feels they should do--highly subjective).

No magic at all? My instinct says it's not fantasy, but even books with no magic can "read" as fantasy.

Fantasy can have other things, that's not just magic.

Like in a secondary world with dragons or unicorns with swords and ancient artifacts from the gods, etc. Stuff you wouldn't find here, that's for sure. You'll be fine!

Sirion said:

No magic at all? My instinct says it's not fantasy, but even books with no magic can "read" as fantasy.

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The word "magic" never appears in my MS. It has a little supernatural, scifi-ish stuff, but no magic. It's still fantasy (my betas have even suggested it is high fantasy).

Wings of a Falcon is a brilliant, completely magic-free YA fantasy.

So... The real question, to me, is what kind of agent worth their salt doesn't know about the low/no magic fantasy realms, like classics such as Gormenghast and Swordspoint?

^^^ QFT

Admittedly, fantasy is pretty broad. I've had a self-described fantasy enthusiast for a beta reader, and we had ONE book of overlap between us.

This is similar to my novel. It's a fantasy with no magic. It takes place on a recently discovered island colony. It's set in a alternative history type of setting only the island is inhabited by Orcs who are rebelling against Britannica's iron fisted rule. I still consider mine a fantasy despite the lack of magic.