Things you'd like to see brought back to fantasy

Something I'd really like to see more of are villains with presence. It might seem simplistic, but a character who just exudes power and evil like Sauron or Darth Vader or Maleficent (the original, naturally) is so much more memorable than some guy who's mad because his family got murdered, or he just does evil stuff designed to shock and repulse the reader. This is one case where I could see less realism being a good thing.

I genuinely miss portal fantasies. I don't want them to take over the shelves, but there was a lot to be said for throwing the hero into a completely different culture and world and watching them try to survive.

Also, stand-alones. I know they're still out there, but they seem increasingly rare. Whatever happened to just one compact, amazing story? Some of the best books I've ever read (and continue to re-read) have been stand-alones.

*is totally writing a standalone portal fa*

Well, technically anyway. Dreamworld doesn't tend to get shelved with portal although it effectively is one.

Fantasy is always pushed for series by publishers. Standalones less common for that reason, sadly.


I want the return of proper weird fantasy. It had a brief vogue period then fell out of fashion. I am the sads.

Harlequin said:

I want the return of proper weird fantasy. It had a brief vogue period then fell out of fashion. I am the sads.

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Harl beat me to it...again. I like old weird (like Clark Ashton Smith), middle weird (M John Harrison), and, of course, New Weird, which I was quite enamored with in the 00's. I could hate a NW book, and still applaud it without reservation and want to read everything by the author.

BTW, what's portal fantasy? Like, kids falls in hole, finds magic world? Brandon Mull writes a lot of that.

Kids or adults. Everything from Narnia through to Thomas Covenant (in terms of grittiness).

Arguably, all these REady Player One type books are the new portal fantasy because virtual fantasy worlds are not so different from, well, nonvirtual ones. The main difference being they dispense with that really awkward "IS THIS REAL?!" transition that annoyingly clogs up portals. So you could say they're a new version.

Mine is a reverse portal technically (the unreal person going to the real world).

Harlequin said:

Kids or adults. Everything from Narnia through to Thomas Covenant (in terms of grittiness).

Arguably, all these REady Player One type books are the new portal fantasy because virtual fantasy worlds are not so different from, well, nonvirtual ones. The main difference being they dispense with that really awkward "IS THIS REAL?!" transition that annoyingly clogs up portals. So you could say they're a new version.

Mine is a reverse portal technically (the unreal person going to the real world).

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Fair enough, TCC is the only adult version I am familiar with, or at least the part of it I read.

Virtual portal fantasy DOES occasionally trot out the 'is this real, or are we still in the game' line from time to time...

Kjbartolotta said:

BTW, what's portal fantasy? Like, kids falls in hole, finds magic world? Brandon Mull writes a lot of that.

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Fantasies where the protagonist starts out in our world and travels to another via magic. As Harlequin said, examples include Narnia and Thomas Covenant books. There are titles out there for adults, but it was once an especially popular form of childrens' fantasy. I suppose even classics, such as Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz would be examples.

The novella "Every Heart a Doorway" explores the issue from the perspective of kids who found doorways to magical worlds and were sent back to ours for one reason or another and are desperate to find their way back.

Another adult portal fantasy I remember was The Dragon and the George. That was written back in the 70s or 80s, I believe, and it's much lighter than the Covenant books. And isn't Grossman's The Magicians a portal fantasy for adults, or for older YA readers?

katfireblade said:

I genuinely miss portal fantasies. I don't want them to take over the shelves, but there was a lot to be said for throwing the hero into a completely different culture and world and watching them try to survive.

Also, stand-alones. I know they're still out there, but they seem increasingly rare. Whatever happened to just one compact, amazing story? Some of the best books I've ever read (and continue to re-read) have been stand-alones.

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Portals are still out there, if not as common. Seanan McGuire does some great deconstruction of PF in her Wayward Children trilogy, though the first one (Every Heart a Doorway) is more about the aftermath of children who had been on portal adventures and returned - often against their will - to the "real" world. (The second one, Down Among the Sticks and Bones, follows the actual portal adventure of two of the characters, sort of a prequel, but can be read as a standalone.)

As for stand-alones, I am with you 100%. It's so tiring to find a great-looking story, then read the blurb and realize it's Book 5 of 250 - or Book 1, but it's technically a sequel trilogy to some other series, without which you'll be totally lost. And I don't think we're alone; many years ago, Tad Williams's The War of the Flowers advertised on its cover that it was a complete story in one volume.

Yeah, I see quite a lot of it in MG (like the aforementioned Brandon Mull), less so but still present in YA.

I mostly write stand-alone books and I would be so happy if I could find some stand-alone books to read. I can't count the number of books I've bought, only to find out afterward that they're the first in a series. A trilogy I could maybe handle, but I'm not interested in the five, ten, twenty-some series. It gets boring. The hero isn't on any sort of recognizable personal journey, and when you read UF, it starts to feel like 'monster of the week' with each book.

I'd rather have one good book, where the main character grows to be more than they were - either with their confidence, or on the way they see others sort of thing - while they are having their adventure with at least a HFN (happy for now) ending.