In the late 1960s - early '70s, fantasy became its own genre. Now the word "fantasy" had been around for a long time, meaning something not just unusual but unlikely, as in, "I wanted to train my cat to fetch, roll over, and shake hands, but what a fantasy!" or "I have this fantasy of dozens of beautiful young women competing for my attention." But the genre of fantasy is something different.
At its most basic it is stories with magic, larger-than-life people having wondrous adventures, often imbued with the supernatural. Some of the oldest stories we have could be called fantasy, starting with The Epic of Gilgamesh and large chunks of the Old Testament. The modern version is most commonly what one might call medieval-adjacent, being set in something that could remind the reader of medieval society. This is because it is heavily influenced by medieval myths and legends (like King Arthur or the tales of the gods in Norse mythology) and by the fairy tales that carry on many old legends in a simplified, sanitized way, but keep such medieval aspects as castles and knights and kings.
Medieval fantasy is so influential because of J.R.R. Tolkien, himself a medieval scholar, whose Lord of the Rings launched fantasy as a genre (first published in the UK in the 1950s, only taking off in the US a dozen years later, with the release of a copyright-defying edition). When the books first came out, people didn't know what to make of them. A very positive review called them"super science fiction." Other reviewers called them "fairy tales for grownups." (Wait, so myths got watered down into fairy tales, and now you're saying that they got watered back up? or something?)
Tolkien wrote what is now called "high" fantasy, a story set in a thoroughly imagined alternate world (although it may bear many resemblances to ours), with a variety of magical creatures (or at least non-human sentients), including (in his case), hobbits, elves, dwarves, orcs, and dragons. This remains the most common sort of fantasy, usually provided with a map and a plot involving a brave, mis-matched band of companions off to save the world from evil.
There was no organized religion at all in Lord of the Rings, but there were hints of great gods off in the distance, made more explicit in Tolkien's Silmarillion. When there are gods (or at least immortal beings) galloping across the landscape as well as the elves and dragons, one often sees the term "epic" fantasy. The term epic can also be used for any fantasy that covers wide stretches of territory, lots of characters, and a "save the planet" plot. George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones and its sequels are always called epic, even without gods (he does have organized religion, however).
Then there's "low" fantasy, which has magic but less of it, and all the sentient beings are regular humans. This designation sounds somewhat derogatory. I remember being quite irritated the first time I saw Count Scar, which I wrote with Robert Bouchard, called "low" fantasy.
Count Scar could also be called "historical" fantasy, in that it is set in what is basically southern France in the thirteenth century, complete with medieval Christianity, although with the addition of magic. The advantage of historical fantasy as a story-telling medium over historical fiction is that no one is going to get honked off if anachronisms creep in. (I'm a medievalist. There are extremely few anachronisms in Scar. Maybe the forks.)
In recent years fantasy has picked up lots of new varieties. "Science fantasy" is a real sub-genre, which combines fantasy with science fiction, even though both fantasy authors and SF authors dislike the term. It has major elements of science fiction, like space ships, alien beings from other planets, hyper-modern technology, and a setting in a future version of our universe, but it also includes magic and/or supernatural beings. Dune is really science fantasy, although the sub-genre didn't exist when it was first published. In the SF community, faster-than-light travel is designated as NOT fantasy (because SF would be a lot less interesting if we only bopped around our own galaxy and its uninhabited planets), but other than that science fiction suggests semi-plausibly that one could get there from here.
Another version is "humorous" fantasy, where the author tries to have well developed characters and an actual plot, but there are chuckles on almost every page, as the author mocks many of the conventions of fantasy. Terry Pratchett was the master of humorous fantasy. My first published novel, A Bad Spell in Yurt, got panned by some readers as not being funny enough, whereas others felt, What's all this humor doing in a book that also mentions the redemption of souls? (Fortunately a whole lot of people liked it anyway.)
Maybe Bad Spell is closer to what is termed "cozy" fantasy, where you can have magical beings and fully-realized imagined worlds, but you do not have to have the fate of the planet resting on whether our brave band of adventurers do or do not manage to overcome the Dark Lord. Cozy fantasy is often recommended for tweens and early teen readers, even if the protagonists are not teenagers themselves (my wizard hero, seen above, is 29).
Then there is "urban" fantasy, set in something like our current world, but with vampires, werewolves, and the like hiding at the edges. The Twilight series really catapulted urban fantasy into prominence. Is Harry Potter urban fantasy? Not really, because urban fantasy tends to be quite dark.
Rather, Harry Potter is YA ("young adult") fantasy, which can take on aspects of all different sorts of fantasy, but is consistent in having young protagonists having to take charge because the adults for some reason have failed (or been killed off or just don't understand). In the process our young protagonists mature and learn about themselves. Sometimes they have sex, though that is not required. The teen years with magic, swords, and capes! Less school cafeteria, more castles. Let's do it.
YA fantasy is often set in what I call "fairy tale land," where you've got your princesses and castles and maybe fairy godmothers and witches, but there's little effort to create a whole, consistent world, and the princesses behave pretty much like modern teenage girls. If they find themselves in a patriarchal, class-based society, they struggle against it.
So what does all this mean? It means that fantasy is a rich, diverse genre. If someone says they "don't like fantasy," maybe they just haven't read the right sort (I think I've written most of these versions and know I've read all of them).
© C. Dale Brittain 2024
I would also add that a lot of science fiction is really science fantasy as it departs significantly from known science (like in faster than light travel). So "science" here is definitely fantastic. There's nothing wrong with that, I don't think, but it means to me that, say, holding science fiction as better than fantasy (as some do) is really silly.
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