Fights with magic wands, the power to control the elements, dragons soaring high overhead – so many possibilities, all tucked into the pages of a book. There are so many different worlds to explore, and the only limit is your imagination! Fantasy novels have diverse stories, worlds, and that fantastical element to them – knowing that the book you’re reading takes place in a world so different from your own. There’s a wonderfully large supply out there to dive into! But why do people enjoy these books so much, when they have so little similarity to our own world? That’s what we’re here to find out.
I’m going to explain each of my points with a fantasy series as an example. The first point I’m going to make: fantasy is a relatively easy genre to read. In genres like science fiction, or even just regular fiction, the author may use words that the reader doesn’t understand but expects them to know. This forces people to look up certain words and terms or be forced to keep reading the book not knowing what’s going on. In fantasy, however, any terms that the reader doesn’t know are very likely a term made up for the book, which the book explains either right after the word is introduced, or sometime later in the book. The story is also usually pretty easy to understand. For an example, I’ll use the Wings of Firebook series.
In this series, almost all of the basic information about the world and its situation is explained in the first half of the first book. There’s no need to look anything up, the only thing you may need to take a second to understand is that the world in these books is almost entirely populated by dragons. The concepts they introduce are pretty easy to understand, and if you’re confused, the characters usually explain it to you in better detail. It helps that the concepts unique to the book world (like dragons) are intertwined with concepts from the real world that people can understand. For example, the main plot of this series is a war between three dragons for the throne of their kingdom. Easy enough, right? One of the first scenes in the series is explaining to you who the dragons are, why the kingdom’s throne is empty, who they’re each aligned with, and why the war is happening, all in a very easy to understand way. There are many other books that also have this kind of exposition, where it explains the rules of its world to the readers in an easy to understand and interesting way. It’s easier to enjoy a book when you can understand what’s going on.
Next point: the characters in fantasy novels are usually very important and well developed, making for a more intriguing story. Characters in a fantasy novel will have very large impacts on a story, not just because of any physical action they could do, but because of the decisions they make. Character growth and character interactions are often large parts of stories in fantasy novels. For this example, I’ll use the Percy Jackson series.
In this series, the decisions the characters make are some of the most important parts of the story.
They affect the direction of the plot, wins and defeats of battles, and even the outcome of the series itself. Watching the character’s relationships develop is very fun to watch, and watching how their decisions affect the rest of the story gives such a rewarding feeling, knowing that you’ve watched them make those decisions and change and grow. All of the action in the story with the ability to control different elements and various other powers that induce the fantasy element of the series is important as well, but the characters involved are what make the story as intriguing and thought-provoking as it is.
Another point: fantasy series tend to have a lot of books. Most are part of trilogies, or five-part series. The extended amount of books in a series allows people to spend more time in that world, allowing more time to get to know that world and the characters in it. Although these other series I’ve mentioned also have a lot of books in them, both technically having a total of 15 books, the other 10 books in those series are part of different arcs and connected spin-offs respectively. This series, however, has 7 books all in one.
The Harry Potter series has 7 books, all varying in length and gradually getting bigger. There’s worldbuilding and story spread across all of them, and lots of time to adjust yourself to this world and its rules. The length allows lots of details to be put into the story, and being able to take your time with a story this long helps with being able to understand the plot, and with getting to know the characters. A longer story and more books give people more time to enjoy the time they spend in the world. More books is also just more satisfying. If you finish one book and want more, you’ve got several other options to choose from!
A few more points that just generally apply to most fantasy books. Like I said in the previous section, there tend to be a lot of books in any given series, but there’s also the fact that there are just a lot of fantasy books in general. If you put down one series and want another, there are plenty of similar reads you could find lying around. There are also a lot of different types of fantasy novels. If you pick up a fantasy with dragons on a completely different planet than ours, and you don’t like how alien everything feels, you could pick up something that feels a little closer to home instead! With so many topics and interests to choose from, there’s something for everyone!
All of this and more are reasons people read fantasy books. If you’ve never read one, try picking one up! It’s always worth it to try something new, especially when you have so many options to choose from! There’s always the possibility that you could find something you really enjoy.
Resources:
https://www.nileslibrary.org/why-is-fantasy-such-a-popular-genre
Vasilic, Sasha. “Why Is Fantasy Such a Popular Genre? – Niles-Maine District Library.” Niles-Maine District Library, 1 Apr. 2022, www.nileslibrary.org/why-is-fantasy-such-a-popular-genre.
