It’s me, I’m the fantasy reader 🙂
I found this tag on Howling Libraries, and it seems the original was created by Bree Hill about romance books. I’m not sure who came up with the idea to make it about fantasy, but since I am a fantasy reader, I’m glad someone did!
What is your fantasy origin story? (The first fantasy you read)
I don’t really remember any books I read before third grade. Does Bunnicula count as fantasy? Because I read that in third grade. Maybe it wasn’t Anne Rice who started my love for vampires after all…
If you could be the main character in a fantasy novel, who would be the author and what’s one trope you’d insist be in the story?
Amanda Meuwissen. She writes such wonderful, beautiful relationships. The friendships are wonderful too. And my favorite of her books (The Incubus Saga, Lovesick), though they have hardships, they have so much good in them too that make the hardships worth it. Also, maybe I’d get to be supernatural or have some sort of powers? I don’t know what trope. I don’t care. I trust her!
What is a fantasy series you’ve read this year, that you want more people to read?
I loved the Sword Dance series by A.J. Demas! It was a lovely, gentle, beautiful m/nby romance set in a historical Mediterranean-inspired non-magical fantasy world.
What is your favorite fantasy subgenre?
I guess low fantasy? Anything that takes place in our world but involves magic or supernatural. Maybe it’s cheating to go with something that broad, but that’s my answer. I love paranormal/supernatural beings!
What subgenre have you not read much from?
Magical realism. A lot of books get called magical realism when they’re not, there’s a lot of misunderstanding of what the genre is (I’m not sure I could accurately explain it myself), so I haven’t read much that is actually magical realism.
Who is one of your auto-buy fantasy authors?
I don’t auto-buy. I always decide based on how the book sounds. Though I’m more willing to try things I’d maybe be on the fence about if it’s an author whose other books I like.
How do you typically find fantasy recommendations? (Goodreads, Youtube, Podcasts, Instagram…)
All over! Goodreads, Amazon, ARC sites, the library, Hoopla, blogs, Twitter.
What is an upcoming fantasy release you’re excited for?
I did a whole post early this year about queer SFF books I’m looking forward to in 2023! I’ll be doing another soon for the second half of the year.
What is one misconception about fantasy you would like to lay to rest?
I’m not sure what misconceptions are even out there. Perhaps that there are no queer fantasy books? There are sooooo many (I mean, there could always be more, but that’s not the point here), and so many of them are amazing, it’s just that people ignore indie and self-pub.
If someone had never read a fantasy before and asked you to recommend the first 3 books that come to mind as places to start, what would those recommendations be?
I hate questions like this because there are no books I’d recommend to everyone. It depends on the person’s taste! Even within the fantasy genre, there are books for all subgenres, crossover genres, moods, vibes, slow-paced or fast-paced, chill or action-packed, character-focused or plot-focused, dark or light, complex or easy to understand, etc.
Who is the most recent fantasy reading content creator you came across that you’d like to shoutout?
At this point, I mostly just have a handful of blogs I regularly visit (though I try to return a visit if someone new finds me), so this isn’t a recent find, but Roberta @ OffbeatYA reads and reviews some fantasy (also a lot of sci-fi, which is similar!) 🙂
I read some fantasy but not a lot. I mostly read paranormal romance.
That’s fantasy!
Low fantasy is my favourite kind of fantasy; my mind tends to get tangled up a little with the worldbuilding that comes with high fantasy. I spent a lot of my time reading the Grishaverse checking the map at the front of the books to remind myself where the characters were ???? I do still enjoy some high fantasy but it’s not a genre I tend to gravitate towards.
I assume those question marks were an emoji, they don’t work on my blog anymore, idk why. But that’s funny, I have the opposite experience with maps in that I never use them because I simply do not care where the characters are in relation to the wider world lol. But high fantasy does often require more focus and memorization, so I struggle with the world building too!
I don’t read a ton of fantasy, but I do like when they’re set in our world. Created worlds are great, but the names become overwhelming for me and sometimes the world-building can feel arbitrary or confusing. When it’s set in our world, there’s always an element of, whoa, this could be real!
Yeah, new words and politics and all that can be hard to keep track of. But ooh yeah, maybe that is part of the appeal of fantasy in our world, I hadn’t thought of it that way!
I don’t read a lot of fantasy but I am reading more. I think I started on GoT style ones and those are just too much for me. And they get more into descriptions than characters.
Since reading more in the audio format, I have found fantasy to be more accessible that way.
Yeah I don’t think that style is really what I like either.
I feel like everything you say about audiobooks is the opposite for me, haha. Because I find high fantasy harder in audio. I find it harder to understand and remember names, places, etc. or anything complex.
I actually surprised my boyfriend one time. He was looking for Terry Brooks’ books in a bookstore, and he was like you don’t read fantasy books. But I do read them sometimes. I love Terry Brooks’ books. My mother had one of his books laying around and I decided to read it. I loved it. I love Door to Evermoor by Kent Wayne. It’s a mix of fantasy and sci-fi. He wrote a sequel which I am going to read very soon. I read the Shadow Games book series by Amanda Foody. They are really good. I’m going to read her other series soon. Kylie Chan’s martial arts fantasy series is awesome. She has written a new book for the series, but it won’t be in the US for awhile.
Nice! It’s fun when you realize you have something in common that you hadn’t realized with a friend or partner. And yeah, you tell me about series sometimes that are fantasy! I consider fantasy to be a really broad category.