Accessible Fantasy

Polish fantasy books. Translating some of them to english won't help.

As I mentioned in my post about the First Law trilogy I have relatively recently started reading a lot more fantasy. I doubt that this is because the standard of fantasy books released has gone up – after all George RR Martin, Terry Pratchett, Robert Jordan et al have all been doing a fine trade in quality fantasy for ages.

To my, until recently, inexperienced eye I would hazard a guess that at least for me one reason for my sudden switch onto fantasy is accessibility. While you cannot argue that the works of Pratchett are not accessible (indeed, I started reading the discworld novels young and they are probably the only book series that I still regularly read from my youth) some authors create fantasy worlds so complete and dense unless you are equipped by experience to penetrate them you simple cannot absorb enough of what is good about them to get hooked.

For me, the most interesting fantasy authors are the ones whose work has a low bar of entry. I don’t want to be led by the hand into the world of the book but I also do not want to have to fire up too many brain cells just to begin to enjoy the book.

The three fantasy authors whose releases I look forward to the most are currently Joe Abercrombie (First Law), Scott Lynch (Gentlemen Bastards) and Patrick Rothfuss (The Kingkiller Chronicle). All of whom write works that spin fascinating yarns in interesting worlds you can really see in your mind – but just as important as all of that is that they do it in a manner that is accessible to all. You don’t have to have a hard-on for elves. You don’t have to get obsessed about the details of the world. Feel free to by all means but if you don’t you will still find yourself drawn into their worlds and through their stories.

This isn’t to say the three of them write “dumb” or “low-brow” entertainment (not that I personally see those descriptions as negatives or even, in most cases, valid). All of their works provoke thought on different topics and in different ways but they don’t do it by challenging the reader to just enter the world they are weaving.

(Image from Wikimedia Commons)