As I have said before, I belong to a book reading group that has been around, continuously, for more than 40 years.

The only member who has been there since the beginning doesn’t like fantasy. She has, however, as a special concession to me, been reading [struggling through?] my books. She didn’t much like the first, Havenstar. “I didn’t understand what was going on,” she said after reading it. “What’s with all that magic stuff? It’s not real!” Each successive book has been nibbling away at her resistance.

Nine years further down the line, she has just finished book number seven, Song of the Shiver Barrens. As usual, she approached it with trepidation. She told me that she was still saying to herself, as she sat down to begin, “Oh dear, not another fantasy I’ve got to read…”

Eight pages into the book, she found she was right back into the story and enjoying it. She reached the end, as she described it, “with tears in my eyes. Glenda, with talent like that, I think you could write anything at all.”

One of these days I will get her to admit that she likes fantasy. Another four or five books should do it, I think…

KAREN MILLER , a talented and successful sff writer, asked the following:

What’s the most powerful thing about the fantasy genre?

I haven’t a clue what it is for most people. But as a reader, the most powerful thing about the genre for me is its ability to offer me so much in one package, so much between the covers of the one book.

Fascinating characters, good writing, great plot, action, intriguing background, thought-provoking issues – all those things you can find in many novels about today’s world, but fantasy offers more. It can be a war story, a crime novel, a romance, an epic, a history, all at one and the same time. It’s the sheer challenge of reading a fantasy that blows me away if it is done well.

I don’t mean challenge as in something that is hard to understand, but challenge as in something that expands your view of this world even as it describes another world, that makes you think, that surprises you with every turn, that challenges your imagination, even as it tells a great tale about great characters. A good fantasy is a total immersion. Powerful stuff.

There aren’t too many mainstream novels that can do all those things in one book. But then again, fantasy & sci fi readers are the most intelligent of readers. They can take it!

As a writer, the most powerful thing is the possibility of saying so much without being boring. I am a great believer in writing good entertainment, but I do like to say important stuff at the same time. In a mainstream novel this can come across as preachy or just plain dull because the setting is so close to home. In a fantasy, it’s easier to make the story make the point, if you have one.

Ooo, I love writing fantasy.

I belong to a book group. We get together once every two weeks to talk about a book, which is usually “literary” in nature – you know, Man-Booker prize winners and so on.

The success of the group can be measured by the fact that it has been going more than 40 years. [No, I haven’t belonged to it that long; in fact only one of the members has been there from the very beginning. I have belonged 12 years.]

Perhaps one reason the group has been so successful is that the members – usually numbering about 10 altogether – sometimes come and go, changing the group dynamic, and that they encompass many different religious/cultural/ethnic groups from different countries. It is always a stimulating discussion group.

Alas, they rarely discuss sff (science fiction & fantasy) unless it is called something else, you know: magic realism, post-modern surrealism, realistic futurism or some other totally silly phrase that actually means, well, science fiction or fantasy. So Cloud Atlas is permissible (because it was short-listed for the Booker) but space opera is not, no matter how well written; The Lovely Bones would be fine, but a “fantasy” is not, no matter how much you might enjoy it, and so on.

Yesterday, the group discussed Heart of the Mirage, the first book of The Mirage Makers. Perhaps they were being extra polite because the author was sitting right there, grinning inanely (having one’s book discussed in front of you is an exercise in extreme embarrassment), but they seemed bowled over, rather taken aback by their own enjoyment of the story, intrigued by some of its sub-text.

These are people who would like fantasy, if only they would admit it.
And why is it so hard to admit?
Because magic is somehow linked to children’s literature and reading it smacks of immaturity?

One wonders just how popular fantasy could become, if only people would acknowledge that the genre offers everything that mainstream also does, depending on the book: pure entertainment, thought-provoking stories, lyrical tales, tragedy and ethical dilemmas, comic relief, adventure, fun, romance, chick-lit, crime, war, human-interest, etc etc. Serious or fluffy, it’s all there, just as it is in mainstream literature.

All you have to do is find the type of book you like to read. Give it a try sometime. You might be surprised.