Ryan M. Patrick

Quick blog post on my complicated relationship with the fantasy genre.

For two of the genres I write in – sci-fi and technothrillers – my interest is almost self-explanatory. I’m an astronautical engineer who has been fascinated with space since I was a child, of course I’m going to want to read and write books about starships and technology.

Fantasy is much more complicated.

I’ve told this a few times to friends, but my dad – who got my brother and I interested in reading at a young age – is not a fantasy fan. It’s for “nerds” and outside of Tolkien, who he is a huge fan of, he doesn’t read anything in the genre. Growing up, I don’t think I read any fantasy outside of the Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit, and the Chronicles of Narnia, save for the first Wheel of Time book when I was in high school. I did dip my toes in some primary world fantasy, reading (and loving) Mark Frost’s The List of Seven and T.H. White’s The Once and Future King in high school, but didn’t touch any other novels or short stories in the genre. Magic just didn’t captivate me the same way space did.

When I was at the Air Force Academy, The Way of Kings came out, and it was the rage for a few weeks amongst my friends who did read (most of them did not!). I read a borrowed copy about a year after it came out…and it was okay, but I didn’t think it was as great as they did.

What I did get into was Tim Powers’ stuff.

Declare, The Anubis Gates, The Drawing of the Dark, and others were some of the first books I read on my Kindle when I received it as a 22nd birthday present from my parents. I couldn’t get enough of his primary world fantasy novels, mostly revolving around secret histories and conspiracies set in our world, and to this day he is still my 2nd favorite fantasy author after the big J.R.R. But I never found another author like him. The closest were some of Dan Simmons’ horror novels and Neal Stephenson.

Later, I got a little bit into epic and heroic fantasy. Having played the old Bioware/Black Isle Studios Forgotten Realms games the Drizzt series by R.A. Salvatore captured my interest, mostly for the fight scenes and connections to the Sword Coast. I read the rest of the Wheel of Time books and the Witcher books, and enjoyed some of them but not others. I tried again to get into Sanderson and some other epic fantasy series (Shannara, Jade City, etc) and just couldn’t. I finished some of them while others were just DNFs.

To be honest, I think the biggest draw for fantasy to me is those connections to our own world – and, probably same with sci-fi. I want some kind of anchor that ties the world of the book to our own. The Lord of the Rings was at one point a prehistory for Britain (and Europe as a whole), the Wheel of Time series is set both in our deep past as well as our future, and the Witcher books have connections to Earth and our myths that I won’t spoil here. Purely secondary worlds just don’t interest me as much, especially with how long some of those novels are. I think part of it is because I’m a writer – the authors of those books completely made up a world, and guess what, I can do it too! It’s just not as impressive as having to research our own history and tie a created world to it. Or at least that’s my opinion.

However, I do enjoy fantasy short stories, especially ones that are tightly written and don’t demand too much of my time. I think that’s a better medium for the secondary world stuff where the author can’t get obsessed with intricate worldbuilding…however, again, that’s my opinion.

I *am* working on two fantasy novels at the moment, both historical ones. Maybe I’m just lazy, or maybe it’s because I like doing the research, but I’d rather write – and read! – in our world rather than in another one. One – Memento Vivere – is set in Chester County, Pennsylvania (where yours truly grew up) in the mid 2000s, the other – a yet-unnamed pirate fantasy – is set in the Caribbean in the 17th century. They’re side projects, not related to any of my main series, and both are most definitely in the style of Tim Powers. I have some thoughts for an epic fantasy series, more along the lines of the Elder Scrolls games than any fantasy novels I’ve read, but I really want to understand and appreciate the genre more – and maybe find some books I really enjoy – before I dive into those.

I really do want to make an effort to read more fantasy, especially indie authors, going forward. I’m reaching the limits of my TBR list, especially with technothrillers – there’s only so much suspension of disbelief I can handle. If you have fantasy recommendations given what I just wrote above, especially indie books, send them my way!