It’s Fantasy With Friends‘ weekly discussion time (prompts hosted at Pages Unbound), and this week’s prompt is about high vs low fantasy:
Do you prefer low or high fantasy? Or both?
For those who aren’t super into the genre (since I know I have a few of you around here), the archetypical “high fantasy” would be J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. It’s usually set entirely in an alternate world (though I would argue that Guy Gavriel Kay’sĀ The Summer Tree remains pretty high fantasy despite also being a portal fantasy), and involves the typical fantasy trappings — swords and sorcery, elves, dwarves, etc. Low fantasy would cover stuff set in our own world and which feels less immediately epic in scope, like urban fantasy (though series like Ilona Andrews’ Kate Daniels books are ultimately pretty epic in scope despite the apparent “real-world” setting, it takes a while to realise just how big the scope is).
I’m honestly not sure how useful the high/low distinction is for my purposes; I guess if you draw a firm line that you only want to read secondary world fantasy (likeĀ The Lord of the Rings) then it might be alright, but even then I think it’s a poor guide to many important aspects of a book. High fantasy just coversĀ so much.Ā In part, I think it’s a high-level label that we’ve pretty much outgrown as a genre, with more and more subgenres to explore and narrow down what you’re interested in: consider cosy fantasy, for instance. It’s often set in wholly different worlds, like Travis Baldree’s Legends & Lattes — but the concerns are everyday, not epic, and I don’t think someone who only wants books likeĀ The Lord of the Rings would be very happy if they picked it up because it’s “high fantasy”.
And then there’s stuff like Freya Marske’sĀ Swordcrossed, which I mentioned last week too: it’s set in a fantasy world, but there’s no magic, and the stakes are small and personal. Again, it doesn’t seem like what people are going to be looking for when they want “high fantasy”, but it also doesn’t really meet the definitions of low fantasy. There have always been exceptions… but there are labels now that explain them well, and give you a better idea of a book’s contents.
I am generally the sort of person who likes things to be more of a continuum than a set of tightly defined boxes, so it’s probably no surprise that I love both high and low fantasy, and many books that fall somewhere between. It’s not the kind of criteria I use when deciding what to read overall, though sometimes I might be more in the mood for one than the other (e.g. hankering for something with good world-building).
Yes! I was also thinking that specifying subgenres is probably more helpful these days. I think “high fantasy” and “epic fantasy” used to go together most of the time, but now there are plenty of high fantasies that are “cozy fantasy.” At the same time, I see some people conflating “low fantasy” with “low stakes,” and “high fantasy” with “high stakes,” which is not something I would necessarily assume myself at this point. So it’s just more useful to try to be as specific as possible when recommending books.
Krysta @ Pages Unbound recently posted…Do You Prefer High or Low Fantasy? (Fantasy with Friends)
Yeah, I think so. The old definitions worked in a different market, essentially.
I’ve always thought of high and low fantasy as defined by the degree of magic involved in the plot. If it’s very magical or the magic is very big, then it is high fantasy. If there is very little or no magic, then it’s low fantasy. A secondary world or portal fantasy is more likely to be high fantasy, but not always. I do think it’s a less useful term than it used to be, and I think I care more about stakes and tone than just how much magic or fantastical elements are involved.
HarpGriffin recently posted…A book with something crossed out on the cover
After posting, I thought about that possible definition too! But it doesn’t seem to be the working definition most people use, even though it makes a lot of sense to me.