A new week, and a new Fantasy with Friends discussion post! The prompts are hosted at Pages Unbound, and this week’s is about fantasies that have inspired you to do further reading:

Has reading a fantasy book ever inspired you to do further research into something else? (ex. Read a classic the book is inspired by/read a history text/read nonfiction writings by the author/research a specific topic)

Almost certainly, but I’m having trouble dragging anything to mind! Tolkien’s an obvious one for me: I actually studied Tolkien for a taught module during my MA, and we read a lot of stories which were… “sources” is the wrong word, but “inspirations” and “patterns” that Tolkien borrowed little bits from and did tribute to in creating his world. I wrote the assignment on “Northern courage” in his work, so I was reading stuff like ‘The Battle of Maldon’, the Prose and Poetic Eddas, and also a lot of the posthumous volumes that got pumped out with his notes, letters, etc. But I don’t think that quite counts here, since it was for a class!

I guess one example that fits is Vivian Shaw’s Strange Practice, in which Greta Helsing (yes, a descendent of that van Helsing) is a GP, and tends to the medical needs of London’s supernatural community. The story features several famous public domain characters, like Lord Ruthven and Varney the Vampyre. I’d read a few of the source texts before and was on nodding acquaintance with some others, but I’ve sought out a few more since plunging into this series.

Other than that, I can’t think of any right now, but maybe I’ll have to edit some in if I remember. Definitely curious to hear what fantasy novels might have inspired others to go further afield and do some extra reading!