#58 Fantasy for Beginners

Chris is back today! He did a My Life in Books episode with Sarah K a few months ago, and has since graciously agreed to be a guest host and appear on the pod from time to time. Today, he and Sarah K talk about their love of fantasy novels, why they think more people should read the genre, and give you some recommendations for dipping your toe in the water. But it's not all sunshine and roses - they also talk about some of the problems they see in the genre. We hope you enjoy the episode!

This episode is fully transcribed. The episode transcript should be accessible from within your podcasting app or directly from Buzzsprout.

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Books mentioned
Kushiel's Legacy series by Jacqueline Carey
The Idiot by Elif Batuman
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
Inkheart trilogy by Cornelia Funke
Realm of the Elderlings series by Robin Hobb
The Folk Of The Faraway Tree  by Enid Blyton
The Songs Of The Lioness quartet by Tamora Pierce
Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris
Sabriel series by Garth Nix
Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan
Discworld by Terry Pratchett
The Binding by Bridget Collins
Chimera  trilogy by Kate Glass
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan
Swans War trilogy by Sean Russell
The Order Of The Pure Moon Reflected In Water by Zen Cho
Sevenwaters trilogy by Juliet Marillier.

We encourage you to support independent bookshops or libraries. You can find a list of independent bookshops to support on our website, many of which do home delivery.

Other people mentioned:
Jessica [@jessicas_bookstack]
Matthew Sciarappa
Britta Böhler

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Transcript

[AUDIO STARTS]

00:00:00 SARAH K

Hmm I've had some freezing this time, so that must be my… It's 100% my Internet then. I thought it was yours and I was blaming you, but it’s me. 

00:00:06 CHRIS

Oh, I haven't had any freezing up from you.

00:00:09 SARAH K

OK, that's me. I am between, uh, there's a concrete wall between me and my router, but I was like, oh excuse me Internet problems over there? [laughs]

00:00:18 CHRIS

[laughs] I don't think I do.

00:00:34 SARAH K

Hello, welcome to the Bookcast Club, a fortnightly podcast for people who like to chat books. Today, it's me Sarah and I am joined by our very special guest host Chris, from Chris Bookish Cauldron.

How are you Mr. Cauldron… Can I call you that?

00:00:48 CHRIS

Yeah Mr Cauldron, very formal. I thought about changing my channel name over the years so many times so I just don't like it anymore.

You know it was like something I decided on and I was like 21 and now I'm like I'm over it. Anyway, I'm doing very well. It is like 11:00 o'clock here. I've just had two cups of coffee.

I'm really ready to go.

00:01:08 SARAH K

Yeah, you're in the… which which states you live in in the US? I forgot. 

00:01:10 CHRIS

I live in Indiana.

00:01:12 SARAH K

Indiana, OK, I'm in the Netherlands. It's 5:00 PM uh, very sunny, autumn evening 

00:01:17 CHRIS

It is raining like crazy here and it's very cold. Well it's a very cold, very cold in comparison to what it’s been.

It's like in the 50s today, Fahrenheit. I don't know what that is in Celsius.

00:01:28 SARAH K

Hang on, let's do some converting. I have no idea – 10!

00:01:33 CHRIS

It's a little bit chilly.

00:01:34 SARAH K

Yeah, it's 16 here, which must be in the 60s. I guess. I'm pretty ill. Nonetheless we continue, but I apologize if my voice sounds a little ratchet or more ratchet than usual I guess, but it's not COVID, it's just some awful, I don't know awful other thing you've had COVID, haven't you?

00:01:49 CHRIS

I did, I got it in December of 2020 despite taking every precaution necessary, I literally didn't leave my house except to go to work and I'm still not entirely sure how I got it. But yeah, I was down for about 3 weeks.

I had a pretty bad case of it and I like was trying to get to the hospital. It was that bad and no hospital would take me because at the time they were being completely overrun and their requirement was that you had to be unable to walk to the bathroom.

Then they would have made the hospital as bad as I was, I was not that bad. I had to finally get into an urgent care facility which eventually took me in not to stay, just like you know, outpatient type thing I was. I had to get so many medications because I had gotten double pneumonia, strep throat as secondary infections, and then so I had to get a whole gram injection of antibiotics.

Then I had to be on an oral round of antibiotics.

Then I had to be on an oral round of cough medication and inhaler. And I had to be on anti nausea medication 'cause I couldn't eat 'cause for some reason in the news they don't really talk a lot about like the digestion things that happen with COVID which I'm not going to get into a whole lot of detail with for the sake of this podcast.

But it's very bad and I couldn't eat and all this different stuff so yeah, three weeks, but after about a week of being on those rounds of medications, I basically kicked it, but it's rough. You don't want it.

00:03:15 SARAH K

No, and you don't have long COVID?

00:03:17 CHRIS

No, once it ended, it was pretty good. I mean for like a couple weeks afterward, I was still like kind of a little out of breath easily and stuff like that. But now I've not had any of those kind of long term symptoms that you've been seeing people get, fortunately.

00:03:29 SARAH K

Yeah, good, but God yeah, sounds awful. Yes, Sarah actually had it, the other Sarah from the podcast had it recently actually after getting vaccinated, she had both vaccinations as she got it on holiday was like her first holiday two years.

00:03:43 CHRIS

No, of course.

00:03:45 SARAH K

So yeah, poor girl. So she's OK now but it really sucked and she also was like how did I get it? I'm vaccinated. I haven't done anything.

Now if you don't know Chris already. He did an episode with me a couple of months ago, I think right? Was it in the summer?

00:03:59 CHRIS

Yeah, I think so.

00:04:00 SARAH K

Yeah, well we did like a my life in books episode, which was a lot of fun and we since have invited Chris to be like a semi regular guest host.

I guess he got a promotion.

00:04:12 CHRIS

I've been upgraded.

00:04:13 SARAH K

Yeah, much sought after position, I'm sure, so he's going to be doing a couple of episodes with us.

You know, as the years progress, will these episodes together, lots of fun, but we thought we do an episode today about fantasy novels. Chris and I both really like reading fantasy novels, so we're going to have a little chat about why we like the genre and and blah blah blah. But first, as always, we'll just talk about what we've been reading recently so - What have you been reading recently?

00:04:39 CHRIS

So I recently went on vacation to the mountains of Virginia. Had a lovely time.

00:04:45 SARAH K

Oh yes, I'm very jealous about this.

00:04:48 CHRIS

It was with my 81 year old grandmother so we just kind of like lounged around, went on walks a little bit, visited some little cities and of course we did a lot of reading, 'cause we're both pretty avid readers, and what I've been reading and unable to put down is the Kushiel legacy series by Jacqueline Carey. So I'm currently on the final book in the main series, which is 6 books, called Kushiel’s Mercy. So like I can't give plot details for like the 6th book, but it's a really good fantasy trilogy.

The first trilogy is called the Phaedre trilogy. And then I'm not going to reveal much about the second trilogy, 'cause like it really follows on from the ending of the first one, but it's the best sales pitch I have for this series is imagine if a Game of Thrones was told from the perspective of Roslyn, who was the prostitute who worked for Petyr Baelish in those early seasons.

Do you remember her?

00:05:45 SARAH K

No, not really.

00:05:47 CHRIS

Yes, she was  - anyway, imagine if a Game of Thrones was told from her perspective, so it's an alternative historical fantasy where, like the religions kind of shook out a little bit differently than they did in our world.

So in this world, like their fantasy version of Jesus, had a second head of Sun. And that was also born of an Immaculate Conception. And he comes to be more kind of revered and worshipped in the way that Jesus was.

But he brought like taught a very different message, and he he actually wandered the shores of Europe where he founded a nation, and he had a whole bunch of angelic followers who he and those angelic followers had lots of children with the people of the earth and gave rise to this angelic race of people and now several 100 years in the future, it's much more like a medieval France, where these people live, who are the descendants of these angels and sex work is like considered sacred in this world and our main character in the first trilogy is a woman named Phaedra who is adopted by a man who is kind of like on the outskirts of genteel society and and raises her trains her to not only be a cortisone but also a spy and untangle all these different treasonous plots against the Crown and stuff like that and.

It's very political, it's the most political fantasy series I've ever read in my life. It's very dense. The first time I tried to read it with several years ago actually, and I DNF did because I was just like overwhelmed.

And then the second try. I don't know what it was, I just kind of pushed through that confusion and it really like clicked and I'm going to - I purposefully wanted to see like how the publisher has been selling this series because a lot of people focus on the fact that like it's a series that has a lot of sex in it, right?

'cause it's a prostitute and she engages in BDSM sexual activity and it's like pretty explicit on the page and for some reason people always just talk about that as if it's like I don't know equivalent to 50 Shades Of Grey or something, and it really bothers me 'cause like I think it's like a really impressive fantasy series with some of the most like intricate worldbuilding I've ever read.

So I wanted to see like… How the publisher is selling this thing and this is what they said. And I really think this like makes a better case for it.

They say: [reads] “Not since Dune has there been an epic on the scale of Kushiel’s Legacy. A massive tale about the violent death of an old age and the birth of a new. It's a novel of grandeur, luxuriant sacrifice, betrayal, and deeply laid conspiracies. A world of cunning poets, deadly courtiers. Deposed rulers in a besieged queen, a warrior priest, the Prince of Travelers, barbarian, warlords, heroic traders and a truly Machiavellian villain. All seen through the unflinching eyes of an unforgettable heroine.”

Anyway, I think it's great and I've been completely obsessed with it for the past week or so.

Well, for the past few months, but this this second trilogy has kind of consumed my life this week.

00:08:47 SARAH K

Yeah, it sounds really great. I've been following you with you 'cause you've read a lot of them this year, haven't you? Did you start with the first one earlier this year?

00:08:54 CHRIS

I did. Yeah, and they're long. They're like each one is almost 1000 pages.

00:08:59 SARAH K

Really, God I didn’t know they were that long.

00:09:00 CHRIS

Yeah, they're really long.

00:09:03 SARAH K

Yeah, revise my statement.

No, I do want to read them. They sound really good and it's funny 'cause she's it sounds so good, but she's just I - I hadn't heard of her actually until you first mentioned her earlier this year.

00:09:15 CHRIS

I had only always heard of her as like I said, this kind of erotic writer, you know. And then I think reading it, it's a very very different from the kind of conversations I think people are having about her 'cause I actually think she's much more on the kind of writing style and storytelling side of something like George RR Martin or Robin Hobb, you know?

00:09:39 SARAH K

Yeah, it's kind of a shame because I mean we'll get onto this later, I guess, but if you follow the kind of like if you're on like fantasy, Reddit or whatever, and you and you try and find these authors, it's just the same kind of 10 authors kicking around, and so I sort of I am like on these subreddits, and I do follow like what's happening.

But yeah, I'd never heard of her, so I Was like hey. People just love these like mainstream whatever it is like 10 authors and I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, yeah, it's hard to find these kind of writers - Especially female authors, yeah?

00:10:09 CHRIS

I think a lot of female authors get like we'll talk about later. They get kind of relegated as to being like not real adult epic fantasy or like they're writing some other genre whenever they kind of actually do write something like this. I mean, she's oftentimes talked about that being a romance fantasy. I think that's so bizarre. I mean, there is a there's romantic elements in the book, but nothing - Nothing like what I would call it romance, yeah, exactly.

00:10:35 SARAH K

And also like how many fantasy books written by men have romance elements.

That's just like a normal part of most stories, I would say.

00:10:39 CHRIS

Yes, look yes, completely agree.

00:10:44 SARAH K

I am halfway throughout absolute plethora of novels. Yeah, I'm just kind of dribbling through them all at no great pace in a bit of a slump, but you know, when you're just like everything is kind of hard work.

Yeah, it's me right now.

00:10:59 CHRIS

Oh, I've been there. Been there.

00:11:02 SARAH K

I just started yesterday actually The Idiot by Elif Batuman, which I hadn't read before, which is kind of a bit of a throwback, right?

So like the Internet, a few years ago, have you read it?

00:11:11 CHRIS

I have not. It sounded to me like the type of very intellectual novel that wouldn't appeal to me. But then I've heard some reviews lately to actually make it sound like it's more humorous and self-aware than obviously I though

00:11:25 SARAH K

Exactly, that's exactly what happened to me. It was long listed and shortlisted for quite a few prizes. I think when it came out a few years ago 2017 it came out but it just yeah I was like whatever. I'm not really interested in that. But then someone I follow on Instagram. Jessica, I think her handle is Jessica's bookstack. She did a review about it.

And it was one of those reviews that made you go like oh, I should read this immediately. Then I put it on hold and started reading it and it is a campus novel. It's a little bit pretentious I guess, but it's that kind of like tongue in cheek, slightly dry funny way if you know what I mean is not actually that serious.

It's not taking itself out seriously, I'm sure there's lots of it a lot of it I don't understand because I haven't read The Idiot by Dostoyevsky, so I'm sure that there's lots of things happening that I'm not understanding the reference to that.

But the narrator, have you read The Secret History?

00:12:18 CHRIS

Oh yeah.

00:12:19 SARAH K

You know how Richard the narrator is quite self-aware? He's like making all these comments, but it's got a similar kind of tone to the way he narrates. It's not as beautifully written as that one, but it's that kind of like, yeah, trying make so it makes me laugh so I'm finding it a pretty quick read actually and and it's it's making me very wry that's how I would describe it.

So yeah, I'm enjoying it and all the people she's at Harvard I think, and all of her roommates are there. She’s from Turkey, the main character, and so she's just trying to sort of figure out how to deal with them and what she should be saying and that kind of stuff and just the way that she concludes what she should be doing and stuff.

It's just, it's just really funny like she has this whole thing where she buys an Einstein poster because she doesn't have a poster and they're like, oh, you have to have a poster because you don't otherwise, you know you can't show your personality, so she buys is that classic Albert Einstein with his tongue poking out poster and then everyone tells it that it's like fascists and she shouldn't be having that poster and she's like OK.

And then she wasn't sure, she's like, oh, I'm not sure if it shows my personality if I if I keep it up or if I put it down and then she keeps it up and yeah, I just found it really funny.

00:13:26 CHRIS

Yeah, it definitely sounds like more. Or from the more reviews I've heard about it, like I feel like in the initial kind of like reviews people were really harping on kind of the dryness of it. And now like lately I think as people are maybe reflecting on it more or maybe few I don't know what it is, but I feel like I've seen a lot more reviews of people being like actually this is self-aware?

00:13:48 SARAH K

Yeah, it's definitely self-aware, but I think yeah, if you didn't read it as that, it would kind of be annoying I think, and it's it's pretty plotless as well. So I know some people don't like that, but I will post a link in the show notes of the review I found on Instagram that made me decide to read.

What else am I reading? I'm reading The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave, which Jenny was talking about a couple of months ago.

This is a historical fiction set in Norway in, I think, the 16th century. And it's like a little island off the coast of Norway, where all the men go missing for some reason. And then there's just the women left on the island. And then it….I'm only about halfway through, but it starts becoming some kind of witch burning narrative. I'm reading for it with my book club, it reminds me a lot of Burial Rites.

I don't know if you've read that.

00:14:32 CHRIS

I have I love it.

00:14:33 SARAH K

See, uh, similar kind of like bleak, wet, dreary feeling, so I'm enjoying that. Although yeah, dribbling through it as I said before and then, what else?

Am I reading couple of longlisted novels for the book are not really doing it for me, but whatever. We're going to do an episode on the Booker upcoming, so I'll save my my thoughts. But yeah, getting through those.

[THEME MUSIC STARTS]

00:15:06 CHRIS

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[THEME MUSIC STOPS]

00:16:04 SARAH K

so first thing I wanted to ask you, Are you ready to start again?

The second thing I wanted to ask you tell me about - Have you always read fantasy?

So I always read it when I was a kid. I loved it.

00:16:18 CHRIS

Yeah, I was similar as a kid. I always read fantasy. I don't know like as a kid genre, you don't even think about the fact that you're reading a fantasy book, right? I mean, those are just the books that are marketed and I remember as a kid, the things that were really popular were like, the Cornelia Funke books, which I don't know if you read those the Inkheart trilogy.

And then she also had a book called like The Thief Lord or something like that, which was also a fantasy book that was really popular in school when I was a kid. There were several that were just like you know, these are just the books you read, his kid and he ever thought it's like, oh, I'm reading fantasy.

And then as an adult, I didn't read a ton of fantasy, and I mean the fantasy book that I like got obsessed with in high school and middle school in high school was a Game of Thrones.

I mean, I first read that when I was in 8th grade and like blew my mind and like, yeah, I've reread it like multiple multiple times, but I didn't read like another adult fantasy series after that until like I think I've read Robin Hobb, like when I first discovered Booktube, then I read Robin Hobb and that kicked off everything and for the past like four years now it's like almost the meat and potatoes of what I read, like at least 50% fantasy and then another 50% literary fiction.

00:17:30 SARAH K

Yeah, I see. I also read like I remember I love like The Folk Of The Faraway Tree or something.

I don't even know who the author was.

00:17:36 CHRIS

Yeah, yeah, I never read it, but I remember seeing it.

00:17:40 SARAH K

Yeah, I love that kind of stuff and I when I was in primary school I really loved the, I think it’s called the The Songs Of The Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce. Yeah, and it was a classic like girl goes to war dressed as a boy I think and then night fights for her country.

I yeah absolutely loved it. I love stuff with animals.  And then yeah, when I think when I started university I started reading a bit more like literary fiction and stuff. And now I'm like back to 50/50 'cause I really missed it. Actually after a while and it took me a long time to realize that adult fantasy was kind of something that even existed because I think I had read like quite a lot of young adult fantasy like yeah, Sarah J Maas and Leigh Bardugo all that kind of stuff and I think I thought that once I'd read those I was done, so I was very happy when I discovered that there was more to more to be had.

00:18:30 CHRIS

You were like was that kind of like first adult fantasy that kind of got you into adult fantasy.

00:18:36 SARAH K

Uhm, that's a great question. Oh yeah, I remember I got really into the True Blood books.\

00:18:42 CHRIS

Oh wow, yeah.

00:18:42 SARAH K

Oh my God, they're amazing.

00:18:44 CHRIS

I watched the TV series. I never read the the Sookie Stackhouse books, but I did love the TV series.

00:18:47 SARAH K

Yeah, there's like. I think it's 12 of them. God. Loved them.

00:18:51 CHRIS

It's kind of funny to me because the book covers really do not match the TV series and I always wondered if the tone of the books matched the tone of the series or if they really made it darker intentionally, or kind of what was going on there.

00:19:03 SARAH K

The books are a bit lighter, like they're kind of funnier. And not so like drastic and creepy vampires.

I’ll you who else doesn't match the series, the author Charlaine Harris if you ever get a visual on her.

00:19:13 CHRIS

Yeah, I know. She just looks like she could be your grandma like you know what I mean.

00:19:20 SARAH K

Yeah, she looks like she's better bring a sponge cake, so whatever local gathering, whatever religious organization she belongs to, yes, yes.

00:19:27 CHRIS

She does, that's really funny.

00:19:31 SARAH K

Anyway, so why do you like reading it?

00:19:33 CHRIS

From me and like I know this is like the cliche reason why people like fantasy, but it is like if reading for escapism is your thing.

Fantasy is like the ultimate escapist genre. Like I don't know, it presents all these like super high stakes things, and even when like really awful things happen to characters, you know. It doesn't feel as like depressing or devastating as it does like in literary fiction novels where you're like, oh, that's something that actually happens in real life like, big sad, you know what I mean like?

Oh no, this this kind of it allows you to experience all this kind of crazy stuff vicariously, you know, and it presents scenarios that you would never be presented with in real life and kind of allows you to play through it. It gives you like a psychological into that situation.

I love that.

00:20:28 SARAH K

Yeah, I agree. For me, it's like true escapism like people talk about reading novels and for me, 'cause especially I mean, you know every novel I read is so freaking depressing. And it's about like oppression in some way normally apart from when I read fantasy and that's like, yeah, the true escapism.

And if I ever am, you know, like state in my life where I really need books to kind of be a comfort to me, then I always immediately read fantasy, I remember when my dad passed away. First thing I read I didn't read for awhile but the first thing I read was Garth Nix's trilogy, which someone gave me there like I think it's called the Sabriel trilogy? 

00:21:04 CHRIS

That or Abhorsen, I hear both. I don't know which one’s the actual name. 

00:21:06 SARAH K

And that was like they're the books that will that those kind of books are the ones that were like yeah, what I really am looking for.

I really like them. I was kind of looking at this on the Internet today. I was looking on Reddit and stuff to see what other people were saying about why they read fantasy, and I read something really interesting about worldbuilding and someone was they were talking about how when you've got a fantasy novel.

The worldbuilding is kind of completely up to the author right, and it allows the author to try and do what they're trying to do without the prejudices of the reader or the life experiences of the reader kind of influencing them. For example, if you're talking him, if you have a line in a novel that's like the soldier was at war and he was like filled with despair. And then if it's a historical fiction novel and like, say, you're in somewhere like World War Two, then all of a sudden, your reader if they're from whatever country they're going to have quite different reactions, and the soldier could be Japanese, they might be Indian, they could be German and that's going to really affect how your reader is like perceiving that person. Whereas if you're suddenly in some completely fantastical world, the author is kind of more free or not as restricted by the reader to try and do with their story what they're trying to do.

00:22:21 CHRIS

Interesting. I like that point a lot. I don't know if I'd ever thought of it that way, but I think that's a really valid valid point.

I was gonna say it kind of allows certain like ideals and ideas to be taken really literally. You know, like people talk about like oh, good versus evil you know. And like, maybe that is a tired trope, you know.

Fantasy allows us to talk about ideas of good versus evil and actually like put a like an actual tangible thing to it, in ways that maybe you couldn't get away with if you were writing a book about real life. 

00:22:55 SARAH K

Yeah, an interesting thing related to that for me. I really don't like historical fiction, which is kind of ironic for someone who likes fantasy novels so much, but it's it's that, like the suspension of disbelief in historical fiction, I find really difficult such thing such I'm reading a book about like. I don't know anything said in like the 18th century and we’re in the US. And I'm like, oh, but everyone’s enslaved and it's awful. And then you know we're in historical London I'm like oh but if they get a toothache they’ll die. And it's all kind of oppression and I just feel very like I just find it really hard to get super involved in this story.

Especially I prefer reading stories centered around women and it's like, well, she didn't have any rights you know, whereas in fantasy you can come… they're kind of free to just center the narrative how they want and the characters can an be who they are without these kind of restrictions, which I think is really cool.

00:23:52 CHRIS

Yeah, it's really cool. And sometimes it's fun to read about Dragons, I mean. I think that's the other thing.

00:23:59 SARAH K

Yeah, I'm a big fan of magic. Actually, I like cool stuff.

00:24:03 CHRIS

I think the like the fun element can't be like discarded either like it's not just like escape, it's just fun. Like there's, I don't know the hijinks and all of that I'm always into.

00:24:14 SARAH K

Yeah, do you have a favorite like component of a fantasy novel?

00:24:18 CHRIS

This could be a little bit weird. I love anything where they are wandering around and have to stop at an inn. It was like my favorite fantasy trope when they like stop at an inn.

00:24:33 SARAH K

And something goes wrong with that? There's always an assassin lurking in the rafters.

00:24:35 CHRIS

Yeah yeah, yeah. And even as much as I don’t like the Wheel of Time books, the early books were really good for, like wandering around, going to an inn and then oh crap, something like hits the fan at the end. Love that trope.

00:24:53 SARAH K

I really like cool magic stuff. I really like magic.

I don't know. I like it when they can make things move.

I really like horses and stuff. [laughs] People moving around on horses I really enjoy.

00:25:07 CHRIS

I mean, I think that some people don't love the like travelogue novel going from point A to point B and fantasy books, but I actually find all those different elements like super cozy and like when they decide who's going to take first watch while everyone else sleeps and all of that. Brilliant. 

00:25:24 SARAH K

Yeah, we're both into that, the field notes.

Why do you think people are hesitant to pick up fantasy?

00:25:33 CHRIS

Yeah, this is something I've been thinking about because I actually think that it's a welcoming genre, right? I think that if you if you if there's something you like about books, you can find it in fantasy books.

You know there is a fantasy book for everybody, but I think a lot of the fantasy books that get talked about is like you must read. These are the hallmarks of the genre, these are the representations of the genre, these are the books that have influenced the genre.

They tend to be these like big hulking, massive door stopping tones with lots of almost encyclopedic worldbuilding.

Oftentimes frankly haven't aged the best over the years. You know, there's I mean, the Wheel Of Time has talked about it all the time. It's like the go to fantasy.

I'm not a fan of the series personally, but you know, that's you know it's a 14 book series. In each book, nearly 1000 pages. I don't think that if you're telling people this is the representation of this series, this is good fantasy and that's there in like that would turn off anybody. I don't think anybody you know outside of some you know niche nerds like me and some other people on the Internet for whom that's actually a point of welcome. You know what I mean?

00:26:42 SARAH K

Yeah totally, I agree, and especially like I don't know if you like Lord of the Rings.

00:26:46 CHRIS

I do, but I read them as a child, you know, and rereading them as an adult, you're kind of very aware that like Tolkien wasn't the best at character development or plot.

00:26:57 SARAH K

No, I mean props to him for it like he just said encyclopedic worldbuilding, he's that.

00:27:03 CHRIS

Oh yeah. I think all of us love the movies or impossible not to love the movies, but it's a slow.

Like it takes years for Frodo to actually get out of the Shire iIn the books, like it's not like, oh, like we discovered a problem, time to go.

00:27:25 SARAH K

Yeah, that may sound like we're contradicting ourselves with what we were just saying about travelogues, but there's something about Lord of the Rings that does not work.

00:27:37 CHRIS

Definitely. He's not great in my opinion of like getting in the heads of characters or anything like that so you don't have like a super great like psychological in to the Lord of the Rings.

Like you very much are kind of aware that this is a story that's being narrated to you, I guess if that makes any sense.

00:27:54 SARAH K

Yeah, I mean Frodo has not much personality for someone you spend like 1500 pages with.

00:27:59 CHRIS

And well, the other thing I think that might make some people hesitant to anymore is the representation of women in the genre. This is something that's going on because I feel like a lot of time, most people who read fiction are women and you know, a lot of times women are not handled the greatest in fantasy books.

I mean, this is like a known problem in the genre. There are oftentimes very few female characters, and especially in some of these books that are talked about, is like the must read fantasy books, there's very few female characters. They tend to not have a lot of agency and a lot of times unfortunately they’re used for sexual assault scenes.

00:28:37 SARAH K

Yeah, could not agree more. 

00:28:38 CHRIS

And  often they’re just motivation of the male protagonist, and I think that it definitely is a genre with that baggage attached to it which I think is actually why a lot of people turn to young adult fantasy.

00:28:52 SARAH K

Yeah, I don't know some of the fantasy I've read. It's like, have you ever been in the same room with let alone have a had a conversation with a woman? I don't think so.

00:29:00 CHRIS

I know, I know. I mean the Wheel Of Time books are interesting because in those books there's a lot of female characters and they actually have probably more agency than the men. But every time I read them I'm just like did Jordan ever talk to a woman like these are all the most like petty, ridiculously stubborn, weird conversations and it always rings very false to me, despite the fact that they're like powerful and therefore a lot of people say it's a very feminist fantasy series because they're powerful.

But they just ring very wrong, and there's a lot of fantasy books where I have that feeling as well, actually.

00:29:40 SARAH K

I remember when I tried Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. I don't know if you've read them. I haven't well there's 42 of them and I read like the first couple and it's supposed to be satire.

I think it's supposed to be like poking fun at the fantasy genre. And the women are very poorly drawn and their motivations don't make any sense. And as I was reading it, I was like I don't know if this is part of the satire? There's nothing that you've got in here that's convincing me that you know that this is bad so yeah, so I don't know if it gets better in the later like I only read two of the 42, so perhaps it gets better, but.

00:30:12 CHRIS

Yeah, I have not read the Terry Pratchett books, even though I think it's interesting what you're saying, because a lot of people talk about Granny Weatherwax as being like this fantastic female character from those books. But I've not read them, so I don't know. 

00:30:23 SARAH K

I haven't read the ones with her to be fair so I I'm prepared to be wrong, but not prepared enough to read the more of them.

00:30:30 CHRIS

I've always been put off by them just because they're set like their sets satirical, and I'm not a big fan of comedy in my books of any kind, I'm joyless.

00:30:39 SARAH K

I don't know if you watch Matthew Sciarappa on YouTube, but he said something in a review like a couple of months ago. He was like, honestly, the world is so fucked I do not need satire in my life anymore.

00:30:50 CHRIS

I saw that video. It was really funny. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I also think fantasy tends to be something that people do find off-putting is that they're long and they tend to be in serious, which I think people get weirdly nervous by, not me 'cause I DNF very happily. But people who feel a bit more commitment than I do are made nervous by that.

So I got a couple of recommendations for you of standalone fantasy novels, so these are ones I think you might like if you want to try fantasy if it's not really something you've read before and I made them stand alone.

00:31:22 CHRIS

I was not as kind. All of mine are series, but they're very short series and the last one I'm going to talk about, you could read each of the books as a standalone if you wanted to and the first two are very shor trilogies. D you want to start? 

00:31:35 SARAH K

All right, sure the first one I've got is for people who are into historical fiction that is The Binding by Bridget Collins which I read earlier this year.

So this is set in like an alternative version of like England, 19th century 18th century or something like that. And in this novel, when people who are writing books what they're actually doing is they're putting their memory of what happened to them into the book. Like physically transport it and you lose the memory. And there are people who do this magic, like locking the memory into the book, and they're called the binders.

The novel is about an apprentice binder called Emmett, and so because of this, the novels are seen as like pretty dirty because people use them often to forget, like if they did something wrong and they feel bad about it.

They'll go through a binder and get their memory of that thing like bound into a novel. So it's a novel now, and so they can't feel guilty anymore 'cause they don't remember it. And equally people who have gone through something awful and they want to forget will go to a binder as well.

So yeah, it's about this boy Emmett, who is an apprentice and he's learning how to be a binder and then he ends up falling in love with another boy who lives in the same kind of village as him. And then it's about kind of him being conflicted as a binder in terms of what he knows, 'cause he knows all this stuff about people that they don't know about themselves. So him sort of like trying to grapple with how he knows all this stuff about other people and and this boy that he loves. He kind of knows more than he should, and and it all kind of unfolds from there. And then I thought it was, yeah, really good. So apart from this element about the books being kind of magical, it's basically historical fiction.

You know, we've got carts. We've got horses. We've got wet London. You know, etc.

00:33:07 CHRIS

Wow, sounds really good. That's one of those books that I'd always heard people describe. But like I've never heard anyone describe it that well, because I've always just gotten like vibes from other people reviews that it was just like a little historical fiction. I never quite interested like what the magic system was, but that's actually really interesting.

Alright, so my first recommendation is, in my opinion a very under hyped Fantasy trilogy called the Chimera Trilogy by Kate Glass, and this is also her - her pen name is Kate Glass.

She writes under another name, Carol Berg. So if you have heard of some of those novels by Carol Berg, this is the same author if you've read her and enjoyed her. I'm not sure why she rebranded for this one, because in my opinion it doesn't feel all that different from her other books, so I'm not sure what the decision was there, but anyway, this one is about a woman named Remy, who prior to the start of the novel had been a very high class courtesan for one of the highest nobles in this city, which is very much reminiscent of like Renaissance of Venice.

And she had been a courtesan and also lover and counselor to this man, you know, confidant and magic is very much against the law in this world. If you are caught as a magic user, you are executed and the reason for this is because it's believed that the people who like have magic are somehow attached to this like Demon Monster that lives under the world and could eat them all it gets explained a lot better in the books!

So unbeknownst to her employer, Remy is a magic user, and so is her brother. She's been keeping this under wraps for many years, but her brother is far more indiscreet and at the beginning of the novel he commits a crime using magic in a way that's very indiscreet, and she has to basically ask her employer to like intervene on his behalf and avoid the execution. But in order to do this, she eventually she has to be kicked out of his household because of them, and so she has to go back to like living in the poorest part of the city, becoming a scribe. All this different stuff living with her brother, trying to keep things under wraps and she discovers a plot that threatens the city. And which specifically threatens the Lord that she used to work for. And then she kind of starts to discover other magic users who might be able to help her and the whole thing turns into this like found family heist caper.

Lots of hijinks, very fun. And I would say the beginning of it's a little bit slow as you're kind of getting to learn the characters and stuff like that, but it really builds momentum really quickly and the book itself is is very short. The first book there - each book is around 300, 350 pages, and it's just a single trilogy with lots of really fun characters very likeable people, you know.

I think sometimes fantasy tends to be kind of populated with these, like morally grave antiheroes and stuff like that. But all of these people are just people that you could see yourself, you know, chatting with having a good time and and the capers they go on are really fun and the little heists that they have to do and puzzles they have to solve. Really really fun.

00:36:18 SARAH K

Yeah, this has been on my TBR for ages.

00:36:22 CHRIS

One day we'll have our TBR down to 0.

00:36:24 SARAH K

I don't know if you know Max from Well Done Books his is literally like 19.

00:36:27 CHRIS

Wow, good for him. 

00:36:29 SARAH K

I don't know how. I guess he doesn't watch or listen to any kind of like book world stuff.

00:36:35 CHRIS

And he just has like way more self-control than we do.

00:36:40 SARAH K

Yeah, I do not need much convincing. Although Jenny, love an opportunity to call out Jenny, she's the worst for it. Has like 1000 books.

00:36:49 CHRIS

My physical owned TBR – yesterday I unhauled like 100 books and sold them back to half price books.

And I still have only like 500 books.

00:37:00 SARAH K

Well, I'll cut that out so Jenny doesn't use it as ammunition for her in self-defense. My next one is a bit of a classic. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. This is her debut novel came out five years ago or so.

Pretty beloved in the old, the old fantasy world I would say and it is a kind of Victorian England I think it is. The whole thing is that it's a circus which is traveling around and the secret is that the circus is really magic.

So people go and they're like wow, what an incredible trick. Like how did they do it? The answer is they really did do it 'cause they really are magic. There's no like illusion and it's just some, so it's set like partly when the circus begins, partly in the modern day, when the circus is still like moving around. It's just beautifully written, the scenery is beautiful and it is very absorbable and readable. If you're not someone that's super used to fantasy, I think it's just like characters having this great life. If you love like food descriptions and that kind of stuff you love, and it's very like richly written, I think I will say her next book that should that came out of like last year, I did not think was very good.

So I wouldn't recommend that. 

00:38:10 CHRIS

I tried to listen to The Starless Sea audiobook and I didn't like it and it put me off reading The Night Circus. But now maybe I need to reassess that now that you're saying that.

00:38:19 SARAH K

Yeah, The Night Circus is quite plotless and it has a bit of a plot but not very much of a plot and the next one that she wrote it, she kind of did the same thing but with even less of a plot. Didn't quite work as well, like she kind of hit something really good with them The Night Circus so and I feel for I think it's been really hard for her to follow. 

00:38:38 CHRIS

You know, I think she I remember seeing a Twitter post she did or something like where I think she wrote that during Nanowrimo.

00:38:46 SARAH K

Yeah she did.

00:38:53 CHRIS

That's impressive. It also has inspired like a uh craze of circus books. How many books out there now have have you seen since? They're like obviously trying to attract the crowd of The Night Circus, you know.

00:39:06 SARAH K

Yeah, she got it. She's just like hit something perfect. It’s got this great opening line, you, “the circus arrived without warning”. 

00:39:11 CHRIS

Oh OK, now let's see. Now you're talking about this, make me actually want to read it?

00:39:15 SARAH K

I listened to the audiobook first, which is narrated by Jim Dale, the guy who does the US Harry Potter books, and I thought he did a great job. I really enjoyed it.

00:39:23 CHRIS

Wow, I didn't realize he narrated that. Now see these are all points in its favor.

00:39:29 SARAH K

And then I have a slightly related one, which is The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan which I didn't like so much. But it's the closest novel that I've read to The Night Circus, so I just wanted to mention it in case anyone like sort of looking for that elusive novel3. And this is set in a completely fantastical world.

Also about a traveling circus, which is on a boat and this world has a whole it's, you know, it's like a post global warming sort of narrative 'cause this world is like, there's a lot of ocean, and some people are living on the sea all the time on boats and some people living on the land, there’s a big class divide between land dwellers and sea dwellers. But the main character is a girl who lives on this boat with a bear and her like circus actors to do stuff with the bear.

The grace keepers are the people that they what's it called with the person who looks after a grave?

The grace keepers are like the graveyard people, so if someone dies you take them to this like watery graveyard, and she does like the ceremony and everything, so the main character who has this the bear she kind of meets one of the grace keepers and they become friends. Yeah, so it's this kind of like dreamy weird circus world where they're kind of drifting around on boats trying to earn money, and they're going to this kind of weird watery graveyard sometimes when people die.

But yeah, I I liked a little slow, but if you really liked The Night Circus, I would recommend it.

00:40:48 CHRIS

Yeah, I've wanted to read her for a while because I know that Jenn Campbell recommends her like all the time I need to actually read her.

Alright, this next one is definitely more of a kind of like classic epic fantasy trilogy, but the reason I'm putting in here for like fantasy for beginners or where we want to call this is because these books are short, like if you want something that like has this grand scale epic battles.

But you know, each book is like 350 pages 'cause I think this is a great trilogy and that is the Swans War trilogy by Sean Russell, which the first book is called the One Kingdom Book opens up and it's following a group of young men and it has this very like classical kind of introduction. They come from a village that is very isolated up in these mountains so that it's difficult to reach. Every once in a while these people have to kind of go on A journey so that they can like trade things and like interact with the outside world and get money.

So these young boys are kind of making their first like journey outside of this village to to engage and say and trade. And while they're doing this, they end up meeting a guy who asks to share their campfire.

They share some stories with him. Everything seems to be going fine when all of a sudden in the middle of the night they're set upon by these attackers that are clearly trying to kill this dude.

He they think that he dies. This all happens like the first chapter. I'm not like spoiling anything, I promise.

Sounds like a little a lot of plot, but this is just the set up I promise, and so then all of a sudden there suddenly targets by this group that is like aimed to kill this guy because they were seen with him and so these people think that like their accomplices to whatever this man was doing.

And so they like are on the run at this point, and you soon learn that what's really happening is that there's these two families that are like about to go to civil war again, like war is brewing all this political intrigue is happening between the two of these families, and somehow these young kids have like really stepped into it. And then also going on is that some of these old like nature gods are awakening again that also have their kind of like stake in this civil war. So all of it has this very like classical epic fantasy setup. You know, otherworldly things going on, political intrigue nights, medieval stuff. But what I love about this series is the writing style. This is one of the best written fantasy trilogy's I've ever read. He has a way of describing things that you have seen in fantasy books-a-million times, enchanted forests, weird rivers. Otherworldly creatures that just feels so haunting and different that it's really something special.

He also has a great way with dialogue, like these characters the way these like, especially like political giants in the world, the way they talk to each other is exquisite. He has a really great way of like and this is something that people have said about like a Game of Thrones as well. Or like when the chapter ends like you can't help but to read the next chapter because it just ends on like such a great line or like what the heck is going to happen next? 

I would say that as far as like character development goes, it's probably not made like top character series, but by the end of the series I had really grown to like and respect these characters plots was surprising in ways that I didn't expect it to be surprising, and there were a few moments where I was like, stomach hit the floor like I believe that was happening really excellent fantasy trilogy.

00:44:46 SARAH K

Sounds good, yeah, I just added it to my TBR. I'd actually not heard of this before, yeah, I don't think.

00:44:50 CHRIS

And the covers are beautiful. The covers are absolutely stunning, especially. I think both the US and the UK covers are beautiful but the US covers are absolutely stunning.

00:45:00 SARAH K

That was the Swans War series by Sean Russell. The first one is called The One Kingdom.

Yeah, I just found it on Storygraph.

00:45:07 CHRIS

Yeah, I don't know how great of a job I did. It kind of explained the plot setup because it sounds very generic, but there's not a really great way of kind of describing the plot because it just really like once you kind of get past that like intro of like oh crap or running away. Then the political intrigue, like really kind of, takes over, and it becomes very exciting.

00:45:25 SARAH K

Yeah, I mean you sold me not really saying much but. You’ve sold at least one person.

So the third one I have to recommend is The Order Of The Pure Moon Reflected In Water by Zen Cho. Super Sharp. I heard about this from Britta Böhler who we both are big fans on it I think. She's pretty cool. Yeah, this is super sharp sub 200 pages. It's a pretty classic kind of fantasy story.

Two bandits walk into a bar. They try and rob rather than the sort of robbing goes astray, and then the waitress ends up hanging with them 'cause there's just been a big war and everyone trying to kind of survive and find money and get shells from another kind of thing, or they're in kind of the wreckage of the war and then she ends up sort of going off with them, and then it's kind of a roadtripping story with this like unlikely group of people that don't really belong together.

And then the waitress of course, she there's much more to her than meets the eye, and she has her own reasons for wanting to like leave with them, trying to leave the city. Yeah it's all kind of like slightly funny, not too serious group of people. They're all trying to have these quite secret things that they're trying to do that they try to hide from each other.

And then it all kind of unfolds all the sort of true motivations for what they're all doing, set in like kind of historical China or something like that. It's a alternative world, yeah? Just it was like a super classic fantasy story, but had like a lot of different kind of unique elements and I yeah I really enjoyed it.

00:46:50 CHRIS

How did you like her writing style?

00:46:52 SARAH K

Uh, my thought it was serviceable is that rude?

00:46:55 CHRIS

No, I was curious about it because I read Sorcerer to the crown by her and which is written in a very intentional Victorian style like it's intended to read like an old timy book.

And it that was my favorite part of the book was that that Victorian voice I I didn't actually end up being a huge fan of that story, but I loved the writing style and kind of wished it very much evoked like that have old English magic kind of thing, almost like I don't know Harry Potter for adults or something.

00:47:30 SARAH K

Yeah, interesting. No, it was a bit more like. Yeah, like we were just talking a bit before about RF Kuang the way that it's kind of like, yeah, like folklore in that way, that way that the characters talk each other is a bit like that. It was felt like a kind of mythical folklorey kind of storytelling, which I liked.

00:47:54 CHRIS

I need to read it. She just wrote another novel.

Something the sister? I can't remember. But yeah, and that one got a lot of buzz too, so she's really making waves. But and I need to give her another shot this well. 

00:48:05 SARAH K

I listened to the audiobook. It was I think not even four hours, pretty quick and  just very like pretty plot focus, sort of moving along pretty quickly. Lots of fun characters. Good pacey one I enjoyed it.

00:48:18 CHRIS

My last one is one of my absolute favorite fantasy series of all time. I have a tattoo of it and that is the Seven waters trilogy by Juliet Marillier. So this first book in that trilogy is called Daughter of the Forest and it follows a young woman named Circe.

I'm not really sure how to pronounce the Irish names, so forgive me. But Circe is how I would imagine it's pronounced. She is the 7th child. She has six older brothers and then her mother dies. And her father marries a woman who clearly has some like evil intentions, and it's very obvious that the father is kind of being ensorcelled by her, and she's very jealous of his children and so she ends up turning the brothers into Swans and casting a spell on them.

And then it is up to Circe to change her brothers back to humans and she's given a task by the Fae folk in order to do this where she has to sew shirts for all of her brothers made out of net. And she has to remain silent completely until her brothers are returned to their human form. And so this is a year long mission that she goes on to turn her brothers back into humans.

And so it's actually based off of the seven Swans fairy tale, or 6 swans fairy tale. There's lots of different renditions. And what I love about this is that a lot of times fairy tale retellings tend to not be super character focused, they really take on that fairy tale storytelling voice, which is like kind of omniscient narration a little bit removed from the characters. Things might happen that don't make a lot of sense just for the sake of like retelling the fairy tale, that type of thing and Juliet Marillier doesn't do any of that. It's an incredibly character focused novel. You really get to know all of these brothers, the significance of the relationships.

Between Circe and her brothers, particularly, one of these brothers that's Circe has almost a mental telepathic link to and his storyline to this day like still haunts me. And just it's such a wonderful novel about this kind of quiet, reserved strength of this woman to be able to endure everything she endures.

And I will say, I do want to give a trigger warning for sexual assault in that series? It's handled, in my opinion, very well. I think that Juliet Marillier really takes the psychological consequences of that very seriously and the way it's put into the story isn't, for, like shock or anything like that. Like you can tell she's being very intentional about why she's writing the story the way she is, and it's not just like fodder for some male protagonist revenge story.

Or something like that. It's really well done and Julia Maurillier’s writing is amazing, I've read a lot of earlier novels at this point. Uhm, I think I've read six or seven. This one, in my opinion, is the best written. Like she, I don't know what it was, but it was just like magic like the one like keyboard.

Fingers must have been flying through those descriptions like I can't imagine what it took to be able to evoke the landscape and the world the way she did. It's so lush, so beautiful. Uhm, it's a really great book.

00:52:06 SARAH K

Yeah I I haven't read any of her stuff, but yeah, I really want to. They're quite hard to get here in the Netherlands them Maurillier books, but it's sort of on my list of like next time I go to the UK, 'cause they're pretty - they're really big in the UK.

I think I'll try and find them. I think in secondhand bookstores in the UK it's pretty easy to find them. 

00:52:26 CHRIS

Yeah, and some I would say her some of her newer books are definitely kind of lighter in tone, so if you read those books, like for example, if you've read like I don't know.

The blackthorn and Grim series, or her warrior Bard books. They're definitely a little bit more lighter. The plots are a little bit fluffier. The seven waters, that initial trilogy is not like that at all. It's very deep, like slow and very character focused, and the ending is is great like I just loved it.

00:53:02 SARAH K

Yeah, I can't wait to get into them one day. When I'm allowed to travel again, I'll get them.

Yeah, they sound great. Yeah, I hope you guys found some recommendations in that. Pretty pretty varied between the two of us, which I think is great, so hopefully there's one or more books that kind of struck a chord with you and we would love to hear if you like try fantasy for the first time if you are already a fantasy reader, we would love to hear your thoughts and like what you enjoy or that kind of thing.

So thanks Chris!  It was fantastic.

00:53:28 CHRIS

Thank you for having me.

00:53:30 SARAH K

Thank you so much for listening. If you would like to contact us with any questions or ideas, feedback, recommendations, things you'd like us to cover in episodes, you can email us at thebookcastclub@outlook.com and we're also on Twitter and Instagram.

We are @bookcastclub on both of those. It's also now possible to leave us a voice message if you like the link for that is in the show notes and we also have a newsletter. That you can sign up to if you would like to hear more news from us at more reviews, etc. And we also have a Patreon! If you would like to support us financially, which we would really appreciate, you can check us out there. We do monthly bonus episodes, books in the post. Lots of fun stuff. It's a good time. Thank you so much for listening.

00:54:06 SARAH K

Thank you, Chris.

00:54:07 CHRIS

Awesome, thank you very much.

00:54:09 SARAH K

And see you guys next time.