Read like nobody’s watching.

If fantasy books were music they would probably be jazz. Many of the people that like them often talk and act as if they know more about writing / playing that other mere mortals, and assume readers / listeners of other styles simply cannot grasp with their limited intellect what the converted know instinctively. At the same time they will not consider listening to / reading any other genre, knowing without doubt it won't be worth the effort. Everyone else knows it's mostly shit and a bit of an embarrassing genre, that maybe you have a fling with at one time in your life and hopefully move on from. Having said that, occasionally there is an example of the genre, a piece written / performed by a writer / player of such dazzling talent, that it deserves to transcend the genre and if those who write it off were to give it a chance the complexity, intricacy and scale of the piece would simply blow their minds.

My favourite book, even after all these years, is still probably To Kill a Mockingbird, even though I haven't read it in donkey's years, but beyond that it's more likely to be Lord of the Rings or Dune. I try to be as eclectic as possible, but like an old schoolfriend that never changes, I often find myself coming back to the genres of the geeks and social lepers. Why? Not sure. Maybe it's easier to get lost in a story if it's further removed from reality. Maybe the escapism is what's important. It's one thing to tackle themes, characterisation and organic plot developments within a real world that everybody knows intimately; it's quite another to conceive of, imagine, develop and design that world from scratch within the confines of your own head (or in the case of sci-fi sometimes many different worlds) and to describe events barely on the fringe of tangible understanding (hello, Peter F. Hamilton) while still being able to make the reader connect on an emotional level.

In this respect, I think writers of crime thrillers and romantic guff have it easier here. The world-building is already done. There's a fairly recently-arrived-in-the-UK writer, goes by the name Brandon Sanderson, who is open and honest about the difficulties involved in crafting a fully realised fantasy series like no other writer I know. He's the guy who's taken over finishing the Wheel of Time series following the death of creator Robert Jordan. It is Sanderson's own Mistborn trilogy, however, that really shows what's involved. It took something approaching nearly 30 drafts of the series before he considered it complete. Years of refining the plot, the characters, the magic system (something else the fantasy writer has to develop which is unique to the genre, and bastard hard to get right, if Sanderson's notes are anything to go by), the world, the politics and countless other elements. On his website there is a chapter by chapter commentary, and he'll share early drafts of the series with anyone who asks, as well as giving updates on current projects. The work paid off. While, admittedly, most efforts in the genre are, well, shite, Mistborn is remarkable, pulling together themes of religion and atheism, morality, redemption, corruption and a boatload of other stuff, with startling action, possible only with the help of a genius magic system. A series that deserves to be read even by people who have long since moved on from that fantasy bollocks.