Great news! The total remodel of bkbass.com is steaming along, and I’m going through my old essays, articles, and musings to completely revise their contents and presentation.
Previously, I had a series of three essays on fantasy literature. They’re getting such an overhaul, though, that there will now be five!
The second of these, The Fantasy Divide: Low vs High Fantasy, is now live on the website. Here’s a quick preview:
When exploring fantasy literature, there is a clear line that can be drawn down the middle of the genre. On one hand, some fantasy stories take us on journeys contained within fantastic worlds. On the other, fantastic elements encroach on our reality or we travel from the real world to a fictional one.
I feel that at the very top of the hierarchy of fantasy subgenres lie high fantasy and low fantasy. Unlike other subgenres, which authors routinely mix and match to brew up their own unique magical potions, these categories exist as two sides of a coin, and that coin encompasses all of fantasy literature.
B.K. Bass, Author and Editor 