What happens to literature when it moves beyond the confines of the real? When it uses its power to create “other” worlds that no longer obey the rules of this one? Welcome to fantasy fiction, a genre that is as old as storytelling and yet constantly reinventing itself.

Readers around the world have been reading about fantastic worlds for centuries. You are likely to have encountered some types of fantasy literature yourself. Maybe you listened to fairy tales where knights fought dragons, sorceresses searched for knowledge and magical creatures frightened, tricked or inspired. Or, maybe you’re more familiar with recent incarnations of fantasy such as stories about superheroes. These recent fantasy tales can take multiple forms, from novels to illustrations, from films to games. This diversity of media is part of what makes fantasy so widespread and compelling. But what do they have in common?

Fantasy literature is set in an otherworld or secondary world. This is a world that is impossible in terms of our normal understanding of science and history but follows a set of rules, which may not be those of the real world but have their internal logic.

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You may well have read or watched some of the most famous fantasy works of the 1950s and 1960s, such as J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe or Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea series. This is the moment when fantasy fiction as we know it today really took off. And speaking of multiple media, it is possible that you have played the Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying game, first published in 1974 and still going strong today. 

How do writers create these fantastic worlds for the reader? There are several approaches they use. Critic Farah Mendlesohn describes these broadly as: portal fantasy, intrusion fantasy, immersion fantasy and liminal fantasy. In portal fantasy you enter from the real into the fantastic by passing through a portal, a threshold of some kind (for example: the wardrobe in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe). In intrusion fantasy, the fantastic enters the real world, often violently (for example: H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, or the Marvel films, such as Avengers, or Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series). In liminal fantasy, you can never be sure whether the fantastic is actually happening or whether it is all a delusion. In immersion fantasy the entire story takes place in the otherworld. This latter case of immersion fantasy is probably what a lot of us think of when we say “fantasy”, but it really only started after Lord of the Rings.

Not having to represent the real world can make it easier for a story to discuss controversial, difficult topics. If the reader encounters these subjects through the lens of the fantastic then they are slightly distanced from them. This ‘safe’ distance then allows the writer to talk about the principles without talking about all the complexities of the actual situation.

For example, Ursula Le Guin’s The Tombs of Atuan can certainly be read as an allegory of female oppression by a patriarchal society. Frank Herbert’s Dune can be read as an allegory for imperialism and exploitation, with the spice found only on the planet Arrakis as an allegory for oil and the wealth (and corruption) that it brings to colonisers.

But the real secret of fantasy fiction is you, the reader. Fantasy gives you the opportunity to intervene, reflect, make connections. As critic Matthew Sangster puts it, “a large part of the secret of their [fantasy works’] success is the ease with which they can become ours” (Sangster, Matthew, An Introduction to Fantasy (Cambridge University Press, 2023), p. 16).

To get the most out of reading fantasy fiction, try to read diversely. Fantasy fiction today represents writers from every walk of life, from diverse cultures, ethnicities, religions, genders and sexualities. Read diversely and imagine diversely, beyond Western cliches and discover for yourself how varied fantasy can be! We include some suggestions below to get you started on your journey, but this is just the beginning.