Why read fantasy fiction?

I know that not everyone likes to read fantasy, and I understand a lot of the stereotypes.  I've heard more than my share of jokes about Frodo and hobbits.  But I think that the purpose of fantasy fiction (at least for me) goes a lot deeper - or perhaps wider - than just escapism.

When I was younger, I wasn't a big reader of fantasy.  I read a lot of science fiction and "classics."  Later, when I became a graduate student in English, reading became work, and I only read books that were related to my research interests or assigned.  What changed my reading habits?  Harry Potter.

I've talked about and written about Harry before, and I'm sure that we've all developed our own relationships with the Boy Who Lived.  For me, it was a little display at Borders (ouch!) with the three books that were out at the time.  There was a sign that made me think these books were popular.  I decided to check out the first book.  I read the whole thing in a day.  It was easy to read, short (at least the first book was), and fun.  I ended up reading the entire series, re-reading all of the books every time another installment came out, and even standing in line at Borders (again!) the night the final book came out.

Since then, I've become a middle school literacy teacher, so reading YA fantasy can be considered "work" again, but it's much more fun work than trying to wade through yet another book about William Faulkner (which was my unfinished dissertation topic).  I've also become something of a specialist in YA fantasy and science fiction.  It seems like these two subgenres are my "comfort zone." Much of what I read for fun falls into either of these categories.  Here's a partial list of fantasy books/series that I've read:

Harry Potter (of course)
Lightning Thief
Lord of the Rings
Fablehaven
Books of Pellinor
Resurrection of Magic
Inheritance
Keys to the Kingdom
Abhorsen
Curse Workers
Demon's Lexicon
Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Amulet
Chronicles of Ancient Darkness
Faerie Wars
Gone
Wake
Bartimaeus
Alchemyst
Earthsea
Boneshaker
His Dark Materials
Narnia
Tuck Everlasting
Replacement
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Raven Boys
Girl of Fire and Thorns
Chronicles of Prydain
Powerless
Sea of Trolls
Sandman
Peter and the Starcatchers
False Prince
Shadow and Bone
Chime
Marbury Lens
Finnikin of the Rock
Hold Me Closer, Necromancer
Dragon Slippers
Jinx
Magic Thief
Lord Loss
Last Apprentice
Warrior Heir
Chronicles of Prydain
Redwall
Glass Houses
Uglies
Fallen
Summoning
Evermore
Graceling
Artemis Fowl
Marked
Forest of Hands and Teeth
Eighth Grade Bites
Vampire Diaries
Merchant of Death
Midnight for Charlie Bone
If I Stay
Before I Fall
Shiver
Ranger's Apprentice
Gifts
Mortal Instruments
Elsewhere
Madapple
Great and Terrible Beauty
Tithe
Twilight
Iron King
Bone
Graveyard Book
Beyonders
Red Pyramid
Lost Hero
Septimus Heap

I didn't include any science fiction (except where it wasn't clearly only science fiction or fantasy.  For example, Artemis Fowl is kind of a mix of science fiction and fantasy).  I also didn't include any grown-up fantasy (like the Dresden files or Terry Pratchet's Discworld books).

So, what's so great about "fantasy" that doesn't apply to other kinds of YA fiction?

1. Fantasy tends to be weirder, with stranger characters and unusual situations.  For example, the Curse Workers series by Holly Black takes place in a universe with a section of the population that can do magic with their hands.  One of the main characters' relatives, for example, can kill people just by touching them.  As a result, everyone wears gloves, and it's considered indecent to show people your naked hands.  Isn't that weird?  
2. Fantasy tends to be much longer, often stretched over several books, giving a much fuller sense of fictional reality, character, and story development.  Harry Potter's books span seven years, and the Harry who fights Voldemort in the seventh book is very different from the little kid who sleeps under the stairs at the Dursley's.  Sometimes this can be a fault. (I'm thinking of books that just ramble on and on, as if trying to fill pages, or that end strangely, to encourage readers to pick up the sequels.)
3. Fantasy isn't afraid to be epic, to have delusions of grandeur, and to talk about the struggle between good and evil or the end of the world.  It doesn't have to be - and this is perhaps the most often lampooned characteristic of the subgenre - but it often is.  This is probably my favorite thing about fantasy.  There are usually "bad guys," and they are usually really bad.  Voldemort is a sociopath who kills and tortures because he enjoys it.  Increasingly, there are more ambiguously good heroes.  Curse Workers is a nice example - Cassel Sharpe, the main character, is connected to a powerful crime family, and commits several crimes throughout the books.  Sage/Jaron, the main character in The False Prince/Runaway King, is a thief.  

I think a lot of these things are also true of science fiction.  I also think that some of the lines between the two subgenres are blurring.  Interworld is a good example of this - it's about the struggle between a magic-based society and a science-based society, and maintaining a balance between the two.  

I would never say that fantasy is the only kind of "good book" out there.  I've read a lot of other books that were awesome.  And there are a lot of "grown-up" fantasies that are fantastic and popular.  I know we've all heard of Game of Thrones, but The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is a really good fantasy that hasn't yet become a movie or HBO series (though it would make a great film).  And we all also know that turning something into a movie doesn't mean that the book was awesome (Twilight comes to mind) or that the movie/series will be great (Dresden Files comes to mind).  

Anyway, I've been planning a top ten list for some time.  I'll be working on that next.  

Prodigy review

I heard about LEGEND, Lu's first book in this series, through Twitter, and I checked for it in my library.  It was checked out.  To me, that's a good sign.  That means that someone wanted to read it.  And my library is not always a hotbed of zealous readers.

I checked again in a few weeks, and it was still out.  It took me quite a while to get my hands on a copy of LEGEND, and I was pretty excited about finally getting a chance to read it.  The original didn't disappoint.  Lu's first book focused on two intriguing characters, Day and June, as they moved through a dark, complicated, and interesting world. I enjoyed it a lot, and I recently convinced the other teachers at my school to add LEGEND to our summer reading list.  (I hope our kids like it as much as I did!)

Enter PRODIGY.  I borrowed it from a co-worker and plowed through it in four days, despite a busy schedule.  I was concerned about the typical "sophomore slump" that we sometimes see in a series like this.  For example, I was not entirely pleased with CATCHING FIRE, the follow-up to HUNGER GAMES.  I wholeheartedly enjoyed CHAMBER OF SECRETS, the second Harry Potter book, but I struggled with the second movie.  It often seems like the second book in a series like this tries too hard to reproduce the successful elements of the first, instead of trying to tell its own story.

In PRODIGY, June and Day have escaped LA together and are limping into Las Vegas, now a major military outpost.  They meet up with the Patriots leader, Razor, and quickly decide to join the Patriots (since they have no other choice and Day is desperately in need of medical attention).  June is sent on  a mission to infiltrate the Elector's inner circle and help bring about his assassination, and Day will be sent to pull the trigger.  Things start to get complicated from there, and there are enough turns and twists to make this plot interesting without getting ridiculous.

There are a lot of things that I like about this book that have to do with the plot near the end.  I don't want to spoil anything, but I have to say that I enjoyed the airplane ride near the end, and I enjoyed some of the late twists.  I also think that the bulk of the surprises were well-planned and convincing.  The right kind of surprise, in my mind, is one that sneaks up on you, but doesn't come out of nowhere.  Where the ground has been prepared with prior details.  (Speaking of Harry Potter, the most obnoxious example of this kind of BAD surprise comes at the end of the GOBLET OF FIRE, where Harry faces Voldemort in a duel and survives because of priori incantatem, a completely new and bizarre product of having two wands face each other that have the same kind of core.  Such a frustratingly fake and convenient solution to the problem of saving Harry.)  All of the surprises in this book were well-planned and convincing.

I also have to say that I liked that the book finished in under 400 pages.  That's getting more and more rare in fantasy/sci fi.  (DIVERGENT is 576, GONE is 592, I AM NUMBER FOUR is 448, CITY OF BONES is 512, BEAUTIFUL CREATURES is 592, and so on.)  Readers of these genres like dense, complex stories full of description, twists and turns, and that sort of thing, but I think we also like to be able to finish a book in a reasonable amount of time, so that we don't forget the beginning or have to return the book to the library.  (Those of us who still do paper, physical books also don't like lugging 800-page tomes around en masse.)

PRODIGY isn't perfect.  I felt like the last chapter was a little hollow and melodramatic, a little too much.  I like that it's shorter than many books of its type, but there are some places where more would be better.  June's mission with the Elector seems to go quickly, and could have perhaps been drawn out more.  That section of the book doesn't seem to be too detailed at all, really, including Day's work with the Patriots without June.

But it's pretty close to an ideal sci-fi YA read.  I think it's easily as good as DIVERGENT and INSURGENT, and Lu has a good feel for balancing action and suspense.  Her characters are cool, with video-game-ish abilities, without feeling ridiculous or implausible.  And the conflict is so palpable that it makes the whole book engaging and feverish.  (My pet theory on this is the importance of a really evil antagonist.  A powerful, evil bad guy really makes a novel.  If the bad guy isn't scary, it's hard to convey a sense of conflict in a novel like this.)

So, if you haven't already, check out PRODIGY.  And LEGEND.  And watch for the third book - it will probably be worth reading, too.