Why I love fantasy. And our newest fantastic giveaway!

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So I just finished book two of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of
Time, The Great Hunt. It was a fantastic read, and reinforced my huge,
enormous, colossal love for fantasy. Jordan really stepped up the
intrigue in the second installment. While I loved the first book, I was a bit
worried that the series might devolve into a reductive battle of good and evil.
But in The Great Hunt, he shows that there are many more factions than
we had believed, and even within those factions there is infighting as goals
clash. And that’s what I love best about epic fantasy – the fully imagined
worlds with rationally motivated power struggles, even (especially?) in the presence
of tremendous evils like The Dark One.

But now I have to put my Jordan reading on hold! Brandon
Sanderson is launching his own epic fantasy series (even while he’s finishing Jordan’s
series)! I’m about 1/2 through the massive The
Way of Kings
, and so far it’s thrilling! A culture he describes exacts an
interesting method of racism – the family lines with light
colored eyes form a noble class, while those so unlucky to have black or brown
eyes are in the bottom of the caste system. It’s a great allegory to the
equally arbitrary discrimination based on skin color.

So. Why do you love fantasy? The fifteen most interesting comments (including a mailing address, or email, so I can contact you) will receive a complementary Advanced Reader's Copy of The Way of Kings!

18 thoughts on “Why I love fantasy. And our newest fantastic giveaway!

  1. My third high school involved long bus rides (6:15am to 8:30am) (3:15-6:30) Since I had an hour to kill on either side of the school day I worked in the library – anything to stay away from the aliens – and read whatever I found to and from. That was the year I discovered Andren Norton’s Beast Master – the original, thank you, Clement’s Needle, The Stars Our Destination. Lots of science fiction and fantasy from the 50’s, both sides of the pond. The librarian introduced me to Conan – the jocks suffered by comparison! By the time we moved to high school #4 and I had to choose which 10 books to keep it was truly tough. Since Andre’s passing I don’t buy as many in hard cover as I used to, but it is amazing how the piles on the floor waiting to be shelved seem to keep growing. And then someone seems to put out old favorites with really great covers just as my old friends are falling apart. Lets see, Lackey, Gilman, Pierce, Briggs, and that is recently, with new titles due, I hear. It is a lovely addiction.

  2. If you don’t feel comfortable leaving contact information, please email it to me at benjamin.rubinstein (at) macmillan.com

    Thanks!
    Ben

  3. Take me to a land of far away
    Where I can escape the pressures of today.
    Fantasy and other lands evermore.
    Oh book take me away to a distant shore.

    Plots sometimes without reason
    Twists across centuries or sometimes just a season.
    Oh book you are such a pleasure
    Oh book you have become my treasure.

  4. I love fantasy because it takes me away from the ordinary problems of my life and allows me to be more than I think I can in real life. It causes me to think in ways I haven’t thought before. An added bonus is that it gives me something in common with the teens and pre-teens in my life.

  5. Are we sure it’s 208 pages? It was described as “massive”. I’m really interested in reading how eye racism would be portrayed, especially since I’d end up at the bottom at the caste system. Brown eyes unite!! At any rate, the reason I love fantasy is because it gives me a look at a different world. I also envy how an author could come up with so many little details. It’s fun to imagine myself in their world. Probably not the best explanation (I did mention that I envy writers), but it’s true. bernardi [dot] fam [at] gmail [dot] com.

  6. I love fantasy because of the need it creates to reinforce the shelves in the fantasy section. (Credit for this joke to Unshelved)

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