I really don’t want to downplay the value of seeing yourself in the fiction you’re reading.
And at the end, I understood my mother better. And I read a story about slaying a dragon and with all sorts of cool fantasy elements. And I get done with this book and I’m like, this book is about my mom. I deserve all that.Īnd yet I’m reading this book and I’m like, You could be a wizard woman. But when I was young, she stayed home with me and then my brother, which as a young teen, you’re like, Well, of course she did. She eventually went on and became the city accountant and all these things. And she actually delayed her career because she was pregnant with me. My mom graduated first in her class in accounting in a year where she was the only woman in most of her accounting classes. The so-called more realistic books were actually less relatable to you.īrandon Sanderson: Well, here’s the thing. Rider Strong: Well, it’s so interesting, because what I what I feel like you’re saying is that … fantasy allowed you to find more humanity than Old Yeller. It’s a lesser known book by Barbara Hambly, and it’s really about a woman having a midlife crisis. Like Dragonsbane is the book that got me. But they would do it in this fantastical environment where I got adventure and wonder with my human stories. Put that on a shirt.īrandon Sanderson: The really great fantasy novels mix in these real human stories, these stories about people. Will Friedle: Just anthropomorphizing an animal does not a fantasy make. The book is about Ahab and the sailors interpreting normal whale behavior, and their anthropomorphizing of the whale is part of the novel. Julia Pistell: -but we don’t go into the whale’s mind, and the whale isn’t making choices. Tod Goldberg: But the whale has agency the whales doing shit. The book doesn’t go into the whale’s point of view with inner dialogue. Tod Goldberg: The anthropomorphizing of the whale and giving it actual agency. That would be the first thing I would say is there is some sort of a magical system. So that takes it out of the fantasy genre in that, again, yes, there is some world-building, but it is not any sort of magical system.
So there were whales that were attacking boats. There are no mythical creatures whatsoever because Moby-Dick was actually based on a true story. There are no magical elements whatsoever. That being said, Moby-Dick is based entirely on our world. So you could argue that any novel has that type of world-building. Will Friedle: Well, there’s I would I would argue that almost any genre, no matter what genre you have, has some level of world-building, which is what fantasy is really known for is the intricacy of the world-building. hop on Pegasus, and fly to the far reaches of fantasy with special guests actor and writer Will Friedle, fantasy author Brandon Sanderson, and Dungeons & Dragons game designer Kate Welch. With our inaugural episode, Julia, Rider, and Tod discover our long lost lineage.
Literary Disco launches a new format with a new “Genre Season.” Each episode of this season, we’re going to dive deep into a particular literary genre, exploring what defines it, what makes it work or not work, interviewing authors, talking to fans, scholars, whoever can help us unlock what it is that makes a genre a genre.