Okay I admit it. I absolutely adore reading fantasy novels. I've got all of Anne McCaffrey's fantasy books: Dragons of Pern, Generation Warriors, Doona novels, Pegasus and several other series. She is one of the best fantasy authors I've read and her son seems to be taking after her. Maybe he'll do a series of his own in the near future.
Then of course there's David Eddings. Again I have all his fantasy novels. These two authors are the people who set my course onto writing fantasy by their example. They both have depth and polish to their writing. So much so that I read their books again and again and find them hard to put down.
Other authors I've found over the years who have become favorites are Naomi Novik and Trudi Canavan. Both have taken a unique approach to their fantasy worlds and enthral me with their stories. Naomi Novik takes history and bends it to include dragons. Wonderful dragons (another of my favourites). Trudi Canavan's worlds have magic at the core of their society. This brings magicians into conflict with other magicians, creating magical wars. Wonderful!
The above are more for adults than young people, but I do read Paul Stewart's Edge Chronicles and Wyrmweald series. I find it's nice to read stories that don't have romantic elements in them. Brian Jacques Redwall Series is another favorite. Philip Reeve's Predator Cities and Larkspur series also caught my imagination, the latter I felt was ideal for Middle Grade readers.
I recently attended a workshop on world building given by Nalini Singh, a paranormal best selling author. I went along believing it would give me more insight into building my fantasy worlds, which indeed it did. However, I got more than I bargained for.
It had never occurred to me that every book that is written has it's own world built. Doesn't matter whether it's historical, romantic, fantasy, mystery or suspense. The world is the story and the story is the world. Both must be right for the book or short story to succeed. Thank you so much Nalini for showing me this. I will look at my novels in a completely different way now, plus I will re-read those old favorites with an eye to how they are so successful in their world building, not only of alternate planets but of their characters and societies.
So there you have it. The reason and the authors who pointed me in the direction of fantasy writing. If you haven't come across some of these authors and you love fantasy, then I highly recommend one and all of them. Enjoy!!!
