The Night Bazaar | Category Archive | Secondary World Fantasy

Posts in the "Secondary World Fantasy" Category

Last Exit to Narnia

Secondary World Fantasy

Congratulations to Martha Wells on the release of her book The Cloud Roads! For a chance to win a free autographed and personalized copy of the book, just leave a comment below (or on any post this week) with the title of a fantasy novel set in a secondary world — that is to say, not this one — and you’ll be entered into the drawing.

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Last Exit to Narnia

When I was a kid, my first love was…World War II. I hate to burst your Space Bubble, but I did not waltz into the world all wide-eyed with optimistic love for the future, an adoration of science fiction, or faith in the bold new American century powered by Our Friend the Atom. Like many men in my generation, early — and I mean early — fascination with Saturday-afternoon war movies led later to backyard games in which the “Krauts” were hiding around every corner, trying to prevent us from blowing up the heavy water plant. Upon our capture, one of us would switch roles to play the sadistic SS commander and snarl “We have ways of making you talk!” in an accent equal parts Major Strasser, Pepe Le Pew and Charro. I didn’t discover fantasy until I discovered C.S. Lewis’s Narnia series, round about fourth grade. (more…)
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Brave New Worlds

Secondary World Fantasy
Congrats to Martha Wells on her new release, The Cloud Roads! We’re doing a book giveaway for it here on The Night Bazaar. Just comment on this post, or on any other post this week, with the title of a novel set in a secondary world, and you’ll be entered in the drawing at the end of the week for one of at least four autographed and personalized copies of The Cloud Roads.

So, my understanding is that secondary world fantasy means a fantasy set in a world completely not Earthlike at all. Some classic examples would be:
- Anne McCaffrey’s Pern series
- JRR Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings series
- Patricia McKillip’s Forgotten Beasts of Eld
I think you could probably throw quite a bit of the alien-centric science fiction into that category too. Larry Niven’s Ringworld and Cameron’s bug-infested God’s War (for which I am camped out by the mailbox, waiting for Amazon to deliver, along with Stina and Brad’s books) would probably be a prime examples. (more…)
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Mundus Secundus

Secondary World Fantasy

This week we’re celebrating the release of Martha Wells book, The Cloud Roads. She says:

This is the official release week for my book The Cloud Roads. It’s now available in both print and ebook versions and there are reviews and the first two chapters as a sample at that link. We’re also doing a book giveaway for it here on The Night Bazaar. Just comment on this post, or on any other post this week, with the title of a novel set in a secondary world, and you’ll be entered in the drawing at the end of the week for one of at least four autographed and personalized copies of The Cloud Roads.

Also, today, you can download a free ebook of Stina Leicht’s book, Of Blood and Honey. You can find the details, including how to receive your free ebook, from Night Shade’s site.

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Okay, I had to ask one of the other Night Bazaar authors what “secondary worlds” actually meant. Turns out it means any world not our own and usually is synonymous with epic fantasy. (This blog has a definite fantasy bias, which is fine. It’s FINE, really!) So Urban Fantasy – you know, the books with a hot chick on the cover, toting some weapon, facing away and looking over their shoulder as if contemplating their tramp stamp – those don’t count. In our world but with fantastical elements aren’t secondary worlds.

So, I kinda like some books like that – not the dressed up romance novels though I did recently read one by a friend of mine, Thea Harrison, and I was surprised at how much fun it was. I was also surprised by the 30 page long sex scenes. But I was thinking books more along the lines of Tim Powers and Neil Gaiman, books that pull back the veil on our humdrum world and expose a secret history or society underneath. I love books like that. (more…)
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Here, I’m at home

Secondary World Fantasy

As a reminder, Martha is having a giveaway of her shiny new novel, The Cloud Roads. I’ll let Martha explain:

This is the official release week for my book The Cloud Roads. It’s now available in both print and ebook versions and there are reviews and the first two chapters as a sample at that link. We’re also doing a book giveaway for it here on The Night Bazaar. Just comment on this post, or on any other post this week, with the title of a novel set in a secondary world, and you’ll be entered in the drawing at the end of the week for one of at least four autographed and personalized copies of The Cloud Roads.

For those who don’t happen to win, I hope you’ll still consider picking up her wonderful book.

Ok, now on to the topic at hand. I’m with Martha on this one. I’ve always gravitated toward secondary worlds when reading and eventually when I began to write.

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Secondary World Fantasy

Want a free copy of The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells? Comment on this post to enter to win!

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Yes, I’ve been a bad, bad writer the last few weeks and running behind on everything. I often feel that’s the story of my life – lagging behind on everything. It took me a long time to figure out how to read. I was best friends with a kid in first grade who was reading us all chapter books when he was a Kindergartener. I was incredibly jealous. I simply could not figure out to read in a way that I felt was fast enough. I felt like I should be smarter. I should just magically understand things.

You hear a lot of people boast about being about to read at age three or four these days, and that’s nice and all, but I remember that learning how to read was work. The good news was, it prepared me well for being a writer. Because being able to string sentences together in a way that builds believable worlds is hard. That, too, has taken me work. Which is as it should be. If building a world was easy, everybody would do it. (more…)
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In Another World, Another Time

Secondary World Fantasy

This week we’re celebrating another new release, The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells. The Cloud Roads isn’t Martha’s first novel. Martha is an award-winning and accomplished SFF novelist — one of the best. So, while I wish her the best of luck because she deserves it in every way, Martha is in very little need of it. The Cloud Roads is a great book. Good thing for us all that Jeremy and the wonderful gang at Night Shade Books were smart enough to publish it. That said, this week Martha is having a give-away for her new novel. As usual, the rules are simple, comment and you’ll have a chance to win. Trust me, you want to win.

So, Secondary World Fantasy. Yeah. I feel more than a bit silly since I had to look it up. (You can’t know everything even within your chosen profession, and anyway, if you did, it’d be boring not learning anything new.) Like many here, I started with Tolkien… well, that is, Terry Brooks and then Tolkien — during the third wave of Tolkien fanaticism in the late ’70s/early ’80s. Thus, my standards are ridiculously high. Unfortunately, the market got overwhelmed with dreck, and I turned away from Fantasy in disgust and then moved on to Horror and SF for quite a long while. That is, until my husband turned me on to Terry Pratchett. The Discworld series isn’t Epic Fantasy, by the way. It may have started as a parody of Epic Fantasy, but like all good things, it matured into something else entirely its own. (If you’ve not read any Pratchett, get Martha’s book first and then after you’re done with her works head on over to Discworld, or start with Good Omens.) The Discworld series is Secondary World Fantasy because it exists in a place separate from our reality (although it is is often intruded upon by our modern reality) and is very definitely its own place. I still tend to prefer Fantasy based on more realistic settings because I’m so damned picky about world-bulding due to Tolkien and Pratchett, but I can and do often make room for exceptions. If YA is your thing, look into Garth Nix’s Sabriel, and Sharon Shinn’s The Safe Keeper’s Secret. For adults, there’s Marion Zimmer Bradley’s early Darkover series, Kari Sperring’s atmospheric and moody Living with Ghosts, anything by Sharon Shinn (she writes for adults too) and J.M. McDermott’s Never Knew Another.
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Imaginary Worlds For The Win

Secondary World Fantasy

I’ve been a huge fan of Martha Wells for years, ever since I picked up The Wizard Hunters off a new release shelf when the cover art caught my eye. The minute I finished The Wizard Hunters, I ran out and hunted down all her other novels. I still remember my delight when I realized that Tremaine’s criminal mastermind father had a novel all his own! The Death of the Necromancer remains one of my favorites. As does City of Bones. And The Element of Fire. And now The Cloud Roads! I’m so thrilled to have a new Martha Wells novel to enjoy. I finished The Cloud Roads just the other day, and immediately had to go back and reread all my favorite sections.

The Cloud Roads has everything I most love in fantasy: an imaginative world full of fascinatingly alien cultures, combined with excellent characterization, exciting adventure and even a dash of romance. Want a chance to win a signed copy? Just comment on any of our posts this week with the name of a secondary world fantasy novel. But honestly, if you like fantasy, I’d say don’t wait for the giveaway – go read the book. Right now.

By the way, for anyone who’s not a fantasy junkie and isn’t sure what “secondary world fantasy” means – it’s just the current term for any fantasy set in a world not our own, as opposed to urban/contemporary fantasy. Some people use “epic fantasy” as a shorthand for the same category, but epic fantasy is more properly a subset of secondary world fantasy and refers to the big, sweeping quest-against-the-dark-lord fantasies like Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time, etc. (See Foz Meadows’s excellent post on defining epic fantasy for more detail.) Believe me, there’s plenty of fantasy set in other worlds that doesn’t fall into that style, like Martha’s – and mine! I still twitch a little every time my book gets called epic fantasy, though even I’ve been guilty of using the shorthand on occasion. (more…)
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Secondary World Fantasy

Book Giveaway

Secondary world fantasy has always been my favorite. Despite the number of good books out there, I just never got into contemporary or urban fantasy to the same extent.

One of my favorite authors when I was growing up was Andre Norton. She had a long career, publishing her first novel in 1934 and her last completed one in 2005, and her books always seemed a bit ahead of their time. She chose her characters from a wide variety of races and cultures, and had Native American and African American protagonists. Her characters were usually young people who felt alone, were set apart or isolated in some way, and she came up with some concepts that are now standard in science fiction and fantasy. And while she also used contemporary or historical settings, she created a huge variety of fascinating secondary worlds.
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