Continued Reading: A Few Subgenres

Below you’ll find just a few subgenres of fantasy literature. Between most, there is significant overlap (they are, after all, the same genre), so some of the distinctions appear to be more semantic than descriptive. Some of these subgenres are written in the fantastic mode (disturb reality) while other subgenres are written in the virtual mode (create reality).

High Fantasy

High fantasy is often synonymous with epic fantasy. The difference between the two might merely be a matter of scale. Both deal with momentous historical events, usually war, that bring about drastic changes to the social order of the world. These worlds are high or epic because there usually is some allegorical value to the stories; that is, this subgenre is at the heart of mythopoesis. It strives to create new myths from old materials. Tolkien is emblematic here. Many portal fantasies are also works of high fantasy though portal fantasies are also a type of pocket universe.

Sword and Sorcery

Sword and Sorcery is very similar to high fantasy in terms of its specifically martial content. Battles are waged, opponents bested, monsters defeated. But rather than focus on the unfolding events of the empire, sword and sorcery focuses on the adventures of a single hero. In this sense, we might call it a type of heroic fantasy, or one that consciously employs the structure of the hero’s journey. The emblematic figure here is Conan the Barbarian, whose serialized adventures were among some of the first comic books.

Pocket Universes

Pocket universes usually operate in the fantastic mode, beginning from an assumed baseline empirical reality before introducing a realm within reality but separate from reality. Within this realm that is part of but separate from reality, the pocket universe obeys its own rules, taking on a virtual character to varying degrees depending upon the text. Often, pocket universes are constructed with the same painstaking intensity many fantasy authors devoted to full-fledged virtual worlds. Any fiction where the realm of the Faeries is portrayed as a pocket within reality could be said to be an example of a pocket universe. Many pocket universes employ the trope of the multiverse, suggesting that with no original universe the concept of a ‘pocket’ is muddied. In fantasy literature, some form of Fairyland is often presented as a pocket universe within reality.

Urban Fantasy

Urban fantasy is sometimes called modern fantasy. Both involve modern urban settings; since they rely on a baseline sense of reality to produce estrangement, they could be said to operate in the fantastic mode. In some ways, this is a contradictory subgenre because it denies the consolation of escape from the modern world that Tolkien so valued. Whatever the case, this subgenre shows that the Enlightenment failed to erase the fairies even from its urban strongholds.

RPGs

Role-playing games in general are any kind of game where the audience becomes part of the story by playing out a character. Fantasy RPGs vary wildly, just as wildly as fantasy itself. Some, such as Vampire the Masquerade, rely on modern and urban settings, while others, such as Dungeons & Dragons, rely on idealized medieval pasts. RPGs take several forms: table-top games, video games, and literary RPGs, fantasy campaigns adapted to novel form or, alternatively, novels modeled on RPGs. China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station (2000) is an example of the latter.