The High Fantasy Bookworm Carnival

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Jo at Ink and Paper is hosting the High Fantasy Bookworm Carnival this week, which I am participating in.

I sent Jo links to a few different fantasy book reviews that I've written, in the hope that she might figure out which one of them are actually high fantasy. I'll admit that I'm a bit fuzzy as to what exactly constitutes as a high fantasy, so I thought I'd be on the safe side by submitting my reviews for three different books:


Villains by Necessity by Eve Forward
Lord of the Fading Lands by C.L Wilson
Servant of a Dark God by John Brown

Though afterwards I did do a bit of web browsing and have come to the conclusion that a high fantasy is a story which takes place in an alternate world and generally involves a struggle between good and evil which eventually leads to a battle that determines the fate of the world.

The kind of books that come to mind, that match this description, would be David Eddings' Belgariad and Malloreon series, Terry Brooks Shannara books and Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. These were also some of the first fantasy books I ever read and so I've always had a soft spot for them. But since I haven't written any reviews of these books, I think the ones listed above should do.

Jo also asked each participant in the Book Carnival to talk a bit about what they think makes a good high fantasy.

While I don't have a particular preference for high fantasy over other types of fantasy, I do think that it is particularly imperative for a high fantasy tale to have realistic and fully developed characters that readers can connect with. Stories in this genre are usually told in multi -volume series of books that can take many years to finish and I think it's largely due to the memorable characters that readers will remain loyal to a series of books, throughout the intervening years.

A good epic fantasy also has to be well paced, keeping the reader's attention and interest while providing the right dosage of action and drama mixed in with world building and character development. It's a difficult balance to maintain, but when done correctly the results can be quite wonderful.

To see which high fantasies other bloggers recommend, visit Ink and Paper's Bookworm Carnival.