Why I Write Fantasy

Hello dear readers,

As someone who has devoted their working life to the hard sciences - mathematics, physics, chemistry, engineering - some might wonder as to why I choose to write fantasy fiction. After all, why not write a novel dealing in the here-and-now, the concrete world with which I am so familiar? The answer actually lies within the here and now.

The world that we live in is often times already too somber, too dark, too pessimistic to devote my writing skills to dwelling in for extensive periods of time. There are already enough unsettling stories in the morning newspaper (now delivered by cable, satellite or over the internet), and there is no need for me to add to them. Fantasy fiction offers an escape from that reality that other forms of literature simply do not.

It's not that I don't appreciate other forms of literature or fiction. Quite the contrary. I just don't have the desire to dwell upon those difficult subjects for the many hours that it takes to write a story from beginning to end.

Fantasy fiction is not merely more colorful than our everyday world, it is also removed from it. Remote enough that we can parse apart and reassemble our own world view, to see reality from different angles. This perhaps, is the real magic of fantasy. It allows us to set a mirror onto our own world, our own lives, from a safe distance. And to see in that reflection the things that in our everyday lives - or even in the world of contemporary fiction - are too close for us to see clearly. Truths that might remain hidden in our everyday existence, can become clear and obvious in the world of fantasy.

Which is what attracts me to this particular genre, as a writer.