Listen to a Podcast About Fantasy Literature

Journey through imagined worlds — Tolkien, Le Guin, Sanderson, and the traditions of epic fantasy, magic systems, world-building, and the genre's roots in mythology and folklore.

J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" (1954-1955) has sold over 150 million copies and essentially created the modern fantasy genre, with its detailed invented languages (Tolkien was a philologist at Oxford), exhaustive worldbuilding, and epic quest narrative becoming the template for virtually all epic fantasy that followed. Brandon Sanderson's "Laws of Magic" — a set of writing principles including that well-defined magic systems with clear rules create more satisfying stories than mysterious ones — have become influential guidelines for fantasy authors, and his 2022 Kickstarter for four secret novels raised $41.7 million, the most-funded Kickstarter campaign ever. Ursula K. Le Guin's "Earthsea" series (beginning 1968) and "The Left Hand of Darkness" (1969) expanded the genre's scope by centering non-Western cultures and exploring gender fluidity decades before these themes entered mainstream discourse.

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