Fantasy is a subcategory of fiction. It is the genre where most aspects of the plot are surreal. Some fantasy stories entail out of this world odds and ends, such as magic, witchcraft, vampirism, angels, and more. In the realm of literature, fantasy can be compared to surrealism — which is determined as an artistic shot of bridging reality and imagination. Thus, common fantasy novels are characterized by magical surrealism or surrealism in general. This literary genre is often wrongly identified as science fiction because both have almost identical backbones. To help book lovers and the general audience distinguish fantasy fiction from science fiction, the thing to remember is that the former is composed of extraordinary characteristics while the latter is characterized with the same aspects but with the use of technology.
Books of fantasy fiction are typically inspired by the past or current events in real life that are either good or awful. Authors of these novels extract a particular experience or situation in the real world and craft it into something magnificent. They also take inspiration from mythologies and folktales. For bibliophiles that are into fantasy, listed below are the great authors of fantasy fiction.
- J.K Rowling
Joanne Rowling is the author of one of the most popular children’s fantasy book series called the Harry Potter. Rowling has two pseudonyms, which are J.K Rowling and Roberth Galbraith. J.K has experience the hardest falls and stumbles in life before she was hailed as the J.K Rowling today. Her story is indeed amongst the many rags to riches tales. Seven years after she finished school, she considered herself as a failure for she has been separated, unemployed, and a single mother.
Harry Potter was the silver lining of Joanne’s life. The series have won numerous awards and have sold approximately more than 500,000,000 copies. Children, especially boys, are the target readers for the series. However, as people began discovering the beauty of the books, little boys are not the only ones who are hooked with the stories but also readers of all ages. The rights for film adaptation has been purchased by Warner Bros; thus, the production of the well-known 8 Harry Potter movies.
- Rick Riordan
Rick Riordan is a Texan author who gave life to the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series. This #1 New York Times bestselling author have more than 20 novels suitable for young readers. Richard Russell Riordan was born in San Antonio, Texas. It is where he also grew up. Later on, his family moved from Texas to Boston. One of the inspirations of the character Percy Jackson in the series was his son, Haley. His son is battling with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and dyslexia; thus, the main protagonist of the PJ series also has the same medical conditions.
The series that brought the diamonds and fame to him was the Percy Jackson. The novels revolve around the journey of Percy an offspring of the Greek god Poseidon and a human. Since the Greek myth PJ series has become a hit, another mythology collection has been produced by Riordan — which was The Kane Chronicles that was inspired by the Egyptian myth. The Heroes of Olympus was also written and published, which was the sequel for the all-time favorite Percy Jackson & the Olympians.
- Anita Fisk
Author Anita R. Fisk is a retired teacher who is currently residing in rural Nevada. From rural Nevada to suburban Las Vegas, she taught middle school through college language art classes. Aside from Teaching, Fisk has served as a school administrator in a public school and as writing consultant. The author has been managing her teaching craft excellently; hence, she was given plenty prestigious teaching awards — such as the Nevada Teacher of the Year, Christa McAuliffe Award, Milken Family Educator Award, and more.
The Healing Bowl: A Harley and Friends Adventure is a fantasy fiction novel by Fisk that are intended for young adult readers. It is all about how Harley, the seventh-grader protagonist, and his best friend TJ arrived in a world full of quests and is far away from reality. This story is also fueled by Greek mythology and Albert Einstein’s fluidity of time theory. Aside from this amazing fantasy novel, Fisk also have other beautifully written books — which are the Twist of Fate, Unintended Sacrifices, and Shadows of Secrets.
- Stephenie Meyer
Stephenie Meyer is an American author born and raised in Connecticut. She is greatly influenced by remarkable authors Austen and Shakespeare. Before becoming the Stephenie Meyer that she is right now, she almost gave up writing because she thought that the path is not for her. Meyer was willing to trade writing for law school. However, when her son came into the picture, she ceased all the career ideas that she had and decided that she just wanted to be a mother to his son.
The Twilight novels came into view when she dreamt about a human and a vampire that has fallen in love with each other but the latter crave for the girl’s blood. She began working on the draft of the novel from chapter 13 onwards and went back to fill chapter 1 to 12. She sent the manuscript 15 different literary agencies with the influence of her sister. 5 of the letters were left unanswered while 9 were rejected. The last one remaining was a positive reply from Writers House’s Jodi Reamer. Meyer has signed a three-book agreement with Little, Brown and Company worth $750,000 dollars. In 2005, Twilight was published. Three more Twilight sequel books was produced, making it a series that sold more than 100,000,000 copies worldwide.
- Cassandra Clare
Cassandra Clare is a pen name of a popularly known young adult fiction writer Judith Lewis. She was born in Tehran, Iran was Judith Rumelt before she got married. The Jewish author has been travelling frequently when she was little. She had been in Switzerland, England, France, Los Angeles, and New York. She was in LA when she started writing fan fictions under the name of Cassandra Clare. Those stories have been renowned online but she deleted them before the publication of her first book.
Clare has written several fantasy fiction series which includes The Infernal Devices, The Shadowhunter Chronicles, The Dark Artifices, The Magisterium Series, and the bestselling The Mortal Instruments. The TMI series has been one of the best young adult fantasy series up until the present. It is composed of six books, the first one is called The City of Bones that was published last 2007. The first of the six novels surprisingly became a bestseller of The New York Times the moment it was released, it also garnered approximately 19 book awards. This paved way for Cassandra Clare’s amazing career as an author and her reign in fantasy fiction.
The beauty of fantasy is that it gives readers the opportunity to temporarily escape reality with the use of books and imagination. Hence, authors of this genre are considered as great captains of the ships that takes the readers on different but amazing voyages towards the worlds that they are yet to discover.
Trina’s Travel 