I’m just finishing a book called The Warded Man by Peter Brett. I really like it. It’s a fantasy book, and has all the elements of a good story. It has a believable world, I really like the characters, and I like how it handles magic. Since I’m getting close to the end, I was thinking about what book will be next. It just so happens that there is a sequel called The Desert Spear. Yay!
I went to the bookstore to get The Desert Spear and couldn’t find it, so I decided to pick a fantasy book at random and buy it. But I had a disturbing problem: The fantasy books they were selling almost all looked like romance novels. The covers had women with wind-swept hair and shirtless men with a distant look in their eyes.
The blurbs on the back covers didn’t help matters, as they talked about “forlorn love” and “distant longing” and such. What the heck? And if the fantasy books weren’t about a forbidden romance, they were about vampires. Many of them were about forbidden romance with vampires. Sheesh!
Instead of getting a Fantasy Romance with Vampires, I went to another bookstore and found the book I was originally looking for. So I guess I can delay my next book choice for another week or so.
Your book title cracked me up! Now please go down the romance aisle and tell us the back story behind all the covers, please!
I’m out of book now and have been for some time. I’m so desperate I’m trying to read one of Lloyd’s cast-offs – a story of the beginning of Google. (snore)
I think I’ve read some Elizabeth Moon books, but when I looked at what she wrote, nothing looked familiar to me. Then I went into the basement and found one, but it still didn’t look familiar to me. She co-wrote some books with Anne McCaffery (who I used to like, sorry Anne), and that’s one that I have.
Also, not to judge a book by it’s cover, but would you have bought that book if it looked like this.
If the book had that other cover, I would have at least read the blurb on the back.
The publishers must know that people use cover art to inform their decision. …Maybe the largest audience for fantasy books right now is people who like romance novels.
Not to mention, the authors last name on the cover of the book…the middle two letters of that name look suspiciously buxom.
Are you kidding me? A romance with ghosts AND vampires? Ehhhxcellent!!
Speaking of ghosts, here’s a little ghost trivia: When Michael J. Fox was filming The Frighteners, he accidently kept calling The Judge ( a ghost ), Doc while filming. Ha! To be fair, The Judge does resemble Doc a little.
http://splicd.com/hSQEtsI5BfI/47/68
Romance? BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!
I hate reading the back cover. It gives away the story.
So obviously your next summer project must be to write the perfect fantasy story…while in Nebraska…about the exciting pace of life in Seward, for instance…isn’t there a massage parlor there somewhere? Based on my limited experience with that area of the Midwest, I’d say any story involving “the exciting pace of life” might be considered fantasy. Actually. Ahem. (“Yea, like Rosedale, MD, is such a hot bed of activity.”)