Every once in a while the idea crosses my mind– what might it have been like to have been a writer in a different time and place? Writing plays in Elizabethan England, for example? But most of the time, I’m fairly anchored to the here and now, which is possibly the best time ever to be an SFF writer.
I’m the right age to remember how dire the SFF options were when I was young. For me, Sci-fi and Fantasy was a single rack of shelves in the back corner of the Waldenbooks.
Not too long ago, there was a twitter thread , talking about the fantasy genre and the tropes within it. But the whole thing addresses “fantasy novels” in the most painfully generic way. It’s not about actual fantasy novels. It’s more about the idea of how fantasy novels are, from people who know little more than the cliches, and outdated ones at that.
Thankfully, nowadays, so much of what that thread accused Fantasy Novels of aren’t true anymore. Today, just in “mainstream”, traditionally published stuff, we’ve got a ridiculous wealth of new Sci-fi and Fantasy, and there’s so much creativity and vibrancy and variation in the genre, it’s astounding. I’m thrilled to be writing in this genre right now.
And right now, exciting things are happening.