Friday Favourites: Your Favourite Genre To Read?

Friday Favourites - a chance to rave about a favourite reading/book related topic each week.

Sometimes you just want a chance to rave about some favourite aspect of reading that doesn't really come up during regular blogging posts - that's what this is about. I'm willing to bet that at least some of those will come up one week or another.

This week the question is what your favourite genre to read is. Fantasy? Historical Fiction? Romance? Science Fiction? Something else? It doesn't mean that that's all you read, but what do you know is almost guaranteed to be a read you'll enjoy?


My answer is:
Fantasy. I can't remember really when I wasn't reading fantasy books. Mostly because I can't remember when I hadn't read The Hobbit. I know I was maybe eleven when I wore out my first copy of The Fellowship of the Ring. I still remember when the pages fell out of the Council of Elrond chapter. For a long time though, I didn't venture beyond Tolkien when it came to fantasy.

Boy, oh boy has that ever changed. Now, probably half of my fiction books probably class as fantasy, and many of the books I'm looking forward to are fantasy novels by authors like Mercedes Lackey, Elizabeth Moon and Jo Graham.

I don't really know why I'm so attracted to fantasy novels though. They can be just as formulaic as any other genre, but they can also be downright original and creative in terms of world-building and societies. Maybe that's it, that they're not as constrained by real-world rules. And yet, they've got to be realistic as well.

My definition of fantasy has expanded in recent years too, to include Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romances as well as the traditional fantasy epic like The Deed of Paksenarrion. I just wish I could find more historical fantasy novels along the lines of The Mists of Avalon or Hand of Isis. My wish may have just come true however, as Jo Graham and Melissa Scott's latest collaboration is due out yesterday/today: Lost Things. I have to say the blurb for this one makes it look like a "must have" book for me.