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Science Fiction / Fantasy. Just the title of the genre alone is enough to begin to conjure up visions of alien worlds, or castles guarded by dragons deep in a forest. The increasing popularity of this genre, though it still lags behind things like romance, is owed, in my opinion, to the modern media of television and movies, as well the technological leaps we have made in the last few decades. Before the modern media gave people a renewed interest in these types of books, they were written and read by a special breed of people.

What author in his or her right mind would want to undertake the staggering task of envisioning an entire world? Even today, most of the stories that are written have familiar elements dominating them. Romances are usually set in accurate historical periods, or modern day life. Most of todays fiction follows the same lines. Commonplace, everyday items are easily identified by the reader with a minimum description by the author, leaving them free to develop their characters, or advance the storyline without exhaustive attention to background details. We fill those in ourselves, from our everyday experiences. Not so the SciFi/Fantasy writer. He or she must create the world in which his or her characters are going to live. They have to give us the minute details that the fiction author can take for granted. If a SciFi world their technology must be invented in the imagination, and then transcribed into terms which we can understand. It must be consistent, and if not obey the natural laws we are used to, then to make some effort to explain how they are being bypassed. The fantasy world is no easier. Is it going to contain magic? What rules will it play by? Will all, or few have it? Will there be dragons? Where will they live? What will they eat? Who will people this fantasy world? The list of questions for both types of world goes on and on.

Nor is it just the writer who must put in th extra work, the reader must as well. Most of the modern fiction books I have read top out around 200 to 250 pages of standard print. My averages fantasy book runs 500 to over 1000 pages. There are new words to learn in new languages. Usually they are explained somewhere in the book, then used freely for the rest of the manuscript. I have to decipher what the author means in each context. Of course, since this is my preferred genre, this is no effort anymore, but when I was younger, I tended to avoid this genre because it could get so confusing.

What, you may

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