by Chris Pritchard

Created on: July 16, 2007

I love Fantasy fiction. The idea of myths and magic, creating cultures, people-ing these cultures and societies with characters true to the style and form catches my imagination as no other form of writing ever has. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the writings of Jules Verne and H G Wells who as classic writers were regarded a suitable fare for young school students in Scotland when I was young.

Since then I have discovered the genre has a wide variety of styles and content and addresses so many of our cultural issues. As a Primary School teacher I remember teaching young children the philosophy of points of view. This is such an important cultural and social skill and I realised that many Fantasy writers and movies were in fact addressing this issue within their texts. My job became much easier when I could show episodes of shows such as Dinotopia to my class for discussion.

My favourite author of fantasy is Marion Zimmer Bradley. I was introduced to her Darkover world by a friend who was horrified that I'd never read any of her books. From my first book I was enthralled. Ms Bradley had a remarkable talent for creating believable characters. Her characters were immersed in their cultures and reflected the wide variety of beliefs and mores of any group of humans in existence. The juxtaposition of the technologically superior culture of humans coming across Darkover for the first time in centuries and meeting with a medieval culture which used psi powers as their technology while living a basically feudal existence fired my imagination. I wrote my own Darkover stories long before I realised that Marion Zimmer Bradley fostered novice writers through her fanzines.

Later I realised that many other writers of fantasy fiction I enjoyed had all been fostered by Ms Bradley over a number of years. I enjoyed her short story anthologies in which she edited stories by some of these writers set in her worlds. Many of them had truly caught the feel and flavour of her cultures. Later when she began the Sword and Sorcery series I read all of them too and still follow writers like Mercedes Lackey and Elisabeth Waters who worked with Ms Bradley.

One of the ideas I have always held about what makes a person truly great in their field is their legacy to that field. The greatest teachers help train younger and more inexperienced teachers, the greatest musicians mentor novices setting their feet on the same pathway and Marion Zimmer Bradley is a shining example of such a person. Her home became a centre for many budding Fantasy writers to ply their craft in a supportive environment which gave them a solid core of other writers to work with and share ideas. When you read the lists of current fantasy writers who contributed to Marion's anthologies and shared her home it is like a Who's Who of the genre.

Vale, Marion Zimmer Bradley and thank you for your gift to the readers of not only your own writings but the writings of those who follow in your footsteps.

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