Classifying The King Raven Trilogy by Stephen Lawhead
Originally published at Grasping for the Wind. Please leave any comments there.
TOMORROW: An Interview with Stephen Lawhead
Historical fantasy might be called the red-headed stepchild of two genres of writing. The first, historical fiction can be straightforwardly defined as a story set in a historical context, using all the strictures imposed by reality, but that has a narrative that cannot be factually substantiated. In essence, historical fiction is fiction within a known historical context. The second parent of historical fantasy is fantasy itself. Fantasy has been broadly defined, but can really be boiled down to the use of magic in fiction. That magic may take many different forms, but ultimately, fantasy has some element in it that goes beyond the borders of science into the spiritual or unknown realms. This is what we call magic or miracle, and is what makes a fantasy different from all other genres.
Historical fantasy is a mixture of these two genres. From the historical fiction side, it takes a historicity and factuality that is provable through historic writings. From fantasy, it takes the elements of magic and miracle to put a spin on the historical context.
The Arguments For:
Stephen Lawhead