The Sword and Laser discussion

I've been reading a bunch of Japanese fantasy novels recently, and about half of them are about guys from modern Japan who get sucked into fantasy worlds. There are countless variations -- the fantasy world is exactly like a popular MMORPG, the hero gets stuck with a nerfed weapon, the hero uses his knowledge of political science and economics to make the world a better place, the hero can create a portal to a magical bathroom, the hero has no skills, so he opens a pizzeria.

These types of stories used to be common in Western fantasy, too -- Narnia, Oz, Wonderland, Barsoom, Gor -- but they largely disappeared in the '90s. Charlie Stross's Merchant Prince's series kinda fits, but it's technically science fiction about sliders who travel to an alternate history. I guess Harry Potter and The Magicians have some elements of this, but those are more about secret places that exist in our own world. What you don't see anymore are stories set in a completely different fantasy world, with epic battles and grand quests, but the main character is from LA.

I can think of three possible explanations for the shift:

1) The rise of dark and gritty fantasy has made these kinds of stories unappealing. It'd be fun to hang around the Shire; Westeros, not so much.

2) Smartphones have become so integral to our lives we can't imagine spending a year walking to Mordor without being able to tweet, or listen to podcasts, or watch the trailer for the next Star Wars movies.

3) Modern fantasy is more realistic than old stuff, and the idea that a schlub from our world could pick up a sword and not get killed is pretty ridiculous.

Any other ideas? And are there any Western fantasy novels that still do the stuck-in-another-world idea?

Everything is cyclical. So I'm sure this style of book could come back but, right now, its not that popular.

I'm sure there will be more popular suggestions in this subgenre but the first thing that came to mind was Crap Kingdom by D.C. Pierson. I have no idea if its any good but the author is a funny comedian.

I don't think its cyclical, I think portal fantasy is a dead genre in the west, so you'll probably only see it in kids' literature and deconstructions like The Magicians. Portal fantasy has been replaced by immersive fantasy the way planetary romance was replaced by space opera.

It probably hangs on in Japan because they love themselves some reader-insert wish fulfillment.

There are still tons of portal stories being written; it's just that few of them are bubbling up to the top of the charts because they're not in style. Eventually someone like JK Rowling will write one that takes a new twist on the sub-genre, and they will suddenly become in vogue again. Such is the publishing industry.

I think that is because Edgar Rice Burroughs did that in the John Carter books and it stayed the standard outline for 60 years. There are too many to list but it is an armful. Someone might breathe life into, but I myself hope it stays dead.

The Thomas Covenant series is an example of it that is pretty grim but well written so it can be done. I'm having trouble thinking of anything more recent though. Maybe some of Tom Holt's stuff.

Wouldn't the modern day "Urban Fantasy" be the successor/ evolution of this? It seems to hit a lot of the same beats, and occasionally uses the portal to fantasy lands themselves as a plot element, just usually not the only one.

Also isn't there a story I've heard of recently where the concept is the same as the DnD animated series from the 80's, but more realistic in that it takes the sucked in players forever to kill a goblin in the first part.

I suspect it's also partially because the current subgenre that's en vogue is Secret World/Secret History. The Magicians (and TV series), Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (and movie), whatever the new JK Rowling movie was called, and books like The Golem and the Jinni or Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, plus the numerous TV series about time travel.

Portal Fantasy is still popular, we've just evolved the story slightly beyond "Fantasy World" to "Fantasy Mechanism to Another Era." The Starz series "Outlander" based on the novel series (Outlander) is the most visible version currently, but there have been numerous similar books, such as The Time Traveler's Wife. Probably because they're mostly written by women, they're being ignored by guys. Because we're terrible like that.

The notable exception is Stephen King's 11/22/63. But that's just because he's who he is.

Publishers, agents and editors haven't been buying traditional Narnia-style Portal Fantasy because they believe there aren't high enough stakes for the real world. (Their words, not mine.)

Just gonna put in a couple of plugs. Catherynne M. Valente Fairyland series has people travel to Fairyland and starts with The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

Also Seanan McGuire with Every Heart a Doorway looks at what happens when kids comeback from other worlds and the second book in the series comes out this June.

So there is stuff still being put out in the west.

Trike wrote: "Probably because they're mostly written by women, they're being ignored by guys. Because we're terrible like that."

I hate to say it, but Trike is right. Many of these stories get the "chic book" seal of disapproval from men just because there's a romantic subplot.

If you haven't read it yet, Guy Gavriel Kay's The Fionavar Tapestry trilogy is a good "Portal Fantasy." Five law and medical students are transported to the land of Fionavar by a wizard and get caught up in the plots and machinations there.

Haven't found many people who've read the trilogy, so it's probably one of Kay's lesser known works. The trilogy starts with The Summer Tree.

It's been a while since I read it, but I remember there's a (view spoiler)[ rape scene involving one of the major characters (hide spoiler)] in one of the books. So trigger warning for that.

Also Timeline by Michael Crichton for a standalone.

The Mirror of Her Dreams, A Man Rides Through were two of my favourites growing up. Much better than the Thomas Covenant novels.

One of my favorite examples of portal fantasy is M.C. Planck's World Of Prime series. Its the usual situation of a man from current day being pulled into a somewhat medieval world, but he's a civil engineer who uses his expertise to try to upend the hegemony.

Sword of the Bright Lady
Gold Throne in Shadow
Judgment at Verdant Court

I also have the first in the Pendulum series, which I was told was pretty good, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

The Pilgrims
Shadow: A Novel
World's End

John (Nevets) wrote: "Wouldn't the modern day "Urban Fantasy" be the successor/ evolution of this? It seems to hit a lot of the same beats, and occasionally uses the portal to fantasy lands themselves as a plot element,..."

The big difference is in urban fantasies, the protagonist isn't stuck somewhere -- they can have a fantasy adventure and still sleep in their own bed every night and visit their parents for Thanksgiving. That's a rather different dramatic focus.

Trike wrote: "Portal Fantasy is still popular, we've just evolved the story slightly beyond "Fantasy World" to "Fantasy Mechanism to Another Era." The Starz series "Outlander" based on the novel series (Outlander) "

There are tons of books like that by guys, generally published as mil-SF and involving lots of detailed explanations for how you could totally teach people in the Bronze Age to make firearms and steam engines. But whether it's Eric Flint's 1632 series, or Outlander, the only fantastical element is the introduction of anachronisms to a historical period, whereas portal fantasies have wizards and dragons all the way through.

John (Nevets) wrote: "Also isn't there a story I've heard of recently where the concept is the same as the DnD animated series from the 80's, but more realistic in that it takes the sucked in players forever to kill a goblin in the first part. "

That would be a Japanese example, Grimgar: A Fantasy of Ash.

Stephen wrote: "I think that is because Edgar Rice Burroughs did that in the John Carter books and it stayed the standard outline for 60 years. There are too many to list but it is an armful. Someon..."

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz predates Carter by more than a decade, and the idea wasn't original to Baum, either. The idea of fairyland as a separate realm that mortals can stumble into goes back to the Middle Ages with stories like Sir Orfeo, Sir Lanval, and Child Rowland (which are much more likely to be the inspiration behind Narnia).

Sean wrote: "Trike wrote: "Portal Fantasy is still popular, we've just evolved the story slightly beyond "Fantasy World" to "Fantasy Mechanism to Another Era." The Starz series "Outlander" based on the novel series (Outlander) "

There are tons of books like that by guys, generally published as mil-SF and involving lots of detailed explanations for how you could totally teach people in the Bronze Age to make firearms and steam engines. But whether it's Eric Flint's 1632 series, or Outlander, the only fantastical element is the introduction of anachronisms to a historical period, whereas portal fantasies have wizards and dragons all the way through."

That's a good point.

MilSF also does quite a lot of Portal Fantasy, too. I don't know why that slipped my mind. I have read all of the Destroyermen books, after all, and despite the sci-fi handwaving of multiple universes and the technical descriptions of ships, planes and guns, it is decidedly Portal Fantasy. Cross out "dragon" and write in "dinosaur" and it's a one-for-one match.

Plus, one of the hit TV series from last year, Stranger Things, utilizes Portal Fantasy at its core. What is The Upside Down if not a Buffyverse-style Hell Dimension?

I also thought of two more current popular Portal Fantasies: Catherynne Valente's Fairyland series (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making), which is definitely akin to Baum's Oz, and the Stromwrack series by A.M. Dellamonico (Child of a Hidden Sea) which is a lot like Outlander, except she's a marine biologist instead of an army nurse and she goes to a world of pirates and buccaneers instead of ancient Scotland.

I was going to chime in with the Stormwrack books as well.

A few other recent portal fantasies:

An Accident of Stars by Foz Meadows
Sword of the Bright Lady by M.C. Planck
Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor

I think one of the reasons the classic portal fantasy has fallen a bit out of favor is an awareness of the White Savior trope. Granted, in almost every portal fantasy everyone matches the ethnicity of the main character anyway (ie., white), but the issue remains. The poor dumb locals aren't good enough to solve their problems; they need someone from a superior culture to sort it out for them.

In most of the modern versions of the story you can see an awareness of this.

Sean wrote: "1) The rise of dark and gritty fantasy has made these kinds of stories unappealing. It'd be fun to hang around the Shire; Westeros, not so much. ."

Heroes Die sort of refutes this.

Sean wrote: "The big difference is in urban fantasies, the protagonist isn't stuck somewhere -- they can have a fantasy adventure and still sleep in their own bed every night and visit their parents for Thanksgiving. That's a rather different dramatic focus.."

Think about the cultural context when a lot of classic portal fantasy was written: Fathers or other close relatives were sent off to war or overseas/halfway across the country on business, and you wouldn't hear from them for weeks or months at a time. The Pevensie children in the Narnia books are among the many English children sent to the country without their parents during the Blitz, staying with an enigmatic relative they barely know. Other people were completely uprooting their lives to immigrate to a different country or completely different part of their own country. Portal fantasy stories were part of that zeitgeist of alienation, uprootedness, losing contact with the familiar, and having to learn how things work in a strange place.

All these things obviously still happen to people, but we're more connected these days--even outside of the industrialized West. If a family member is working or living on the other side of the world, you can probably still text or Skype them every couple of days. If something happens in their neck of the woods, you'll learn about it in minutes, not days or weeks. You could probably hop on a plane and get to them in a day or two max if you had to. So the idea that you can visit Faerie or the Deadlands and still come back and have a good night's sleep in your Brooklyn apartment? That's just a reflection of our times.

I really like Narnia style stories and always check the backs of wardrobes, just in case there might be a stray lion, faun or the like...you never know...

In the The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman Will from our world finds a magic knife that lets him travel between worlds.

Greg wrote: "...Also Seanan McGuire with Every Heart a Doorway looks at what happens when kids comeback from other worlds and the second book in the series comes out this June. ..."

Thanks for mentioning that - it sounds great!

Joe Informatico wrote: "Sean wrote: "The big difference is in urban fantasies, the protagonist isn't stuck somewhere -- they can have a fantasy adventure and still sleep in their own bed every night and visit their parent..."

I don't know that I buy the sociological explanation. For a long time I was not interested in it, because I wanted pure fantasy. Putting Earth in there always weakened it, for me, where it did not ruin it. It's why I never read The Fionavar Tapestry even at a period when I was re-reading Kay's straight up epic fantasies like A Song for Arbonne wishing he'd put out books faster. But I read portal fiction still, just because it was so prevalent that one could not help it. That's not true anymore.

"All these things obviously still happen to people, but we're more connected these days--even outside of the industrialized West."

Come to Asia, then talk to me again about how industrialized the West is. I look up LA or New York on aqicn.org and they seem like pastoral wonderlands to me.

Trike wrote: "I suspect it's also ...
Publishers, agents and editors haven't been buying traditional Narnia-style Portal Fantasy because they believe there aren't high enough stakes for the real world. (Their words, not mine.) "

Trike's comment made me curious and I found this discussion referencing a 2012 panel discussion where agents were discussing why no one was publishing YA portal fantasies. Although they mentioned the idea that portal fantasies "have no stakes because they're not connected enough to our world", I didn't see much evidence for YA readers feeling that way; it seemed to have more to do with the large volume of poorly written submissions leaving editors unenthusiastic about the sub-genre.

http://rachelmanija.livejournal.com/1...

I would count the books that deal with Virtual Reality in the Portal Fantasy category. The best example is probably the Otherland series by Tad Williams but there are many others. Ready Player One for example.

One of my favorite miniseries that was back on Hulu or Netflix last time I was sick is Lost in Austen. Fun stuff!

AndrewP wrote: "I would count the books that deal with Virtual Reality in the Portal Fantasy category. The best example is probably the Otherland series by Tad Williams but there are many others. Ready Player One ..."

Unless they're literally stuck in the machine, like in Tron, I don't think I'd count it. Otherwise it's pretty much just watching TV or playing a video game.

(Although there have been numerous movies about that sort of thing, besides the two Tron movies. Pleasantville, Stay Tuned, Last Action Hero, etc. Purple Rose of Cairo and Enchanted are sort of the opposite, where fictional characters come into our world from movies. Reverse Portal?)

I'm going with the idea that instead of escaping to an adventure world, people are now writing much more of a blending where the otherworld is actually a part of our own, and always has been - if you know how/where to look. Urban fantasy has pretty much taken over the ideas of mixing modern us with magic them.

There are still some people writing portal fantasies though -

A.M. Dellamonica's Child of a Hidden Sea series is a modern portal fantasy.

Also Emma Newman's Split Worlds series that starts with Between Two Thorns.

And V.E. Schwab's A Darker Shade of Magic trilogy is also a portal fantasy, I'd say, though it comes at the idea from a different direction.

There's an interesting twist on portal fantasy in Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis. The main character is a teenager in our world who, whenever he blinks, sees everything from the point of view of a female teenager in a fantasy world, until she blinks. Doctors think he's got an extreme version of epilepsy, but obviously there's more going on.

Sean wrote: "2) Smartphones have become so integral to our lives we can't imagine spending a year walking to Mordor without being able to tweet, or listen to podcasts, or watch the trailer for the next Star Wars movies."

This cracked me up!

Writers are heavily influenced by those they have read, and the more of something there is the more of that something that will get written until eventually you reach a critical mass and people get sick of it and move on to something else, or until something else pops up that starts being more popular and starts eating that groups enjoyment time.

Also webfiction/fanfiction is a leading edge of fiction and will predict future movement, a casual walk around a YA section of a bookstore should make this very VERY clear. So while in Japan their webfiction has been on a portal fantasy kick in a big way it's only really started seeping into anime and actually getting published pretty recently...yes you had a few exceptions but even those exceptions don't fit the mold as clearly.

Now if you check our amazon kindle area a good number of the lit-rpg style ones which are heavily influenced by the russian writing (which was in turn influenced by the Koreans), with a solid smattering of Japanese/Korean influence on top are getting more prevalent. If you check some of the better doing webfiction right now portal fantasy is starting to take off, and superpowers fiction has damn well been here for a while. So I guess the point is if you are browsing translated web-fiction be aware it is web-fiction. If you wonder why they are all starting to get published IDK probably something to do with that Japanese companies have found they can monetize off these authors big time while it hasn't really caught on over here. I can tell you if Wildbow was Japanese, Worm would of already had a very successful anime and be officially published by now, and so would probably Pact and Twig.

Darren wrote: "Sean wrote: "1) The rise of dark and gritty fantasy has made these kinds of stories unappealing. It'd be fun to hang around the Shire; Westeros, not so much. ."

Heroes Die sort of re..."

Shoutouts to Heroes Die, still an amazing book.

If you're still looking for new portal fantasies, T. Kingfisher recently published Summer in Orcus, both in serialized form on her website and collected as an ebook. It's quite good, Baba Yaga's in it, as well as some rather brave birds, a snarky weasel and a very large and surprisingly hospitable wolf.

Haven't seen it mentioned, but what about the Magic 2.0 series (starting with Off to Be the Wizard)?

What about Storm Front, and the rest of the books. Not exactly portal series, but more of a merging of worlds. This thread has made me a bit nostalgic and I might just read finally read The Summer Tree

It may have fallen off trend for books, but I think has surged as an anime trope lately. Some recent ones are Sword Art Online, Gate, Overlord, Re:Zero, Accel World. and in a twist - Re:Creation where anime characters come into the real world and in some cases confront their creators.

Off topic, but...

Why do so many anime start with "Re:"? Is this just a word the Japanese suddenly discovered and are using willy-nilly?

I've always appreciated the Japanese propensity to string together random English words and pretend it's a meaningful title (Neon Genesis Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop), but this one mystifies me.

Jennifer wrote: "What about Storm Front, and the rest of the books. Not exactly portal series, but more of a merging of worlds..."

What about it? It's not portal fiction at all.

Brandon Mull wrote a great portal series with The Beyonders. Sure, it's middle grade, but great writing is great writing.

Darren wrote: "Jennifer wrote: "What about Storm Front, and the rest of the books. Not exactly portal series, but more of a merging of worlds..."

What about it? It's not portal fiction at all."

Some of the other books previously mentioned were not strictly "portal" fiction....jeez just participating. And Harry does go through portals into the Fairy Realm....

Trike wrote: "Off topic, but...

Why do so many anime start with "Re:"? Is this just a word the Japanese suddenly discovered and are using willy-nilly?"

In the case of Re:Zero, it makes sense if you look at the full title -- Re: Starting Life in a New World from Zero (Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu in Japanese, which is why it gets shortened the way it does). The title is supposed to be like a memo about getting reborn in a fantasy world.

Re:Creators, though, I think they're just doing it to look cool. I can't think of any other examples, though.

The real question is why do the Japanese use "Zero" so much. Re:Zero, The Familiar of Zero, Fate/Zero, Aldnoah Zero, Gundam 00, Zeroth Maria and the Empty Box.

Not a physical book, but the audio drama podcast The Once and Future Nerd is exactly this premise with a modern take. I really enjoy it and would recommend giving it a listen. They've just started releasing the episodes for Book 2 recently.

The author died so you won't see the series wrapped up, but I really enjoyed The Guardians of the Flames series by Joel Rosenberg. Bunch of role playing college students get to the world the games were set in, which seems to fit the bill.

https://www.goodreads.com/series/42300

Jennifer wrote: "Some of the other books previously mentioned were not strictly "portal" fiction....jeez just participating. And Harry does go through portals into the Fairy Realm...."

This is true. Not in Storm Front, but he does. Semantically portal fiction, then.

Michael wrote: "The author died so you won't see the series wrapped up, but I really enjoyed The Guardians of the Flames series by Joel Rosenberg. Bunch of role playing college students get to the world the games ..."

Oh wow, I haven't thought of those books in forever. I think I only had access to the first three when I was younger and I never knew there were anymore. I'm afraid to pick them up again because I'm sure they've been hit with the suck/sexism fairy.

Down Among the Sticks and Bones is being advertised as a portal fantasy.. Im excited to read it.

Lauren wrote: "Down Among the Sticks and Bones is being advertised as a portal fantasy.. Im excited to read it."

Yes, it's a prequel to Every Heart a Doorway which is about how kids who've been part of a portal fantasy cope with a return to reality.

I only haven't mentioned it before because I believe Sean has already read it, but Imajica. Weaveworld as well; it's essentially a portal fantasy in reverse.

We should call these Latrop Fantasies.

Lauren wrote: "Down Among the Sticks and Bones is being advertised as a portal fantasy.. Im excited to read it."

Greg mentioned Every Heart a Doorway in this thread, so I went and read it. It was excellent, but way too short, like those little samples of chocolate they sometimes give away in shops. So now I'm hooked and desperate to read anything else in this series, I'd love a sequel - but this prequel looks great.

Trike wrote: "We should call these Latrop Fantasies."

I apologise for my ignorance, but I'm guessing that's not a reference to the river in North Rhine-Westphalia?

(Clearly Google is not my friend today)

It's just portal spelled backwards :)

In A Reader's Guide to Fantasy by Baird Searles he divides fantasies into 6 general types and calls what we're talking about as "There and back again" stories. Some of the examples he lists are:
The Amber series
The Thomas Covenant series
The Narnia series
Glory Road
The Green Star series
The Harold Shea stories
Inferno
The Oz series
The other categories he lists are "Beyond the fields we know" (made up worlds), "Unicorns in the garden" (magic in our world), "That old black magic" (horror in our world), "Bambi's Children" (talking/thinking animals), and "Once and future kings, queens and heroes" (legends and myths retold by modern authors).

Arcadia by Iain Pears has a different take on portal fantasy than others I've read. I'm still reading it, but (view spoiler)[the fantasyland is generated and influenced by external characters who subsequently get trapped in it (hide spoiler)].