It’s more of an aesthetic and existential horror than the visceral thrills of mainstream horror.įor dark fantasy, think anything by H. Regardless of whether the story is epic in scale or intimate and personal, dark fantasy explores themes that are morbid in nature and intended for mature audiences. Related: Modern fantasy authors you shouldn’t overlook What Is… Dark Fantasy?ĭark fantasy is a bit of a broad, even vague, term that describes either high fantasy or low fantasy that’s blended with elements that are gloomy, murky, dreadful, or horrifying. Let’s take a look at the most common ones down below. Within high fantasy and low fantasy, there are dozens of other genres, subgenres, and niches waiting to be discovered. But that’s not true! Low fantasy can have lots of magic, as long as it’s in the real world. The confusion comes when readers-especially those new to fantasy-assume that “high” and “low” describe the amount of fantasy in a work (i.e. Middle-Earth or Narnia), whereas low fantasy describes a story where magical elements exist in the real world (e.g. Strictly speaking, high fantasy describes a narrative that mainly takes place in a fictional setting outside actual human history (e.g. As you can imagine, these terms are vague enough to cause all kinds of misunderstandings and confusion. “High fantasy” and “low fantasy” are the broadest terms to describe a work of fantasy fiction. Keep that in mind as you dive deeper into fantasy over the next few years. While definitions for fantasy genres and subgenres are generally well-defined, they will continue to shift. Here are some of the most common types of fantasy genres and subgenres that you need to know about if you want to understand the current fantasy book landscape. With dozens of fantasy subgenres, no one would blame you for feeling lost in the mix.
“Fantasy” encompasses thousands of different books, some which may not share much in common with others. Related: The best fantasy books for adultsīut in many ways, fantasy as a genre has grown TOO big. It wasn’t until the titanic rise of young adult fantasy series (like Harry Potter, Artemis Fowl, and Grisha) and the resurgence in adult fantasy series (like A Song of Ice and Fire, The First Law, and Mistborn) that fantasy as a genre took the world by storm. It’s actually been big for a while, but always floating just beneath the surface.