Fantasy

The convention is held at a different city each year. Modern cultures continue to wear fur and fur trim as dictated by fashion trends, and it is still considered by many as a luxury item. The first was held in 1975 and it has occurred every year since. The term fur is often used to refer to a fur coat, wrap, or shawl. Fans of fantasy get together yearly at the World Fantasy Convention. Fur has served as an important source of clothing for humans, especially in colder climates, since time immemorial, although its use today is controversial. Noteworthy in this regard are the science fantasy and dark fantasy subgenres, which the fantasy genre shares with science fiction and horror, respectively. Fur usually consists of two main layers:.

Fantasy subgenres are numerous and diverse, frequently overlapping with other forms of speculative fiction in almost every medium in which they're produced. Not all mammals have fur; animals without fur may be referred to as "naked", as in The Naked Ape and naked mole rat. Modern fantasy, including early modern fantasy, has also spawned many new subgenres with no clear counterpart in mythology or folklore, although inspiration from mythology and folklore remains a consistent theme. Fur comes from the coats of animals; the animal's coat may consist of short ground hair, long guard hair, and, in some cases, medium awn hair. Similarly, series of novels based on fantasy films and TV series have found their own niche. The term fur refers to the body hair of non-human mammals also known as the pelage (like the term plumage in birds). Game companies have published fantasy novels set in their own fictional game universes; the Forgotten Realms, and Dragonlance series are some of the more popular. This is usually the visible layer for most mammals and contains most of the pigmentation.

Role-playing games have in turn spawned much new art, literature, and even music in the genre. Guard hair — the top layer consisting of longer straight shafts of hair that stick out through the underfur. The 'pen & paper' role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons was the first and is arguably the most successful and influential, though the science fantasy role-playing game series Final Fantasy has been an icon of the computer role-playing game genre. Ground hair or underfur — the bottom layer consisting of wool hairs which tend to be shorter, flattened, curly and denser than the top layer. Fantasy role-playing games cross several different media. While fantasy art and fantasy films have been hugely successful, it is fantasy literature which has always been the most expansive and diverse.

Fantasy is a popular genre, having found a home for itself in almost every medium. Fantasy writing saw renewed popularity, often influenced by these seminal works and, like them, borrowing from myth, epic, and medieval romance. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith. Some of the most important contributors to the Sword and Sorcery genre include Fritz Leiber, Robert E.

Le Guin's Earthsea series. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia and Ursula K. S. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are milestones; other important works include C.

R. R. Within the High Fantasy genre, J. In the mid-1900's, two subgenres of fantasy became very popular and influential: high fantasy and sword and sorcery.

In the early to mid 20th century, much fantasy was published in the same magazines as science fiction (and often written by the same authors). The history of modern imaginary-world fantasy begins with William Morris, who pioneered the genre in the late 19th century with The Well at the World's End and other novels, and Lord Dunsany, who continued the tradition into the 20th. In this way, fantasy has been so intimate a part of the history of our species, one might say that it's part of what makes us human. From The Odyssey to Beowulf, from Arthurian Legend and medieval romance to the epic Divine Comedy, in every known culture the world over, fantastical adventures featuring brave heroes and heroines, deadly monsters, and secret arcane realms have stirred the mind and inspired the soul for as long as we've had the ability to tell of them.

Beginning perhaps with the Epic of Gilgamesh and the earliest written documents known to humankind, elements that would eventually come to define fantasy and its various subgenres have been a part of some of the grandest and most celebrated works in all of history. Though the genre in its modern sense is less than two centuries old, its antecedents have a long and distinguished history. Further blurring the definition, some suggest there is a distinction between the fantasy genre and "the fantastic", the latter being a fantasy-like element in other fiction. Some writers and critics prefer the term speculative fiction due to the frequent crossover from one genre to another.

All three genres feature elements of the fantastic, of making radical departures from reality or radical speculations about what reality might be like, or might have been like. As a genre, fantasy is both associated and contrasted with science fiction and horror fiction. But, again, definitions and opinions on the proper classification differ. A critical characteristic is that the world features some difference from Earth that is not a result of science or technology, but rather the result of magic or other anomalous phenomena.

Characteristics of fantasy fiction and its many overlapping sub-genres are the subjects of debate among some fans and writers. .
. In other cases, most frequently in works of modern fantasy in the high fantasy subgenre, the story might take place in a fantasy world that is wholly different from our own, complete with distinct laws of nature that permit magic.

In many cases, especially in older works of fantasy but in many modern works as well, this is explained by means of divine intervention, magic, or other supernatural forces. As with other forms of speculative fiction, actions and events in fantasy very often differ from those possible in consensus reality. In its broadest sense, fantasy covers works by many writers, artists, and musicians, from ancient myths and legends, to many recent works embraced by a wide audience today. The genre is generally distinguished from science fiction and horror by overall look, feel, and theme of the individual work, though there is a great deal of overlap between the three (collectively known as speculative fiction).

Fantasy is a genre of art, literature, film, television, and music that uses magic and other supernatural forms as a primary element of either plot, theme, setting, or all three.