In the realm of folklore, a special, oftentimes sinister, significance is attributed to the in-be... more In the realm of folklore, a special, oftentimes sinister, significance is attributed to the in-between places, the earthen boundary between forest and ploughland, for example, or the in-between times like dawn and twilight, which mark the slow-stepping progressions of day and night towards one another. At the same time, these places and times of shape-shifting uncertainty are suggestive of mystery and hopeful possibility. In many ways such boundaries stand as a metaphor for the dangers and ambiguities that mark the frontiers of human experience in all its enigmatic fragility, things like birth and death, sickness and health, loss and gain, wayfaring and homecoming, and so on. Similarly, in an uncanny echo of this vital aspect of our humanness, fantasy as a literary genre occupies the uncertain, frontier area between what's "true to life" and soaring flights of the imagination that beckon the reader towards the unfamiliar and the strange. For those of us who practise the craft of words, fantasy can pose some serious artistic challenges, precisely because it occupies such perilously unsure ground. Writing speculative fiction can be a tough row to hoe, one that requires the exercise of high standards of good judgment, as we try to negotiate our way through the pitfalls and dangers of the ground that lies between a sturdy realism and the figments conjured by our imagination. Like all writers from time immemorial, what we're aiming to induce in the reader is a willing suspension of disbelief, a term coined by the 19 th century English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
In the realm of folklore, a special, oftentimes sinister, significance is attributed to the in-be... more In the realm of folklore, a special, oftentimes sinister, significance is attributed to the in-between places, the earthen boundary between forest and ploughland, for example, or the in-between times like dawn and twilight, which mark the slow-stepping progressions of day and night towards one another. At the same time, these places and times of shape-shifting uncertainty are suggestive of mystery and hopeful possibility. In many ways such boundaries stand as a metaphor for the dangers and ambiguities that mark the frontiers of human experience in all its enigmatic fragility, things like birth and death, sickness and health, loss and gain, wayfaring and homecoming, and so on. Similarly, in an uncanny echo of this vital aspect of our humanness, fantasy as a literary genre occupies the uncertain, frontier area between what's "true to life" and soaring flights of the imagination that beckon the reader towards the unfamiliar and the strange. For those of us who practise the craft of words, fantasy can pose some serious artistic challenges, precisely because it occupies such perilously unsure ground. Writing speculative fiction can be a tough row to hoe, one that requires the exercise of high standards of good judgment, as we try to negotiate our way through the pitfalls and dangers of the ground that lies between a sturdy realism and the figments conjured by our imagination. Like all writers from time immemorial, what we're aiming to induce in the reader is a willing suspension of disbelief, a term coined by the 19 th century English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
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