In all seriousness, the second and third books are better than the first. The second series is ok, not as good as the first. I haven't read the third series. But yes, it does have an element of travelogue in all the books. The main characters do seem to spend a lot of time getting from A to B.
It was the all the walkabout that killed it for me. Most people kvetch about the infamous scene at the beginning, and yeah, that's not exactly a bright moment in my life, but have you read John Varley? He goes to much wilder places, narratively speaking. Or how about Clive Barker? I just couldn't stick with the boring trek. I got as far as Thomas getting the magic stick from the tree dorks and I was done. ETA: No, wrong. I got to the part where he visits those beings that seem like Orc analogues in their citadel and he's sorta' a captive guest.
If you're looking to read more good portal fantasy to get a better feel for it, I can recommend the Five Kingdoms series by Brandon Mull. They're YA and light and fluffy and fun. http://brandonmull.com/category/five-kingdoms/ He also has a series called Beyonders that's portal fantasy and fun. http://brandonmull.com/category/beyonders/
Appreciate it, but... I started this thread five (5) years ago. In all honesty, I don't have the slightest recollection at this point of the story that was the impetus for me posting this.
No need to apologize at all. I may not be working this problem anymore, but that doesn't mean the discussion isn't valid to others in their writing. I just don't want to come off as dismissive if I don't take suggestions. I'm in a different place these days.
In fairness, the rape scene does come back to haunt him multiple times. The girl goes mad and spends the next 50 years waiting for him to come back. It tears her family apart, and Covenant spends half the third book trying, and failing to make it up to her. In the second book, he also fails to save his daughter born from that rape. I think for wild, far out, exotic places, you can't beat Jack Vance. How about a land of talking mountains that shit out precious stones?
This kinda reminds me of The Neverending Story. Have you read it? It takes a turn sorta like this in the second half and starts getting surprisingly psychological. It's also one of the best books I've ever read. Like, in general.
I R dissapoint, i thought you were going to include portal fantasy in your magic stones Australian megafauna story
There is just so much of it, some done well and some done poorly that I'm getting pretty bored with it and am avoiding anything at the moment with portal travelling in it. Its not that I don't like the concept, just get tired reading the same thing.
Whoa-wee. Reading this thread kind of gave me a bit of a headache. If the definition of a portal fantasy is anything in which you leave the current defined world and move out of site / parallel / through a wormhole to some other place that isn't modern day earth then wouldn't that classify just about every fiction novel out there as such? Sure you will find stuff set in an entirely fictional universe written from the point of view of someone who was born and raised there but that, i believe, would be a minority. Say in the case of science fiction, the main character would always be born on a singular world and moving away from that would would (in a way) be a portal to some place completely foreign and alien. Likewise moving from a high class society to a middle class or lower class area would give you an entirely different picture of life then you had before. In a way this would be completely out of sight from the previous setting and thus would require a (writing) portal to get there. I would say i agree with the posts above that say its the execution that is the problem and not the genre. I have read and listened to many books that use portal mechanics to move the character from the mundane to the extraordinary and usually i have found them engaging and entertaining. There has been a number of books that left a bad taste in my mouth as they were written poorly but then again I have found this to be true of many different books from many different genre's and areas. If the writing feels sloppy, the idea poorly conveyed or out-right lazy then of course its going to be a bad novel but that doesn't mean that the portal was the reason why. Personally I enjoy the LitRPG style writing but its just a method and way of writing a story. In the end the story is what engages the reader and if stats and D&D style information draws them in then that what they enjoy. Some readers like the LitRpg style writing as it gives them a sort of progression chart for following the main characters development.
My turnoff with portal fantasy is how the writer will try to make it feel like the portal could exist in the real world by causing the main characters to return unchanged, or for events that should have exposed or passed through the portal to cancel out or hide the portal. The boy goes back to the closet with his girlfriend, but the secret world went away. A metaphor for growing up. Sigh. I get it, I just don't like it. I'd like some main character's hand to get cut off, and they have to come back through the portal for medical help, which exposes the portal to the police. A demon comes through. The magicians on the other side will only work with the handless kid so the cops have to go get them. Here is an awesome reverse portal fantasy lol:
So if you look up what is called Green World you will find a subgenre of fantasy that has been written for years. What you call "portal fantasy" could be categorized here. Greenworld novels are still extremely sought after. The issue here might just be vocabulary. When looking in the right circles you might find a full reader base. I studied Greenworld novels in uni and almost read and write it exclusively. I can say, the majority is ya but there are some adult markets for it. It was first talked about when reviewing Shakespeare by Frye and has since been used in many journals to describe novels that chart the growth of a character within a space that mirrors the real world in a metaphorical way. There does not have to be a portal. A green world can be a trip into a forest, an adventure on the sea, a mission in space. The term has been applied to classic novels such as The Chronicles of Narnia, and Peter Pan. I love them!
not according to Farah Mendlesohn, who came up with the term "portal fantasy". a portal fantasy, as she defined it, means a narrative in which a character from our world enters another world and learns about him/herself there, faces moral challenges, then returns home. it does not mean a fantasy about a portal between our world and another. more precisely, she talked about portal/quest fantasy, in which, again, the protagonist leaves home (whether in our world or another), faces moral challenges, then returns home. an intrusion fantasy, as defined by her, means a story in which a fantasy element intrudes upon our world. the Hellraiser films, therefore, count as intrusion fantasies, or arguably as immersive fantasies (another term of Mendlesohn's). immersive fantasies set up a different set up rules and expectations to the default "real world", though they may take place here. the Cenobites obey certain rules and behave in a relatively predictable fashion, so the latter films may count. the first movie counts as intrusion fantasy, though, since both audience (unless they know the series well) and characters remain pretty clueless as to anything.
Sounds like portal fantasy is just a version of ecstatic journeying that humans have been doing for thousands of years. That stuff never gets old.
I'd like to point out that since this thread was posted, Seanan McGuire won the Hugo (and Nebula) for best novella for portal fantasy story Every Heart a Doorway. Just goes to show that sometimes the common wisdom is full of s**t ^^ (Also : read it ! It's really good !)
Does it count as a portal fantasy if the character doesn't return home? The story I've been working on is exactly this - actual portal included - but I have no intention of ever having my heroine go back. Yeah, that's a bit of a pet peeve of mine as well. This is why the ending to Labyrinth kicks ass. Screw metaphors, and screw saying goodbye to your magical muppet friends.
Well if it's a fantasy with portals then I'd call it portal fantasy. I don't see why they'd have to necessarily return home for it to be called portal fantasy.
I have two LitRPG releases upcoming (one in Oct. and one in Nov.) that could include in the portal fantasy sub-category for fantasy. They're the 5th and 6th releases in a series. So, I and my publisher believe that there is, and remains, an audience out there for something that has a portal element. One might find some comments on the internet suggesting the lack of interest in another portal fantasy, but that does not mean there isn't a market with interested readers. I am not sure there is an avid readership that specifically seeks portal fantasy. But if it is incorporated into the storyline smoothly and 'realistically' such that the reader doesn't set their suspension of disbelief, it should work. What makes any book good, portal fantasy or not? Engaging plotline and characters. Portal fantasy has been around for a long time. One of the earliest examples I recall reading is Three Hearts and Three Lions, by Poul Anderson.
I think that portal fantasy works best when it's used as a way of contrasting regular people in the modern world with people in a more "fantastic" setting. (It recently occurred to me that from this perspective, "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" come about as close to portal fantasies as you can get without actually being portal fantasies.)