ICON
George RR Martin
by T.L. Taylor
Those that Inspire
One of the greatest success stories of the fantasy genre in the last decade is George RR Martin. His story Game of thrones translates so beautifully into television it was as though the story reached its own destiny. This essay by the great man summarises beautifully the splendour of fantasy. Your characters can be so much more then the drudge of real-life. Heroes and heroines strive for perfection through paranormal skills unavailable to the rest of us. Yet the complexities of real life can be intricately twisted and bound into the subplots in the safety of the impossible. I love this Genre and when I read George RR Martins words I am inspired to continue to write. Falling deeper into the role of the ever-present omniscient bard I wish to become.
An ode to an Icon.
On Fantasy
“‘The best fantasy is written in the language of dreams. It is alive as dreams are alive, more real than real … for a moment at least … that long magic moment before we wake.”
Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab. Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end. Reality is the strip malls of Burbank, the smokestacks of Cleveland, a parking garage in Newark. Fantasy is the towers of Minas Tirith, the ancient stones of Gormenghast, the halls of Camelot. Fantasy flies on the wings of Icarus, reality on Southwest Airlines. Why do our dreams become so much smaller when they finally come true?
We read fantasy to find the colours again, I think. To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang. There is something old and true in fantasy that speaks to something deep within us, to the child who dreamt that one day he would hunt the forests of the night, and feast beneath the hollow hills, and find a love to last forever somewhere south of Oz and north of Shangri-La.
They can keep their heaven. When I die, I’d sooner go to middle Earth.’
**George RR Martin; originally published in The Faces of Fantasy: Photographs by Pati Perret copyright © 1996 by Pati Perret
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