Let’s talk: Romantasy

So lately I’ve been hearing some grumbling that the trend in “romantasy” books being super popular, especially the ones popularized on TikTok, is killing epic fantasy. Some readers of my blog will already know my opinion on this, but I want to talk a little bit about the accusation here. Why? Because I’ve been hearing that epic fantasy is “dying” for most of a decade now, and the responses to that claim always surprise me. They fall into one of three categories:

It’s dying because of external forces, let’s stop it!It’s dying because no one likes it anymore. Just deal with it!It’s not dying, here’s a bunch of counter examples!

I suspect the true answer to the fear that epic fantasy is dying is a combination of all three. Let’s take these one by one.

Save Epic Fantasy from the [Insert Most Relevant Foe Here]!

I’m being a little tongue in cheek with this header, but there’s a good reason. This is a common refrain, and it’s one I have leaned on in the past. See my own blog post about traditional publishing’s word count expectations. But to a large extent, I stand behind that post, not because I think epic fantasy can’t survive the word count restrictions of traditional publishers, but because I think it demonstrates something readers take for granted. Traditional publishing dominates the world of readers.

Now, I’m not saying that no readers anywhere look at self-published books or that self-publishing is not a way to make a living as a writer. Hundreds of indie authors everywhere would disagree. In fact, I would argue that for probably 90% of readers, they don’t actually care if the book they’re reading was traditionally published or not. They only care if the book holds their interest, has characters they care about, and is enjoyable to them. However, if you pick a random reader off the street and ask them to name the last ten books they read, the majority of the books they list will be traditionally published. And this is the problem.

Traditional publishing is going crazy for romantasy right now. This is probably because a lot of those books come with a built-in audience from TikTok and even the ones that don’t are tapping into the always reliable pool of romance readers from a new angle. Traditional publishing is a business, this is making a lot of money at the moment. But epic fantasy is coming off a surge of popularity from TV shows like Game of Thrones and other… less well-received adaptations. That makes the surge in romantasy start to feel like it’s the problem. This new genre is stealing the epic fantasy readers!

But the real problem is that the perceived health of epic fantasy is reliant on the whims of traditional publishing. There’s a lot of great self-published epic fantasy out there, and that’s not slowing down. Voice of War is one I like, Rob J. Hayes is quite popular, and SPFBO has dozens of other great books entered every year, many of them epic fantasy. It’s just harder to find the self-published works.

No One Likes That Anyway!

I just mentioned that epic fantasy is coming off a surge of popularity, and that does actually equate to fewer people wanting to read the genre. The days where everyone was talking about the newest Game of Thrones event are over, and House of the Dragon–which is a show I’m really enjoying–doesn’t have the same reach. I also like the Wheel of Time adaptation, but it has some flaws and it was never going to be as big as Game of Thrones. That time has passed. So yes, to some extent, interest in epic fantasy has waned. But it’s still at least as popular if not more popular now than it was in the 1990s, when a lot of fantasy readers had to defend even liking that stuff. And fantasy was not struggling in the 1990s. That’s what a lot of people think of as the golden age of epic fantasy.

Let’s face facts here. The people who were into Game of Thrones and are now reading romantasy weren’t watching Game of Thrones for the cutting political maneuvers or the shifting house alliances. They were excited by the sex, dragonfire, and murder. There’s nothing wrong with those fans… but they were never there for the epic fantasy. We didn’t lose any of our real audience. We lost the huge increase of “casual” epic fantasy lovers that we gained from a major epic fantasy series being adapted into a TV show with twice the plot pacing… and it still lost a lot of the events and characters from the book.

Despite the loss of these viewers, I still reject the argument I’ve heard from several writer’s groups: readers just don’t have the patience for books that long any more. Well, Sanderson’s fans disagree, as do plenty of other epic fantasy readers. We’re still out here.

It’s Not Dying At All!

So, to some extent, yeah… Self-published epic fantasy is still going strong (we’d love some more attention, though!), Brandon Sanderson is having no problems selling books, Naomi Novik writes some of the best fantasy of this generation and is having no issues, and other new epic fantasy is still coming out from other traditional publishers. But there is a shift, and to deny it entirely is unrealistic.

We did lose a lot of vocal fans when Game of Thrones ended, especially because so many people were angry at the ending, and romantasy has picked up a lot of readers very quickly. Also, epic fantasy authors have always had a harder time in the query trenches because so many publishing houses don’t want to take the risk on a new author writing a five to ten book saga where each book is 200k words or more. And as traditional publishing has gotten harder in general, it’s gotten harder on epic fantasy authors faster than most. If a publishing house is cutting back on expenses, accepting one fewer epic fantasy debut likely equals two to three contemporary fantasy debuts. I’ve also heard people describe what they want from a book, seen them be recommended to multiple epic fantasy series as having the things they’re asking for, and then watched them respond that they don’t want a long book series they have to read all the way through. They just want a broad, expansive world with large stakes, a slow-burn plotline, and well-rounded characters that have moral complexity and strong relationships that develop over time. So…you want an epic fantasy, but the ones that exist are too long? You might have a problem.

Still… Calm down, guys. Romantasy is just a genre trend. Epic fantasy readers are still out there, and if they aren’t reading what you’re releasing, maybe you just haven’t found the right market for your books. “Epic fantasy” is pretty broad, and someone who loves Wheel of Time won’t necessarily love A Song of Ice and Fire, and maybe neither will enjoy Stormlight. But those all have devoted fans. You just need to find yours.