Why Paranormal Fiction Sucks and Fantasy Rules
PARANORMAL SUCKS
In a couple of weeks I'm participating on a panel speaking about Paranormal and YA Fiction. Some people think Paranormal fiction and Fantasy are the same thing, and I'll admit the two genres have been known to crossover at times. If you look Paranormal up though, you'll see books highlighting primarily vampires (hence my joke, Paranormal fiction sucks). But the genre also includes ghosts, supernatural creatures, werewolves and psychics. Most people think of the Twilight series when they think of paranormal. But another example would be the popular book, now turned into a movie, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. While some people say that vampire and werewolf stories are dead, they're very much alive in the romance section. Just do a search on amazon to discover how undead in today's world these creatures really are.
But don't mention Twilight to my sweet hubby. He's hoping to make it through life never having watched any of the Twilight movies. Then again, he's also hoping to never watch The Sound of Music, or The Princess Bride. I can let the first two slide, but The Princess Bride? Inconceivable! That's a classic movie I think everyone should watch.
FANTASY RULES
As for the best-selling books of all time, you may or may not be surprised to discover that it's fantasy books which appears several times on this list of 25 books:
#1. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes.
#2 Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities.
#3. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.
#4. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.
#5. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling.
#6 And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie.
#7. The Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin.
#8. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.
#9 She: A History of Adventure by H. Rider Haggard.
#10. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.
#11 The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.
#12 Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.
#13 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling.
#14 The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.
#15 The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.
#16 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling.
#17 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling..
#18 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling.
#19 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling.
#20 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling.
#21 On Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
#22 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.
#23 Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery.
#24 Charlotte's Web by E.B. White.
#25 Black Beauty by Anna Sewell.
Out of the twenty-five books, twelve clearly classify as fantasy. So it seems to me that in terms of the best-selling books of all time, fantasy rules! Are you surprised by this? I was a little surprised at first, but then as I thought about all of the millions of copies of these books sold representing all the people out there like me . . . who love fantasy . . . well, it warms my heart. And I'll be honest, it helps me stand a little taller when I tell people I write fantasy.