Growing out of Tolkien, medieval fantasy is often a fantasy of nostalgia, in which the reader is invited to escape into an exciting or reassuring past. But nostalgia itself can be exclusionary, as those from minorities for whom life in the past would have allowed fewer rights cannot imagine existence there without constraints. Thus, the […]
Victoria “V.E.” Schwab has a busy week ahead of her—her eye-pokingly anticipated new book A Gathering of Shadows comes out tomorrow—but that didn’t stop her from answering our call for her list of recent fantasy books that have knocked her magical coat askew. Here’s what she offered up.