Mighty-thewed heroes and their thief/wizard/priest companion(s) fighting monsters, quaffing ale and smiting evil at the edge of a broadsword. These are some of the popular images that come to mind when one hears the fateful words: "Heroic Fantasy."
But is that really what the genre is all about?
Other fine writers here on Wattpad have explored the wider fantasy genre's history and background, and I won't rehash their work here.
But the progenitor of the modern "heroic fantasy" sub-genre is generally held to be Irish Fantasy writer Edward Plunkett, Lord Dunsany (1878-1957). Lord Dunsany's highly-recommended work, in general, has influenced such authors as J. R. R. Tolkien, H. P. Lovecraft, Ursula K. Le Guin, and many others, including myself.
His third book, the collection of short stories entitled, The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories (1908) -- and even more particularly, the story from that collection, The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth -- are often cited as "The Example" from which all other Heroic Fantasy descends.
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Later writers such as Robert E. Howard (particularly 1929's "The Shadow Kingdom"), William Morris, E.R. Eddison, Evangeline Walton, T.H. White, and C. S. Lewis added to the work of the early writers, and writers/editors Lin Carter and L. Sprague De Camp helped codify the genre.
In the 1970s and 80s, the market proved profitable enough to produce longer fantasy works such as The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks and The Chronicles of Thomas Covenantthe Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson.
Late 20th- and early 21st- century writers like George R.R. Martin, Robert Jordan, Andrzej Sapkowski, and Robin Hobb have since built on those foundations to produce the complex, morally ambiguous works currently found predominating the genre, while independently published authors, such as those found right here on Wattpad, continue to explore the boundaries of the form.
The Heroic Fantasy setting is typically a "secondary world," a fictional place-time that resembles our own Earth in its general characteristics, but with its own well-developed history, a strong element of the supernatural and the paranormal, a well-codified system of magic, and fantastic beasts.
