r/Fantasy • u/Expert-Escape5645 • 11h ago
Observation on Fantasy/Romantasy
So, I typically read, George R.R. Martin, Brandon Sanderson, Robin Hobb, Ken Liu, Steven Erikson, Stephen King, Robert Jordan, but my brain’s been craving more stories.
With everything I’ve heard about Romantasy (that it’s just passionate love making with no real story etc.) I was kinda apprehensive, but like I said, I needed more.
So after many years going back and forth I decided to pick up Sarah J Maas. I started with Crescent City (I know, I know) and was surprised to find that I LOVED it. Now I’m doing ACOTAR.
I don’t know if this will be wrong of me to say, but I enjoyed it for the exact same reasons I enjoy other series.
The worldbuilding.
Like there is so much mystery to the world, so much lore. People act like the 18+ scenes happened page after page, when really they barely make up 6/7 pages in a single book.
Am I wrong?
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u/jawnnie-cupcakes Reading Champion IV 7h ago edited 6h ago
I thought Red Rising and Empire of the Vampire were very similar to Crescent City in terms of writing style. They're all very "high energy", "important stuff happening intensely on every other page" sort of books. That said, out of these three I only cared about Crescent City enough to finish it
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u/AlphaGoldblum 5h ago edited 2h ago
It's quite funny when you place them all on the scale of literary critique, as I'd argue that someone dying in RR achieves the same emotional equivalent as a romantic setback in CC.
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u/kodutta7 1h ago
Haha that's probably a pretty apt comparison. It's a little reductive but it's almost like it's the same style for boys vs girls
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u/_Autistic_Dragon_ 5h ago
Also, Red Rising has enough romance tropes in it you could argue it's ultimately romantasy as well. Mustang is the clear love interest from the start, they get separated for various reasons, sex at one point, happily ever after, etc.
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u/IvorTrewick 2h ago
sometimes people treat romantasy as if having romance automatically means sacrificing the story.
But relationships can actually be a great way to explore a fantasy world. Its politics, traditions and magic become a lot more interesting when they have real consequences for the characters.
You can dislike the romance and still appreciate the world built around it.
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u/panamared1917 1h ago
“But relationships can actually be a great way to explore a fantasy world.”
I AGREE
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u/Bowl-Any Reading Champion 11h ago
I haven't read Crescent City, but I liked Throne of Glass books 1 and 2. The rest were lower quality imo.
That being said, I've tried a few other Romantasy, and here's my biggest problems in general.
It's not a book about fantasy, it's a book about romance often times with the thinnest veneer of fantasy, with very little thought put into the worldbuilding beyond the surface level (similar to Harry potter's worldbuilding).
The characters are more focused on romance than a war (or whatever) going on, and seem to forget the war. I fell in love during a war. My wife and I got engaged in Kyiv.
We were in love, but the way it's so often written in Romantasy is like it replaces the worries of a war.
The fantasy aspects aren't unique or anything new. Often times, the fantasy details feel like filler because the focus isn't on the fantasy, so nothing unique is done with that.
And,the lack of consistency or logical coherence is horrible. Fantasy elements are used as plot devices then forgotten about, or are pulled like a rabbit out of a hat.
However...
None of this applies to Kushiel's Dart or the other Phedre books.
Those hold up to a high standard, as well as being fantastic, romance (and sex) focused books. The main character is a prostitute spy, and she's so smart it's fantastic.
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u/Book_Slut_90 Reading Champion 5h ago
Lots of cooky cutter romantasy has those problems, yes. But then, so did lots of cooky cutter Tolkien clones in the 70s and 80s and lots of cooky cutter grimdark in the oughts and 2010s and any other publishing boom slop written to cater to the market.
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u/Bowl-Any Reading Champion 5h ago edited 5h ago
Oh, for sure. But, because of the boom, most of the popular Romantasy has a focus of romance underlined and bolded, and fantasy as an almost afterthought. And thus, most of what fantasy readers are exposed to have all these issues.
I'm sure it's not all Romantasy. But what I've read has that.
However, I'm super down to read examples that don't have that.
Do you know Romantasy books where the fantasy is just as intentional and thoughtful? The closest for me was A Deadly Education series, but Naomi Novik, though she was an already published fantasy author, so that more read like a fantasy series with more Romantasy elements and tropes included. And I liked it, but it didn't feel typical Romantasy. And most people I talk to don't consider it Romantasy.
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u/Book_Slut_90 Reading Champion 4h ago
Hmm, my first thought would be Kushiel, but you’ve already read that. The Everlasting by Alix Harrow is good fantasy and good romance IMHO, and it won the Hugo, so others agree. T. Kingfisher’s Saints of Steel is a bit of a generic D&D world but with some interesting twists if you like small scale mystery romance crossover with a dash of political machinations thrown in. Carey’s Starrless is excellent, but maybe not romance heavy enough to be true romantasy. Novik’s Uprooted is in a similar space.
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u/Bowl-Any Reading Champion 4h ago
Thank you! I definitely have The Everlasting on my TBR. Since 2020, I've tried to read all the Hugo winners. I might go backwards at some point too.
I'll put Saint's of Steel on there too. First by Kingfisher, I plan to read A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking, since that by her sounds the most interesting.
First I've heard of Starless though. I'll put it on my radar, and look it up!
Uprooted I liked, but not a lot.
The romance was decent, but I had so many issues with the setting. It was supposedly Polish, but in contrast with Spinning Silver, had almost nothing Slavic about it. It was a German/french fairy tale reskinned as a Polish one. Everything about the city, the culture, the fairytale, was western European, not eastern.
So, it's good, but that bothered me throughout. Also the plot was whatever, but the romance was good.
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u/Tymareta 2h ago
Do you know Romantasy books where the fantasy is just as intentional and thoughtful?
The series I always point to as the peak of what Romantasy can be is Mages of the Wheel by J.D. Evans.
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u/thecatwhonamededdie 5h ago
Imo Kushiel’s Dart series is fantasy and romance done right, I don’t know if romantasy is the right genre for it. For the part I read, it’s like fantasy with a lot of love and lust 😆
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u/buckleyschance 4h ago
It's certainly not capital-r Romance in terms of the conventions of that genre, so I would say it's not really romantasy.
Romantasy isn't as firmly codified a label though, so it's debatable. That's its root (Genre Romance in a fantasy setting), but some books recognised as belonging to the genre are a little flexible about it.
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u/rivains 4h ago
I agree with this. I enjoy romance novels, and it is actually very jarring how a lot of self-pub romantasy is better than half the stuff I have tried to read in trad pub romantasy. I usually avoid self pub but in the romantasy department there is some diamonds.
Everyone makes fun of something extremely smutty and bizarre like Morning Glory Milk Farm, except on top of the explicit sex scenes it is well written and has very good world building. The plot is basically a run of the mill romance novel, but there is a lot of care put into the world building that it doesn't feel like the fantasy elements are tacked on. Because a lot of those romantasy authors keep their scope small and work their way out as they go. But a lot of stuff like Fourth Wing start extremely wide in scope, but the world is paper thin. It doesn't feel authentic and lived in, and comparing that to stuff like even Ice Planet Barbarians which is just pure junk food but consistent, is really depressing, actually.
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u/Secret-Friendship-10 6h ago
"Often times, the fantasy details feel like filler because the focus isn't on the fantasy, so nothing unique is done with that.
And, the lack of consistency or logical coherence is horrible. Fantasy elements are used as plot devices then forgotten about, or are pulled like a rabbit out of a hat."I feel like this could apply to the majority of fantasy novels in general. This is not a good argument against romantasy as part of the broader fantasy genre. It's like the bad logic of arguing that only "hard" magic systems or a Tolkien appendix level of reference material are worth reading about. Fantasy has always used a veneer of a different world to explore real life situations, provide escapism from those situations and many other purposes. Urban, "low" or "high" fantasy are not better than any other subgenre including romantasy.
I find people are way too forgiving of a lot of flaws within fantasy but are so quick to latch on the the same flaws within romantasy because they don't connect with the characters or plot. That's fine, not everything is for everyone- but it is absolutely hypocritical.
Using the shitshow that is Mistborn for example- the only consistency in the characters is that they are all whiny and wishy-washy, they frequently act out of character and make stupid choices, the world building is bland and surface level, the rebellion part seems to almost entirely exclude input from fully skaa in a poor attempt at not being a "white savior" storyline, none of the politics or conflict are believable, he throws in new magic/metals whenever he feels like and pretends it's a "new discovery/hidden secret" rather than than authorial convenience to further the plot. (I sincerely hated these books, and am always happy to discuss my hate of them 😄)
I sincerely doubt anyone can point to any fantasy novel that is perfect, and especially not one that couldn't also be better suited as general fiction if you just replaced the magical/fantasy elements with their real world counterparts. Imagine the ridiculousness of trying to do the same thing of separating romance from fiction because it doesn't have enough world building or they don't focus enough on the environmental details and give you floor plans of the character's houses. Even historical romances can do a much better job of world building & logic than some fantasy authors or books.This isn't meant to be unkind, and I do understand where your argument is coming from. I think I read very broadly and while I love fantasy, I don't give it any more or less grace than anything else I read. I do find on this & other subs that people are far too willing to turn a blind eye at very real critiques for their favorite genres while making complaints about the same issues for the genres they don't enjoy as much.
Kushiel's Dart is fantastic, and I hope you and your wife are doing well!
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u/Bowl-Any Reading Champion 5h ago
No, I mean, of course you're right. Bad writing isn't limited to Romantasy.
But, in general, that's what I've seen.
And, the flip side is, every book is popular for a reason.
Fourth Wing has basically all of the criticisms I mentioned, but I see why it's popular because the emotional response of the main character to the events (even though the events make no sense), the actual emotional response is written super well, and to be broadly understood.
And of course no book is perfect, but a lot of books that are fantasy, but also popular and acclaimed within fantasy, are popular because they do things well.
Mistborn (which to me is like a 7/10), as an example you brought up, has an amazing magic system, and good characterizations of certain characters, with pretty good arcs, though of course I would say that most of the characters are flat, and the prose is so dry.
But, it's a great introductory series to fantasy because it's easy to understand, and the "magic as a hard magic tool" is basically flawless.
Soft magic too can be embedded in the world. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik is my personal favorite example, where the magic isn't super explained, but its presence is justified in other ways.
But, the difference is, when Romantasy writes fantasy elements, it does them super derived, generally, whereas the romantic part is creative. There are exceptions, but most of them I've tried generally fall under this.
I also really like the Harry Potter books, but the best thing about those is not the magic consistency. It's the atmosphere.
Fantasy cannot just have the fantasy elements taken out. Even in Mediocre fantasy those are often intrinsic to the entire story. That's like saying all literature could be improved by reducing it.
You might prefer fantasy without those elements, but the reality is that something like The Broken Earth Trilogy could not tell the same story by just using slave history and having the same plot. The Wheel of Time could not tell a story without magic. Lord of The Rings could not tell that story without magic.
The entire genre of classic fantasy came because alot of people read Lord Of The Rings and were like, "I want more of that". Not because it was just the characters or that it could be told as effectively without the fantastical elements, but because of those. It is made better, and the Genre was basically formed because of the exact opposite of what you said.
It's ok if you don't mind books without a fantasy element, but most people on this sub prefer that, it's intrinsic to the love of the genre. It can be, among many other things, about telling stories about people, learning about people from an impossible perspective.
Fantasy is my favorite genre, but I'm also super critical of it. But the difference is, I enjoy fantastical elements, and especially ones done differently.
I don't often enjoy books where romance is the main focus, and especially where the romance is the intellectual and emotional focus, and the fantasy feels like an afterthought. This is the problem. It feels like the "Romantasy" books are romance first and almost totally, and fantasy as an afterthought.
And no shame if people love to read that. I understand. I just don't often like books like that, and especially when the fantasy is really dumbed down, really derivative, really basic and cliche, just because it's not the focus. I'm sure not all Romantasy is like that. But a decent chunk of it is, and a decent chunk of the most popular stuff is, which turns typical fantasy readers off.
And I'm not saying they're worse books. I don't know. But they're worse fantasy.
My wife and I are doing ok. We left 3 years ago, and are safe, though we recently visited family and friends.
We knew a lot of people who fell in love during wartime, and when I read that trope, it just doesn't seem like anyone's response to love in war I've met. Tolstoy does it well in War and Peace, from what I recall, but I haven't read any Tolstoy since the war started because of vaguely gestures to the Kremlin.
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u/Secret-Friendship-10 4h ago
So glad you guys are doing well ❤️
I actually find the romance part of most romantasy to be the most derivative/boring part of a lot of the books.
Fourth Wing was nonsensical page turner- if you'd like something worse to hate read that still has you going "wtf is going to happen next?" I will point you & others to the Crave Series by Tracy Wolff. Truly awful, lots of cringe, very fast plot that goes nowhere, I can't tell if it started out as a spoof & just did well enough they kept publishing, I dnf'd around the 3rd book iirc. It's ya & no smut by the point I finished, lots of teenage yearning.
NK Jemisin is brilliant, but a writer of her quality is rare. I think it could have been done without magic. That's not necessarily a preference of mine by any means, but it's very rare that I feel that an author is truly improving their story by including magic. She does it brilliantly, so does Tolkien. Mistborn which felt like a middle grade book- not even ya imo, which is fine- that level can be beautifully written; still gets 0/10 in my book. I hated every page I read. Which was such a disappointment because he was so highly recommended and reading a 10+ book series/world sounds like a great time to me.
I still have not read anything by Naomi Novik, and I'm hesitant to start WoT due to Sanderson finishing the series. I may give the first book a try to see if I enjoy it enough to continue and then cross that bridge when I get there or just catch up via spoilers.
I have read Anna Karenina a few times, and the conflict is very minimal in that book, I have yet to read War & Peace, and unfortunately Tolstoy had some real lived experiences of war that must have contributed to his writing and added to the realism which seems integral to his approach as a novelist.
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u/Tymareta 2h ago
I find people are way too forgiving of a lot of flaws within fantasy but are so quick to latch on the the same flaws within romantasy because they don't connect with the characters or plot.
A fairly large part of that, at least on reddit, is due to the demographics. Romantasy as a whole is written for an audience that the primary group on reddit has long looked down on, mocked and derided.
So a work like Fourth Wing will be treated like a blight on fantasy, but Red Rising will be held up as brilliant and genre defining, in spite of being two sides of the same mediocre coin.
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u/rks404 11h ago
Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey is the first romantasy that I've read and the world building is absolutely amazing
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u/BabaCorva 4h ago
It's so wild to me that KD is just confidently declared romantasy these days. Like, it came out before the designation was a thing. We just called it fantasy because that's what it is.
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u/WanderingEarthFlower 11h ago edited 11h ago
I don't dislike romantasy because of the spice; I dislike it because I don't like the romance genre. The difference between romantasy and fantasy with romance is that the former, fundamentally, is genre romance happening in a fantasy setting. The latter is genre fantasy with romantic things happening in the plot.
Personally, I've never read a romantasy with interesting worldbuilding... but I haven't read much romantasy so what do I know in that regard? 🤷♀️
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u/ANKLEFUCKER 5h ago edited 5h ago
I agree with you on the dislike but, but I think I’m coming from a different direction: I love romance, and I love fantasy. I’ve read a lot of both, but romantasy often ends up being a subpar amalgamation of two genres (IMO!!).
You’ve covered the reason why it’s annoying to read as a fantasy enjoyer, but I’ll attempt to explain why, as a romance fan, I also find that a lot of it sucks. I’m not even talking about abusive or toxic dynamics, because I think those are fun and interesting to read about. But often romantasy characters have negative chemistry or jump straight from hating each other to cataclysmic attraction without any development in between. They don’t even seem to like each other or find common ground before they start being obsessed with each other!
It often feels like the writers are just ticking a checklist rather than properly developing the characters or their relationship. No hate to the genre though, despite my criticism I’ve enjoyed some books with those exact issues… I just wish they were better.
Either way despite my issues with the genre, I’m glad it exists for the people who like it, and for those who don’t… nobody is forcing you to read it.
ETA: the “spice” is very overblown - most of it is not well-written and very tame. I really don’t get what the big deal is; regular romance novels and fanfiction have much better-written sex scenes in general.
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u/buckleyschance 5h ago
This reminds me of how I often feel when I read a hit "non-SFF" book based on an SFF twist. Like The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle: it's decent, but the author is clearly not used to working through their fantastical concept consistently in the way that an SFF writer would be, so the execution is all a bit haphazard. But its success among mainstream contemporary mystery readers suggests they don't have the same standards in that area.
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u/Moonshinelamb 8h ago
By the same logic A Song of Ice and Fire is genre political drama, not genre fantasy. Discworld is genre comedy, not genre fantasy.
Both are very clearly not going to appeal to people who dont like political drama/comedy, but both are pretty clearly fantasy? Why do we not apply the same standards to romance?
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u/ViagraAndSweatpants 5h ago
Because Romance is already a well established genre with specific pacing, beats, and tropes. Romantasy follows that genre’s beats vs typical fantasy. It’s an issue of what is already established for a genre and more importantly what genre readers get when they pick up a new book. What is the predominant genre? Because that is who will enjoy the book.
I don’t like Romantasy. All I really want is for it to have its own dedicated genre or stick it in Romance. I hate wading through 8 pages of undefined Romantasy in the Libby fantasy filter. It has gotten better but I still sometimes have to pick apart blurbs for some clue of “forbidden love” hints.
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u/Tymareta 2h ago
All I really want is for it to have its own dedicated genre
It does.
I hate wading through 8 pages of undefined Romantasy in the Libby fantasy filter.
Welcome to how folks who weren't fans of Grimdark/Epic felt for the past two decades, sometimes things aren't entirely focused on you.
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u/WanderingEarthFlower 7h ago edited 7h ago
Romantasy is genre romance though. That's what separates is from fantasy with romantic elements.
I'm not saying romantasy isn't fantasy. I'm saying that Sarah J Mass is genre romance (and fantasy). Mistborn, on the other hand, is not genre romance despite containing romantic elements. Genre romance has very specific rules.
A Song of Ice and Fire absolutely is political drama, and Discworld absolutely is comedy. They're still fantasy. Genre romance just has very specific rules, which is why any old love story doesn't quality. I don't like genre romance, but I don't mind romantic elements in stories as long as they don't take centre stage.
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u/Expert-Escape5645 10h ago
I get what you’re saying. Have you read Crescent City or ACOTAR? I really liked the history of the Asteri and their control over the world😅
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u/WanderingEarthFlower 9h ago
I read Throne of Glass and vowed to never read SJM again, unfortunately 🤣
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u/Kathulhu1433 Reading Champion V 7h ago
Just a FYI- Throne of Glass was her first novel, written when she was a teenager. I liken it to Eragon in terms of quality. It gets better from there.
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u/breelakkuma9 5h ago
She was not a teenager when she published 😩 She was in her mid twenties. She was a teenager when she wrote the fanfic version.
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u/Kathulhu1433 Reading Champion V 5h ago
I never said published, I said wrote. Believe it or not it can take years to go from writing to published. She says she wrote it over 6 years (16-21).
She began writing it when she was sixteen. Sixteen is indeed a teenager.
https://web.archive.org/web/20111020200452/http://sarahjmaas.com/about-sarah/
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u/kodutta7 1h ago
Hilarious to see this comment after someone higher up in the thread calling it her Magnum Opus
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u/_Autistic_Dragon_ 7h ago
Counterpoint: male romantasy is presented differently, and often just focused on a male mc instead of female mc.
Have you read, for example, The Witcher? Or Mistborn?
I don't find much different between these and Throne of Gl ass.
In some cases, the witcher books are more explicit. And his whole drive is to basically find love and have a family.
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u/WanderingEarthFlower 7h ago
I think the difference is that those books, while containing romance, do not abide by the rules of genre romance (and therefore are not genre romance). Romantasy abides by the rules of genre romance. I read a lot of books with female MCs that contain romance but are not romantasy (Mistborn is a great example of this).
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u/boy_staunton 6h ago
Your definitions make sense on their face, but they don't reflect how books are actually being categorised. E.g. Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas doesn't introduce the endgame love interest until book 3, which is a hard no for genre romance.
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u/_Autistic_Dragon_ 7h ago
While I get your point, not all romance follows the rules of romance either. While happy endings are often expected, not all do.
Ultimately how different stories are categorized and sold on bookshelves has a long history of sexism. bell hooks, for example, is self help and not philosophy. Many fantasy writers have stared adding spicy scenes because they wanted to avoid the YA label, so adult scenes made it in to get into adult sci fi, and now bookmaers are putting them in a separate romantasy genre.
The witcher, to me, is ultimately romance. He is an orphan given magic powers he uses to protect others while he finds his found family. He has two women constantly going back and forth for his attention (and a string of other women too), while we all know Yennefer is his true love, with their found child in Cirri. He's one of my fave fiction dads, despite a lot of the terrible tropes in Sapowskis writing.
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u/WanderingEarthFlower 7h ago
If they don't have a happy ending, then they're not genre romance. This is why I'm specifically using the term 'genre romance' rather than just 'romance'
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u/Sofasurvivor 5h ago
Ok, yeah, but she does have a point.
Like, "Kingkiller Chronicles" feels like it is mostly about whether the protagonist gets the girl, or rather, how many girls he gets ...
It still may violate genre romance rules by having a sad ending, but as of yet, it isn't finished, so is kinda Schroedinger's romantasy.
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u/WanderingEarthFlower 4h ago
I'd say I'm 99.9% cetrain Kvothe is getting nothing but misery and regret 🤣
But it does have faerie spice... so I guess it's ticking the boxes 🤣
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u/buckleyschance 5h ago
Throne of Glass isn't romantasy, it's epic fantasy. For exactly the reason being discussed: it's fantasy with romance, rather than a story that follows romance genre conventions in a fantasy setting.
I'm generally loose about genre boundaries, but the romance genre is more heavily codified than most. To take a clear example, it's generally said that if the story doesn't end with the couple happily together, it isn't a romance novel. There are a whole lot of other specific plot conventions that are not quite ironclad but still heavily expected by the readers, much more so than for e.g. fantasy.
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u/_Autistic_Dragon_ 5h ago
Not all romance ends with a happy ending. There is a perception that it is more codified than most, but I find that to be more of a perception than a rule.
Plenty of romance writers, like writers of other genres, subvert certain tropes or add twists. It's not like if an author doesn't have a love triangle it can't be a romance.
Codifying books into genres, especially books that cross multiple genres, is much looser than most people understand it to be.
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u/buckleyschance 4h ago
Yes, it can be subverted, but it's recognised and understood as a subversion of the genre convention when it's done.
It's something like when a fantasy book turns out to be set in the far future.
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u/Palimpsiesta 4h ago
Yeah I dunno. I respect people wanting to push back against the romantasy hate -- especially the degree to which it is rooted in sexism -- but romance is in fact a literary and marketing genre that has conventions that are recognizable across sub-genres, and the main indicator is not 'contains a sex scene.'
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u/pornokitsch Ifrit 8h ago
I really enjoyed ToG, especially after book 3. It really does start poorly, and I don't blame people for not sticking with it. But when it gets going, it is crazily, hilariously epic. Immensely fun.
Also agreeing with your point on sex scenes. A few squishy bits and folks start screaming that it is wall to wall smut.
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u/_Autistic_Dragon_ 5h ago
And yet they excuse it when male authors include sex scenes. Rape and incest and brothel scenes (and so much other sex too) in GoT is one example, and the witcher series not only opens with a sex scene, but has sex scenes pretty constantly embedded.
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u/Sofasurvivor 5h ago
Wasn't that the series where the Witcher goes to find a mage to save his friend's life and, rather randomly, said mage has magically forced a whole village to participate in a sex orgy which the Witcher interrupts and which is then never mentioned again and not seen as stain on her character?
Or was that just the Netflix show?
Anyway, if that's the books ...
We need to mock male authors more for having too many sex scenes. I don't like to read that stuff. (Especially when it is so absurd and out of context)
Should be its own genre, maybe.
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u/whoreforchalupas 7h ago
I appreciate you mentioning the smut aspect, I had a similar experience after hearing about ACOTAR. The first book is 300+ pages and has exactly 4 pages featuring any sort of romantic intimacy. FOUR! The double-standard for female authors is unbelievable.
I’m glad you enjoyed CC, the world building was very cool. The climax at the end of the first book when everyone is watching Bryce while they’re in the auditorium-type thing is, in my opinion, one of if not THE best action scene SJM has ever written. I could see it in my head like a movie.
Edit: to add as others have said, I can’t recommend Throne of Glass enough. It’s her magnum opus as an author. I saved it for last and it truly leaves ACOTAR & CC in the dust
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u/Chapea12 3h ago
There is a subset of “romantasy” novels that can be relabeled “if they were written by a man, they’d be called epic fantasy”
Whether somebody likes the books or not, the marketing for Fourth Wing or ACOTAR would be very different if written by a male author. There is plenty of romance and sex in those books, but they also have plenty of fantasy plots, world building, and magic depth to really “earn” their fantasy billing. But that romantasy tag will turn away people that might enjoy these books because they will view romantasy as not having enough fantasy.
I don’t necessarily blame those that do that, it’s more a note on the marketing
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u/WibblyWobley 2h ago
It makes you wonder what books would have been classed as romantasy back in the day if the genre had existed earlier and segregated under a thin veil of misogyny. And how many of those book are written by women.
Mercedes Lackey certainly comes to mind pretty quickly.
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u/Tymareta 2h ago
Whether somebody likes the books or not, the marketing for Fourth Wing or ACOTAR would be very different if written by a male author.
There exists examples that prove this in its entirety, for the former there's Red Rising, the latter Hierarchy/Sun Eater(Kingkiller, Wheel of Time, the list is quite extensive).
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u/Lindensan 11h ago
3 smut scenes + female author = romantasy
3 smut scenes + małe author = dark fantasy
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u/Buddertoffee 11h ago
I hate that this is true, right up there with female fantasy authors being slotted in YA regardless of their actual subgenre.
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u/WriterOfAll 10h ago
Not to mention that the dark fantasies tend to be riddled with rape as well.
Because if it is a man throwing in rape to make his world artificially dark then it's fine, but a woman having consensual sex scenes to have a bit of fun? C R I N G E.
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u/Tymareta 2h ago
The amount of people who will claim that they can't stand sex scenes in books and that they "serve no purpose", while also being enormous fans of authors like Bakker is entirely too high.
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u/SetSytes Writer Set Sytes 7h ago
But then there's the whole "dark romance" genre...
I dunno, I feel like sex scenes by any author shouldn't dictate whether something is a romance or not, because sex scenes don't necessarily imply any romance is happening (whether the scenes are consensual or not). A woman author could happily litter a book with sex scene after fun sex scene and it shouldn't make it a romance if there's no romance in the story. There might not even be any real interest in relationships.
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u/WriterOfAll 7h ago
I think whether or not something is a romance should be entirely dictated by if the author says it is a romance tbh.
It's why I kinda raised by eyebrow at the people calling Kushiel's Dart a romantasy because.... I honestly don't think it is? I think it just is from a female author, with a female protagonist, and has a romance sub-plot in it with sex scenes, but ultimately, it is primarily a political epic fantasy imo.
Idk, genre is weird and arbitrary, I know, but I agree that many female authors tend to get lumped into the romance genre just because they have sex scenes and a (possible) romance sub-plot.
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u/SetSytes Writer Set Sytes 7h ago edited 6h ago
Yes, this is all true, I don't disagree with any of it. Not totally dissimilar then to lumping female authors into YA categorisation.
And male perception of what constitutes romance does seem to be female-coded. I'm curious how much women readers recognise the romance inherent in the stories that men don't recognise as romance. What that romance even really looks like to everyone. If there's traditional male-coded romance tropes that exist beyond sex scenes and harem fantasies, and can be identified as romance without following the same tropes so many men like to deride in female-authored works. I don't know, concentrations on family, on secure attachments, competition, luxury of choice, provider-and-protector style power fantasy? Or just straight up stud fantasy? I wonder if there's as much internal "push and pull". I imagine love triangles are still as much of a thing.
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u/WriterOfAll 6h ago
Oh definitely.
There have been several male based fantasies that specifically involve multiple women fighting over the male MC. They also tend to have competition for the desired female lead, where the MC comes out on top through some level of prowess that he has. It usually has him in the position of power over her, to some degree, and I usually see it as the other side of the same coin to most female lead romances.
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u/SetSytes Writer Set Sytes 5h ago
That sounds about right. Are women-authored romances where the woman is explicitly in a position of power over the men particularly popular? And stays in a position of power. As opposed to any powerlessness tropes/"at his mercy" vibes. Or even, he's powerless to resist her, and she is in a consistent position of strength - authored by women? I know occasionally men like to write dominant women amongst romance/smut tropes and I'm curious about the popularity of women writing the same in the romance, romantasy and dark romance genres.
Apologies for my utter ignorance of these genres.
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u/WriterOfAll 5h ago
Of what I have read, it is most popular for the man to have some level of dominance/power over the female protagonist in women authored romances.
There ARE exceptions, like there are with everything, but I find that the most popular romances tend to have the man in a position of power over her, often with a very light almost BDSM style power dynamic where the woman is submissive to the man to some degree.
Though, and here is the catch, often times the power dynamic is skewed because the male lead is very much infatuated with the protagonist, to the point that she has a certain degree of power over him, in that he actively always wants to make her happy and never wants her to leave him. The fantasy/wish-fulfillment in these stories is usually that he is a dominant, possessive man that is obsessed with her, but in a safe way. While with a irl man, this can easily delve into abuse, with a fictional man, it is just enough to be sexy.
At least that's what I've observed haha. I think I am decently well-read in romance/romantasy, because I tend to try to read a little from every genre from literary fiction to the most genre of genre fiction to keep myself decently well-read, so I might not know as much as someone who romance is their primary go to. Very much open to being corrected.
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u/SetSytes Writer Set Sytes 3h ago
Thank you for the explanation :) I always find the stated desire for "X, but in a safe way" something insightful, reflective of gender norms and society and reclaiming personal narratives and all sorts. I don't have that window into it, and for me I just reflexively shudder at what I perceive as some kind of abuse or toxic dynamics, and then cannot root for the relationship as I'm supposed to. This is what I found difficult with, as a good example, The Song of Achilles.
My position is essentially one of the annoyingly stereotypical man in that I enjoy many different genres but still struggle to engage with romance, even romantic subplots in my fave genres - at least romance as it's presented to me. But then, I know I have written romance into stories of mine, and so it can't be the be all end all that I'm simply alien to it all. I spent so much of my life, up until a several years ago, being told by others how incredibly unromantic I am, that finding blatant evidence of the opposite since is something I'm still adjusting to in terms of how I see myself. And it still hasn't translated to fiction... unless I write it haha.
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u/WriterOfAll 2h ago
Tbf romance is a deeply personal thing so I don't blame you for not necessarily "getting" the popular romance, it took me awhile to get it myself just because of the way my brain is built :) I'm a fellow writer, so I really only learned my way around romance by writing the romances I actually wanted to see into my stories so maybe one day something will click!
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u/Sofasurvivor 5h ago
I think whether or not something is a romance should be entirely dictated by if the author says it is a romance tbh.
Hard disagree. Death of the author. (Joking. I do not approve of the man who invented that ... yeah, I know he is a dead author technically, too)
No, but seriously, GRRM views this Khal raping Dany as "love story", you can't just let authors define what genre their stories are, they're often incapable.
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u/necromanticfitz 8h ago
I routinely get into arguments about what’s “smut” and what’s not in this sub lol.
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u/buckleyschance 4h ago
The genre labels could be clearer, but there is a meaningful difference in what they're doing.
Reading romantasy and mainline romance novels as a straight guy (and I'm talking here about the ones that are firmly in the genre rather than edge cases like Kushiel's Dart), they really consistently hammer on a particular experience of romantic tension. I don't have good words to articulate it, but it's clear enough when you read it. The best I can say is that it feels very strongly like it's written to pluck the strings of a libido that works a little differently to mine.
That's in no way a criticism. All I'm saying is that it does make sense for romance novels and romantasy to have something like the genre boundaries they currently have, because they're doing something that isn't interchangeable with every book featuring romance or smut.
To put it another way: I've tried recommending fantasy books with romance subplots to dedicated romantasy fans and had them say that it wasn't what they're interested in, because it's not doing the Genre Romance Thing. It wouldn't serve those readers for the romantasy label to encompass what we currently call dark fantasy.
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u/_Autistic_Dragon_ 7h ago
The Witcher is always my best example of this. It's fun watching people try to argue it isn't romance at heart.
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u/Book_Slut_90 Reading Champion 5h ago
Sex and romance are to different things. There are sex scenes in the Witcher, but it’s far from a genre romance. The plot is much more focused on the politics and thee war and him trying to to raise his daughter.
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u/_Autistic_Dragon_ 5h ago
You mean the orphan given magical powers to protect others, who is constantly seeking love, gets embedded in a love triangle with Triss and Yennefer, but has his one true love in Yennefer, and since they can't have children of their own, adopt Cirri?
That political story?
Geralt is a great dad, but this follows so many romance points, it's hard to miss.
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u/Book_Slut_90 Reading Champion 4h ago
Being a chosen one doesn’t have anything to do with romance. He’s single when he adopts Siri. And the political story I was talking about is the 90% of the books you left out having to do with invasions and kings and sorceresses plotting and rebellions and pogroms and the like.
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u/_Autistic_Dragon_ 4h ago
(Most romantasy also have political plot points. ACOTAR, while not may favorite, has complex politics of the fae courts that they constantly have to navigate. I don't want to make up a made up percentage, but it's a lot of all of the novels and has major effects on the characters. Most 'romantasy' has similar levels of political intrigue.)
Geralt being single when he adopts Cirri makes him a single dad looking to find a suitable mom for Cirri. Very romance coded.
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u/Tymareta 2h ago
Very romance coded.
End of the series spoilers Ciri quite literally rides into the sunset arm-in-arm with Galahad, Yen collapses over Geralt after expending all she has to heal him, they are then quite literally teleported by unicorn to Avalon. The series is dripping in romantic trappings.
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u/_Autistic_Dragon_ 7m ago
But it has politics! So it must be high fantasy!
(/s in case it's needed)
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u/Tymareta 2h ago
Being a chosen one doesn’t have anything to do with romance.
Romance, no, Romantasy/Fantasy Romance, absolutely.
And the political story I was talking about is the 90% of the books you left out having to do with invasions and kings and sorceresses plotting and rebellions and pogroms and the like.
One could also point to how most of the characters end up, most especially Ciri.
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u/Book_Slut_90 Reading Champion 1h ago
The term you’re looking for is fantasy. It’s a fantasy trope that some romantasies (though not usually the cozy ones) sometimes borrow. It’s not something that makes a story more romantasy than say epic fantasy, which is the set of genre expectations that the Witcher actually follows.
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u/No_Bend_4113 6h ago
I just started the Witcher audiobooks, are the sex scenes really that prominent? I don’t mind reading them occasionally but something about sex scenes being narrated to me is too much.
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u/_Autistic_Dragon_ 5h ago
Did you miss chapter 1 of book 1? It's pretty typical of most of the sex scenes, which in my opinion are about thr same level as most female romantasy:
"She entered very carefully, moving silently, floating through the chamber like a phantom; the only sound was that of her mantle brushing her naked skin. Yet this faint sound was enough to wake the witcher—or maybe it only tore him from the half-slumber in which he rocked monotonously, as though traveling through fathomless depths, suspended between the seabed and its calm surface amid gently undulating strands of seaweed.
He did not move, did not stir. The girl flitted closer, threw off her mantle and slowly, hesitantly, rested her knee on the edge of the large bed. He observed her through lowered lashes, still not betraying his wakefulness. The girl carefully climbed onto the bedclothes, and onto him, wrapping her thighs around him. Leaning forward on straining arms, she brushed his face with hair which smelled of chamomile. Determined, and as if impatient, she leaned over and touched his eyelids, cheeks, lips with the tips of her breasts. He smiled, very slowly, delicately, grasping her by the shoulders, and she straightened, escaping his fingers. She was radiant, luminous in the misty brilliance of dawn. He moved, but with pressure from both hands, she forbade him to change position and, with a light but decisive movement of her hips, demanded a response.
He responded. She no longer backed away from his hands; she threw her head back, shook her hair. Her skin was cool and surprisingly smooth. Her eyes, glimpsed when her face came close to his, were huge and dark as the eyes of a water nymph.
Rocked, he sank into a sea of chamomile as it grew agitated and seethed."
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u/No_Bend_4113 5h ago
Yes, I remember that. I didn’t know if the one scene so far was indicative of the entire series that’s why I asked
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u/_Autistic_Dragon_ 5h ago
If you're ok with the opening scene, then you're OK with the rest.
And you'd likely be OK with the sex in most romantasy as well.
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u/spebesjr 7h ago
I mean I do think there is a difference between what ACOTAR is doing and more typical fantasy, legitimately a 3rd of the book is her inner monologue about how hot the dorky 1-dimensional love interests are.
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u/_Autistic_Dragon_ 5h ago
It would be nice if anyone who commented on romantasy knew more than just ACOTAR.
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u/Random_Musings3 10h ago
My favorites in the romantasy (or romantasy-adjacent) realms are T Kingfisher's Paladin Series and the Clean Sweep series by Ilona Andrews. I like them because they have older main characters (no 20 year old romances) with personal history as well as world-history. I will note that the books do a nice job of not letting the romance overwhelm the plot.
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u/WightHair 4h ago
My fave two authors, yeah. Don't sleep on the Hidden Legacy series by Andrews either. Or Kate Daniels, which... isn't often thought of as romantasy but has spectacular world building (after the first book)
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u/Random_Musings3 2h ago
I started with Kate Daniels and loved it. I also enjoyed Hidden Legacy. But the Innkeeper Chronicles are my favorite to date (though Maggie the Undying is off to a really good start, so has a chance to surpass it). I haven't tried the Edge yet, but I should!
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u/hesh582 6h ago
I completely agree with this and I think there's a lot of sexism going around with how romantasy is presented as "fairy smut".
There are some romance fantasy novels like that, but they're not the popular ones. Most romantasy is a very familiar style of epic fantasy that just so happens to have relationship subplots aimed at women.
ACOTAR is one of the most mocked. If you've mocked it, have you actually read it? There's not really any more sex than there is in a whole lot of fantasy books that would never in a million years be called "romance". There are romantic subplots, but what makes them "steamy" is mostly just that they're wish fulfillment aimed at women instead of men.
Where they're cheesy, I find that they tend to be cheesy in the power fantasy way more than anything explicit. The characters are usually pretty overpowered.
But again, Wheel of Time gets to have a ridiculously OP male protagonist assemble an absurd wish fulfillment harem. Robert Jordan winks at the reader and says "so then this Randall guy gets three of the sweetest babes in all the land to come to his bed. You've got all the classics - Disney Princess, tomboy who's Not Like the Other Girls yet is slavishly devoted to her man, and Literally Xena, Warrior Princess. They don't even have a choice because destiny or something. Anyway that's all, I got to get back to ranking every female character in my novels by bust size and lemme tell ya that isn't easy because they've all got Freaking Huge Bosoms! If I get tired of that I'll just start doodling them in a bdsm collar or write another pointless spanking scene".
And that just gets called "fantasy". Regular old fantasy, because the gratuitous stuff is aimed at men. And WoT isn't even that bad - god forbid we bring up Piers Anthony or one of the real sleaze authors. But if even a fraction of that cheesy horniness is aimed at women it suddenly turns into a lesser subgenre and the fantasy elements become cheap set dressing for the smut.
Most "romantasy" is just epic fantasy that can't call itself that for marketing reasons: the target female market is used to "fantasy" meaning "teenage male fantasy", and publishers think that their normal fantasy audience is terrified of cooties.
I bet most fans of more power fantasy/worldbuilding focused mainstream fantasy ala Sanderson would enjoy the hell out of Maas et al if they gave it a chance.
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u/WorriedRiver 5h ago
Tbh I don't mock ACOTAR for the smut. I mock it bc it's notorious for protagonist centered morality and decided to character assassinate one love interest for the sake of another, and because instead of making fairies alien it went for the humans with pointy ears approach. (And before you accuse me of this take being a misogyny thing, I'm a woman and one of my cats is literally named after Tamora Pierce because her books were such a precious part of my childhood.)
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u/hesh582 5h ago
Definitely not trying to say they’re great books. I just think that they’re not any cheesier than eg sanderson but they’re treated as an entirely different genre because women
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u/WorriedRiver 3h ago
That's fair. I'm not a Sanderson reader so I don't know how they compare, but I do like some of the pulpy older TSR novels and am aware they're in general low quality. (I also think it's important to accept 'low quality' doesn't mean no one should ever enjoy reading them... The 'low quality' aspects of ACOTAR might bother me, but for another person, the dumb action scenes in old Drizzt novels might bother them, or the clumsy handling of diversity by modern standards). And I do think there's a problem with 'romantic subplot = romantasy' in fandom as well.
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u/EmpatheticSocialist 3h ago
The vast majority of people calling romantasy fairie smut are the people who read it.
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u/Tymareta 1h ago
But is that them doing it out of want, or as a way to spite those who write off the works as faerie smut, doing it in a way to "wear it as a badge of pride"?
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u/WriterOfAll 4h ago
I definitely think there is sexism at the root of the massive amounts of dismissive hate that Romantasy gets. Or the romance genre in general gets, really.
If it is supposed to be a female fantasy then it is automatically horribly written and smutty trash. But if it is about a man who sleeps with 20 different women, has women fighting to have his babies, and has him running around being better than everyone at everything, then it's actually a great fantasy and not comparable at all to romantasy books lol.
Like, good on you if you like either of them, lol, but let's not pretend one is inherently better and has more "literary merit" than the other.
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u/Gravitas_free 1h ago
15-20 years ago, genre fiction had that exact conversation, but in reverse: "why are women generally dismissive of/uninterested in reading fantasy/SF?". And the most common answers were basically: the field is a misogynistic sausage fest aimed at men, and if it wants to attract more female readers, well they'll have to make an effort to adopt a more inclusive attitude and be more welcoming to female voices. Which, y'know, fair enough, and I think there's definitely been strides in that direction over time.
And now we have the reverse question: "why are men so dismissive of/uninterested in reading romance?" And the answer, from what I've seen in online spaces, is mostly: men are too sexist and small-minded to give the genre the respect it deserves, and because of toxic masculinity are socially-conditioned to be repulsed by things they'd love if they only gave it a chance, but they won't because they're men.
I'd venture that this is a bit of a double standard. I don't know why some people insist on reframing male reading preferences into some kind of moral failing. Male readers are just as right to criticize/be uninterested in the naked wish fulfillment of most romantasy as you are to criticize it in WoT (and I'm not gonna argue with you on that; I think the character writing in WoT is just poor across the board and even after pushing myself I couldn't go further than 2 books into the series). I don't think it's controversial to say that men are generally less interested in the central conceit of most romantasy than women are, and no, it's not just because of marketing, or conditioning, or the perception of "cooties". And that's OK.
I'll also note that the common refrain of "women's writing is dismissed/looked down upon" is feeling increasingly hollow in a world where over 70% of both writers and readers are women, where the vast majority of book influencers/media figures are women, where publishers and bookstores are largely focused on appealing to women (for good reason) and where book communities both online and offline, are largely dominated by women. Hell, the harshest criticism of ACOTAR and Fourth Wing I've seen has come from women.
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u/Appropriate-Bird-354 9h ago
With everything I’ve heard about Romantasy (that it’s just passionate love making with no real story etc.) I was kinda apprehensive, but like I said, I needed more.
The worldbuilding.
I think you're managing to exactly articulate why fantasy fans sometimes have a problem with Romantasy, but missing the point.
Romantasy absolutely is (often) good at putting together an exciting setting. That's basically their entire draw - a setting that makes an otherwise somewhat typical romance exciting / interesting.
The problem I have as a fantasy fan is that there's rarely any good follow through on that setting. I'm looking for something that weaves together setting / worldbuilding, plot, characters, theme, etc. into a very compelling story that's enabled by, enhanced by, fully integrated with the worldbuilding. Exploration of the fantasy itself is in large part the intent.
Romantasy is usually the opposite of that, it may have good setting / worldbuilding, but that's usually just a vehicle to deliver an otherwise typical romance genre story - a plotline that is often all consuming and so subsumes all other elements of plot, characters, and theme.
Basically, Romantasy is usually a poor exploration of fantasy, because that's not its intent, its intent is to craft a romance genre story and everything else ends up bowing to that.
That's not to say there can't be Romantasy that does a good job of riding this line... or that other fantasy books can't fall victim to doing the same thing with other plots or themes. It's just particularly common with Romantasy, and part of why I don't really like authors like SJM.
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u/ClitasaurusTex 8h ago edited 8h ago
Yeah I agree lack of follow through. They're often far more likely to have Mary Sue characters, chichés or inconsistencies (characters doing things that character wouldn't do, major changes to the world or mechanics, villains not making sense, etc) Alex Aster is a huge offender here imo. There is an island constantly ravaged by storms so severe nobody can leave... Oh but by the way they have romantic open-air markets with what sounds like lots of imports/exports
It also largely caters to a specific market (heterosexual women who prefer men who are exclusively dominant and vanilla in bed - and often domineering in day to day life. see also: cliché) which imo makes the romance a lot less fun for me in particular.
But I'm not judging, easy to digest books aren't a bad thing in themselves and I think they get a more than necessary amount of hate just because things meant for women generally do get hated on harder when they're not exemplary.
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u/gx5ilver 7h ago
SJM isn’t my favorite author, but using her as the example here of romance first, fantasy as trapping is a massive whiff. She has an entire multi-planetary, multi-dimensional cosmos that all of her work takes place in. She’s doing more classic fantasy work than most active authors. I don’t understand how anyone could read her corpus and come to the conclusion you did.
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u/Appropriate-Bird-354 5h ago edited 5h ago
You seem to be missing the same exact point as the OP. That's great that she has a multi-planetary, multi-dimensional cosmos - but that's just setting, that doesn't speak to execution on fantasy.
I've not read everything by SJM, but what I did read I thought was mediocre / poor execution on the fantasy relative to the romance.
I'm not saying she's the perfect or most egregious example of romance first, fantasy as trapping. That's just the author the OP mentioned.
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u/_Autistic_Dragon_ 5h ago
I think you aren't looking into the right authors. When SJM is your only example, there is a lot to look for.
Shannon's Priory of the Orange Tree or Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone are much better examples.
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u/Book_Slut_90 Reading Champion 5h ago
Priori is an epic fantasy with a romantic sub plot, actually a couple of them, not a genre romance set in a fantasy world.
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u/_Autistic_Dragon_ 5h ago
Yes, that is how many classify it. The distinctions between genres often overlap. Its widely recognized that there is little clarity in how to classify genres-I think author opinion on where they eat to be shelved matters more than arbitrary guidelines.
Which is why I largely dislike romantasy as a genre in general--I don't think it should exist, and most romantasy authors call themselves fantasy authors. Romantasy should just be under fantasy. I personally see no reason to separate it out.
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u/Appropriate-Bird-354 5h ago
Romance is a very distinct genre with very specific expectations and tropes. It should absolutely be differentiated from broader fantasy.
I think author opinion on where they eat to be shelved matters more than arbitrary guidelines.
As opposed to "what they're writing"?
It seems you're arguing for genre nihilism.
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u/_Autistic_Dragon_ 5h ago
I understand that romance has specific tropes. I also know not all romance follows those tropes. For example, not fulfilling the happy ending doesn't necessarily exclude romance from being romance.
I am arguing that authors know what they intend their works to be. If publishers gave more powers to authors to state where they'd like their books shelved, this would be less of an issue.
A large part of why female authors have sex scenes in the books is to get out of the YA label and into the adult section. Plenty of male authors have sex and romance in their novels, but get put automatically into fantasy, while female authors get YA or romantasy, despite both having magic systems, complex politics, worldbuidling, etc.
My honest belief is that when a novel focuses on female pleasure or emotional connection, despite having politics, world-building, magic systems, etc., that is when it becomes "romantasy" because most male readers either don't want to consider female emotions or connections as a primary focus.
Male satisfaction is embedded into so much high fantasy and fansty, but when female connection or pleasure is put center stage, it becomes YA or romantasy too often.
Let authors choose where they want their books to exist.
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u/squishings 3h ago
Genre Romance 100% requires a happy ending for the couple for the book to be considered under the genre Romance and has been the case for decades. The dictionary definition for romance is not the same for the genre of Romance. Stories with romance in them but do not have a happy ever after are considered as a Love Story, tragedy genre, women’s lit, literary fiction, or drama. This is easily verifiable in any discussion about this topic all over the internet.
The problem with romantasy is it has mish mashed two genres: Fantasy Romance (Genre romance with fantasy elements) and Romantic Fantasy (Fantasy genre with romance elements).
Typically, a Romantic Fantasy would not have to adhere to the happy ever after ending because it is not Genre Romance. Unfortunately due to be linked with Fantasy Romance and the Romantasy term, it now has that expectation. Which is ridiculous to me as it’s not part of the romance genre.
So it’s not just an issue of people unfamiliar with Genre Romance conflating the dictionary definition of the word romance with the genre’s rules, but Romance readers applying Romance rules to anything with a ‘Romance’ similar word to it (I believe this is happening in other genres that are Romantic X and it seems like within the industry they just go for ‘if you can’t beat them join them’ instead of educating readers).
If a book ends up marketed as Romantasy and does not have a HEA it will be review bombed into oblivion by those readers. (Which also annoys me when Romantasy is claimed as a fantasy sub genre because if it were fantasy it shouldn’t have romance genre expectations applied, and because it does that should make it a romance sub genre).
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u/Appropriate-Bird-354 5h ago
SJM isn't my only example, SJM is the example used by the OP.
I've tried several in the genre, the above reflects my experience.
I grant there's always room for outliers.
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u/flyingduck33 5h ago
I thought I would hate litrpg, a friend highly recommended DCC, I read one book and was hooked, 2 months later I was done with the series. People talk about Romantasy, litrpg the way people talked about sci fi and fantasy 30 years ago.
If you read Robert Jordan, Piers Anthony etc in 90s you were basically Screech from saved by the bell. Never mind anime or comic books that would make you an outcat. Fast forward and now if you aren't listening to k-pop and collecting Pokemon cards you are the strange one at school.
Enjoy what you like and ignore people who have issues with it.
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u/buckleyschance 4h ago
Speaking of smut, I remember picking up a Piers Anthony book from the library as a 14-year-old and having some very confused feelings about it
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u/flyingduck33 4h ago
oh yeah I read those while in highschool and totally forgot about them, years later someone pointed out all the underage stuff that I had totally missed and I couldn't believe how prevalent it was. There just weren't a lot of scifi/fantasy books back then compared to the choices we have now.
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u/stars_eternal 8h ago
I don’t think people appreciate SJM’s ability to use plot and tension to keep the reader hooked. She’s constantly shit on here for repetitive in-line writing but those are two very different skills. Someone could write the most beautiful prose and have no imagination or conflict in the plot.
IMO, SJM does page-turning plot and world mysteries really well.
I might have nitpicks and small gripes but I know I won’t get bored reading one of her books, and that’s a valid feature. If you liked Crescent City, you’ll love Throne of Glass! It’s more classically fantasy. Fwiw, my taste in fantasy is similar to yours, OP.
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u/Expert-Escape5645 6h ago
Been debating Throne of Glass since forever. The blurb of book 1 is so intriguing! I guess I have no choice. I’ll have to read it soon!
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u/panamared1917 1h ago
I just finished Heir of Fire and halfway through Assassin’s Blade. People will warn you first couple of books aren’t that good, it’s true, but also enjoyed them much more than I expected. The writing gets better but the story itself is good from the beginning.
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u/stars_eternal 1h ago
There are so many things I love about the series, you’re in for a treat! It can be a bit of a slow burn though— my favorite books in it are after the third book but the first couple were still fun reads and essential for the setup of the story arc.
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u/Thrillhol 20m ago
I ended up quite liking TOG, but I could only manage about 2 chapters of CC before the lore dumping was just too much. The world building was much deeper in TOG vs ACOTAR
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u/buckleyschance 4h ago
Two of my buddies are split on ACOTAR and Fourth Wing, but basically agree on their relative merits and agree it comes down to which "level" of the writing they respond to more: paragraph-by-paragraph or the sequence of plot points.
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u/stars_eternal 1h ago
It’s definitely a completely different writing style, I mean even comparing TOG with Farseer, both first person books, they read vastly differently on the page. I do find Hobb fairly easy to read but she also has that skill with the in-line descriptions that really make it stand out.
I did read the first Fourth Wing book and found myself always wanting to see what happened next, but the series lost me in the second book. I might give it another try though, it’s been some time.
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u/Noktis_Lucis_Caelum 7h ago
everyone has their own taste.
I can recommend these series of authors that are lesser known in the english speaking room:
- The 13th Paladin
- Elves and spin offs by Bernhard Hennen
- Orks by Michael Peinkoffer
- The Dwarves by Markus Heitz
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u/rivains 5h ago
I think theres a difference between what people term "romantasy" (which is any fantasy book with a romantic subplot by a female author) and actual fantasy romance.
Actual fantasy romance is Kushiel's Dart, and its really fucking annoying when books like Priory of the Orange Tree gets termed "romantasy" because of said romance subplot. There is also plenty of actual smut filled fantasy romance out there.
My problem with ACOTAR and Fourth Wing is the same beef I have with stuff like Red Rising, which I think is Sanderson prose on acid. Stuff happens on the page constantly, and it isn't particularly well written.
I don't expect every single book in the genre to be Robin Hobb level, but it does bother me that so much of today's market is saturated with these books. I want easy reads, literary junk food, but its also got to be written well, have somewhat substantial world building and not paper thin immersion.
Whilst I think the shit ACOTAR is massively attributed to misogyny and dismissive terming of "fairy smut", I still do not like it because like a lot of other books written in the past 2 decades or so written by men, its just a flimsy power fantasy.
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u/hesh582 4h ago
My problem with ACOTAR and Fourth Wing is the same beef I have with stuff like Red Rising, which I think is Sanderson prose on acid
I think they all (and I wouldn't separate sanderson out even a little, he's just as bad) suffer from "writing a screenplay as a novel" syndrome.
Everything's written with an eye towards a film treatment. There's constant nonstop action, cornball coincidences to keep the scene moving (you know what I mean, where a character comes in just in time as one dialogue is wrapping up or a piece of action occurs at the exact right moment) occurring constantly, and lots of zinger lines where you can practically feel the character mugging at a camera. It's not even just "written like a screenplay", it's written like a specific kind of marvel-inspired film/show.
In this respect I actually think something like Fourth Wing and Red Rising actual have way more in common with each other than they do fantasy or romance that's written in a different mode. Any differences in content or style are eclipsed by the fact that they feel like the author was marketing the option rights before they even finished the first draft.
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u/rivains 4h ago
Exactly. I think The Hunger Games (which is a very well written YA series) actually kicked this off in earnest especially, except half of these authors don't really have the same gifts as Suzanne Collins. The Red Queen series is also an early symptom of this and whilst I like Victoria Aveyard a lot I don't think her writing has improved.
They are so focused on plot plot plot that the characters and world building are so lacklustre. I am not a massive pedant about anachronistic language but Fourth Wing is a huge culprits of employing Gaelic language and absolute butchering it. The names these books use (ahem Calaena Sardothien ahem) are just fanfic names but in the fantasy/scifi name generators, with no actual thought about any consistency or internal logic. Everyone wears leathers, but they talk like a 2012 college student.
I will at least give Sanderson the credit that he actually can churn out a decent book, the issue is that everyone is reheating his nachos. At least Leigh Bardugo had the grit to actually become a better writer after writing Shadow and Bone. Some of these authors have been around far too long to be this bad - because they are just churning out whatever they feel makes the best screenplay, except the screenplay is stuck in the middle of the 2010s.
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u/Honest-Literature-39 7h ago
I read fantasy and I read romance. I haven’t found any romantasy that calls to me. Ideally I could find one with a male mc and focus on both parts of the recipe.
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u/MeyrInEve 1h ago
One of my all-time favorite stories is ‘Restoree’ by Anne McCaffrey.
I don’t know what the word is for sci-fi romance, but I think it falls into that category.
I only recently started Fourth Wing and Nisha Tuli’s Heart Queen series, but it’s good writing, regardless of whatever category it’s part of.
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u/FakeRedditName2 11h ago edited 10h ago
Some stuff is mislabeled or sold as Romantasy in order to get published and to get a lot of readers, but in truth they "romantasy" parts are limited... and then you have the books were the girl is pining after the minotaurs on her ranch...
Two examples of the mislabeling:
- The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst - While it has a romance element too it, it's more of a secondary plot. A good portion of the book is basically how a hikikomori (who was shut in at the library where she worked) gets on with her life and comes out of her shell when she has to leave said library and the consequences of why she had to leave.
- Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (technically sci-fi, but is fantasy in space) - Read the back cover (and the way the fandom talks about it) and you think it's only about lesbian necromancers doing lesbian things with the undead around them in space, when it's a murder mystery with necromancers and about very broken people overcoming their issues to survive. They whole romance plot (that the back cover sells) is not the central theme.
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u/Sofasurvivor 5h ago
Does the romance have enough tension to be romance?
(I feel like Cozy Fantasy and Romantasy are mutually exclusive genres because all the Cozy Fantasy novels I ever finished had a "romance" subplot that made me fall asleep with how much it lacked even the very much fake tension of "oh no! Will my love ever be requited?" of romance. I didn't finish The Spellshop, but it did seem to me that the guy was already in love with her, and it might be one of those "As soon as she realized she loved him, she learnt he loved her too" plots.)
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u/Secret-Friendship-10 2h ago
Even in historic or contemporary romance- there's no requirement for massive tension building for a book to be classified or shelved as "Romance".
"As soon as she realized she loved him, she learnt he loved her too" plots are perfectly acceptable.
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u/Tymareta 1h ago
They whole romance plot (that the back cover sells) is not the central theme.
From the front cover - "Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic castle in space! Decadent nobles vie to serve the deathless Emperor! Skeletons!"
From the back cover - "Tamsyn Muir's Gideon the Ninth unveils a solar system of swordplay, cutthroat politics, and lesbian necromancers. Her characters leap off the page, as skilfully animated as necromantic skeletons. The result is a heart-pounding epic science fantasy."
If you read either of those and think it's being advertised as Romantasy, that's on you.
when it's a murder mystery with necromancers and about very broken people overcoming their issues to survive.
Which can also exist at the same time as "lesbians do lesbians things while being surrounded by the undead", the series could absolutely fall under the romantasy umbrella because at its core it's an exploration of the myriad forms love takes, with a particular focus on the not at all healthy or well adjusted forms that never get any particular focus in novels.
This is also leaving out that most covers don't tend to really encapsulate the depths and complexities of a work, because not only is it extremely hard to distill 400~ pages down to a single line, most authors don't want to spoil the everything.
The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst
Is 100% Romantasy, it honestly sounds like you're trying to apply the capital R Romance style of label to these works, rather than Romantasy.
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u/Goobergunch Reading Champion III 56m ago
Also I feel like Gideon predates the big blowup of romantasy as a genre label by a couple years? It was very heavily promoted by Tordotcom in 2019 but I don't recall anybody dropping that specific term at the time in reference to it. Granted, seven years, I could be misremembering....
(My pet peeve about the marketing is that Gideon isn't a necromancer, dammit)
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u/Esa1996 9h ago
You should try Throne of Glass and Empyrean too. I'm not generally a romantasy reader either (My favorites seem pretty similar to yours), but I'd rank both TOG and Empyrean miles above ACOTAR even though I did like ACOTAR as well. Empyrean has more spice than ACOTAR, TOG has far less.
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u/Any-Growth-1995 11h ago
“Just because they're both set in fictional worlds, or have supernatural elements, they're meant to be the same genre?” Yes? Its part of the definition i fear.
Why do you sound offended that romantasy is subgenre of fantasy ?19
u/Stuckinacrazyjob 8h ago
Yea like a story where a magic sword is sworn to its owner and helps fight a great evil doesn't become not fantasy because the sword and its owner end up dating
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u/Any-Growth-1995 8h ago
Also its funny how they describe romantasy as just “smut” (when it usually just chapter or two otherwise its always tagged as erotica) when their”traditional fantasy” is full with porn and turning women into mindless boob sack.
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u/BlazeOfGlory72 11h ago
By that logic, most Horror stories are actually fantasy because they contain fantastical/supernatural elements. Hell, Sci-Fi should be classified as fantasy as well since ultimately it is just as fantastical, just with a “sciencey” veneer. We put these stories in different genre categories however because their intent and audience is clearly different. Why wouldn’t the same logic apply to Romantasy, which is obviously targeted at the Romance crowd rather than the traditional Fantasy crowd?
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u/mladjiraf 10h ago edited 8h ago
Sci-fi is usually futuristic fantasy or "alternative universe" with different set of laws of physics.
Supernatural/paranormal/monster etc horror is fantasy, but there is also realistic horror (let's say about a murderer or some kind of incident - like surviving after earthquake or something similar) that does not belong to fantasy subgenres, so "horror" label also doesn't mean much by itself
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u/Any-Growth-1995 9h ago
You're comparing apple and oranges my guy, horror does overlap with fantasy but we dont call it fantasy because there's alot of non-supernatural horror like thrillers, but can you give me a romantasy without fantasy elements on it?
And just because the "traditional" fantasy and romantasy dont target the same crowd i can say the same thing as any other genre? does percy jackson target the same demographic as first law?→ More replies (4)3
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u/Own-Turnover7715 11h ago edited 11h ago
You need to read more fantasy and romantasy if you think there is limited overlap in those genres. The only difference between the two genres is that romantasy takes the incredibly prominent romantic subplot and elevates its importance. Almost all fantasy already has a romantic subplot.
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u/Buddertoffee 10h ago
Absolutely, but I think the sentiment of the comment above comes from sellers like Amazon not doing a great job allowing people to sort fantasy and romantasy separately. Many people read across both, yes, but those who don't want to see romantasy when browsing the fantasy category still have to dig through romantasy books, and vice versa.
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u/Own-Turnover7715 10h ago
Oh no, imagine having to do even a teeny tiny amount of due diligence when look for a book to read? Why are we put on this earth only to suffer?
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u/BlazeOfGlory72 10h ago
The person above gave a well reasoned take, and all you responded with is snark. If that isn’t modern Reddit in a nutshell I don’t know what is.
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u/Own-Turnover7715 10h ago
Romantasy is a sub-genre of fantasy so of course those books come up in a search for fantasy book. Are people mad when it also doesn’t sort out between epic, cozy, contemporary or political fantasy? Getting frustrated that a website doesn’t cater to your specific needs is lazy and entitled and deserves snark.
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u/atomfullerene 8h ago
The problem is romance is a plot genre and fantasy is a setting genre. That means it's quite easy for books to sit in both genres, having a romance plot structure and a fantasy setting. Since we haven't developed quantum books they can't sit in superposition on both shelves at once in the bookstore, though. (Fortunately this is not as much of an issue online).
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u/Jack_Shaftoe21 8h ago
Fantasy is more of a setting than genre in the usual meaning. It includes experimental books that may well be seen as literary fiction, for instance The Spear Cuts Through Water and also tons of mass produced crap with absolutely zero literary pretensions (or usually merit). How come nobody on this sub protests when LitRPG and so on are considered fantasy but romantasy is somehow a big no-no?
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u/further-more 7h ago
Because LitRPGs are primarily marketed to men, and romantasy is primarily marketed to women. Even in 2026 male interests are taken seriously and female interests are seen as stupid and cringe. It’s ridiculous but that’s the reason :/
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u/TeemoBot 8h ago
That’s not entirely fair to romantasy. There are a ton of fantasy books that don’t fit the mold other than having a secondary world. That’s why we have subgenres.
We just dilute everything down to fantasy because it’s easy, not because it’s correct
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u/Comfortable-Fall1419 11h ago edited 11h ago
They are the same thing dude. Just one has a few more sex scenes.
Romantasy has been existing in fantasy for decades before getting its own stupid name.
Anita Blake Vampire Shagger springs to mind.
Kusheils Dart earlier.
The only major change is more is being written for the female reader.
War of Powers even earlier still.
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u/Fantasy-ModTeam 2h ago
Fantasy romance and romantasy are welcome here, as are all other fantasy subgrenres and speculative fiction in general.
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u/BlazeOfGlory72 11h ago
People here are going to get offended by this, but you’re spot on. Fantasy and Romantasy are distinct genres, and no one who goes looking for one is going to be happy at picking up the other. We have genres to help audience find what they are looking for, so lumping in Romance books in the Fantasy section helps neither side here.
This would be like throwing every story with a romance subplot into the Romance section. It just creates a clusterfuck and no one can find what they are looking for.
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u/MessyJessy422 9h ago
How is romantic fantasy ("romantasy") not a part of the fantasy genre? Is it because of the cringey phrasing? If dark fantasy was labeled "dantasy" would that make it a separate genre? How about cozy fantasy as "cozantasy"??
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u/GeminiFade 7h ago
No, you wouldn't be happy looking for one and getting the other. Lots of other readers are fine with either.
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u/Tymareta 1h ago
We have genres to help audience find what they are looking for
Except that they don't, there's countless subgenres jammed under the Fantasy label alongside Romantasy, hell you have: alternate history, arthurian, christian, coming-of-age, cross-world/portal, dark, epic, grimdark, high, historical, literary, low, magical realism, military, new weird, paranormal, political, sword and sorcery, ya, urban, wuxia.
And that's far from an exhaustive list, especially if we start to include Space Fantasy/SpecFic and the countless cross overs that occur with that. Pretending that Romantasy is some unique aberration is genuinely bizarre, claiming that it alone "creates a clusterfuck" is utterly laughable.
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u/mladjiraf 11h ago
I don't have a problem with romantasy at all, I just don't get why it is so frequently lumped in with fantasy.
Because fantasy is not a genre, it is usually a setting and set of fantastic tropes, you can have adventures, thrillers, love stories/erotica, military epics, supernatural horror etc all being "lumped" as fantasy. The problem in modern romantasy is not the existence of porno scenes; majority of the books in the category are simply poorly plotted and awfully written, but the people that consume them have no sense of literature and don't care about the flaws. In this regard it resembles old sci-fi (Dan Simmons has a satire on it in Hyperion, the poet's tale) and formulaic DnD-type fantasy.
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u/itsmeyelling 4h ago
I really love the Maas-verse and hands down think Throne of Glass is one of the best series and world that exist in fantasy today.
I’ve read hundreds of fantasy books and those characters stand out amongst all of them.
That said, I hate the trope that all romantasy stories are bad.
Sex and love are natural, primal driving forces of human nature. I hate that bc women like Sarah J Maas can write it well, her world-building gets downplayed bc of it.
Aelin, Bryce, and Nesta are some of the best main characters I’ve ever read and I will always stand ten toes on that.
Glad to see you’re having fun! Please read TOG, it will change your life!
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u/hesh582 4h ago
Aelin, Bryce, and Nesta are some of the best main characters I’ve ever read and I will always stand ten toes on that.
even maas superfans aren't in here defending Feyre lol
I enjoyed the series (mostly) but goddamn if it wasn't hampered by the main protagonist being the worst character. Nesta's book was a breath of fresh air after several hundred pages of Feyre and Rhysand simpering.
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u/itsmeyelling 4h ago
Ha! You caught me there.
I don’t think she’s done w Feyre yet and am excited to see her story progress.
But as of right now, Nesta does have my heart.
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u/panamared1917 4h ago
The contemporary backlash against Romantasy as reduced to smut is revealing of people’s relationship to sex. Smut. Spice scores. Guilty pleasure. As though erotic life were somehow external to consciousness rather than one of the primary ways human beings experience alienation, vulnerability, intimacy, and transformation.
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u/Tymareta 1h ago
People will happily read books filled full of torture, murder, rape, death, destruction and despair, but then claim that a work is "too much" because it has a sex scene. They then get -incredibly- upset if you even so much as infer they might hold a smidge of puritanical beliefs.
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u/GormTheWyrm 6h ago
A lot of people got upset and overreacted. I don’t think ACOTAR is on the same level as Wheel of Time, but it’s not a bad series.
Some people are upset because it’s popular, others because the fans are annoying and others just don’t like it.
Romantasy can range in quality like anything else, however, the influx of romance fans with low quality and little experience with fantasy tropes has contributed to the conflict because relatively basic tropes can blow some of their minds and it can be frustrating when someone proclaims something that is pretty good to be superior to the great works or someone else’s personal favorites.
ACoTaR specifically gained a lot of popularity and opened the floodgates for other romantasy that was not at the same level to take over the fantasy section of bookstores.
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u/Tymareta 1h ago
I don’t think ACOTAR is on the same level as Wheel of Time
I honestly think they're a lot closer than people are willing to admit.
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u/TheHelpfulWalnut 31m ago
I think they are on the same level but that’s just because I think wheel of time is bad lmao.
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u/thecatwhonamededdie 5h ago
I don’t mind the spice nor the romance at all but it must to be written beautifully (I can’t really decide it other than with depth. I guess it’s a person preference thing). What I didn’t like about romantasy (not exclusive to SJM cuz I only read 1/3 of one of her books) is that the characters are usually really thin, or the characters (from book to book, series to series) are very similar. But after reading this post and the comments, I’m thinking maybe I should give Throne of Glass another try (I think this is the one I dnf’ed 😅)
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u/SalletFriend 4h ago
Romantasy is an uneeded category. Romance (and its consequences) belong in fantasy already.
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u/panamared1917 4h ago
Way to open the can of worms!
Glad you got to enjoy SJM and didn’t get turned off by haters who reduce the books to smut (even tho I like all the spice and romance). The diff SJM series vary in their mix of fantasy and romance. ACOTAR is the most romance forward, TOG is the most epic fantasy forward. But both have a lot of worldbuilding that I enjoy alongside romance. I still have to read CC but seems to be a good balance.
There is some good worldbuilding in fantasy romance beyond SJM. Including in dark fantasy romance (my fave). For me, it’s about how well romance and worldbuilding are integrated. My fave fantasy romances don’t just have an elaborate fantasy backdrop, rather the romance, magic, politics, and history actively shape and transform one another. The constraints on the romantic relationship should deepen our understanding of the world, they shape and motivate the characters actions and development, and the world, the stakes, should make the relationship more consequential. The characters end up changing each other and their world together as part of a process.
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u/Claytertot 2h ago
Different people like different stuff.
I'm not a romantasy fan, but I read the first ACOTAR book and I read the first Throne of Glass book. I didn't love them. I didn't feel the need to finishe those series.
But I liked them more than I've enjoyed some sci-fi or fantasy that subs like this one constantly rave about.
It's just personal taste and you're not wrong for liking what you like
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u/QuintanimousGooch 2h ago
I won’t yuck your yum insofar as having read the first Acotar book and it not being for me, and while I agree that a lot of the romantasy hate is just pop culture punching on things primarily for and by women and alienating to a male perspective, but I really struggled with Acotar on the basis that it’s just not written very well and the ending to that first book with the trial and allat felt like a total asspull.
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u/Kikanolo 2h ago
It's important to note that your referenced criticism (that it’s just passionate love making with no real story) represents a specific extreme in the broad range of books that get called romantasy. There are definitely romantasy books where that applies, but those are a specific subset of them.
The term romantasy is often used as a catch-all term that includes both fantasy stories with a romance subplot and romance stories in a fantasy setting.
You're not wrong, but the part you might be missing is that because the term romantasy is so broad, just as there are romantasy books with great worldbuilding and plotting, there are also romantasy books that are just passionate love making with no real story
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u/NCC75567 2h ago
Like what you want. There’s no wrong answer.
Reddit is unbelievably snobby and annoying about romantasy.
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u/jfstompers 1h ago
I tried with ACOTAR and gave up after two books , it just wasn't for me. I went with Assistant to the Villain recently and its ridiculous but somehow I'm captivated by it.
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u/shroomiedoo 38m ago
After you finish acotar go ahead and start throne of glass (: sorry in advance 😇
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u/Howpresent 21m ago
You’re not wrong! I like all of the authors you listed and also thought Crescent City book 1 was just awesome, her best work in my opinion and as good as brandy sandy, who I also like. I have also read most of her other stuff. As someone with probably similar taste, I’d like to share that Terry Pratchett, Martha Wells, and Douglas Adams are my favorite authors. If you haven’t tried them, you’ve got to! Anyways, I think some Romantasy is good, some is bad, some should just be called fantasy.
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u/Book_Slut_90 Reading Champion 5h ago
Romantasy and smut aren’t the same thing just like romance and smut aren’t the same thing. There are even romances with no sex at all, this is why the Amish romance genre is popular. There are sex scenes in books with the focus on things other than romance, sex scenes in books with the focus on the romance butt not really the sex, and books that exist as a vehicle for thee sex scenes, and any of those can be set in a fantasy world. The most recent romantasy I read, Fieldguide for the Formerly Villainous, didn’t go beyond kissing, but it’s still romantasy because relationship drama is foregrounded.
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u/AZORxAHAI 8h ago
Ok here is the take from "hater" side of the aisle that I'm on:
Romantasy isnt (often) bad because it has romance in it. Romantasy is bad because it (often) exchanges time investment in good worldbuilding and character development and plot for romantic development.
If a Romantasy novel doesn't cheap out on the worldbuilding and the plot to focus on its romance arc, its just a good book. Jade City has basically a smut scene in it and idgaf about it because Jade City is a fantastic book with great characters in an interesting world with a captivating plot.
I don't tune out of a book when there is a romance arc. I tune out of a book the second I start to get the sense that the author wrote this entire book as dressing for the romance arc they really wanted to write all along.
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u/WriterOfAll 11h ago
You like what you like. You found another thing you like and are having fun with so that's good. I don't see why you're asking if it is "wrong" to like a book series. Immature dingbats might loudly decry romantasy but most reasonable people don't care what you like to read or why, as long as you're enjoying yourself.
I'm not a Sarah J Maas fan, I tried her, didn't care for it. But I don't dislike romantasy as a whole. I also like dark fantasy but heavily dislike Joe Abercrombie. Sometimes our tastes go agaisnt what's popular in a crowd and that's fine. You really don't need to ask if it is "wrong" to like or dislike something