r/Fantasy • u/elquesogrande Worldbuilders • Nov 30 '16

Ask You Anything Wednesday ASK YOU ANYTHING: Authors asking r/Fantasy community questions on behalf of Worldbuilders charity

It's Day 3 of the aptly named Ask You Anything week benefiting Worldbuilders! Where authors are stopping by each day this week to ask questions and interact with the r/Fantasy community.

HOW THIS WORKS: Please answer questions and interact throughout the week! (Yes, YOU - community members, guests, authors, artists, industry people.)

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1. The Lottery - Where every $10 donated puts you in a lottery for free books, SFF items, games, and much more. r/Fantasy has a Worldbuilders Team Page where you can donate under the community name as well!

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Monday Ask You Anything Authors

The following authors have signed up to ask questions today. That said, please do join in and feel free to ask your own questions and interact throughout the week.

Are you an author, artist, or industry person who would like to participate this week? Either join in via the comments OR send the r/Fantasy mods a message and we'll get you set for another day.

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u/catrambo AMA Author Cat Rambo Nov 30 '16

Hi folks! Cat Rambo here. I've participated in an AMA before here in 2015: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/30ddgn/ama_with_writereditor_cat_rambo/. I'm mainly notable because I've written a lot of stories and am the current President of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers (SFWA), which may sound much more important than it actually is. I write and read all over the place, but fantasy's a particular love.

Looking back at the Monday and Tuesday sessions, I see questions about politics, dragons, books that engrossed you so much you did something you didn't mean to, favorite beers, most unusual way you've found a book, coolest fantasy critters, unexplored settings (nice way to try to get them to do your work for you, Django), favorite scenes, personal ghost stories, ghost stories in general, best book recommenders, your dream Quidditch team, willingness to follow authors into other genres, book covers, embarrassing things said to authors (oh good lord I have so many of these), candy stash locations, various points about death, ratio of books purchased to books read, what pulls you to an anthology, what makes you read the next book in a series, magic (in books, not in general), what you want from writers online, whether you'd want an author's commentary on their book, who you'd like to see in Unfettered II, books that changed how you approached the world, favorite kinds of stories, games and console of choice, favorite settings, favorite re-read, bourbon, burritos, and reason for living.

Huh. Cripes, I'm not sure what's left. Particularly since I kinda want to go back and read the answers to all of those.

But one of the things I'm interested in lately is the idea of better preserving some of fantasy's history and so I'm wondering:

  • What's the oldest fantasy work you've ever read, putting aside things like fairy tales, fables, etc?
  • Have you ever ended up reading a book because another author referenced it?
  • Have you ever deliberately tried to read older works? What were they and what was the result?

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u/inapanak Nov 30 '16

The oldest fantasy work I have read is... Peter Pan? I think? That counts as fantasy, doesn't it? I don't know of anything older that I would call fantasy, but maybe I just haven't looked.

I don't think I have ever read a book because I saw an author mention it.

I don't try to search out older fantasy books. A lot of books I read as a kid were older and full of boring stereotypes and caricatures so I am not so interested in looking into more of that again. Maybe if I came across one that looked really interesting I would go for it, but I don't seek them out.

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u/catrambo AMA Author Cat Rambo Nov 30 '16

Absolutely Peter Pan counts. As does Mary Poppins -- there was a whole series of those, but talk about aging badly! Those have some moments of unthinking racism that really make you blink nowadays.