![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Oct. 13th, 2014 02:43 pmYou know that thing where no matter what hobby you have, you can write a cozy themed mystery novel series about it? Like, there's knitting-themed cozy mysteries and gardening-themed cozy mysteries and accounting-themed cozy mysteries and so on?
I don't think 'cozy themed series' is a thing for fantasy novels, because it's kind of been subsumed by urban fantasy which is a whole separate thing, but maybe it should be a thing? Actually I would kind of love if that was a thing. (ACCOUNTING-THEMED COZY FANTASY NOVELS BY THE DOZENS.) And if it was a thing, then Barbara Ashford's Spellcast and its sequel Spellcrossed would fall squarely into that subgenre.
So the basic premise is that Our Heroine Maggie goes on a road trip and accidentally gets sucked into a tiny community theater in a charming small town in Vermont, which is full of charmingly eccentric theatrical types and wacky theatrical hijinks, and also it turns out powered by the charming and angsty fairy director who uses his MAGICAL FAIRY POWERS to help all these charmingly eccentric characters put on successful musicals while coming to terms with their personal hangups and growing as people. The first book is about Maggie getting over her low self-esteem by performing as the clambake lady in "Carousel," and the second book is about Maggie getting over her parent issues by directing "Into the Woods." While falling in love with/sorting out relationship status with the charming and angsty fairy director, of course. They are basically the coziest damn things I've ever read.
And, like, OK:
- it's wish fulfillment up the wazoo
- there are all kinds of ethical problems with fairy magic cheerfully being used to futz with people's emotional states and ability to perform high-quality theater that are really very BARELY glancingly addressed
- don't go in looking for numinous because there's really very little numinous to be found
- also many of the charmingly eccentric theatrical types verge on stereotype (I cringed, for example, at the subplot about the gay actor playing Neville Craven who kept accidentally giving off incest vibes during his scenes with Archibald in "The Secret Garden") (although actually the loud and intimidating but good-hearted Chinese choreographer who SPEAKS IN ALLCAPS was my favorite and I would very happily read all about her romance with her mild-mannered Swiss-German stage manager husband)
So if you're likely to be irritated by those things, stay away, but I had massive amounts of fun. The books just kind of exude comfort -- at least if you are a person who loves musicals and loves cheesy fantasy novels, which, I mean, there's no denying I am the target audience. There is an X painted on my chest. HERE I AM.
But also I think I'm a bit cozy comfort fantasy-starved? Seriously, cozy theme fantasy can become a thing any time now.
I don't think 'cozy themed series' is a thing for fantasy novels, because it's kind of been subsumed by urban fantasy which is a whole separate thing, but maybe it should be a thing? Actually I would kind of love if that was a thing. (ACCOUNTING-THEMED COZY FANTASY NOVELS BY THE DOZENS.) And if it was a thing, then Barbara Ashford's Spellcast and its sequel Spellcrossed would fall squarely into that subgenre.
So the basic premise is that Our Heroine Maggie goes on a road trip and accidentally gets sucked into a tiny community theater in a charming small town in Vermont, which is full of charmingly eccentric theatrical types and wacky theatrical hijinks, and also it turns out powered by the charming and angsty fairy director who uses his MAGICAL FAIRY POWERS to help all these charmingly eccentric characters put on successful musicals while coming to terms with their personal hangups and growing as people. The first book is about Maggie getting over her low self-esteem by performing as the clambake lady in "Carousel," and the second book is about Maggie getting over her parent issues by directing "Into the Woods." While falling in love with/sorting out relationship status with the charming and angsty fairy director, of course. They are basically the coziest damn things I've ever read.
And, like, OK:
- it's wish fulfillment up the wazoo
- there are all kinds of ethical problems with fairy magic cheerfully being used to futz with people's emotional states and ability to perform high-quality theater that are really very BARELY glancingly addressed
- don't go in looking for numinous because there's really very little numinous to be found
- also many of the charmingly eccentric theatrical types verge on stereotype (I cringed, for example, at the subplot about the gay actor playing Neville Craven who kept accidentally giving off incest vibes during his scenes with Archibald in "The Secret Garden") (although actually the loud and intimidating but good-hearted Chinese choreographer who SPEAKS IN ALLCAPS was my favorite and I would very happily read all about her romance with her mild-mannered Swiss-German stage manager husband)
So if you're likely to be irritated by those things, stay away, but I had massive amounts of fun. The books just kind of exude comfort -- at least if you are a person who loves musicals and loves cheesy fantasy novels, which, I mean, there's no denying I am the target audience. There is an X painted on my chest. HERE I AM.
But also I think I'm a bit cozy comfort fantasy-starved? Seriously, cozy theme fantasy can become a thing any time now.
