fantasy
Portal Fantasies
Like a lot of fantasy fans, my gateway to the genre was Narnia. I’d read fantasy books before, including the one Narnia book that was about someone in that world who didn’t travel between worlds (The Horse and His Boy, read during my horse phase when I read every book that had “horse” in the title or a horse on the cover) and The Hobbit, but the book that got me really hooked was The Silver Chair (yeah, I was all out of order). There was something about the story being told from the point of view of a character from my world who got to travel to a magical world that really captured my imagination. I devoured the rest of the series and from there got into fantasy that didn’t involve traveling between worlds. I guess I needed my hand held for that introduction, since I pretty much went straight from The Silver Chair to The Lord of the Rings.
I still love a good portal fantasy. It’s fun imagining that a magical world lies behind the wardrobe, through that odd doorway, behind that gate. I spent a lot of my school days imagining a portal opening up and someone coming through to take me away. That was the idea behind my book Spindled.
Spindled is now part of a new Storybundle that was put together by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association that’s all about portal fantasies. The idea behind the bundle is essentially “What am I doing here?” What do you do when you find yourself in another world?
If you’re not familiar with a Storybundle, it’s a curated group of e-books. You pay what you like for the bundle. By paying at least $20, you unlock bonus books (Spindled is a bonus book). You can get ten novels for $20 (but you can pay more if you like). Some of the money goes to support the efforts of SFWA and the authors split the rest. It’s only available this month.
You can find the info about the bundle and buy it at https://storybundle.com/sfwa