Fantasy.

I simply had to write this post. George RR Martin, in his inimitable style, talks about fantasy and how some of us just cannot do without it. Escapism is almost always frowned on by society, but is it so bad, to want to run away from the dreary dregs that the real world offers us... for a little while, only for a little while.

I'm also openly advertising the book Dreamsongs: A RRetrospective, an excellent anthology of short stories written the this Titan of fantasy, science fiction and horror.

The best fantasy is written in the language of dreams. It is alive as dreams are alive, more real than real... for a moment at least... that long magic moment before we wake.

Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab. Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end. Reality is the strip malls of Burbank, the smoke-stacks of Cleveland, a parking garage in Newark. Fantasy is the towers of Minas Tirith, the ancient stones of Gormenghast, the halls of Camelot. Fantasy flies on the wings of Icarus, reality on Southwest Airlines. Why do our dreams become so much smaller when they finally come true?

We read fantasy to find the colours agin, I think. To taste strong spices and hear the song the sirens sang. There is something old and true in fantasy that speaks to something deep within us, to the child who dreamt that one day he would hunt the forests of the night, and feast beneath the hollow hills, and find a love to last forever somewhere the south of Oz and north of Shangri-La.

They can keep their heaven. When I die, I'd sooner go to Middle Earth.