Review: Suspend disbelief and go with the flow
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 4, 2010
Why do people read fantasy? Why do they want to believe in magic? Is it something to do with religion? Who knows? Some academic somewhere has probably written a paper on the subject. My hunch is that it's related deep down to a desire for happy endings, common in we humans. As a skeptical guy who has a handle on reality (I like to think so) I've never read much fantasy - although I do like the Lord Of The Rings and Harry Potter movies, which is something of a contradiction I suppose (like the man who reads Playboy for the articles I watch fantasy movies for the special effects). If you're like me and you're searching for an introduction to a genre that you might have previously avoided, you could do a lot worse than read these stories. The secret is to suspend disbelief and go with the flow. Don't allow logic or reason to interfere. These fantasies do what they need to do: ensure that good triumphs over evil, that magic wins out in the end, that friends and family are important, and that endings are always happy (well, happy-ish anyway). Along the way, you might even learn a thing or two about herbs.