When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.

-Einstein

Accustomed to reading books like The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Towards the Center of the Earth, David Copperfield and The Swiss family Robinson, my first run-in with fantasy was at the age of 14 when I picked up J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone. At that tender age a bespectacled old wizard, named Albus Dumbledore, with his soul-piercing blue eyes coupled with a charismatically long silvery beard got me immediately hooked onto his strange and magical world. In that strange world some people could accomplish seemingly impossible things at a flick of their wands, could make little elves do their bidding and had goblins tend to their galleons. None of this impacted me as much as the fact that all ordinary people like me were just that. Ordinary. Just muggles.

But back then, I was just a kid. I wonder if I even categorised any of my readings into genres at the time. My first serious fantasy reading was J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Needless to say, I was enchanted and completely awed by what Tolkien created in his strange mystical lands. There was something about the otherness of it that awed me or maybe it was sheer jealousy due to feeling like an outsider that made me so drawn towards this wonderful genre of fantasy. And hence this collection of blogs that are about to follow.

This genre has seen its fair share of lows, but in our times, the increasing popularity of the fantasy genre and its inherent potential can be judged by the popularity of the A Song of Ice and Fire series by the very wonderful and very very beardly George R.R. Martin with his latest novel being the second novel in series to debut as a bestseller on the New York Times bestseller list. These epic fantasy novels of his have also been recently adapted HBO for their dramatic pay-cable series Game of Thrones.