The Fairy Godmother (41 page)
Read The Fairy Godmother Online
Authors: Mercedes Lackey
What does fantasy mean to you?
Fantasy for me has always gone far beyond the magic rings and castles of the classical fairy tale, although heaven knows I love the classical fairy tales! To write or enjoy fantasy requires an open mind and heart, and the ability to believe that things are not always what they seem.
Why do you think women enjoy reading fantasy?
I think it may be because, as Dorothy L. Sayers once pointed out about the mystery genre, fantasy is one of the last bastions of “moral fiction.” By this she meant that in mysteryâand in fantasyâgood triumphs over evil, the wrongdoers get their just deserts, and all ends, if not always strictly happily, at least well. This is the definition of “moral fiction”: something that shows the world, perhaps not as it is, but certainly as it could and should be. I think women are, as a whole, a lot less willing to settle for “that's just the way it is” than men are. You tend to find that the men who read fantasy are idealists, in fact.
What makes you write fantasy over any other subject?
I have greater scope in writing fantasy for my imagination than in any other genre. I can write fantasy romances, fantasy mysteries, heroic fantasy, modern-urban fantasy, historical fantasy, dark (or horror) fantasy, alternate-history fantasy, political fantasy even Western fantasy. There is vir
tually no genre that I could not use for a fantasy novel, and even if I haven't gotten around to it, someone surely has, because I can cite examples of every one of those books, either in my own body of work, or someone else's.
Anything you'd like to say about fantasy or writing, or writing fantasy?
When a reader closes the book with regret, you've done your job. What we all strive for is when a reader goes back to the same book again and again and finds equal pleasure in it each time they read it. That's what every reader is looking for, and every writer is working to accomplish.
And when it comes down to cases, everything written is at least in part a fantasy. Except maybe for the national budget. That's horror.
The Heralds of Valdemar
Arrow of the Queen
Arrow's Flight
Arrow's Fall
Exile's Valor
Exile's Honor
Take a Thief
Vows & Honor
The Oathbound
Oathbreakers
Oathblood
The Last Herald Mage Trilogy
Magic's Pawn
Magic's Promise
Magic's Price
The Mage Winds Trilogy
Winds of Fate
Winds of Change
Winds of Fury
By the Sword
The Mage Wars
Mercedes Lackey & Larry Dixon
The Black Gryphon
The White Gryphon
The Silver Gryphon
The Mage Storms Trilogy
Storm Warning
Storm Rising
Storm Breaking
The Owl Mage Trilogy
Mercedes Lackey & Larry Dixon
Owlflight
Owlsight
Owlknight
Brightly Burning
Non-Valdemar Books From DAW
The Dragon-Jousters
Joust
Rediscovery (1993)
by Marion Zimmer Bradley & Mercedes Lackey
Edwardian Fairy Tales
The Elemental Masters
The Gates of Sleep
The Serpent's Shadow
The Black Swan
Bard's Tale
Castle of Deception
by Mercedes Lackey & Josepha Sherman
Fortress of Frost and Fire
by Ru Emerson & Mercedes Lackey
Prison of Souls
by Mercedes Lackey & Mark Shepherd
Bardic Voices
Lark and the Wren
The Robin & the Kestrel
The Eagle and the Nightingales
Four and Twenty Blackbirds
Bardic Choices
A Cast of Corbies
by Mercedes Lackey & Josepha Sherman
The Ship Who Searched
by Mercedes Lackey & Anne McCaffrey
Bedlam Bards
Bedlam's Bard (omnibus)
by Ellen Guon & Mercedes Lackey
Knight of Ghosts and Shadows
by Ellen Guon & Mercedes Lackey
Summoned to Tourney
by Ellen Guon & Mercedes Lackey
Spirits White as Lightning
by Mercedes Lackey & Rosemary Edgehill
Beyond World's End
by Mercedes Lackey & Rosemary Edgehill
Mad Maudlin
by Mercedes Lackey & Rosemary Edgehill
The Serrated Edge
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Born To Run
by Larry Dixon & Mercedes Lackey
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Chrome Circle
by Larry Dixon & Mercedes Lackey
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Wheels of Fire
by Mercedes Lackey & Mark Shepherd
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When the Bough Breaks
by Mercedes Lackey & Holly Lisle
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Fire Rose
Reap the Whirlwind
by C. J. Cherryh & Mercedes Lackey
Doubled Edge, Elizabethan Magic
This Scepter'd Isle
by Mercedes Lackey & Roberta Gellis
Heirs of Alexandria: Alternate History
The Shadow of the Lion
by Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint & Dave Freer
This Rough Magic
by Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint & Dave Freer
Wing Commander: Science Fiction
Freedom Flight
by Ellen Guon & Mercedes Lackey
If I Pay Thee Not In Gold
by Mercedes Lackey & Piers Anthony
Halfblood Chronicles
by Mercedes Lackey & Andre Norton
The Elvenbane
Elvenblood
Elvenborn
The Shadow Mountain Trilogy
by Mercedes Lackey & James Mallory
The Outstretched Shadow
Firebird
Diana Tregarde/Jenny Talldeer
Burning Water
Children of the Night
Jinx High
Sacred Ground
Tiger Burning Bright
by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Andre Norton & Mercedes
Lackey
Mercedes Lackey's Silhouette Books title
Counting Crows in
Charmed Destinies
THE FAIRY GODMOTHER
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6199-4
Copyright © 2004 by Mercedes Lackey
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Worldwide Library, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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® and TM are trademarks of Harlequin Books S.A., used under license. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
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collected as THE CHROME BORNE
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collected as THE OTHERWORLD
