[Ads-l] Word: Romantasy - literary genre blending romance and fantasy (with eroticism)

[Laurence Horn]

> On Jan 9, 2025, at 2:35 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> Excellent citation, Jeff. The phrase "Jacqueline Susann romantasy"
> suggests to me that the sense of "romantasy" in this citation differs
> from the modern genre sense. The word "romantasy" in the phrase
> "Jacqueline Susann romantasy" is based on a blend of romance and
> fantasy, but the sense of fantasy is different.
> 
> The fantasy worlds of Jacqueline Susann were filled with glamour,
> wealth, fame, power, handsome men, beautiful women, and sex. Her
> fiction is not described as supernatural, fantastical, or
> other-worldly. I do not think Susann wrote about "vampires,
> manticores, werewolves, and other types of monsters and
> shape-shifters".
> 
> Jeff mentioned "Yargo". Wikipedia suggests that the novel had two
> different titles.  "During the mid-1950s, Susann wrote a
> science-fiction novel called The Stars Scream[28] (published
> posthumously as Yargo)."
> 
> LH: That passage in the New Yorker article was odd. How does the plot
> of a novel continue after the protagonist has turned into a piece of
> cheese?

Well, if it’s Swiss cheese, the plot will be full of holes.  

 
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Jan 9, 2025 at 12:41 PM Jeff Prucher
> <000000b93183dc86-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
>> 
>> I first encountered the term on the jacket copy of "I Married an Earthling" by Alvin Orloff. It seemed very natural, but I never saw it again until the recent craze.
>> Part Jacqueline Susann romantasy, part cheesy <i>Lost In Space</i> episode, this gay comedy will delight any fan of pop culture literature.
>> I Married an Earthling, by Alvin OrloffManic D Press, 2000back coverhttps://archive.org/details/imarriedearthlin0000orlo/page/258/mode/2up
>> 
>> I'm not sure what to make of the phrase "Jacqueline Susann romantasy", though. She did write one SF romance ("Yargo") but I don't think it's especially well-known, and is probably not what most people will think of when you say "Jacqueline Susann".
>>    On Thursday, January 9, 2025 at 09:00:26 AM PST, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>> 
>>> On Jan 9, 2025, at 7:55 AM, ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>>> 
>>> The romantasy genre is achieving new heights of popularity. This
>>> portmanteau word appeared in the following recent article:
>>> 
>>> Website The New Yorker newyorker.com
>>> Article: Did a Best-Selling Romantasy Novelist Steal Another Writer’s Story?
>>> Author: Katy Waldman
>>> Date: January 6, 2025
>>> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/01/13/did-a-best-selling-romantasy-novelist-steal-another-writers-story
>>> 
>>> [Begin excerpt]
>>> In 2020, Maas's publishers changed up their marketing strategy,
>>> causing the series to be rehomed in the adult section. "It birthed
>>> this genre of romantasy," Cassandra Clare, the author of the
>>> best-selling fantasy series "The Mortal Instruments," told me, "which
>>> to me is books that contain a lot of the tropes that make Y.A. popular
>>> but also have explicit sex in them."
>>> [End excerpt]
>>> 
>> 
>> Hah.  A new one on me. I took a look at the Waldman piece in the link and was especially intrigued with this bit:
>> 
>> Romantasy sells a lightly transgressive form of wish fulfillment that holds out the enthralling promise of sex with vampires, manticores, werewolves, and other types of monsters and shape-shifters. (There’s even a “cheese-shifter” paranormal romance, by the author Ellen Mint, in which characters can turn into different types of cheese.)
>> 
>> Romano-tasy, anyone? Enthralling indeed!
>> 
>> LH
>> 
>> 
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