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

[Jeff Prucher]

 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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