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

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

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?

Garson

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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