Have you heard of Cozy Fantasy? It’s the new and hot subgenre of fantasy, taking the world by storm (or at least by shower).
If you google cozy fantasy you’ll get a variety of definitions, not all of which agree with each other. There are elements which are in all of the definitions though. If I were to describe it I might say cozy mystery, but with fantasy instead of mystery (although mystery can be involved). Of course, then I’d have to define cozy mystery too!
I think the simplest definition might be slice-of-life fantasy. It’s not the big slashing fantasy, epics and wars etc. It’s the person who owns the inn and the things they get up to. It’s the adventure away from the adventure.
See what I mean? Hard to define. Let’s try a little better.
It’s Fantasy
This might be the most obvious part. There doesn’t have to be elves or goblins or witches or anything like that (although there can be), but it does have to be recognizably fantasy. That means sci-fi doesn’t apply (there’s also cozy SF if you’re interested). It probably can’t even just be set in some medieval style and called fantasy. Some truly fantasy elements must appear.
It’s Cozy
This is the part that might get you. How do you define cozy? I think it’s a bit easier to say what shouldn’t be in it than what should. There’s no real violence and no mature content. Romance can happen, in fact there’s a sub-subgenre called cozy fantasy romance.
Cozy is in the eye of the beholder, in at least some ways. One person might not mind kissing, another might completely object. Somebody might say no swordplay at all, while others would consider it in the context of the story. There has to be some conflict about something, otherwise the story doesn’t really exist. It’s a matter of degree, I think.
Perhaps the answer is that the story must make you feel cozy. That is very subjective, of course. Even the thought of a warm feeling from a story will be different to different people.
What else?
Isn’t that enough? Other definitions say it needs to happen in a small, close-knit community, that it focuses on relationships, and that it’s low stakes. These can all be considered. I think everyone will have their own definition which might include one or more of them.
The phrase ‘low stakes’ seems to have adherents in the community, but it’s also polarizing. Just how low do those stakes need to be? Some people think you can have quiet and cozy stories in the middle of vast epic conflicts. There were lots of cozy bits in Tolkien, for example. Many of them were just moments, but there were plenty of full cozy stories in there if you knew where to look, and were willing to stretch your imagination.
If you’ve heard of the Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View books, you might get the idea. Those take characters you wouldn’t expect to read, and flesh them out a little. The guard standing by a building somewhere in the Star Wars universe has a complete life of his own, and those books tell their stories. They’re great too. You might call them Cozy Sci-Fi.
So yes, there are far more questions than answers about the genre, I’m afraid.
So what books should You read?
I recently read Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree. This is probably the most famous cozy fantasy novel, and it’s become the default starter recommendation for the genre. I loved it, and I’m looking forward to the sequel. If you’re interested in the genre, read this to see if you want to go further.
Others? I read through the first volume of Wyngraf magazine, which is becoming the magazine for cozy fantasy. A dozen short stories, each of which brought something to the table. I liked most of them, and there were a couple which really fired my imagination, enough to go looking for other stories by those authors. The book is very good value for just a few bucks.
Howl’s Moving Castle is another, and you may have heard of the movie (I have not seen it). The book is very good too. Given it was written in the 80s, it might be considered one of the granddaddies of the genre. Of course, it does suffer a little from being from that period, just as other fantasy series do.
The recent Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson counts as cozy fantasy, I think. This more than any other gave me the warm cozy feeling these books are supposed to engender in their readers.
I could go on, but I won’t. I’m not here to make a list, and in fact these books I’ve listed are probably the low hanging fruit in the genre. I recommend them to you to get started, and if you like them you can google for much longer and better lists than I could produce.
An idea or two
I’m actually inspired by many of these books to write my own. I’ve had various ideas about what to do, but the one I seem to keep coming back to is the idea of an inn somewhere in the Nine Kingdoms, where adventuring parties stop in on their way to their destination. I think there’s plenty around the idea to come up with stories.
So don’t be surprised if you start seeing those ideas turning into new books in the future.