> > What we identify with in stories are characters, not places. All I need to do to write a story you can relate to is create a character with feelings you also have. Even if my character is named Zonkadonk and lives in Port Hydrio in the land of Magicia and makes a living wargifying magic hootagumpers, all I have to do is say how [snip!]
>
> Actually no. When I look at the back of the book and see that it's about a guy named Zonkadonk, I'm going to drop the book and back away slowly. (This is doubly true if your character name has a ton of apostrophes in it, e.g. Z'onk'a'do'nk)
>
> For me, having to plow through a bunch of nonsense fantasy words and unpronounceable character names is a huge barrier. Even more so: having to deal with a bunch of stilted, pseudo-Elizabethean-lite fantasy speak.

I actually share this opinion. My example had silly made-up words in it just because I was having fun. But if you want to talk about linguistics in fantasy stories, I agree that long, unpronounceable words are kind of silly. But there is no reason they have to be that way. Simple earthly proper names or mild variations work fine.

> Setting aside the obvious point that I've been to NYC and it's not that alien, this isn't true for me either. If you set a story in Beijing, I at least have some historical and cultural context to relate to.

Yes, and if the writer is going to tap into those historical and cultural contexts you'll be bringing with you, that's great. What I'm saying is the ability to be free of that baggage is a unique and underused power of the fantasy genre (well, science fiction has it, too). It enables me to tell a story about Beijing, or better yet make a point about Beijing, without having you decide in advance how you feel about it the instant I say "Beijing."

> I don't have to refer to the map at the start of the book or get through a lot of boring exposition about the world (and the ancient evil that must be slain or else the ancient prophecy will-- oh jeez, I'm boring myself now).

Again, I agree with you, but you're talking about *bad* fantasy. Infodumps are as problematic in fantasy as any other kind of fiction. Fantasy commits this crime more often than other genres because it does build whole worlds up from scratch, but there is no reason whatsoever that the world can't be built implicitly through the actions of the characters.

Of course ancient prophecies about ancient evils is another bad cliche that I'm not talking about.

> I can just mostly enjoy the story, and if I am going to learn something about the setting, I hope it's time well spent because if it's a good book, I'm actually learning facts about reality.

If a story in a fantasy world doesn't teach you something about the real world, it's almost by definition a bad story.

Obviously the main point of contention is that you don't like the fantasy genre, which is fine. But most of your objections to it are things I, as a die-hard lover of the genre, also have problems with. (The whole reason Dave and I wrote The Fantasy Novelist's Exam is to rail against these and other terrible things that plague a genre with such huge potential.)

Let me ask you: do you think you'd have a better time at the new Sorcerer's Apprentice movie, or just by watching Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy again? I think we have the same answer to that question.