historical fantasy books

Historical fantasy novels

HIstorical fantasy books mix our world with the magical elements that only the fantasy genre can provide. Historicalfantasy is a perfect genre for understanding fantasy from another point of view.

These books have no fictional worlds, but they are set in in the real world. They, of course, incorporate fantastic elements, this is what defines the genre of historical fantasy novels.

Understanding historical fantasy books

This crossover is quite common but interesting in the same way.  Allowing authors to create fantasy deriving or inspiring from real events or periods from history. There are different approaches when it comes to Historical fantasy books, such as creating an alternate history (as happens for example in The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud). Maybe making magical or mythical creatures coexisting in the mundane world with the majority of people being unaware of it (like the Harry Potter series).

Here are some book suggestions where you can see different approaches of historical fiction fantasy:

H.P Lovecraft novels: Historical fantasy books with horror

From the American writer H.P Lovecraft. We can find a good number of books set in the ’30s and where some imaginary cities alternate with real ones. These imaginary cities are an inspiration of other real cities such as Orleans or New York but even so stories happen in the American continent.  Making his characters travel around the country while trying to stop the attempts of the sectarians to try to awaken creatures from another world. These books are a series of horror stories with a slight touch of mystery.  In these, the presence of grotesque monsters completely alters the atmosphere of our planet.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to find them

The same goes for J.K. Rowling’s series of books, Fantastic Creatures and where to Find Them. This has been brought to the big screen after its success in literature. These books are about magic, in a world that serves as background to Harry Potter’s (which if you liked you will like these books like Harry Potter for adults). These explain how important the magic has been on the earth.  From the foundation of the different schools of magicians to all the trouble caused by the evil use of magic.

In this case, we find ourselves in a parallel world. In this, ordinary people live unaware of all these wanderings of the magicians. So it could be said that there is a world completely different from the one we understand despite the fact that both will share the same destiny.

His Dark Materials: a series of historical fantasy books

This saga, written by Philip Pullman. Northern lights became more famous due to its adaptation to the world of cinema under the name of the Golden Compass. This is a story of a steampunk atmosphere. We find a mixture of magical worlds where animals have a great relevance throughout history.

In this case, once again the problems between various worlds end up joining ours.  The protagonist, Lyra, a girl living in Oxford, ends up wrapped in an adventure of epic magnitudes. The story will make her face all sorts of conflicts among fantastic races and evil witches.

Take a look at His Dark Materials reading order.

The Ender’s game

historical fantasy novels

Ender’s Game

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Book set in an alternative future. The most intelligent children of the planet are trained to be virtual space pilots to wage a war against other worlds, which will eventually try to invade ours. A work of science fiction that combines passages from our earth with intrepid adventures in a space station. Some of you might know this book was adapted into a movie, I´ll write about this soon.

Hope you liked these suggestions,  and keep reading! If you liked this post you will enjoy this list of classic novels.

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