Yeah, yeah, I get it. Seeking novelty, some readers and some publishing outlets want anything but medievalist fantasy set in a European-influenced world.

But I like those types of stories. And I’m fascinated by Europe’s medieval period, which was much more colorful and complex than the common stereotypes. Given the sheer amount of time necessary to write one novel, let along three, I prioritized my enjoyment over any attempt to position myself along a trend line.

Tolkien once wrote to one of his readers, “It remains an unfailing delight to me to find my own belief justified: that the ‘fairy-story’ is really an adult genre, and one for which a starving audience exists” (Letter 159, in The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien).

Later in the same letter, Tolkien stated, “As C. S. Lewis said to me long ago, more or less–(I do not suppose my memory of his dicta is any more precisely accurate than his of mine: I often find strange things attributed to me in his works)–‘If they won’t write the kind of books we want to read, we shall have to write them ourselves; but it is very laborious.’”

I wish that the publishing industry would publish more of the types of books I like to read–those epic fantasies with a gritty realism in their telling. (Think Steven Brust, Lois McMaster Bujold, Christian Cameron, Glen Cook, Steven Erikson, Guy Gavriel Kay, and Jennifer Roberson.) I would buy all of them. Meanwhile, though, I can amuse myself by laboring on this project.