low fantasy n.

High fantasy—as opposed, indeed, to low fantasy (’high’ and ‘low’ not necessarily being value-judgment words): I think it’s analogous to high and low comedy…. In low fantasy, the interest lies in the cleverness, creativeness, of the devices themselves; the ‘furniture’, as you might say. Or the gimmicks. High fantasy can certainly have creative, imaginative devices and furniture, but the real thrust has to do not with gimmickry but with basic human relations and attitudes, including the author’s.

Low fantasy, usually set in a rational, physically familiar world, challenges us with the coexistence of the nonrational.

High fantasy, fantasy set in a fully imagined Secondary World, according to Boyer and Zahorski, as opposed to Low Fantasy which concerns supernatural intrusions into the ‘real’ world.

One might add ‘low’ fantasy as a type of ‘What if?’ fiction: E. Nesbit’s Five Children and It takes place in a realistically depicted Edwardian England, but its heroes meet a ‘psammead’, a creature that has the power to grant wishes.

The ASOIAF [sc. A Song of Ice and Fire] series can be categorised as ‘low fantasy’—magic is a factor in the world that Martin has created but ultimately it doesn’t drive it. What Martin has managed to achieve through low-fantasy is the creation of a fictional world that is not only appealing because it is so complex and exciting but also because it is so convincing and genuine.

Tamaki’s debut epic fantasy immerses readers in a reimagined feudal Japan…. The low-fantasy world is built with enough detail to feel real.