Where Reality Meets Fantasy (Fiction)

Can fantasy meet reality?

The factual answer is, nope. Not really. Unless we’re talking about my green and possibly purple Pegasus – named Brownie, mind you – which I am totally going to have someday.

Try arguing with me on this one. I dare you. Lol.

But setting that aside, faeries of course don’t exist. Not even Scottish faerie princesses named Sabrina who were orphaned at infancy and sent into hiding in the U.S. to evade the grasp of the Human Preservation and Advancement Committee (HPAC).

Fortunately for anyone who likes browsing the nerd section of Barnes & Noble (guilty as charged), there’s a “fictional” answer too. And it’s a flat-out yes.

Jim Butcher, for one, does it phenomenally in his Dresden Files series. His main character, Harry Dresden, is a wizard who goes around present-day Chicago battling supernatural baddies.

The story totally sucks you in from page one of Book 1. Butcher rocks like that. If you’re not going to buy my amazing fantasy series, definitely treat yourself to his.

Though I have to say – and not to detract from one of my favorite author’s awesomeness – meshing fantasy and reality inside a story isn’t difficult in my opinion. Writing fantasy fiction where you have to make everything up from scratch? Now that sounds miserably hard.

But when I take a faerie like Sabrina and set her in my own world, I get to twist grounded logic with flights of fancy. Which means, in “Not So Human:”

·         Very few humans can see faerie wings, which are equipped with a genetic cloaking device. But did you know in real life, select humans have specialized eyesight that really can pick up sights the rest of us can’t?

·         Let’s face it, some artists are downright mesmerizing. We could stare at their paintings or sculptures or arrangements for a while. Sabrina finds out that’s because the artists in question are faeries, and faerie works have that effect on non-winged individuals.

·         You know all of those conspiracy theories about 9/11? I bet I can top them all. According to the HPAC, those terrorists weren’t really Muslim extremists. The whole thing was a clever ploy by faerie powers to start international wars and reduce the human population.

I don’t know about you, but I love it when Jim Butcher or some other fantasy writer throws “explanations” like that into their stories. One minute, I’m reading about someone else’s admittedly interesting life, and the next I’m actually part of their world.

Which is really kinda cool. Or maybe I’m just a nerd.