What subgenre of fantasy does my constructed world fall into?

I was having some difficulty deciding what genre of fantasy my constructed world falls under, so I was wondering if I could have some advice about it.

Initially I thought Low Fantasy: Magic is extremely rare to the point where many don't think it exists, most of the villains are Knight Templars or otherwise somewhat justified, and generally the world resembles a fantastic version of the past of our world in terms of ecology, cultures, climate, etc.

However, there are two main sticking points to that idea. Firstly, the main conflict of the setting is The Magic Comes Back in a violent and eldritch-y way, with flying six-eyed bulls, eels with human faces and such starting to attack settlements from the edges of the world inward. The other is that two non-human races (with explicitly magical origins.) feature prominently: Glowing-eyed, scaly-skinned but otherwise human-like Sages, and giant, elephant-like one-eyed Cyclopes. Both are common, though humans have a much higher population, and both regularly interact with humans. Both of those throw a wrench in the idea that the world is Low Fantasy, but I can't think of any other genre it would fit into. It's not Heroic Fantasy because the scale is too large. It's not High Fantasy there's no Evil Overlord. (The closest thing to that would be the malevolent, mindless sea-deity Obyzu who is unintentionally creating these monsters, and who will later attempt to end the world by flooding it.) It's not Dark Fantasy because it's too idealistic. And so on.

What do you think?

edited 28th Feb '16 6:21:46 AM by phalanx

I wouldn't worry too much about fitting your world into a specific genre, if I were you. Settings that are difficult to describe in that way are usually the most interesting anyway, imo.

If you're looking for a quick way to describe it, I'd probably go for "mostly low fantasy with some twists" or something like that.

Low Fantasy works just fine.

Although in my personal opinion, just write it. Let the story flow on it's own. If your story ends up uncategorized, then congratulations, you had made a new genre! Really, if the story is good and appealing, you'll find reader nevertheless.

Besides, categorization like that only useful for publisher and safe-before-read-type reader, anyway.

Let the publisher worry about that, dude.

There are other criterions than the amount of magic. Is the morality white, grey, black ? Are wars fought for great principles or for bits of land ? Are your characters larger than life, or are they just normal people trying to survive ?

Also, you are saying non-human are common, the scope is large, the world needs to be saved, the tone is idealistic... sounds like High Fantasy to me. Middle-Earth is low magic too.

I like to think of genres as loose guidelines rather than strict formulas. Who said there absolutely must be an evil overlord in high fantasy? If every high fantasy you've ever seen has an evil overlord in it, not including one doesn't automatically disqualify your story from being that genre, it just makes your story refreshing and unique (which is always a good thing).

High/Low Fantasy are terms used to give prospective readers some idea of what to expect from a story, either in tone or content. Moreover, they're intended for narratives, not settings. You could easily tell a dark, gritty, Low Fantasy story set in Middle Earth, even though the Lord of the Rings is the archetypal High Fantasy story. It depends on what the narrative chooses to focus on, not the backdrop that the narrative plays out against.

Moreover, genre is a subjective, intuitive idea, that does not hold up under logical scrutiny. It is entirely down to broad impressions and gut feeling, not a strict checklist of Dos and Don'ts.

Genres are descriptive not prescriptive and since you have not written much it would be too early to worry about genre yet. Please don't pander to a fanbase you don't even have yet. Focus on making the story good and people will like it regardless. The only people that shy away from particular genres won't read it anyway.