Five authors, five facts – novum publishing has assembled a thrilling curiosity cabinet with fun facts about five great fantasy authors

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The classic cliché of the “fantasy nerd” has long been challenged, at least since the hype about “Game of Thrones”, fantasy and science fiction has become part of the mainstream. Nowadays, those who like dragons, dwarfs, goblins, hobbits and Hogwarts’ teachings, don’t need to hide their passion anymore. Apart from talking about the Starks or the Lannisters, it is not embarrassing anymore to admit to enjoy – besides classical works – fantasy novels from time to time. Only the inventors of Daenerys Targaryen, Bilbo Baggins and Lyra Belacqua gained more popularity and cult status than their figures themselves. They are all mysteries themselves. Normal mortals often do not understand where these authors get their magic imagination from. Fantasy authors are as mysterious as their works. Looking behind the imaginary scene, it is hardly surprising. Wondrous events take place in some of these authors’ lives. Novum publishing has carefully checked the trivia about five popular fantasy authors and proudly presents its fantastic curiosity cabinet.

J.R.R. Tolkien

With his work “The Hobbit”, he laid the foundations of the recent success of fantasy literature. The creator of “The Lord of the Rings” had been fascinated by the human language – until it bored him. So he started to invent and add his own terms. But even before, Tolkien, a philologist by profession, composed his Elvish dictionaries, based on the languages Quenya and Sindarin, which he had constructed for the Elves of Middle-earth – long before he put the words in the mouths of his heroes Legolas, Arwen and Galadriel. Middle-earth was born out of a necessity and his stories grew out of his philological ambition: after he had created the language, he wanted to teach it so he needed some missionaries – and his first fantasy character was born.

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J.K. Rowling

The British author Joanne Kathleen Rowling was on a train trip from Manchester to London as the idea of a boy attending a school of wizardry came into her mind. Up to now, the classicist has sold more than 400 million copies of “Harry Potter” books worldwide. Only the Holy Bible sells better. After Harry Potter’s last year at Hogwarts, Rowling turned to the whodunit genre. After having published her first novel “The Casual Vacancy”, Rowling published the subsequent detective novels under the pseudonym “Robert Galbraith”. Until an investigation and an explosive article in the Sunday Times, nobody had known anything about the identity behind Galbraith. Notwithstanding the unmasking, Galbraith published two more novels with the hero, private detective Cormoran Strike. The sales flourish although the secret was revealed.

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George R.R. Martin

George Raymond Richard Martin has created the fantasy epic that convinces even those readers and TV enthusiasts who have been unemotional towards the genre so far: “Game of Thrones”. Before he let Daenerys Targaryen conquer the sky on the back of her dragons Drogon, Viserion and Rhaegal , he had written stories for the underground, more precisely, for the channel network of New York. Towards the end of the 80s, as a screenwriter and producer, the American was responsible for the TV series “The Beauty and the Beast”. Only since the middle of the 90s, he devoted himself entirely to the great moments of his saga and opened the universe of Westeros not only to fantasy fans but also to a new public.

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Michael Ende

The inventor of the “The Neverending Story”, “Jim Button” and “Momo” influenced the childhood of a whole generation like no one else. But the journey to Fantasia would not have been possible for many readers if the fantastic genius had not overcome his deep creative crisis. At the beginning of the 1950s, Michael Ende made the grave decision to end his writing career. Not until a friend and graphic artist asked him to write a text for a picture book, the literary fugitive started writing again and created “Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver”. The story won the German Prize for Children’s Fiction in 1960 and paved the way for fantastic flights on the back of Falkor, the dragon.

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Philip Pullman

The British author who teaches literature as a sideline rose to world fame with his trilogy “The Golden Compass”. However, not the great fantasy authors were the source of his inspiration, he was rather influenced by the Brothers Grimm. This is probably the reason why he published a new edition of their most famous fairytales in 2012, for sure an important source of imagination for many children.

 

We wish you creative inspiration!

Yours,

novum publishing