Introducing the Cozy Fantasy (#CapClave2023)

Travis Baldree’s Legends & Lattes, a 2023 Nebula & Hugo Best Novel Finalist, is an example of a relatively new subgenre being called “cozy fantasy.” These stories generally feature heartwarming characters, little to no danger, and low stakes. They are like settling down with a warm fluffy blanket and fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies in your most comfortable reading nook. What are some other examples and favorite cozy fantasies and why are they growing in popularity?

The panelists for the titular panel were Sarah Avery, Randee Dawn, & R.Z. (Rhiannon) Held. It was moderated by Bill Lawhorn.

While ‘cozy fantasy’ as a subgenre is new, the tales it contains are as old as stories themselves.

What is Cozy Fantasy?

Whatever the reader finds cozy. It’s often recognized by these qualities:

• earnestness
• lower stakes
• genre-crossing
• happy-for-now endings
• character versus environment, rather than each other, or a system
• tension – but no cliffhangers!
• found family

The failure state for a cozy fantasy is effectively a travelogue or something of that nature. We still need a problem to solve, or we don’t have a plot.

Book Favorites and Recommendations

• Travis Baldree’s Legends and Lattes
• Nathan Lowell’s Trader’s Tales from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper
• Piers Anthony’s Xanth Series (a bit dated now)
• Patricia Wrede’s Dealing with Dragons
• Jo Walton’s Tooth and Claw
• LitRPG books
• T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon)’s A Wizard’s Guide To Defensive Baking
• Hope Mirrlees’s Lud-in-the-Mist
• Stephanie Burgess Snowspelled

Do we need another sub-genre?

Panelist Randee Dawn enjoys the sub-genre but worries that the granularity of the definition will lead to stagnation and a calcified formula. As a bookstore tag for readers, it makes sense. As a writer, it could turn into a cage.

Where did it come from?

While it’s hard to determine exactly what caused its current growing popularity, there are a wide array of theories. In truth, it is most likely a combination of many of these.

Some find it as a reaction against grim dark, while others see it as a subconscious reaction to the world being a hard place right now — whether we’re talking Covid, politics, war, or more.

Some think that the rise of electronically published books made it easier to market, while others see it as this generation being bored by what was oversaturated in the previous generation. In the 2000’s, publishing was preaching that every page should increase the tension, and it got exhausting. So many earnest, sweet characters turned out to be back-stabbing traitors, that it became almost predictable.

For some, it can be an escape from the capitalism race — we’re not trying to become millionaires, we just want enough for a rainy day and a cup of cocoa.

Morgan Note: Personally, I see it as a natural outgrowth of fanfiction. Fanfiction delights in putting characters from lighthearted stories into dark stories, and giving characters from heavy novels light-hearted coffeeshop anecdotes. As traditional publishing realizes what indie authors already knew, the audience has always been here, I’m sitting here hoping for a ‘cozy fantasy’ renaissance.

Cozy fantasies are often good bedtime reading. They’re easy to consume in book, ebook, or audiobook format.

Plus, with cozy fantasies? The stakes match how much world most of us actually enteract with on a regular basis. We’re not saving worlds or empires, we’re just doing our best to get to the weekend.

We want things to work out. We want to believe in human kindness.