Fairy Godmother

she's better off, is all I can say, and good luck to her.'

'No sign of improvement from the others, though,' Blanche observed, as Madame's angry voice, berating her daughter for some fault, drifted out from the kitchen.

'That's their choice.' Fleur shrugged. 'And the way they act, if they don't take a cue from her, they'll be totting up more months onto their service until they'll both be old and grey and scrubbing floors here, while Daphne's off making herself into a proper farmer's wife.'

'Ha.' Blanche nodded. 'It all comes down to what we make of ourselves, eh ? The Tradition or no. Who knows ? If she really continues to improve her character, maybe a Fairy Godmother will take pity on Daphne and she'll find enough gold under a cabbage in the kitchen-garden to buy her freedom and give her a little dowry.'

'Stranger things have happened,' said Fleur, making a note of the thought to pass on to the appropriate party. 'Like — a Godmother wedding a Champion!' She held up her glass of wine. 'To happy endings, however they come about!'

Blanche clinked glasses with her. 'To happy endings, indeed!'

A Q'and'A with Mercedes Lackey...

What does fantasy mean to you?

Fantasy for me has always gone far beyond the magic rings and castles of the classical fairy tale, although heaven knows I love the classical fairy tales! To write or enjoy fantasy requires an open mind and heart, and the ability to believe that things are not always what they seem.

Why do you think women enjoy reading fantasy?

I think it may be because, as Dorothy L. Sayers once pointed out about the mystery genre, fantasy is one of the last bastions of 'moral fiction.' By this she meant that in mystery — and in fantasy — good triumphs over evil, the wrongdoers get their just deserts, and all ends, if not always strictly happily, at least well. This is the definition of 'moral fiction': something that shows the world, perhaps not as it is, but certainly as it could and should be. I think women are, as a whole, a lot less willing to settle for 'that's just the way it is' than men are. You tend to find that the men who read fantasy are idealists, in fact.

What makes you write fantasy over any other subject?

I have greater scope in writing fantasy for my imagination than in any other genre. I can write fantasy romances, fantasy mysteries, heroic fantasy, modern-urban fantasy, historical fantasy, dark (or horror) fantasy, alternate-history fantasy, political fantasy even Western fantasy. There is virtually no genre that I could not use for a fantasy novel, and even if I haven't gotten around to it, someone surely has, because I can cite examples of every one of those books, either in my own body of work, or someone else's.

Anything you'd like to say about fantasy or writing, or writing fantasy?

When a reader closes the book with regret, you've done your job. What we all strive for is when a reader goes back to the same book again and again and finds equal pleasure in it each time they read it. That's what every reader is looking for, and every writer is working to accomplish.

And when it comes down to cases, everything written is at least in part a fantasy. Except maybe for the national budget. That's horror.

Mercedes Lackey's DAW books

Mercedes Lackey's DAW books

The Heralds of Valdemar

Arrow of the Queen Arrow's Flight Arrow's Fall Exile's Valor Exile's Honor Take a Thief

Vows 'and' Honor

The Oathbound

Oathbreakers

Oathblood