Steampunk Heroic Fantasy Gritty Fantasy Cyberpunk Gentle Fantasy Soft SF Dark Fantasy Hard SF SF&F Humor Historical Fantasy Alternate History Space Opera Alternate Universes Time Travel SF&F Romance The Alien POV Classic SF&F Science Fantasy Urban Fantasy

These, for lack of a better classification, fall into "gentle fantasy", the kind where beasts talk and the scenery is lush and unspoiled, and where possibilities abound. That's not to say the villains aren't nasty, but the good guys are very good.

Magic here is marvelous and often beautiful, but the emphasis is on theurgy, understanding the goodness of the good characters, or on the reader gaining wisdom along with the character, rather than on thaumaturgy or chest-thumping confrontation. Those only come in when reason and attempts to reason fail. These always have the idyllic edge, though the plot is basically that the idyll has been interrupted or threatened and must be saved or restored.

  • Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
  • The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
  • The Dreamstone and The Tree of Swords and Jewels by C.J. Cherryh
  • The Forever King, The Broken Sword, and The Third Magic by Molly Cochrane (the first two with Warren Murphy)
  • The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
  • Stardust by Neil Gaiman
  • The Princess Bride by William Goldman
  • The Riddlemaster of Hed, Heir of Sea and Fire, and Harpist in the Wind by Patricia A. McKillip
  • The White Hart, The Black Beast, The Golden Swan, The Silver Sun and The Sable Moon by Nancy Springer
  • The High House by James Stoddard
  • The Day of the Minotaur, Green Phoenix, How Are the Mighty Fallen, The Not-World, The Forest of Forever, Wolfwinter, The Weirwoods and most anything else by Thomas Burnett Swan. These also qualify as historical fantasy.

You can buy Magical Worlds title in the Other Worlds Bookstore.