1.   All of a sudden, the subject of school kids dying in great numbers has ceased to be the exclusive province of fantasy fiction.

2.   But fantasy fiction, for all its artificial premises and cartoonish book jackets, is not as simple as it seems, nor is its audience.

3.   Escape is, after all, one of the appealing aspects of fantasy fiction, a genre spawned by J.R.R. Tolkien, and now dominated by Jordan.

4.   Members celebrate medieval times by studying history, reading fantasy fiction, and by engaging in swordplay.

5.   The latest book in particular would hardly stand as fantasy fiction on its own.

6.   The very expansiveness of science and fantasy fiction, the hodgepodge of characters real and unreal, human and alien, can make it colorblind and race-blind.

7.   It is even there in fantasy fictions like in the Belgariad and Mallorean series by Davis Eddings.