Review Fix chats with author, who discusses their new book, So You’ve Landed in a Fantasy World.
About Josiah Lebowitz:
Josiah Lebowitz is a writer and video game designer based in Northern Virginia. He currently teaches game writing at George Mason University while running his own indie studio, Pen and Sword Games.
About So You’ve Landed in a Fantasy World:
Today, it seems as if everyone from heroic-yet-angsty teenagers, to giggling schoolgirls, to middle-aged businessmen, to bored moms are finding themselves whisked away to save distant worlds from some kind of unspeakable evil. But how do you prepare for such an amazing adventure? And, more importantly, how do you make it through without getting horribly maimed or killed along the way? Fortunately, this handbook has analyzed the accounts of numerous heroes who have traveled to magical lands and returned to tell the tale in order to create the definitive guide to survival and success no matter where in the fantasyverse your adventures may take you. In these pages, you’ll learn how to increase (or, if you prefer, decrease) your chances of successfully being chosen, what types of preparation and training you should undertake beforehand, and how to hit the ground running on arrival and become the legendary hero that you were always destined to be.*
*Makes no guarantees of destined heroism and cannot be held liable if it turns out that you are instead destined to be eaten by a giant toad.
Review Fix: How did this project begin?
Josiah Lebowitz: I’m a big anime and manga fan and, as such, I couldn’t possibly miss the giant isekai (portal fantasy) boom that’s come to dominate a large portion of that industry over the last few years. Then, I happened to read Seth Grahame-Smith’s How to Survive a Horror Movie and I immediately realized that a lot of people would probably love it if that basic concept was applied to isekai. I toyed with the idea for a while and eventually wrote a first draft of the opening chapters for a writing group I was in at the time. It bombed, but the other group members had virtually no knowledge of even basic fantasy, much less isekai, so I passed the chapters around to some friends and colleagues who were more inline with my target audience. They loved it, as did McFarland, and that was that.
Review Fix: What made this a captivating subject for you?
Lebowitz: I love fantasy, from epic western novel series like Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time and Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive, to YA fiction like Rowling’s Harry Potter and the various works of Garth Nix. At the same time, I’m a huge fan of Japanese anime, manga, and video games, with fantasy once again being a favorite genre. Portal fantasy or isekai in particular is fun because many of us (myself included) have dreamed at one point or another of traveling to another world and going on an epic adventure. So isekai has a strong wish fulfillment aspect in addition to the fun and excitement of a good fantasy story. Beyond that, I’ve got a wry sense of humor and enjoy writing comedy, especially when it involves observing and pointing out the humor or just plain ridiculousness of things. So this book really appealed to me on a number of levels.
Review Fix: What was the research process like?
Lebowitz: Since the book is all about the themes, tropes, and cliches beyond isekai and portal fantasy, I basically sent out to read, watch, and play as many of those stories as I could, both western and Japanese. To that end, I compiled a giant list of around 140 different works and series that were available at the time and started working my way through all the ones I wasn’t yet familiar with. So basically, I watched a ton of anime (with a few Western shows and movies thrown in for good measure) and read dozens of manga and light novels. Honestly, I probably got a bit carried away, but it was easily the most fun I’ve ever had researching anything.
Review Fix: What did you learn that you weren’t expecting?
Lebowitz: While I knew isekai was popular, the sheer number of different works surprised me a bit, especially in regards to Japanese light novels. And it just keeps growing, I could easily add another few dozen to my list now. That aside, the sheer “uniqueness” of some of them was also pretty surprising. Sure there were a lot of super generic ones, but you also have series like Reborn as a Vending Machine, Ascendance of a Bookworm, and The Saga of Tanya the Evil that take the basic isekai concept in very different directions.
Review Fix: How did the book change during the writing process?
Lebowitz: Not much at all, actually. I had my concept, setup, and outline pretty clear from the get-go. Editing as revisions were mostly about fixing errors and ensuring the right balance of jokes and references.
Review Fix: How is it different from similar books?
Lebowitz: There really isn’t much to compare it to. How to Survive a Horror Movie and The Zombie Survival Guide are closest in style, but they focus on a completely different genre. There’s also a bit of similarity to Diana Wynne Jones’s The Tough Guide to Fantasy Land, though that’s focused exclusively on stereotypical western epic fantasy, so there’s actually not a whole lot of crossover contentwise, and it’s also written in a very different style.
Review Fix: What are your goals for this book?
Lebowitz: Making a million dollars? That’s always a good goal. More seriously, I just want people to get some laughs and think about some of their favorite stories in a slightly different way. Who knows, maybe it’ll even introduce some people to the genre.
Review Fix: Who do you think will enjoy this book the most?
Lebowitz: The primary audience is definitely fans of Japanese anime, manga, and video games, since those are the heart of the current isekai boom. But fans of western fantasy (from YA to epic) will doubtless enjoy it as well. After all, portal fantasy started in the west with classics like Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Lewis Carol’s Alice in Wonderland, and C.S. Lewis’s The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Review Fix: What’s next?
Lebowitz: I’ve always got a number of projects underway. I’m currently finishing the final round of revisions on a YA fantasy novel (though I don’t have a publisher lined up for it yet), after which I’ll be getting back to work on Aurora’s Nightmare (Aurora’s Nightmare Dev Blog), a visual novel game I’ve been developing on and off in my spare time. And, if So You’ve Landed in a Fantasy World does well, I’d love to create some additional titles in the series focused on other genres. I actually namedrop a number of fictitious So You’ve Guides (So You’ve Guides) throughout the book, and it’d be a lot of fun to actually write them someday.
Review Fix: Anything else you’d like to add?
Lebowitz: The way things are going these days, you never know when you might end up being whisked away to a fantasy world. So really, everyone should read So You’ve Landed in a Fantasy World. After all, the knowledge you gain could be the difference between becoming a chosen hero and getting eaten by a giant toad.
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