Fantasy-Faction: Reddit’s Best Fantasy Site 2014!

Today we received some exciting news:

Fantasy-Faction has been selected by the Reddit community as Fantasy Website of 2014!

When I started Fantasy-Faction it was because I wanted to share my passion for fantasy novels. I was sitting at home on a daily basis exploring incredible new worlds, stumbling across amazing beings and having unforgettable adventures. Yet, when I put the books down and returned to real life, no one I knew could talk to me about the things I’d experienced, none had even heard of the authors I was reading (such as Brent Weeks, Peter V. Brett and Trudi Canavan).

At that time, I truly felt that if I could convince just one or two people to pick up one of the books that had bought me so much joy then I should come up with a way of doing it. In addition to that, there were times when I finished a book where I couldn’t accept that turning the final page was ‘the end’. I’ve written about this before, but I think the appeal with fantasy and science fiction is that it is never ‘The End’. An author gives us just a snippet of a world: what happened before and after is up to us as readers to think about and discuss, what kind of adventures go on in areas the author didn’t visit are down to us to conjure up, and certain plot points that were left unresolved are ours to play with too.

After setting up my little blog to post reviews in 2010, I found out that I wasn’t alone: I wasn’t the only person reading fantasy (before I did set it up there were times it felt like I was!). Around the world there were thousands of people who felt the same way. After posting a review I’d get a comment or two about the book that would change my perception of it or deepen my understanding of certain areas. In addition, I’d get a message over Twitter from someone saying they’d checked out a book that I’d recommended and they that they’d truly enjoy it.

Quickly I decided that Fantasy-Faction should not be about me: it should be about the fantasy community. Similarly, it shouldn’t be a review site where we judge books and condemn them if they don’t impress us. Just because I don’t enjoy a book doesn’t mean that someone else won’t chose it as their favourite book of all time. Instead I wanted Fantasy-Faction to be a place that promoted good books, good authors and the fantasy genre. Although we give books a star rating, the aim is to analyse books we enjoy – taking an approach where we explain why we loved a book, why we think you will love that book and why it’s a good addition to the genre we love so much.

As well as providing a place where fantasy fans could find new books to read (through reviews), I wanted to enhance a person’s daily experience and enjoyment as a fantasy reader. I wanted them to have a place they could come and socialise (the forums), read deeper into the genre (our articles) and find out more about the authors who created the world they’ve adventured in so fondly (the many interviews & guest blogs).

This brings me back to the point of this post: the incredible news that Fantasy-Faction has been chosen as the Best Fantasy Site of 2014 by the Reddit Fantasy Community. I honestly cannot tell you guys what an honour this is. I created this website for you guys (well, us!). The fact that we’ve been chosen as your favourite place to visit and hang out over such high quality competition truly humbles me and makes me so, so proud – not only of myself, but of the hard working, dedicated team that we’ve put together here at Fantasy-Faction. The people working on articles, interviews and reviews behind the scenes love this genre as much, if not more, than anyone else I’ve ever met.

I guess that is out ‘secret’: everyone involved in Fantasy-Faction, whether editor, contributor, forum user or general visitors that interact through the comments/social media channels/etc has a true passion for the fantastical. Naturally, the result can only be a fantastical thing.

Here’s a list of the winners from each of the external categories:

BEST NOVEL OF 2014 – Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson
BEST DEBUT NOVEL OF 2014 – The Emperor’s Blades by Brian Staveley
BEST SELF-PUBLISHED / INDEPENDENT NOVEL OF 2014 – Ten Thousand Devils by S.A. Hunt
BEST SHORT FICTION OF 2014 – The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss
BEST ANTHOLOGY / COLLECTION / PERIODICAL OF 2014 – Rogues Anthology by George RR Martin and Gardner Dozois
BEST TV SERIES / MOVIE OF 2014 – Guardians of the Galaxy
BEST GAME (ANY FORMAT) OF 2014 – Dragon Age: Inquisition
BEST RELATED MUSIC OF 2014 – “The Last Goodbye” sung by Billy Boyd
BEST ARTWORK RELEASED IN 2014 – Shallan from Words of Radiance by Michael Whelan
BEST FANTASY SITE FOR 2014 – Fantasy-Faction
BEST RELATED WORK OF 2014 – Worldbuilders

Congratulations to the rest of the winners and thank you all once more for choosing us as your favourite fantasy website of the year. Going into 2015 we have some huge plans that we feel will take the site to another level and allow us to give even more back to the genre that continues to give us so, so much!

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