Best Fantasy Books Subgenre Reading Challenge discussion

This book is fewer than 200 pages - what a break for fantasy readers! This is probably going to be our oldest read, depending on what everyone votes for in the upcoming Wuxia fantasy read poll. It was first published in 1953 and I feel the style definitely gives that away. When I was reading it last night, I wondered when it was published because it has a sort of Taran Wanderer feel (first published in 1967) but even a little more dry. There's a lot of telling instead of showing and I feel pretty detached from the Holger, but I'm still interested enough to continue reading.

Hard fantasy is heavy on the magic in a "here's the history and proof of it" instead of in an "it's legendary and no one knows how it happened" kind of way. I'm on page 31 and we've already seen heavy use of magic, so now it's just a matter of coming across the history/logic of it all.

I think the fact that the prologue is called a note is confusing. I automatically skipped it, thinking it was just a note from the author, but it's the set-up for the beginning of chapter 1. I do think the idea of starting us out with a mini history of Holger and what he was like before he reached this fantasy land is a good contrast to the rest of the story. The prologue ("note") is based in a historical context and by the time we've finished chapter 2 we're into the fantasy stuff. The hard fantasy part with explanations and history of the fantastical elements will probably come in very soon.