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Speaker 1: In the Lord of the Rings it was Orlando Bloom

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Speaker 1: as the hot Elf.

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Speaker 2: Oh okay.

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Speaker 1: And then in the cinema adaptation of the line The

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Speaker 1: Witch and the Wardrobe, it was James McAvoy as mister Tumnus.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he was the hot kind of hot hot

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Speaker 1: hot forwn.

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Speaker 2: Hot thornn Thank you, Jasper.

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Speaker 1: From The Australian. This is the weekend edition of The Front.

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Speaker 1: I'm Claire Harvey. There's a genre of books that's projected

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Speaker 1: to rake in around a billion Australian dollars this year alone.

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Speaker 1: Can you guess what the formula is. Well, it's one

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Speaker 1: part romance, one part fantasy. Some call it very smart.

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Speaker 1: We've brought in our literary editor, Carolyn Overington to help

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Speaker 1: understand this wild phenomenon where elves, dragons and fairies get nasty.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Romanticy. They call it doom scrolling for a reason.

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Speaker 2: Boom, explosive press an the place of the planet.

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Speaker 1: It's my dress either right now, you're good, you got nice?

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Speaker 1: This is so embarrassing, So on the Hawk Tour podcast,

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Speaker 1: this is what I can under the spell of your feed.

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Speaker 1: And no one in their right mind are playing footies

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Speaker 1: with these feet. For some people, the antidote to doom

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Speaker 1: scrolling sounds like this, close your eye.

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Speaker 2: Three.

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Speaker 1: To others, it sounds like this, wish to be alone.

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Speaker 2: Claudius retreated to a wing of the palace known as

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Speaker 2: the Hermaeum.

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Speaker 1: But for a growing number, specifically women, it sounds like this.

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Speaker 3: I never knew Allyrians were such sensitive babies, I said,

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Speaker 3: sliding another finger down the inside of his wing. Something

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Speaker 3: hard pushed against my behind, and I went tart and

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Speaker 3: loose all at once. I stroked his wing again, two

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Speaker 3: fingers now, and he twitched against my backside in time

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Speaker 3: with the caress.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the fantastical land of romanticy swords, secrets, and spice.

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Speaker 1: Spice in this context obviously means sex, and the more

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Speaker 1: sex there is, the spicier the raid. Only. The sex

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Speaker 1: in romanticy novels is often between a woman and an

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Speaker 1: attractive elf, all between fairies, which has given the genre

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Speaker 1: another name fairy smart and women can't get enough.

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Speaker 2: By fucking lover. I remember reading it like thus, so

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Speaker 2: steem me, these are the.

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Speaker 1: Books that I would give my left arm to read

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Speaker 1: again for the first time. And that's how I screamed.

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Speaker 2: I screamed when these were announced.

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Speaker 1: I am so so excited.

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Speaker 2: To believe fairy smart or romanticy or elf pawn or

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Speaker 2: whatever you'd like to call it is basically romance and

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Speaker 2: fantasy melded together. We saw it come to the fore

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Speaker 2: in about twenty twenty, and I think that's no coincidence

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Speaker 2: because it was COVID and these are escapist fantasies. So

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Speaker 2: in the old days, you you might read a bit

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Speaker 2: of a romance novel, but you didn't need it to

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Speaker 2: be particularly spicy. But with these books, particularly when you're

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Speaker 2: reading the reviews, you might see a lot of little

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Speaker 2: chili emojis, and if you get two or three chilly emojis,

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Speaker 2: it means they're really hot, So the writer is not

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Speaker 2: shying away from the idea that they're is sex in

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Speaker 2: these books, even though the characters are dragons and ELFs

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Speaker 2: and vampires and wear wolves, so it does take a

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Speaker 2: little stretch of the imagination. But we are talking about

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Speaker 2: sort of interspecies sexual congress.

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Speaker 1: And is it mainly heterosexual interspecies sexual congress, like is

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Speaker 1: this girl dragon on girl or is it male and female?

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Speaker 1: Not exclusively, because of course, as we know millennials in particular,

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Speaker 1: who are the biggest readers of these books, because we're

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Speaker 1: looking at women between the ages of about sixteen and

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Speaker 1: thirty five. Don't make judgments about the kind of people.

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Speaker 1: You fall in love with a person, you don't fall

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Speaker 1: in love with the gender. And many of these people

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Speaker 1: are involved in the kind of groups and environments where cosplay,

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Speaker 1: so furries people dressing up as cats or identifying as

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Speaker 1: trees is not as unusual to them as it is

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Speaker 1: to perhaps you and I are a little bit older

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Speaker 1: where generation next, right, so we sort of think the

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Speaker 1: idea that you might dress up in a furry costume

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Speaker 1: for intimacy somewhat unusual.

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Speaker 2: Although maybe not. I don't know what you're doing outside

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Speaker 2: the front possible, so you had to take off your

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Speaker 2: large head piece in order. But youngsters don't find that

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Speaker 2: as unusual as we perhaps did, And so it's not

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Speaker 2: unusual to find yourself perhaps lusting after a dragon. Saying

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Speaker 2: that a lot of what happens in these worlds because

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Speaker 2: they are all different kinds of world A key part

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Speaker 2: of Romanticy is world building. So it's an unusual world.

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Speaker 2: It's not Planet Earth. It tends to have a heroine

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Speaker 2: who is a little bit. She's had some trauma in

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Speaker 2: her life. She's all either lost somebody very important to her,

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Speaker 2: or she has been abused in some way. But she's

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Speaker 2: not a victim. She's brave. She has a quiver full

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Speaker 2: of arrows. She rides her own dragon. She's going forth

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Speaker 2: into the universe, into this world that's been created to

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Speaker 2: exact revenge, but also save the planet. And so she

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Speaker 2: might fall in love with someone, but she's not a

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Speaker 2: victim of that romance. She's not someone who's having her

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Speaker 2: bodice torn open. She has agency. You know, she's saving

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Speaker 2: the world, but she's also owning her own sexuality and

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Speaker 2: her own desires. They're very strong female characters, and that's

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Speaker 2: what I think women love about them.

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Speaker 1: If we put Romanticy on a family tree and then

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Speaker 1: traced it back according to its origins. On one side,

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Speaker 1: we have the fantasy part, so let's just trace that back.

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Speaker 2: The idea of.

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Speaker 1: A hot elf or a hot dwarf, I would suggest

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Speaker 1: comes from maybe the Hobbit the Lord of the Rings.

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Speaker 1: Orlando Bloom very famously was the hot elf legal ass

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Speaker 1: in Lord of the Rings. In me film meditation of

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Speaker 1: the Hobbit. Peter Jackson added a storyline with a hot

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Speaker 1: female el falling in love with a very handsome dwarf.

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Speaker 1: That was Tarry and killy, So is that where this

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Speaker 1: comes from.

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Speaker 2: It's not just Lord of the Rings, but also C. S. Lewis.

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Speaker 2: It's the Lion, the Witch in the Wardrobe. It's a

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Speaker 2: little bit of Harry Potter. It's a little bit Beauty

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Speaker 2: and the Beast, because in Beauty and the Beast there

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Speaker 2: was a monster, right, and she kind of fell in

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Speaker 2: love with him.

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Speaker 3: Now, hold still, this might sting a little. By the way,

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Speaker 3: thank you for saving my life.

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Speaker 2: That's a story that's many, many years older than these

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Speaker 2: romanticy tales. What the critics of this particular genre say

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Speaker 2: is that if you were reading C. S. Lewis The Lion,

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Speaker 2: the Witch in the Wardrobe, what you are actually reading

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Speaker 2: is a biblical story. It has important lessons about morality

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Speaker 2: and meaning and purpose in life. And they worry that

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Speaker 2: with romanticy it's all become about the hot dwarf. You know,

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Speaker 2: how hot is your dragon? C. S. Lewis was always

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Speaker 2: a gateway for children. If you read the line the

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Speaker 2: Witch and the Wardrobe, then you might open a door

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Speaker 2: into serious literature and this was the point of reading

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Speaker 2: in childhood. And what they worry about is that young

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Speaker 2: women who are in romanticy never leave that room. You

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Speaker 2: know they love these worlds and we know they do.

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Speaker 2: The numbers don't lie. Sarah J. Mask has sold forty

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Speaker 2: million copies of what's known as the Akatar series. That's

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Speaker 2: a crown of Thorns and roses and there's now sixteen books.

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Speaker 1: I've read seven chapters of this book and I don't

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Speaker 1: want to target and bought the rest of the series.

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Speaker 2: But the queen at the moment is Rebecca Yarras. I

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Speaker 2: feel extra special this month because I got a Rebecca

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Speaker 2: yarrols arc. So it started with Fourth Wing and then

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Speaker 2: Iron Flame and now we have the ok Storm. The

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Speaker 2: Onng Storm, which is published by Hashet here in Australia,

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Speaker 2: was the fastest selling book of the week by a

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Speaker 2: country mile.

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Speaker 1: If anyone lives on the Wantington Peninsula. Kmart Hastings got

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Speaker 1: their stock in today best of like everyone.

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Speaker 2: They sold one hundred and thirty three thousand copies within

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Speaker 2: days of hitting the market. One in one hundred Australian

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Speaker 2: households has a Rebecca Yaris book. Now they're both foreign

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Speaker 2: writers or not non Australian writers, but we actually have

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Speaker 2: an Australian superstar now. Her name is Sarah A. Parker.

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Speaker 2: She lives in Queensland and her book is called When

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Speaker 2: the Moon Hatched.

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Speaker 1: On the Other Side of the Family Tree. There's the

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Speaker 1: kinds of writing that we expect in the romance genre

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Speaker 1: and any other genre about sex. So once upon a time,

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Speaker 1: the traditional Harlequin or Mills and Boon novels were quite

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Speaker 1: coy about the actual sex. There was a lot of love,

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Speaker 1: but also a lot of doors closing on the sexual

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Speaker 1: scene and then the couple waking up in each other's

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Speaker 1: arms the next morning. Book and in my wild Fifty

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Speaker 1: Shades of Gray and the three hundred and sixty five

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Speaker 1: Days books kind of changed that, didn't they.

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Speaker 2: You're absolutely right. Fifty Shades of Gray smashed that, although

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Speaker 2: older readers will say it was smashed by a story

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Speaker 2: of Oh, which came out many years before Fifty Shades

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Speaker 2: of Gray. When Fifty Shades of Gray first started as

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Speaker 2: fan fiction, so being published on the internet and you

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Speaker 2: could read it for free, there was doubt among publishers

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Speaker 2: that women would want to be seen reading a book

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Speaker 2: that was known to contain vivid sex scenes and satomasochism,

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Speaker 2: but women bought it, and so you're right. In these

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Speaker 2: romanticy books they do not shy away from the sex.

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Speaker 2: Although I am told and I didn't know this that

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Speaker 2: apparently when they refer to the dragon's wings span, they're

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Speaker 2: not necessarily talking about the wigspan. So if you have

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Speaker 2: a dragon with a large wingspan, apparently that means something else.

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Speaker 3: All in time.

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Speaker 1: So it's good to know. Coming up, Caroline on the

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Speaker 1: impact romantic is having on readers and the book market.

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Speaker 1: You talked a little bit before about the idea that

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Speaker 1: some readers might never leave this romanticy genre, that they

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Speaker 1: love it so much that this is where they remain,

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Speaker 1: they don't progress to other types of reading. Is that

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Speaker 1: part of what's changed in the book trade that once

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Speaker 1: upon a time maybe we could divide serious readers who

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Speaker 1: buy literary fiction where there isn't always a happy ending,

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Speaker 1: and then there are romance readers who buy romances, and

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Speaker 1: then other people who buy kind of airport novels. It's

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Speaker 1: all very clearly delineated. Is all that merging now or not?

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Speaker 2: We have more readers than we've ever had, that's for sure.

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Speaker 2: There are more books being sold now than have ever

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Speaker 2: been sold in history, kind of books that we traditionally

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Speaker 2: would have regarded as serious literature. So in Australia, for example,

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Speaker 2: literary fiction is in dire straits. If you are trying

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Speaker 2: to sell a book that you might classify as literary fiction,

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Speaker 2: you are going to have to work incredibly hard to

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Speaker 2: find readers, whereas Romanticy, on the the other hand, if

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Speaker 2: you go into a Demics bookshop, that aisle is going

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Speaker 2: to be absolutely packed. Now there will be people who

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Speaker 2: worry about this, They're worried about whether or not people

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Speaker 2: are reading. Seriously. Myself, I am not worried because, firstly,

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Speaker 2: these books are not bad, they're extremely entertaining. The idea

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Speaker 2: of encouraging people to read is such a good idea,

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Speaker 2: particularly because we know reading is very good for you.

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Speaker 2: It's good for depression, it's good for loneliness, it's good

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Speaker 2: for your curiosity, it's good for your kids. It's good

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Speaker 2: to get away from your screens, it's good to stop

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Speaker 2: you from scrolling. So why should we be worried about

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Speaker 2: what people are reading? As long as they are it

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Speaker 2: exercises parts of your brain that in the digital world

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Speaker 2: are being left dormant. It's so nice to pick up

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Speaker 2: a book and get lost and just get lost in

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Speaker 2: that amazing world. I think some literary critics can be

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Speaker 2: a little bit snobbish about romanticy books because they think

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Speaker 2: they're not serious. But I think that meeting the needs

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Speaker 2: of readers is not a bad thing for a book

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Speaker 2: to be doing.

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Speaker 1: Does literary fiction have a future then, or does it

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Speaker 1: retreat to becoming something like chamber music, which once was

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Speaker 1: wildly popular, of course, but now basically needs to be

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Speaker 1: subsidized it doesn't have a viable commercial existence.

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Speaker 2: Well, literary fiction doesn't have a viable commercial existence in Australia,

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Speaker 2: and I would argue never has. It's extremely difficult to

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Speaker 2: make money if that is the kind of book that

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Speaker 2: you're writing. If you are a Lee Child and you're

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Speaker 2: writing a Jack Reacher style book, or you're a James Patterson,

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Speaker 2: you can very easily make a living. But that's not

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Speaker 2: true of literary fictions as been subsidized by the government,

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Speaker 2: and that's why we have the Australian Council now called

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Speaker 2: the Creative Australia to try to support writers to tell

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Speaker 2: Australian stories. You will occasionally get breakout novels like Trent

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Speaker 2: Dalton's and they sell, and they become stage plays and

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Speaker 2: they become Netflix series and of course he's making a living.

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Speaker 2: But they're unicorns. Most people can expect to sell somewhere

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Speaker 2: between eight hundred and two thousand copies. Can you make

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Speaker 2: a living? No, absolutely not. Of course you can't. And

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Speaker 2: so then becomes a question of do we want to

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Speaker 2: keep people writing Australian stories, And I would argue that

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Speaker 2: we do. We still need Australian stories to be told,

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Speaker 2: even if you can't always find a large audience. It's

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Speaker 2: a small but discerning audience, Claire.

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Speaker 1: So they need to be having some Bunyip in there.

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Speaker 2: That's well. Interestingly, Australian Gothic, which I think would be

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Speaker 2: a subset of Romantcy, has always been very popular. So

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Speaker 2: for example, the Bunyip is not a bad example. And

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Speaker 2: another one would be Picnic at Hanging Rock, which is

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Speaker 2: celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year. That is definitely a

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Speaker 2: Gothic tale. It isn't a romanticy, but it definitely has

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Speaker 2: those feelings of being in a strange world. Forces at

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Speaker 2: play that we don't really understand now this year, if

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Speaker 2: you're interested in that book, you can go out. You

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Speaker 2: can see a stage play. There's a movie on the way.

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Speaker 2: There's a biography of the author, Joan Lindsay on the shelves.

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Speaker 2: At the moment. There's a reissue of the book itself.

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Speaker 2: So things do come in waves.

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Speaker 1: Caroline Everington is The Australian's literary editor. You can read

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Speaker 1: Caroline's reviews and to interviews with the world's leading authors,

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Speaker 1: plus all the big news from the world of books

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Speaker 1: on Saturdays in our review section and at the Australian

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Speaker 1: dot com dot a u slash review anytime. Thanks for

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Speaker 1: joining us this week on the front. Our team is

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Speaker 1: Jasper League, Kristin Amiot, Leat, Sammaglue, Tiffany Dimak, Joshua Burton,

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Speaker 1: Stephanie Coombs and me Claire Harvey.