The Fell Gard Codices is set in a world fairly similar to medieval Europe. There are significant differences, the presence of magic perhaps not least among them, but in terms of technology and society it’s much like Europe, and specifically north-west Europe, between about 1000 and 1200. That’s a slightly earlier era than many fantasy settings use for inspiration, but it’s still very recognisable. I was planning to write a post about the prevalence of medieval European settings in fantasy fiction, and why it’s so common, and why I think it works for Fell Gard.

Then Mark Charan Newton asked on his blog “Why are the aesthetics of most secondary world fantasy novels quasi-medieval?” He got some good answers. I particularly liked Hal Duncan’s point about the tradition of medieval settings in English literature — it’s more-or-less what I was going to say here. So I’ll just point interested parties over to Newton’s site, and note that with Fell Gard I’m conscious of working in a certain tradition of fantasy. I’m hoping I can do something new with it, and perhaps recover some of the real strangeness of a different time.