> Let me ask you: do you think you'd have a better time at the new Sorcerer's Apprentice movie, or just by watching Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy again? I think we have the same answer to that question.

Of course, a good story is a good story. There's no argument there. I was really just trying to respond to your point that a fantasy world is no barrier -- it is most decidedly a barrier.

I have to do more work to get into the story because I have to learn all this extra stuff and submerge myself in another world. Sometimes I can get down with that -- I've read like fixty million of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels, which while set in the real world practically require a PhD in naval history to understand. But when I recommend to somebody that they read Master & Commander, I have to implore them to push past all the obstacles O'Brian puts in the way of the casual reader.

I feel a similar way about fantasy, that it's a barrier to getting to the story. If you set a story in the familiar world, there's no barrier. I can just start getting to know the characters and the plot.

Your argument is that the alien and foreign world can be a powerful tool. I agree. But it's also more work for the reader or viewer to get into, which is sort of the definition of a barrier.

Stephen