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The classic epic fantasy is good versus evil, underdog against power.

Once the world has been created, the fantasy author still has to bring the story's characters to life and unfold a gripping plot. That's why good fantasy is such a hard act to bring off.

Fantasy is an area where it is possible to talk about right and wrong, good and evil, with a straight face. In mainstream fiction and even in a good deal of mystery, these things are presented as simply two sides of the same coin. Never really more than a matter of where you happen to be standing.

Fantasy is more than an escape from the truths of the world and the past: it is an open acknowledgment that those truths are complex and morally difficult. It offers a different route to creating something which will resonate with readers, in a way which resists the erasure of privacy and autonomy which pervades our modern world.

I think that the way of bringing realism into fantasy is to treat it as the commonplace.

I've always loved fantasy. I think it's a great way to look at issues that we have in our own lives with a little bit of the pressure off, you know.

If the general opinion is pessimistic, fantasy is going to hold its own.

I've found that using historical material and being rooted in historical material is liberating because I always think to myself, 'Well, this actually happened, and this is fantastic!' That's why I don't like fantasy, in a way. Because it's sort of in emptiness.

I suppose when I was writing 'V for Vendetta' I would in my secret heart of hearts have thought: 'Wouldn't it be great if these ideas actually made an impact?' So when you start to see that idle fantasy intrude on the regular world... It's peculiar.

Fantasy allows you bend the world and the situation to more clearly focus on the moral aspects of what's happening. In fantasy you can distill life down to the essence of your story.