2023 was a year of surprises, not in the way we imagined. Fiction, especially fantasy fiction, has always been about escape. Looking at the complexity with which society can express itself in this age of trolling and cancel culture, we think fiction – especially fantasy fiction – will be a big thing in 2024. The gaps created by things we can’t elucidate or easily describe will be coded in metaphors, symbolism and multi-layered plots.

Like Neil Gaiman says in that brilliant British Library exhibition, Fantasy: Realms Of Imagination, it’s best to tell the truth. We tell the truth ‘in parables, in lies and in fiction’. Meaning stories. Picking up on his point, we look back to 2023 to predict the trends in 2024:

AI: Ride the beast before it bites you

With AI, it’s about finding the middle ground. The US artists and actors union SAG-AFTRA successfully struck a deal in November 2023 to protect the copyright of its members. But its recent licensing deal with an AI gaming company incurs backlash from members who are voice actors. They object to the use of digital replicas of their voices.

Copyright anxiety will continue to plague creatives in 2024. The 2023 survey on copyright anxiety run by the University of Oxford (Story Of Books, August 2023) reflected this. This sentiment will continue mobilise unions and associations. The New York Times is certainly not taking it lying down.

Publishers who embrace AI are also mindful of its limitations. In March 2023, media experts at the Publishing Show in London, UK, cautioned Story Of Books that AI personalisation is as good as your cookie capture strategy (Story Of Books, April 2023).

Designers and creators, long unhappy with oppressive subscription software fees and stock photo costs, welcome an alternative.

Our Creative Director is now looking at Stable Diffusion. She thinks generative AI can be good for designers. There are risks such as the possibility of IP theft and copyright infringement (Story Of Books, June 2023). However, designers and creators, long unhappy with oppressive subscription software fees and stock photo costs, welcome an alternative: something open source and generative that can boost their output, and elevate fantasy to another level.

Causing a scene: Seinen gets bolder and battle-oriented

We’re anime junkies here at Story Of Books. But even for junkies, we find the battle scenes in the top seinen series of 2023 too graphic. Here’s the thing: they’re fantastic to the point of sublime. This sets the benchmark for 2024.

There’s definitely one-upmanship going on. Demon Slayer: The Swordsmith Village (Season 3) kicked the door open in 2023 by blowing fans over with amazing battle scenes and highly emotive storylines. Who hasn’t wept watching Episode 8: The Mu in Muichiro? (Story Of Books, April 2023). If you want to know how good Demon Slayer is, watch this comment by an architect:

We find the battle scenes in the top seinen series of 2023 too graphic. Here’s the thing: they’re fantastic to the point of sublime. This sets the benchmark for 2024.

It left the other anime series trailing behind. Attack On Titans drew its punch in the final season with a surprising ending. We already had an inkling of what was to become of the protagonist Eren Jaeger from fans who attended MCM Comic in May 2023 (Story Of Books, May 2023). Just before we watched the second part of Season 4, we went to the Royal Albert Hall, London, in October 2023 to hear composer Yoshiki perform one of the anime’s theme songs, Red Swan. What a run. For ten years, we were tormented by weird naked giants running around eating humans. And then, in one Indian summer, Attack On Titans was no more.

Jujutsu Kaisen might have left it too long after Season 1, allowing Demon Slayer and Chainsaw Man to steal the top seinen spot. Studio MAPPA proved us wrong, however, with Season 2, The Shibuya Incident. We’d never imagined that the bustling Tokyo district could be obliterated like that by the demon Sukuna – at least in this fantasy world. Again, it‘s not just the renderings that make an impression on fans. It’s the story, too. Not many are happy with the way Kento Nanami meets his demise. He never gets to retire in Kuantan, Malaysia, but that’s the decision of Gege Akutami, the author.

Identity politics: the noise continues

Last year, too much attention was paid to the casting of a black actress, Halle Bailey, as the titular character in The Little Mermaid. We watched the film in the cinema and found that the audience didn’t seem put off by it. As one author commented at an MCM Comic Con literary panel, “I didn’t want to give energy to it” (Story Of Books, June 2023). The audience didn’t but the media did.

Attitudes are changing. Fantasy is at the forefront of change, the genre itself being innovative in nature. Good Omen 2, released on Amazon in 2023, sailed through the summer with no fuss, unlike its first season (Story Of Books, August 2023). The romantic ending between Crowley and Aziraphale doesn’t upset anyone.

But that doesn’t mean fantasy fans will hear the last of identity politics. They will as ‘culture war’ continues to bleed into pop culture. It won’t benefit fans, but that’s the whole point of culture war.

Fantasy is at the forefront of change, the genre itself being innovative in nature. 

Apocalypse now: monsters and metaphor

There’s much to say, and much we can’t say, about conflict and climate. Therefore, you can expect plenty of allegorical tales in 2024.

Grief is a difficult topic to broach. The anime Suzume, directed by Makoto Shinkai, tackles the subject of natural disaster, inspired by the 2011 Japan earthquake (Story Of Books, April 2023).

Even more difficult to articulate and share is the grief of Japanese war survivors and veterans. But the gamble makes Godzilla Minus One one of the best Godzilla films, and one of the best fantasy films ever. To paraphrase Alan Moore, it’s a fantasy grounded in emotion. It’s not divorced from the human experience. When former pilot Kōichi Shikishima screams in terror at Godzilla as black atomic rain pours down his face, we feel his terror, too.

The film is a hit in the US and Europe. At MCM Comic Con October 2023, All The Anime, the UK distributor of the film, said that Toho, the global distributor, didn’t wait to push out Godzilla Minus One worldwide (Story Of Books, October 2023). The confidence and enthusiasm in the film was high. Of course, we have yet to hear the reaction from the rest of Asia, in particular Southeast Asia. A fantasy film about a kamikaze pilot is a touchy subject. If Godzilla is a personification of anger and personal violation, then you could be talking about Southeast Asia. But perhaps the timing is finally right.

It isn’t easy to look at the past to understand the present. But we write fiction to tell the truth.

In fact, Story Of Books editor uses the grimness of World War 2 and the ensuing Emergency periods (or the Cold War) to write two horror novels. The Keeper Of My Kin is about war. The sequel, A Request For Betrayal, is about peace. It isn’t easy to look at the past to understand the present. But we write fiction to tell the truth. The novels are written to signal that we are ready to look at history with compassion, and to look to the future with hope (Story Of Books, November 2023).

Expect more of the same thing from non-fiction as well. The book launched at the London Book Fair in May 2023, A History of World War One Poetry, goes beyond the ‘British soldier-poet canon’ to include poems from countries such as Russia, Serbia, Belgium, Turkey, India, South Africa and Canada (Story Of Books, May 2023). It’s a clear indication that no one should be excluded from the discussion on peace.

MMO and mindfulness

Gaming isn’t necessarily about a distraction nowadays. It can be about mindfulness, too. You can count on MCM Comic Con London to be the first to play host to some of the ideas. At the May 2023 event, we were introduced to the ‘chill room’ for visitors with autism or other types of disability who find the event overwhelming. This room was manned by volunteer psychologists.

That event also saw a panel of psychologists doing a deep reading on ADHD for the talk All minds, all worlds: The psychological layers of ‘Everything, Everywhere, All At Once’ (Story Of Books, May 2023). At the show, we got reacquainted with non-digital play, namely board games, which saw a resurgence during the lockdown years.

Gaming isn’t necessarily about a distraction nowadays. It can be about mindfulness, too. 

It was delightful to hear MMO experts talk about mindfulness. The advice given during the talk, It’s dangerous to go alone: Collaborative storytelling in TTRPGs (Story Of Books, May 2023) is for gamers to learn to give other people, and find out more about other players.

So in 2024, watch out for that growing conversation on mindfulness in gaming, whether it is to reduce stress and anxiety during the activity, or simply about the latest rollouts of meditation video games.