John Gardner, a mainstream American novelist, said that one of the tasks of the writer is to create a “fictional dream”, and to me, what makes the dream elements work is when they’re surrounded by reality. In other words, I can accept magic much more readily if it’s grounded in an accurately portrayed and believable world — but if everything’s “fantastic,” in the literal meaning of the word, then I start to lose interest.

I’m also a high school girls’ basketball coach, and am heavily involved in women’s basketball at all levels, up to the Olympics, and though I fully appreciate tremendous skills and athleticism of elite female players, the reality is that elite men are much, much stronger, much, much faster, and much, much quicker. It makes sense to me that a 99th percentile female warrior would handle ordinary soldiers with no problem, but if she faced a fully focused 75th percentile male warrior she’s going to need to be awfully lucky.