"Cozy" fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, etc. - thoughts?

Mutineer81

Mutineer81

New Member
What are people's opinions on cozy fiction? It feels like a new genre, well, a sub-genre. It seems to be very popular nowadays. To me, it's meandering fiction, like, some of the books I've read could be cut in half and be just as good--perhaps better.

Cozy fictions goes against the tenant of keep it tight--don't write a 50 billion word book.

The jumping around POVs also makes me mental.

Anyway, people's thoughts?
 
So, here's it's definition:

Cozy Fiction Genre Definition | Campfire Codex

Cozy fiction invites readers into idyllic settings where close-knit communities solve mysteries and face life's challenges together, all while sipping tea by a warm fire.
www.campfirewriting.com www.campfirewriting.com

Examples would be stuff by Delemhach, and the Tales of Pell series, Legends & Lattes, and Can't Spell Treason Without Tea.
 
I think it has a place just like all genres do. There's an audience for it, and if it starts trending, even better for those readers. We've had enough dark romantasy these days. Let the cozy folk pull up the recliner for a bit.

I'm not one of those folk, because I absolutely write dark shit, but I also appreciate the authors who can give back a bit of happiness and light to the world. As far as not keeping the story tight, I'm of the opinion that not every story needs to be. I think some meandering is okay. I didn't mind reading about the trees in Lord of the Rings. I did mind Hugo's ramblings about Napoleon in Les Miserables, though. It's all a matter of preference, really. Which you know, just stating the obvious, haha.
 
I like both cosy and dark books. The last cosy one I read was What You Are Looking For Is In The Library. It was basically a collection of short stories told from different character's POVs about how the library helped them overcome a hurdle in life. It was slow, totally harmless, but I found it very engaging. The "plot" was basically figuring out how the library will affect each life because you only find out at the end of the story. I also enjoyed the variety of voices -- the author managed everything from insecure 20-year-old woman in her first job to recently retired old man who's never once lifted a finger in his house and I found them all believable. I would definitely describe it as "meandering," but I like books that flesh out characters and dip into everyday life.

I didn't enjoy the Monk & Robot books as much. I thought the first book had the right level of tension to keep you going (the MC is going through a quarter-life crisis, escapes to the woods), and the monk/robot interactions were lovely, but the second book felt like a walk through a small utopia with a peppering of anxiety, kind of like a theme park. I thought it was a boring theme park. So I also have my limits when it comes to cosiness vs. more standard storytelling formats.
 
I've heard about Legends & Lattes for quite some time, everyone I've talked to who has read it has loved it. I recently started it myself. Only about 80 pages in, but am quite enjoying it so far. It's a comfy departure from other fantasy novels that's for sure, but still has those elements to it.
 
Isn't that sort of what Japanese light novels do, too?

I can't deny its market share. Personally I'm drawn to a tight composition.
 
Light novels, in themselves, can be any genre, from mystery to comedy to horror. The majority aren't cosy.

It's more of a format.
 
They were all the rage during COVID.
People wanted a break from the grim and dark (grimdark?).
And wanted something low stake with feel good appeal but in their favorite SFF settings.

Understandable why it would ha e cme about during the pandemic. Or at least why it got popular.
I dabbled in a few reads. The Monk and Robot duology was a big hit. and THE UNDERTAKING OF HART AND MERCY was also pretty good.
There was another one, something about an orc and a teashop, that flew off the shelves almost immediately.

The momemtum here has kinda petered off. But the genre has stuck

(Edit to add... @Tallyfire and @Damage718 mentioned them above lol)
 
Also.... i dont really have an opinion on it. I read whatever i feel at the time and, i guess like everyone else, i wanted something with a little less dread at the time.
Now, im craving different things
 
Mutineer81 said:
So, here's it's definition:

Cozy Fiction Genre Definition | Campfire Codex

Cozy fiction invites readers into idyllic settings where close-knit communities solve mysteries and face life's challenges together, all while sipping tea by a warm fire.
www.campfirewriting.com www.campfirewriting.com

Examples would be stuff by Delemhach, and the Tales of Pell series, Legends & Lattes, and Can't Spell Treason Without Tea.
Click to expand...

Damage718 said:
I've heard about Legends & Lattes for quite some time, everyone I've talked to who has read it has loved it. I recently started it myself. Only about 80 pages in, but am quite enjoying it so far. It's a comfy departure from other fantasy novels that's for sure, but still has those elements to it.
Click to expand...

I've read all three (Bookshops and Bonedust, Legends & Lattes, and the most recent, Brigands and Breadknives) and enjoyed them all.

Like JT said, it depends on what I want to read at the time. Sometimes I read something darker, like Poe. When I'm done with that, I like to contrast it with something light.

I also enjoy seeing how other authors take something modern and make it work in a fantasy world. If it's done in a clever and unexpected way, all the better.

But now I have a question: if "cozy fantasy" means blending fantasy and modern real-world concepts, would you say Sir Terry Pratchett wrote "cozy fantasy"? *thinks* To me, most of the Discworld books came under the heading of comic fantasy (with the exception of some of his books such as Night Watch and Nation, which were quite dark).
 
Hmm. Google's definition of "cozy fantasy" is OK, but needs more work:

- Focused on low-stakes;
- Comforting;
- Character-driven stories;
- Emphasizes found families, community, and personal journeys over epic battles or world-ending threats;
- Features elements like warm drinks, cute magical creatures, and relatable problems like starting a coffee shop.

I agree with most of this, except that "character-driven stories" are also present in "epic fantasy" like LOTR - or at least should be. If your characters are interchangeable to the point that the same story would happen with or without them, what's the point? :-\ Can you imagine LOTR being the same if (for instance) Gandalf took The One Ring instead?

JT Woody said:
Urban Fantasy
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I don't know about that. *shrug* Urban Fantasy isn't the only sub-genre that blends fantasy and modern concepts - Rural Fantasy does the same just as well.
 
Cozy/sweet anything grates on me, but some of the cozy genre concepts amuse me to no end. My current favorite, which I only learned about a couple of weeks ago, is cozy apocolyptic fiction: survivors of a world-wide disaster get together to sing kumbaya as they reconstruct civilization in their own image, and never mind the seven billion dead bodies scattered around the world.
 
Been listening to a lot of Nero Wolfe audiobooks of late. Rex Stout wrote scores (!) of them, specified that no-one should continue them after his death, died, so his estate promptly asked Robert Goldsborough to continue the series.

I listened to the latter ones first and thought them far too 'cosy' for a private eye series set in New York. On reading the originals I realised they weren't conceived that way.

It seems that Goldsborough accidentally cosied the thing by trying too hard to cleave to the descriptive specifics of the originals whilst failing to capture their animating spirit.

That said I actually quite like the newer cosier versions. Easy to fall asleep to, no spikes in tension to wake you up.
 
Wasn't aware anyone had cozied up Nero Wolfe. What a dreadful idea. The only satisfying takeover of characters that I can think of is Anne Hillerman picking up her dad's series after he died. I like her books as well as I like his, and I like his a lot.
 
CatrionaGrace said:
Wasn't aware anyone had cozied up Nero Wolfe. What a dreadful idea. The only satisfying takeover of characters that I can think of is Anne Hillerman picking up her dad's series after he died. I like her books as well as I like his, and I like his a lot.
Click to expand...
Cozied Nero Wolfe? Sounds like an abomination.

As for Anne Hillerman, I have to say I certainly didn’t care for the Dark Winds tv series. Just wasn’t her father’s characters.
 
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