Portal Fantasy

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Portal fantasy is a subgenre of Fantasy fiction in which one or more humans from the modern-day real world are transported into a fantasy universe, where they have adventures. Well-known early examples include Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz and The Chronicles of Narnia. Such works often serve as Wish Fulfillment, although subversions where the alternate world adventure is portrayed as traumatic are also common, such as Stephen R. Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children.

Portal fantasy was more common in English-language fantasy fiction before the 1990's and has since dropped off significantly in popularity. However, portal fantasy is currently extremely popular in Japanese light novels and anime, including those translated for the English market. The Japanese term for the genre is isekai (異世界), literally "different world."

Examples