The ur-fantasies are the romances likeand. A lot of the standard fantasy tropes are right there: quests, mysterious patrons, the guilt-free massacre of enemies and objectifying of women… Later pulp fantasies went further afield – Conan covers a lot of terrain that feels like the Middle East and the north coast of Africa, for example. Middle Earth itself has a more feel to it of what we used to call the Dark Ages until mediaevalists shouted at us about it, and many fantasies that followed closely on Tolkien’s heels tended take some of his elves and dwarves and throw them into the Middle Ages, sometimes grim and gritty, and sometimes a sanitised version where all the kings are virtuous and nobody, to quote Monty Python, is covered in shit. Even where the setting is ostensibly a world away from the actual Middle Ages, like Brook’s post-tech far future in thebooks, it remains the go-to source for societal structures, landscape and the like. It is very useful fantasy shorthand to be able to rely on familiar concepts to frame the story and get things moving quickly.