In this first episode of "Fantasy for our Time," fantasy author Nicholas Kotar explains his premise for the podcast. This isn't a review podcast, though there will be discussions of fantasy books old and new. Using a framework developed on the Science Fiction podcast by Damien Walter, Kotar critiques works of classic and new fantasy (and occasionally, sci-fi) rather than reviews them. In other words, these stories that we read are more than our personal likes and dislikes (reviews). They have a capacity of affecting us at a profound level, for good or ill. So as Kotar critiques these stories, he will always consider how they reflect some aspect of our current society or what it means to be human in general. To start off, Kotar discusses Tolkien's wonderful essay "On Fairy Stories," where Tolkien discusses how the consolation that stories provide is one of the most important things we have as human beings. Far from being embarrassed by the escapism of stories, we should revel in it!