The Tropes of Fantasy Fiction is about the essential nature of tropes in fantasy fiction and how they're applied within various fantasy stories. By comparing and contrasting various stories it shows that it's not the tropes and cliches that are what makes a story good or bad but instead how the authors apply them in their stories as well as the way the actual story is written. It also explores the concept of text vs meta-text, that is when the inside world and character actions of a story contradict the reader's expectations of the story based on the tropes being used. Using authors such from Mercedes Lackey and Brandon Sanderson to Christopher Paolini and Stephenie Meyer The Tropes of Fantasy Fiction shows that it is the nature of tropes and the language they use that is required to make a fantasy story, for bad or good.