The Imaginarium of Doctor Mitch

Focus on the Fantastic, Part 2

In my last entry I commented on four pieces of fantasy literature which still excite me. Time for some more!

• The Dark Tower Series (Stephen King)

Really, at its heart, the Dark Tower Series is about a questing band of knights. Only with a Wild West ethos on top of that, and guns rather than swords. And with lots of crossovers from our world. Really, I just find this really cool. Sure, it has it’s problems (Stephen King himself as a guest character being the main one, and the impression that the author was bored with it all by the end of the last book being another one) but the wonder, and number of really cool scenes and ideas more than makes up for it. It may soon be time for a reread.

• Various Fantasy Works of Michael Moorcock

Michael Moorcock was absolutely hugely prolific, and key to my take on fantasy (and many others) with the concepts of Law and Chaos, and the infinite planes of the multiverse. And the books are fast exciting reads. Key reads from my youth- the series based on Elric, Hawkmoon, Corum, and the Dancers at the End of Time- all breezy fast exciting reads, and ones which capture what I want from swords and sorcery. And my goodness, was he prolific- how many novels did he put out in the 70s? I almost don’t want to know. It’s a pity I don’t like his more recent works (from the 1980s onwards really) nearly as much.

• The Broken Sword (Paul Anderson)

Now this is the business- a gloomy saga involving the hidden war between the elves and trolls amidst dark ages Europe, and a doomed changeling hero. It’s a really good take on a slice of mostly Norse mythology in the form of a novel. One of my favourite books in fact, for all its doomy angst. Okay, I like doomy angst sometimes when it’s done well. This is one of those times.

• The Warlord Chronicles (Bernard Cornwell)

This is closer to historic fiction than fantasy, but I’d definitely put it in the fantasy camp. It’s Bernard Cornwell doing King Arthur, complete with subtle magic which is not necessarily magic, and as much taken from the Welsh myths as is taken from any historic sources. And it’s a King Arthur in the Dark Ages rather than faux-Medieval romance. Heck, Cornwell’s King Arthur isn’t a king, but a warleader, and a compelling fictional character.

It’s also the main fictional inspiration for the Age of Arthur roleplaying game.

• The Discworld Novels (Terry Pratchett)

This is the last for now of my great fantasy loves, unless I move onto talking about urban fantasy at a future date (which tempts me). I’ve read all the Discworld books, and at their best, they manage to be both funny and moving, as well as both parodying modern society and saying things about human nature. Not to mention introducing some fine fictional characters. Reading a Discworld book gives me the same sort of warm glow as eating a fine meal accompanied by a couple of glasses of wine, with a cigar at the end of the meal.

And that’s me done with this for now. Though at some point in the future I might write about urban fantasy, the Mabinogion, or Homer.

Focus on the Fantastic

Earlier in the year I was I thinking a lot about science fiction roleplaying. Now I find myself thinking a lot about fantasy, an old love I keep returning to. I’m running fantasy, in the form of the 13th Age roleplaying game in the Planescape setting.

I’ve deeply conflicted thoughts about both fantasy literature and fantasy roleplaying. For this post, I’ll focus on the literature. Fantasy literature was one of the earliest sources for my imagination. On another level, I find much fantasy a bit boring these days, and find many invented worlds hard to invest in. Rather than being negative, I thought I’d call out a few things that give me pleasure these days.

• Middle Earth (J.R.R. Tolkien)

You saw this one coming, right? Over the last couple of years, after a long break, I’ve fallen in love again with J.R.R. Tolkien’s works. The Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings, the Silmarillion are all great for me in different ways. I’m awed by the depth and detail of the invented history and mythology, of course the languages, even the geography in Lord of the Rings where every hill and wood has a tale.  There’s nothing else like it.

• Guy Gavriel Kay’s not quite historic novels

I’ve not read much Guy Gavriel Kay yet- he’s a recent find for me, and the novels I’m talking take place somewhere very close to the real historic world, with both a dose of invention and a very very small dose of fantasy- magic is present, but an extremely minor feature of his works. He sometimes deals with big sweeping events, and being fantasy rather than historic fiction frees the books from having to follow history. They evoke a time a place beautifully, as well as being human and genuinely moving stories. Sailing to Sarentium and Lord of Emperors (the two “Byzantium” books) got me hooked, and The Lions of al-Rassan (in  an analogue of Islamic Spain) was just as good.

• The Saga of the Exiles (Julian May)

This is not so much fantasy as science fiction with lots of fantasy trappings- based around those who volountarily exile themselves from the world of 2110 to prehistoric Earth, six million years ago- and find it under the rule of two warring alien races who are rather close to beings out of Celtic legend- right down to their names being slight variations of the Celtic gods. I won’t go into detail here- or the details of the magical “metapsychic” powers which are the main element of the setting. I can’t really say why I like it so much- maybe because it’s just sheer fun.

• Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell (Susannah Clarke)

Just one novel this time, though it’s rather meaty. It involves the return of magic and the Fae to early 19th century England, after a long exile from the world, where at the start magicians exist, but merely study the history and theory of magic, not being capable of actually putting it into practice. There are numerous (often big) footnotes referring to history and the real fairy tales of the world of the novel. It’s slow moving, and sometimes written in the language and spelling of the era. Yet I love it. One reason is that it’s one of the most terrifying depictions of faeries I’ve come across in fiction, even with (and to an extent because of) all of the whimsy.

That’s all for now. It’s not all I want to talk about (there’s Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, Michael Moorcock and Pratchett to name but three), but it will do for a first post on fantasy novels.