The legendary island of Friesland, located east of Greenland
The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones. Vista, 1996.
Discover the laws governing fantasy worlds. Beware tongues in cheeks.
Helpful tips for travellers to Fantasyland by the late great Diana Wynne Jones, from which I draw a number of conclusions:
(1) Get immunised by reading a wide range of fantasy, both good and bad: you never know what bugs you will be exposed to in Fantasyland. (2) Remember to have an up-to-date passport: you’ll need either your own unread fantasy novel (preferably with your own bookplate stuck in the front) or a library book with plenty of entry/exit stamps from previous travellers’ visits. (3) Obtain a visa (a credit card receipt for a fantasy book from your local bookseller will do). (4) Have the correct currency ready (any bronze, silver or gold coins will do, so long as it makes a nice clinking sound in your purse). (5) Finally, don’t forget to pack the Tough Guide: you’ll be lost without it. The author has travelled widely in Fantasyland, knows the terrain intimately and generously shares her insights into its attractions, peculiarities, geography and distinct cultures.
Oh, and don’t speak to any strangers down dark alleyways…
The Magician Out of Manchuria by Charles G Finney. Panther Books 1976 (1968)
A comic fantasy not quite like any other, The Magician Out of Manchuria is part satire, part quest story, part picaresque novella and part fantasy, but constantly shifts ground to keep the reader guessing. Ostensibly it is about a Manchurian sorcerer who, with his apprentice chela and donkey Ng Gk, is intent on escaping an encroaching materialism in China, sometime in a legendary past. Already we can see that the author is mixing names and terms from different cultures: for example, chela is a Hindi word for a disciple.
But already, within the first couple of pages, we’re in medias res, for descending to the seashore the magician is easily constrained to rescue from fishing nets the lifeless body of a naked woman, not of a particularly pleasing visage as it happens (an incident portrayed rather lasciviously if not quite accurately the cover of this edition).
The said magician, unnamed like his chela, not only brings her back to life but by his art renders her beautiful. His motivation arises from the fact that he realises she is the infamous Lustful Queen of La, bumped off by the evil warlord Khan Ali Bok, and he decides that this is the perfect excuse to return northward — so the Queen can get her revenge and he can restore magic to the land. And so begins the quest by three unnamed humans (each known only by their status) and a named donkey (which only knows that its status is lowly).
Terry Pratchett Johnny and the Dead
Corgi Books 1997 (1993)
With hindsight it’s all too possible to read more into this YA novel than the author intended more than a score of years ago. Is Pratchett’s obsession with death, here and in other of his novels, some kind of premonition of his debilitating illness or, as I suspect it is, merely his continuing exploration of and creative attempts to deal with one of the big questions that we all contemplate at some time or another — namely, is there any kind of life after our departure from this world? And how do we cope with that while we still have this life?
Johnny and the Dead is the second in a loose trilogy about teenager Johnny Maxwell who lives in a Midlands town called Blackbury. Alone among his three friends — Wobbler, Bigmac and Yo-less — he finds he is able to see the dead in the local cemetery. More than that, he is able to speak to them. They are livid — well, as much as the disembodied can be said to be livid — when they discover that the cemetery has been sold to some developers, the distinctly anonymous United Amalagamated [sic] Consolidated Holdings.
Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman Good Omens Corgi 2011 (1990)
Good Omens is the inventive comic fantasy you’d expect from both these authors, a eschatological novel which in 1990 documented the final week of History. The cast of characters whose individual actions and thoughts gradually coalesce for the final denouement are easily distinguishable, from the angel who guarded the gates of Eden to the angel “who did not so much Fall as Saunter Vaguely Downwards”, from Witchfinders to fortune-tellers, from the group of mostly ordinary kids entertaining themselves over the summer to the Four Horsepersons of the Apocalypse (Equal Opportunities apply to supernatural beings these days too) appropriately sporting Hell’s Angels on their motorcycle jackets. Has Armageddon really arrived? Only this book can tell you. Continue reading “Hell’s Angels meet the Outlaws”→
Tom Holt is a respected comic fantasy writer, whose only other work I was previously aware of was Who’s Afraid of Beowulf? So I was pleased to have this novel recommended to me, if only to see if Holt’s inventiveness extends just to witty parodic titles like Faust Among Equals, Paint Your Dragon and Grailblazers.
The answer is, it doesn’t.
This is a rich smorgasbord of a book, amusing and thoughtful at the same time. The hero, Paul Carpenter, goes for an interview at the distinctly dodgy firm of J W Wells & Co where he meets the apparently mind-reading Sophie, and their world is turned on its head by what they uncover there. You know that something is not quite right when Paul goes home one night and can’t help noticing “the very large block of stone resting halfway between the washbasin and the bed, and the very large, shiny double-handed sword that was stuck in it”.
There are other Arthurian echoes too in the very Tristan und Isolde love philtre, though Gilbert & Sullivan operetta rather than Wagnerian music-drama is the relevant influence here: the firm of J W Wells & Co and the love-potion theme are apparently both borrowed from the duo’s 1877 collaboration The Sorcerer.
The door of the title is a neat conceit (as well as linguistic pun: the Latin for ‘gate’ is porta) though on occasion it seems to lead to logical non-sequiturs, even for a comic fantasy novel. Still, while both plotting and characterisation are lively I’m less certain whether I’d now be tempted by the sequel In Your Dreams and its successors and the prospect of yet more sustained whimsy. Maybe in due course.
Incidentally, the author puts in a guest appearance in Diana Wynne Jones’ own comic fantasy The Dark Lord of Derkholm, though not quite as himself.
December 2012 review revised and updated
Was Holt’s portable door inspired by the portable holes in the 1968 film Yellow Submarine?
Anita Loughrey's blog. This is my journal about my experiences and thoughts on writing. As well as news about me and my books, it includes writing tips, book reviews, author interviews and blog tours.
For more information about me and my books see my website: www.anitaloughrey.com. Follow me on Twitter @amloughrey, Facebook @anitaloughrey.author and on Instagram @anitaloughrey
Because life is better served with a good book and a cup of tea. Book reviews and general bookish writings. I love many genres, so all manner of books may appear on my blog.
Calmgrove 