Reviews for Fantasy

The average rating for Fantasy based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2021-03-07 00:00:00 Berry Curry Published in 1988 (although there are later editions), this book is largely the work of Cawthorn. Moorcock honourably admits as much in his short addition to Cawthorn's Introduction. Moorcock's name sold amongst genre fans so there seems to have been agreement to share bragging rights. Cawthorn on his own is perfectly capable of good, if at times idiosyncratic (assuming the idiosyncrasies are not those of Moorcock), assessments. 100 books and nearly 100 authors get useful and interesting two page summaries from Jonathan Swift to Tom Holt. Some of the later entries might not stand the test of time, there are omissions (Moorcroft himself notes that Robert Holdstock is missing) and many of the books were no longer available (some still are not despite the rise of Kindle) but the general run of judgement is sound. There are suggestive discoveries here. Cawthorn takes special pleasure in finding some genre significant works that show that he knows his subject and does not rely on someone else's canon. Already I find myself reading Pratt and De Sprague's 'Land of Unreason' as a result. It remains surprising thirty years on what is still not easily available - for example, I could find no integrated volume of Clark Ashton Smith's 'Zothique' stories despite him coming back into appreciation with a Penguin special edition in recent years. Similarly Marjorie Bowen's 'Black Magic' and David Garnett's 'A Man at the Zoo' are hard to get hold of as is Van Vogt's 'The Book of Ptath' outside US E-Bay sellers. Frank S. Stuart's 'Caravan for China' appears to have dropped off the face of the earth bar one antique E-Bay hard-back. Compared to the state of affairs in 1988, we can be thankful for Kindle reviving many 'ancient texts' and to E-Bay for re-circulating others that might have been pulped because a market has been created. The 'Fantasy Masterworks' series has also served a purpose in the intervening years. As guides go, this is definitely not the last word on the subject of 'best fantasy' but the 100 works cited here from 'Gullivers Travels' through Merritt's 'Dwellers in the Mirage' to Kingsley Amis' 'The Green Man' and beyond is a worthy attempt at creating the basis for a canon of sorts.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-08-26 00:00:00 Marc Tosca I really enjoyed this book. 100 really interesting titles of fantasy books. Many I have already read- and a lot I have never heard of. And many I will be reading in the future. Major LIKE factor: These books are not arranged in order from greatest to worst, or vice versa. In order of year of publication-most recent is 1987- this book could be updated. And each has a brief-average of two pages-history/review. Enough to tell you about the book, without becoming authoritative and dull. Attached below here is a total list of all the title mentioned in this book, which I found on ILL, and have posted here for your assistance. Hope this is helps you. Gulliver's travels / by Jonathan Swift (1726) -- The castle of Otranto / by Horace Walpole (1765) -- Vathek / by William Beckford (1786) -- The monk / by Matthew Gregory Lewis (1796) -- Frankenstein / by Mary Shelley (1818) -- Melmoth the wanderer / by Charles Robert Maturin (1820) -- The narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym / by Edgar Allen Poe (1838) -- A Christmas carol / by Charles Dickens (1843) -- Wuthering heights / by Emily Bronte (1847) -- Moby-Dick / by Herman Melville (1851) -- Uncle Silas: a tale of Bartram-Haugh / by J. Sheridan LeFanu (1864) -- Alice's adventures in wonderland (1865) and Through the looking-glass (1871) / by Lewis Carroll -- Flatland / by Edwin A. Abbott (1884) -- She / by Henry Rider Haggard (1886) -- Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde / by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886) -- The twilight of the Gods / by Richard Garnett (1888) -- The story of glittering plain / by William Morris (1891) -- The picture of Dorian Gray / by Oscar Wilde (1891) -- Dracula / by Bram Stoker (1897) -- The turn of the screw / by Henry James (1898) -- The man who was Thursday / by G.K. Chesterton (1908) -- The house on the borderland / by William Hope Hodgson (1908) -- Black magic / by Marjorie Bowen (1909) Zuleika Dobson / by Max Beerbohm (1911) -- A princess of mars / by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1911) -- Tarzan of the apes / by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1912) -- The lost world / by Arthur Conan Doyle (1912) -- The night land / by William Hope Hodgson (1912) -- Herland / by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1915) -- The citadel of fear / by Francis Stevens (1918) -- A voyage to Arcturus / by David Lindsay (1920) -- A worm ouroboros / by E.R. Eddison (1922) -- The haunted woman / by David Lindsay (1922) -- Lady into fox (1922) and A man in the zoo (1924) / by David Garnett -- The king of Elfland's daughter / Lord Dunsany (1924) -- The ship of Ishtar / by Abraham Merrittt (1926) -- The trial (1925) and The castle (1926) / by Franz Kafka -- Witch wood / by John Buchan (1927) -- War in heaven / by Charles Williams (1930) Turnabout / by Thorne Smith (1931) -- The night life of the Gods / by Thorne Smith (1931) -- Dwellers in the mirage / by Abraham Merritt (1932) -- Zothique / by Clark Ashton Smith (1932-51) -- The werewolf of Paris / by Guy Endore (1933) -- Lost horizon / by James Hilton (1933) -- Northwest Smith / by Catherine L. Moore (1933-40) -- Jirel of Joiry / Catherine L. Moore (1934-9) -- The circus of Dr. Lao / by Charles G. Finney (1935) -- Land under England / by Joseph O'Neill (1935) -- Conan the conqueror / by Robert E. Howard (1935/6) -- At the mountains of madness / by H.P. Lovecraft (1936) -- To walk the night / by William Sloane (1937) -- Roads / by Seabury Quinn (1938) -- The once and future king / by T.H. White (1939-77) -- Slaves of sleep / by L. Ron Hubbard (1939) -- Caravan for China / by Frank R. Stuart (1939) -- Fear / by L. Ron Hubbard (1940) -- Darker than you think / by Jack Williamson (1940) -- The case of Charles Dexter Ward / by H.P. Lovecraft (1941) -- Land of unreason / by Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp (1941) -- Conjure wife / by Fritz Leiber (1943) -- The book of Ptath / by A.E. van Vogt (1943) The dark world and The valley of the flame / by Henry Kuttner (1946) -- Titus Groan (1946), Gormenghast (1950) and Titus alone (1959) / by Mervyn Peake -- The exploits of engelbrecht / by Maurice Richardson (1946) -- Mistress Masham's repose / by T.H. White (1946) -- Adept's gambit / by Fritz Leiber (1947) -- The well of the unicorn / by Fletcher Pratt (1948) -- You're all alone / by Fritz Leiber (1950) -- The dying earth / by Jack Vance (1950) -- The devil in velvet / by John Dickson Carr (1951) -- The tritonian ring / by L. Sprague de Camp (1951) -- Three hearts and three lions / by Poul Anderson (1953) -- The sword of rhiannon / by Leigh Brackett (1953) -- The broken sword / by Poul Anderson (1954) -- The lord of the rings / by J.R.R. Tolkien (1954-5) -- The golden strangers / by Henry Treece (1956) -- The great captains / by Henry Treece (1956) The haunting of hill house / by Shirley Jackson (1959) -- Stormbringer / by Michael Moorcock (1963) -- The serpent (1963), Atlan (1965), The city (1966) and Some summer lands (1977) / by Jane Gaskell -- The crystal world / by J.G. Ballard (1964) -- Black easter (1967) and The day after judgement (1968) / by James Blish -- Rosemary's baby / by Ira Levin (1967) -- A wizard of Earthsea / by Ursula K. Le Guin (1968) -- The green man / by Kingsley Amis (1969) -- Neither the sea nor the sand / by Gordon Honeycombe (1969) -- The philosopher's stone / by Colin Wilson (1969) -- The pastel city / by M. John Harrison (1971) -- The infernal desire machines of Dr. Hoffman / by Angela Carter (1972) -- Red shift / by Alan Garner (1973) -- The compleat enchanter / by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt (1975) -- The alteration / by Kingsley Amis (1976) -- Our lady of darkness / by Fritz Leiber (1976) -- The drawing of the dark / by Tim Powers (1979) -- The sending / by Geoffrey Household (1980) -- The colour of magic and The light fantastic / by Terry Pratchett (1983) -- The businesman: a tale of terror / by Thomas M. Disch (1984) -- Hawksmoor / by Peter Ackroyd (1985) -- Expecting someone taller / by Tom Holt (1987).