Fantasy: The 100 Best Books

Moorcock and Cawthorn take a look at a list of books. The book itself is around 200 pages, which is basically a couple of pages of trivia, info, book summary and information for each of the 100 titles listed. He starts with Jonathan Swift, and ends in De Camp Land, and others, by way of Merritt, Lovecraft, Howard, Poe, etc. A reasonably flexible definition of fantasy, from Flatland to Black Magic.

This book gives an excellent and well written overview of Fantasy, spanning stories from the inception of Fantsy thru recent entries. The notes and reviews of individual books and authors are concise, interesting and informative. Anyone with an interest in Fantasy and/or classic period science fiction would almost certainly find this to be a highly enjoyable volume---like a good roadmap guide on a long trip, it helps show the way and gives valuable insight into the various attractions one might wish to visit!

Mr. Cawthorn and Mr. Moorcock do an excellent job of providing something of a running narrative of fantasy, highlighting books which jump-started notable genres such as Gothic, High Fantasy, Sword & Sorcery, and Urban Fantasy.That said, I think this book might have done better to not imitate its Newman/Jones horror counterpart, and be titled 'A History of Fantasy' or some such. There are a number of books which the two admit are absolutely dreadful reading (like the infamous Castle of Otranto) but have been included because of their importance to the genre.Enjoy the reading, but don't take an inclusion as necessarily a sign of a book's quality.

Fantasy is much older than Science Fiction and is also much closer to classic literature. The 100 books reviewed here make this quite clear. Fantasy books by authors from classic literature includes works of Johnathan Swift, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, Emily Bronte, Robert Louis Stevenson, Oscar Wilde, and Franz Kafka. Fantasy books from familiar Fantasy authors include works of Tolkien, Mary Shelley, Lord Dunsany, William Morris, E.R. Burroughs, Fritz Lieber, Ursula K. LeGuin, and many others. Each review tells about the author, the book, and its significance in Fantasy literature. This book is really an indispensible guide for Fantasy fans looking to find significant Fantasy literature from the earliest works to the contemporary.The only major flaw in the book is the under-emphasis of Michael Morcook's works. Because Michael Moorcock is a co-author, the authors felt that his works should be de-emphasized as a matter of journalistic integrity. Too bad.I think you will find this book much more helpful than Pringle's "Modern Fantasy" guide as Pringle's review only covers works since 1946--after so much of the world's innocence and romanticism had been lost.

This book is indeed the book with everything. I was impressed with both the style and the plush storyline. The orgasmic pictures included were both cyntillating and stimulating.