Modern Fantasy: The Hundred Best Novels: An English-Language Selection, 1946-1987

This book uses the exact same formula as his previous Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels : An English-Language Selection, 1949-1984, and as with that volume Mr. Pringle has come in for some unjust criticism in my view for having an alleged "British bias". He states upfront that the selection is going to be purely his own, and that he is restricting himself entirely to English-language writers. By my count he offers 26 books by 20 English writers (one South African born, and one born in China), 3 books from 2 Canadians, and a book apiece by writers from Scotland, India, and Ireland - leaving space for 70 works by Americans. We're hardly getting short-changed, especially in a genre so powerfully influenced throughout it's history by Britons, including Tolkien, Lewis, Peake and Moorcock within the boundaries of this survey, and William Morris, Lewis Carroll, and J.K. Rowling from outside it. Surely the English contribution to the field has been enormous. Enough nit-picking. Brian Aldiss writes a sweet, brief foreward; Pringle's 11-page introduction attempts to define the genre, to justify his selection of a starting date (in part to be in sympathy with the 1949 beginning of his SF book, and in part to start with a particularly powerful work, Peake's "Titus Groan"), and to mention a few titles and authors that have been left out, and why they have failed to make the cut. The author's methodology and biases are similar here to those he exhibits in his SF volume: choices are weighted towards literary quality, he often chooses for range rather than trying to fit any narrow "sword and sorcery" or "quest against the dark lord" type story paradigms; all to the good, I say, as it allows the appearance of such great fantasists as Aldiss, Peake, John Crowley and Salman Rushdie - none of them noted for playing in Tolkien's sandbox. Rather than list every book included (which you can find out readily enough from a variety of places - and which I think might spoil your fun in browsing the book, so please don't!) I'll just give a rundown of the most-named writers, which should give you some idea as to whether this book might be still interesting or not: Fritz Leiber - 4 works chosen J.G. Ballard, Angela Carter, Michael Moorcock, Mervyn Peake - 3 works each chosen Poul Anderson, Peter S. Beagle, John Crowley, M. John Harrison, Robert A. Heinlein, Stephen King, Brian Moore, Fletcher Pratt, Jack Vance - 2 works each chosen I should note that Pringle considers Peake's "Gormenghast" books as individual novels, whereas he includes series by Tolkien, Donaldson and Gene Wolfe among others as single works. And as with his SF volume, short stories and collections are excluded - unless, as in the case of Vance's "Dying Earth", they can be justified as forming some kind of semi-cohesive narrative. The fantasy genre has seen an enormous explosion in the 22 years since this book was published; you won't, obviously, see "Harry Potter" here, nor "A Song of Ice a

Pringle's selection of 100 fantasy novels covers a wide variety of styles. He covers just about all the bases from Tolkien to Stephen King to authors who are also well-known science fiction writers. You may not agree with Pringle's choices, they are so varied. I found myself in disagreement in few areas, but I must say that I was shocked to read that Pringle believes that Stephen R. Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant is "an unearned epic." I also felt that Pringle tends to have a British bias, omitting several American authors and works. All in all, a good resource for expanding your fantasy reading.