The A to Z of Fantasy Literature

by Stableford, Brian M.

  The introduction to the showcase anthology The New Gothic (1991), ed. Patrick McGrath and Bradford Morrow, points out that the old

  Gothic was largely defined by its “furniture”; the stories in it—including works by Angela Carter and Robert Coover—demonstrate that

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  such furniture has a very different aesthetic value when it is transplanted to modern literary dwellings.

  GOUDGE, ELIZABETH (1900–1984). British writer. Fantasy is very evident in her work for children, which she began to publish in The Fairies’

  Baby and Other Stories (1919). In Smoky-House (1940), fairies assist the protagonists to combat smugglers. The Little White Horse (1946) and Linnets and Valerians (1964) are enterprising accounts of the lifting of family curses. The Valley of Song (1951) is an Arcadian fantasy in which a family feud is healed by benevolent witchcraft. Goudge’s work for adults occasionally reflects her sincere belief in witchcraft and ghosts, although she usually employed her extensive knowledge of legend and superstition in a carefully noncommittal fashion.

  GOURMONT, RÉMY DE (1858–1915). French writer. He was a major figure in the Decadent movement and the leading literary critic of his day. Several fantasies are included in Studies in Fascination (1892; tr. in the omnibus The Angels of Perversity, 1992), and there are others scattered in his later collections. His play Lilith (1892; tr. 1946) is a forthright exercise in literary satanism, and the novel translated as A Night in the Luxembourg (1906; tr. 1912) is a sentimental/hallucinatory fantasy. Some of his whimsical philosophical essays about the vagaries of the sexual impulse represent themselves as letters from Mr Antiphilos, Satyr (1913; tr. 1922).

  GRAHAME, KENNETH (1859–1932). British writer. Like J. M. Barrie, he came to regard childhood as an ideal state of being, conflating its rose-tinted memory with nostalgia for a lost paradise. This confusion is amply displayed in the collections of conscientiously artificial children’s stories The Golden Age (1895) and Dream Days (1898). The sensibility was perfected in the classic animal fantasy The Wind in the Willows (1908), which includes an incongruous item of Arcadian fantasy in the chapter titled “Piper at the Gates of Dawn.” The novel’s curiously elastic and somewhat paradoxical pattern of anthropomorphization

  owes something to the example of earlier writers, including Beatrix Potter, but it is highly distinctive. William Horwood has written sequels.

  GRAIL. A symbolic vessel featured in the allegorical episode of Chré-

  tien de Troyes’s Arthurian fantasy tracking Perceval’s ambition to become a knight. It is glimpsed in the castle of the wounded Fisher

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  King (Jesus) and is therefore identified with the cup from which Christ drank at the Last Supper, which was supposedly used by Joseph of Ari-mathea to collect his blood at the crucifixion—thus being the “original” communion chalice. The notion that questing for the ever-elusive grail was a key mission of Arthur’s knights was elaborated in a 13th-century manuscript by a Cistercian monk, translated as The Quest of the Holy Grail, the climactic vision in which is credited to Galahad.

  The incorporation of Chrétien’s story into Welsh documents encour-

  aged an alternative interpretation wherein the image was derived from Celtic mythology, perhaps from a cauldron used in pagan religious rites—a version that figures largely in such scholarly fantasies as Jessie Weston’s. The Christian version has similarly become a key component of the secret histories developed by rival schools of scholarly fantasy.

  The story of the grail continues to be recycled in works by Richard Monaco, Lindsay Clarke, and Nancy McKenzie’s Grail Prince (2002), transfigured in such interpretative historical fantasies as Bernard Cornwell’s trilogy, comprising Harlequin (2000; aka The Archer’s Tale), Vagabond (2002), and Heretic (2003), and redeployed in works by Arthur Machen, Charles Williams’s War in Heaven, Gerald Heard’s

  “The Cup” (1947), James Blaylock’s The Paper Grail, and Pamela Smith Hill’s The Last Grail Keeper (2001).

  GRANT, JOHN (1949– ). Pseudonym of British writer Paul Barnett, active in various genres. His major fantasy novels are Albion (1991), about a society in which people lack long-term memory, and The World (1992), which relocates that milieu within a complex multiverse in need of renewal. His short fiction is sampled in Take No Prisoners (2004).

  With John Clute, he coedited The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997).

  GRANT, RICHARD (1952– ). U.S. writer. His early work forms a loose sequence that comprises Saraband of Lost Time (1985), Rumors of Spring (1987), View from the Oldest House (1989), and Through the Heart (1992): a hybrid post-holocaust science fantasy in which the fantasy elements are predominant—most conspicuously in the second, which involves a spiritual quest in an Arcadian landscape. Tex and Molly in the Afterlife (1996) is a witty and stylish contemporary and posthumous fantasy. In the Land of Winter (1997) features a modern witch who falls victim to a modern witch hunt when her daughter is taken into the care of social workers. Kaspian Lost (1999) is an exis-

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  tentialist fantasy in which a boy tries to reconstruct fragmentary memories of a confusing interval of his life.

  GRAPHIC NOVEL. A term coined in the 1980s to describe ambitious comic-strip projects. Collections of comic-book issues far outnumbered long stories written specifically for the format, but they aspired nevertheless to the kind of seriousness attached to the more ambitious French bandes dessinées. Translations of Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin and René Goscinny’s Asterix the Gaul provided formal models, while other translations from the French showcased more sophisticated artwork. Translations of Japanese manga also became a significant influence in the early 1990s.

  Fantasy elements were peripheral to the Asterix series but central to the humorous Arabian fantasy of Goscinny’s other major project Izno-goud (1962–94). The legacy of chivalric romance was evident in France in such series as François Bourgeon’s Les Compagnons du cré-

  puscule [Companions of the Twilight] (1984–90), and more diverse French legends were dramatized in graphic novels by Didier Comès.

  American graphic novels inevitably drew their primary material from superhero comics, but the more adventurous writers to work in the

  medium—especially Neil Gaiman, in Sandman reprints and Harlequin Valentine (2002)—soon began to broaden the format’s scope.

  Notable examples of graphic novel fantasy include Alan Moore and

  Kevin O’Neill’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series

  (launched 2000) and Carla Speed McNeill’s Finder series (launched

  1999). William Messner-Loebs and Sam Kieth’s historical fantasy Epi-curus the Sage (2003) features the exploits of the great philosopher.

  Micah Harris and Michael Gaydos’s Heaven’s War (2004) describes a mystical confrontation between Aleister Crowley and the Inklings.

  Stephen Weiner’s Faster than a Speeding Bullet: The Rise of the Graphic Novel (2003) is a compact history of the format.

  GRAY, ALASDAIR (1934– ). Scottish artist and writer. Much of his self-illustrated fantasy consists of distinctive fabulations scattered within the collections Unlikely Stories, Mostly (1983), Lean Tales (1985 with James Kelman and Agnes Owens), Ten Tall Tales and True (1993), Mavis Belfrage: A Romantic Novel, with Five Shorter Tales (1996), and The Ends of Our Tethers (2003). His novels are mostly naturalistic or sf, but Lanark: A Life in Four Parts (1981) is a highly distinctive epic/

  Odyssean/afterlife fantasy of an stripe set in the infernal realm of

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  Unthank. 1982 Janine (1984) has elements of erotic and metaphysical fantasy.

  GRAY, NICHOLAS STUART (1922–1981). Scottish actor/director and writer, whose work for the theater included numerous fairy tale adaptations, including Beauty and the Beast (1950), The Marvellous Story of Puss-in-Boots (1954), and several adaptations of Hans Christian Andersen, notably The Tinder-Box (1951) and The Imperial Night
ingale (1956). His fiction transfigures similar materials. Over the Hills in Fabylon (1954) is a generalized celebration of enchantment, but Down in the Cellar (1961) has a darker edge. The Seventh Swan (play and book, 1962), The Stone Cage (1963), The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (1965), and The Further Adventures of Puss-in-Boots (1971) are further fairy tale transfigurations. Grimbold’s Other World is an animal fantasy.

  The Apple-Stone (1965) uses a template established by E. Nesbit.

  Gray’s short fiction is collected in Mainly in Moonlight (1965).

  GREEN, ROGER LANCELYN (1918–1987). British writer. Tellers of Tales (1946; exp. 1953, 1956, 1965, and 1969), a collection of biographies and bibliographies of children’s writers—especially fantasists—

  was an important historical survey; he followed it up with more detailed accounts of several key writers, including Andrew Lang, Lewis Carroll, and J. M. Barrie, and also wrote two biographies of C. S. Lewis.

  His anthologies of fantasy include the notable showcases Modern Fairy Stories (1955) and Fairy Stories (1958), the latter concentrating on Victorian material. Most of his fiction recycles myths and legends, but From the World’s End (1948) is an enterprising visionary fantasy, and The Land beyond the North (1958) brings the classical Argonauts to Britain.

  GREEN, SHARON (1942– ). U.S. writer who wrote numerous planetary romances in the sadomasochistic vein of John Norman before developing more elaborate fantasy backcloths and less obsessive adventures in The Rebel Prince (1987), Lady Blade, Lord Fighter (1987), and two couplets, one comprising The Far Side of Forever (1987) and Hellbound Magic (1989) and the other Mists of the Ages (1988) and Dawn Song (1990). The trilogy comprising Silver Princess, Golden Knight (1993), Dark Mirror, Dark Dreams (1994), and Wind Whispers, Shadow Shouts (1995) is a portal fantasy featuring a masochistic female theriomorph.

  Enchanting (1994) is a paranormal romance. The Hidden Realms (1993) is an account of soul stealing. Game’s End (1996), the Blending

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  series (comprising Convergence [1996], Competitions [1997], Challenges [1998], Betrayals [1999], and Prophecy [1999]), and the Blending Enthroned trilogy (comprising Intrigues [2000], Deceptions [2001], and Destiny [2002]), are hectic sword and sorcery adventures.

  GREEN, SIMON R. (1955– ). British writer, also of sf. The series comprising Hawk & Fisher (1990; aka No Haven for the Guilty), Winner Takes All (1991; aka Devil Take the Hindmost), The God Killer (1991), Wolf in the Fold (1991; aka Vengeance for a Lonely Man), Guard against Dishonor (1991), and The Bones of Haven (1992; aka Two Kings in Haven) is hard-boiled detective fiction set in a secondary world. The trilogy comprising Blue Moon Rising (1991), Blood and Honour (1992), and Down among the Dead Men (1993) is a quest fantasy that was fused with the earlier series by Beyond the Blue Moon (2000). Shadows Fall (1994) is a hybrid/science fantasy. The chimerical Drinking Midnight Wine (2001) juxtaposes the real world of Veritie with a syncretic realm of Mysterie. The series launched with Something from the Nightside (2003), Agents of Light and Darkness (2003), and Nightingale’s Lament (2004) is hard-boiled detective fiction in which a part of London is permanently becalmed at 3 A.M.

  GREEN, TERENCE M. (1947– ). Canadian writer whose early work, collected in The Woman Who Is the Midnight Wind (1987), is mostly sf.

  The timeslip story Children of the Rainbow (1992) prepared the way for the more elaborate exploration of family history carried out in Shadow of Ashland (1996) and St. Patrick’s Bed (2001), the latter featuring ghosts; A Witness to Life (1999) is a prequel to The Shadow of Ashland, whose narrative is an atypical example of time reversal.

  GRIMM, BROTHERS. German folklorists Jacob Ludwig Grimm

  (1785–1863) and Wilhelm Karl Grimm (1786–1859), who were closely

  involved with the German Romantic movement; Jacob was a pioneer in the scientific study of the German language and its associated folklore, to whose preservation both brothers became strongly committed. Their collection of Kinder- und Hausmárchen [“Children’s and Household Tales”] (1812–15 in 3 vols.) was a landmark in the history of fantasy fiction.

  Later scholars, including Heinz Rölleke, John S. Ellis, and Jack Zipes—who prepared a definitive 241-item collection of The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (1987)—criticized the brothers’ reliance on middle-class informants and their tendency to rewrite tales to

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  emphasize their moralistic aspect and to remove “offensive” material, but the Grimms’ versions of “Hansel and Gretel,” “Rumpelstiltskin,”

  “The Twelve Dancing Princesses,” “The Little Tailor,” “Briar Rose,”

  “Snow White and Rose Red,” and many others were important contri-

  butions to the bedrock of modern fairy tales.

  The Grimms’ tales are darker than those adopted into literary form by French writers a century before—their “Ashputtle” is much harsher than Perrault’s “Cendrillon”—and this endeared them to modern writers ambitious to exploit the horrific potential of revisionist folktales; such writers delight in puns like Tanith Lee’s Red as Blood; or, Tales from the Sisters Grimmer (1983). The dubious antiquity of some of the Grimms’ tales is proclaimed by their inclusion of a version of “Little Red Riding Hood,” which Perrault probably originated, so the darker elements may have more to do with the license granted to German child-care givers to indulge in moral terrorism—graphically illustrated by Heinrich Hoffmann’s Struwwelpeter—than any deep-seated volksgeist.

  GRIMWOOD, KEN (1945–2003). U.S. writer whose first venture into fantasy was the timeslip romance Breakthrough (1976). Replay (1986) is a more complicated existential fantasy, in which the protagonist attempts to exploit the opportunities provided by a series of timeslips that return his mature consciousness to his younger body, generating a sequence of personal alternative histories. Into the Deep (1995) is a science fantasy parable.

  GRUNDY, STEPHAN (1967– ). U.S. writer. His epic fantasy Rhinegold (1994) recycles the Nordic legends on which Richard Wagner based the Ring cycle, carefully thinning out the supernatural elements as the story progresses. Attila’s Treasure (1996) is set in the same milieu. Gilgamesh (1999) recycles the Sumerian epic.

  GUIDE. Guidebooks to classical and other mythologies and Arthurian and other legends provided models for guides to the imaginary universes of fantasy literature, which became significant in respect of epic fantasy. Ballantine’s publication of Robert Foster’s The Complete Guide to Middle-earth (1978; expanded from a 1971 version) provided a key model for other such exercises, including guides to Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series and Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun. The A-to-Z format of Alberto Manguel and Gianni Guadalupi’s Dictionary of Imaginary Places (1980; rev. 1987), which takes in L. Frank Baum’s Oz, Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea, Tove Jansson’s Moominland, Sylvia

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  Townsend Warner’s Kingdoms of Elfin, Paul Féval’s Vampire City, and many others, as well as Middle-earth, is mimicked in Diana Wynne Jones’s satirical Tough Guide to Fantasyland.

  GUNN, NEIL M. (1891–1973). Scottish writer whose works—including the stories in Hidden Doors (1929) and the novels Second Sight (1940), The Silver Darlings (1941), The Silver Bough (1948), and The Well at the World’s End (1951)—often contain elements of visionary fantasy and echoes of legendary exploits. Sun Circle (1933) borrows from a Frazerian/scholarly fantasy as to its depiction of druidic ritual and religion. Young Art and Old Hector (1942) includes several exemplary folktales, and its sequel The Green Isle of the Great Deep (1944) is a wholehearted afterlife fantasy in which the condition of the land of the dead mirrors the historical predicament of the Highlands. The Other Landscape (1954) forsakes the imagery of Celtic folklore for the ideology of Eastern mysticism.

  GYPSY. A corruption of “Egyptian,” also spelled “gipsy,” applied to an ethnic group also known as Roma (or Romany), Bohemians, and Zin-gari (or Zincali). Gypsies arrived in Europe in the 14th century as
wanderers; the range of names applied to them signifies the widespread confusion as to their origins. As pagan outsiders with an arcane language (based on Sanskrit), they were routinely credited with magical abilities, decribed in some detail by Charles Godfrey Leland. Gypsy fortune-tellers became a literary cliché, and a sojourn with the gypsies became a staple element of the personal histories concocted by modern lifestyle fantasists. Notable fantasies giving significant roles to gypsies include

  “The Gypsy Christ” by William Sharp (Fiona MacLeod), Charles Williams’s The Greater Trumps, John Crowley’s Aegypt, and Eliza-Beth Gilligan’s Gypsy Silk series, launched with Magic’s Silken Snare (2003). Romany folklore has only recently become available as a resource; Leah R. Cutter’s The Caves of Buda is one of the few novels that draws upon it.

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  HAGGARD, SIR H. RIDER (1856–1925). British writer who followed up his classic boys’ book King Solomon’s Mines (1885) with the widely imitated She: A History of Adventure (1886), which founded

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  the subgenre of karmic romance and established a new model of the femme fatale in Ayesha, alias She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed; she was

  featured in three sequels, Ayesha; or, The Return of She (1905), She and Allan (1920), and Wisdom’s Daughter (1923). The hero’s triangu-lar relationship with the femme fatale and her mundane rival was

  echoed in many other stories, including two timeslip fantasies featuring Allan Quatermain from King Solomon’s Mines, The Ancient Allan (1920), and Allan and the Ice-Gods (1927); other Haggard heroes who suffered in similar fashion include Odysseus in The World’s Desire (1890, with Andrew Lang) and the Viking protagonists of Eric Brighteyes (1891) and The Wanderer’s Necklace (1914).

  Haggard’s other fantasies include Stella Fregelius: A Tale of Three Destinies (1903), the 1905 title novella of Smith and the Pharaohs and Other Tales (1920), and the anti-hunting allegory The Mahatma and the Hare: A Dream Story (1911). There are fantasy elements in several of his lost race stories, including The Ghost Kings (1908; aka The Lady of the Heavens), The Yellow God (1909), Queen Sheba’s Ring (1910), and When the World Shook (1919). His occult beliefs were hardened by the death of his son in World War I, but the consequent dogmatic defensiveness did not work to the advantage of such occult romances as Love Eternal (1918). Revisitations of Haggard’s She include Richard Monaco’s Journey to the Flame and Peter Tremayne’s The Vengeance of She; a further Haggard sequel by another hand is Mildred Downey Broxon’s Eric Brighteyes 2: A Witch’s Welcome (1979, as by “Sigfridur Skaldaspilir”).