The A to Z of Fantasy Literature

by Stableford, Brian M.

  lifestyle fantasists—including Éliphas Lévi, Madame Blavatsky, Aleister Crowley, and Dion Fortune—also wrote scholarly fantasies and dabbled in literary fantasies, helping to secure a positive feedback loop of influences.

  Writers whose fiction expresses and exaggerates the yearnings of

  their lifestyle fantasies include Marie Corelli and “Baron Corvo,” although L. Ron Hubbard gave up fantasy writing when he discovered that marketable lifestyle fantasies were far more profitable. The lifestyle fantasy that has had the most conspicuous influence on modern fantasy fiction is the neopaganism that colonized imaginative territory carved out by the scholarly fantasies of Jules Michelet, James Frazer, and Margaret Murray; their transfigured history of witch persecution—enriched with a substantial slice of fairy mythology—has been fed back into literary fantasy on a prodigious

  scale.

  LIGOTTI, THOMAS (1953– ). U.S. writer. His early short fiction, collected in Songs of a Dead Dreamer (1986; exp. 1989), extrapolated the decadent aspect of Lovecraftian fiction in a surreal mode influenced by German expressionism (refer to HDHL). Grimscribe: His Life and Works (1991) and Noctuary (1994) carried forward the project, while The Agonizing Resurrection of Victor Frankenstein & Other Gothic Tales (1994) offered metafictional extrapolations of classic texts. The Nightmare Factory (1996) is an eclectic collection. My Work Is Not Yet Done (2002) assembles “Three Tales of Corporate Horror,” whose title novella is a scathing Gothic satire.

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  LIMINAL FANTASY. A category initially defined by Farah Mendlesohn in “Toward a Taxonomy of Fantasy” (2001) as “estranged fantasy”; the substitute term has the advantage of avoiding too much confusion with the notion of “cognitive estrangement,” developed by Darko Suvin and regarded by him—but not by fantasy theorists—as the sole prerogative of sf and the basis of its essential superiority to fantasy.

  Liminal fantasy is perhaps best seen as a splinter category of intrusive fantasy in which fantastic or magical devices are not perceived by the characters as “disruptive of expectation” but as something ordinary and expectable, thus undermining the “sense of wonder” in a manner akin to immersive fantasies—the fundamental effect, if not the calculated strategy, of magical realism. Effectively, liminal fantasies are immersive fantasies set in the primary world; Mendlesohn regards the category as “the most demanding” of the four types detailed in her article, because “it depends for its effectiveness on the understanding and subversion of our expectations of the fantastic.” The ability to deploy narrative strategies of this degree of sophistication is central to the evolution of postmodern/fabulation.

  LINDHOLM, MEGAN (1952– ). U.S. writer. The trilogy comprising Harpy’s Flight (1983), The Windsingers (1984), and The Limbreth Gate (1984) is a stereotypical commodified fantasy, to which Luck of the Wheels (1989) was subsequently appended. The Wizard of the Pigeons (1986) and Gypsy (1992, with Steven Brust) are more enterprising urban fantasies. The couplet comprising The Reindeer People (1988) and The Wolf ’s Brother (1988) is a prehistoric fantasy. Cloven Hooves (1991) is a dark contemporary fantasy. Lindholm relaunched her career under the pseudonym “Robin Hobb.”

  LINDSAY, DAVID (1878–1945). British writer. His first novel, A Voyage to Arcturus (1920), is a complex and robust allegorical fantasy in which the hero encounters many strange beings and undergoes a series of

  painful metamorphoses while struggling to comprehend the creative

  force of Shaping and its crucial relationship to the symbolic figures of Crystalman and Surtur. The Haunted Woman (1922) is a metaphysical/

  timeslip fantasy; its protagonist achieves brief intervals of liberation from the burden of repression and constraint to which civilization has subjected human consciousness. Sphinx (1923) attempts to embed metaphysical imagery of the same sort within a conventional domestic drama embellished by hallucinatory fantasy. The Violet Apple, written

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  immediately afterward but not published until 1975, makes similar use of biblical fantasy. In Devil’s Tor (1932), a threatened apocalyptic return of the primal goddess frames a syncretic mythos revising some of the metaphysical notions detailed in A Voyage to Arcturus, but the fuller elaboration of his revised thesis that he intended to set out in The Witch (1975) was never completed.

  LINDSKOLD, JANE (1962– ). U.S. writer. Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls (1994) is an ambiguous/science fantasy in which a mad girl who talks to inanimate objects goes on the run. Pipes of Orpheus (1995), in which Orpheus is an accursed wanderer, explains the fate of the children of Hamelin. When the Gods Are Silent (1997) is an account of rapid thinning and the consequent quest to bring magic back.

  Changer (1998) is a recklessly syncretic contemporary/theriomorphic fantasy with Arthurian elements; Legends Walking (1999) is a sequel.

  Lord Demon (1999 with Roger Zelazny) is a contemporary Oriental fantasy featuring an exiled demon. The theriomorphic fantasy series comprising Through Wolf ’s Eyes (2001), Wolf ’s Head, Wolf ’s Heart (2002), The Dragon of Despair (2003), and Wolf Captured (2004) is set in a secondary world. The Buried Pyramid (2004) is an Egyptian fantasy adventure.

  LINK, KELLY (1969– ). U.S. writer and small press publisher. The wide-ranging fabulations collected in Stranger Things Happen (2001) are uncommonly inventive and stylish. With her husband, Gavin Grant, Link runs the Small Beer Press, which issued the eccentrically eclectic magazine Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet (launched 1997) from its sixth issue. The couple took over from Terri Windling as editors of the fantasy section of The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror in 2003. Link edited the notable showcase anthology Trampoline (2003).

  LINKLATER, ERIC (1899–1974). Scottish writer. His play The Devil’s in the News (1929), a spiritualist fantasy in which the spirits of real and fictitious individuals are invoked, laid the groundwork for a series of dramatic dialogues broadcast by the BBC during World War II in which historical figures from different eras debate philosophical issues. They are reprinted in The Cornerstones: A Conversation in Elysium (1941), The Raft and Socrates Asks Why (1942), The Great Ship and Rabelais Replies (1944), and Crisis in Heaven: An Elysian Comedy (1944).

  The fantasy stories mingled with others in God Likes Them Plain (1935), Sealskin Trousers (1947), and A Sociable Plover (1957) include

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  satirical fairy tales, irreverent Christian fantasies and humorous classical fantasies. The Impregnable Women (1938) transfigures Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, while A Spell for Old Bones (1949) is a political allegory featuring clumsy giants of ancient Scotland. The Wind on the Moon (1944) is a frivolous children’s story with elements of animal fantasy; The Pirates in the Deep Green Sea (1949) is a more wholehearted fantasy of undersea adventures. Husband of Delilah (1962) is a biblical fantasy, more fanciful than Linklater’s earlier account of Judas (1939). A Terrible Freedom (1966) is a dark/hallucinatory fantasy.

  LISLE, HOLLY (1960– ). U.S. writer who frequently participates in shared world enterprises, including work done in association with Marion Zimmer Bradley. The trilogy comprising Fire in the Mist (1992), Bones of the Past (1993), and Mind of the Magic (1995) is feminized/commodified fantasy. Minerva Wakes (1994) and Mall, May-hem and Magic (1995, with Chris Guin) are contemporary fantasies.

  In the humorous trilogy comprising Sympathy for the Devil (1996), The Devil & Dan Cooley (1996 with Walter Spence), and Hell on High (1997

  with Ted Nolan), the denizens of hell return to Earth, eventually opening a theme park. The series comprising Curse of the Black Heron (1998), Thunder of the Captains (1996 with Aaron Alliston), and Wrath of the Princes (1997 with Alliston) is a Bardic fantasy. The Secret Texts series, comprising Diplomacy of Wolves (1998), Vengeance of Dragons (1999), and Courage of Falcons (2000), is theriomorphic fantasy; Vin-calis the Agitator (2002) is a prequel. The World Gates trilogy of contemporary fantasies comprises Memory of Fire (2002), Wreck of Heaven (2003), and Gods Old and D
ark (2004).

  LITERARY SATANISM. William Blake’s observation that John Milton had been “of the devil’s party without knowing it” when he scrutinized Satan’s character and motivation in Paradise Lost was expanded by Percy Shelley into an ardent championship of the Devil’s heroic rebellion against divine tyranny. Shelley cast his own adversarial epic as a Promethean fantasy, but later fantasists who took it upon themselves to attack God’s moral entitlement to dictate the terms of human existence frequently used the Devil and various other fallen angels to lead the charge. Gustave Flaubert’s Temptation of St. Anthony was beaten into print by Charles Baudelaire’s hymn to Satan in Les Fleurs du Mal, which was amplified by Jules Michelet into a four-act ritual “Communion of Revolt” in his

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  scholarly fantasy La sorcière before Anatole France brought explicit literary satanism to the peak of its achievement in The Human Tragedy and The Revolt of the Angels.

  Notable 20th-century additions to the sceptical tradition of literary satanism include Jonathan Daniels’s Clash of Angels (1930); the parodic The Memoirs of Satan (1932), by William Gerhardi and Brian Lunn; Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita; David H. Keller’s The Devil and the Doctor; Raoul Fauré’s Mister St. John (1947); Alan Sillitoe’s cycle of poems Snow on the North Face of Lucifer (1979); Nancy Springer’s Metal Angel; Jeremy Leven’s Satan: His Psy-chotherapy and Cure by the Unfortunate Dr. Kassler, J.S.P.S. (1982); Ed Marguand’s The Devil’s Mischief (1996); and Glen Duncan’s I, Lucifer (2002).

  Sympathy for the Devil’s minions—which is usually less combative

  than outright literary satanism—echoes in such modern texts as John Collier’s The Devil and All, C. S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters, and is carried to an extreme in Miranda Seymour’s The Reluctant Devil (1990). A wry note of sympathy is also sounded in some Christian fantasies, including Marie Corelli’s The Sorrows of Satan and Alfred Noyes’s The Devil Takes a Holiday (1955).

  LIVELY, PENELOPE (1933– ). British writer born in Cairo. Her work for adults is naturalistic, but most of her children’s books are fantasy. In The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy (1971; aka Wild Hunt of the Ghost Hounds), an ancient ritual revived by a country vicar unleashes powerful ghostly forces. Whispering Knights (1971) similarly features an accidental summoning, with echoes of Arthurian fantasy. The Driftway (1972) is a less melodramatic account of history come to life, as is The Ghost of Thomas Kempe (1973), in which a revenant Elizabethan wizard is frustrated by the unfamiliarity of modern life. The House in Norham Gardens (1974) explores a more profound cultural divide between modern England and ghostly tribesmen from New Guinea. A Stitch in Time (1976) evokes more extensive temporal vistas. The Voyage of QV66 (1978) is an animal fantasy set in the aftermath of a new Deluge. Treasures of Time (1979), The Revenge of Samuel Stokes (1981), and Uninvited Ghosts and Other Stories (1984) revisited old ground. The collection Beyond the Blue Mountains (1997) includes some fantasies.

  LLYWELYN, MORGAN (1937– ). U.S.-born Irish writer. Her historical novels set in Ireland initially used legendary material as decor, but The

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  Horse Goddess (1982) moved decisively into the field of Celtic fantasy. The earlier sections of The Elementals (1993) describe the post-diluvian settlement of Ireland, while Bard: The Odyssey of the Irish (1984) offers an account of the origins of Irish fairy mythology. The Isles of the Blest (1989) features a journey into Faerie. Red Branch (1989; aka On Raven’s Wing) allows the legend of Cuchulainn to retain its supernatural elements, although Finn MacCool (1994) does not, Druids (1991) having already negotiated the series back to desupernaturalized territory. The Arcana couplet, written in collaboration with Michael Scott, comprising Silverhand (1995) and Silverlight (1997), is orthodox heroic fantasy. The Earth Is Made of Stardust (2000) samples her short fiction.

  LOCUS. U.S. periodical founded in 1968 as a fanzine; by 1976, when editor Charles N. Brown devoted himself to it full-time, it was the trade journal of the sf field (refer to HDSFL); it also kept track of the overlapping fields of fantasy and horror fiction, thus bearing witness to the inexorable rise of commodified fantasy. The near-definitive record of fantastic fiction published in the United States and United Kingdom that it has maintained since the early 1980s, cumulatively collated on the Locus On-Line website, is invaluable to scholars with interests located anywhere on the fantasy spectrum.

  LOFTING, HUGH (1886–1947). British writer resident in the United States after 1919. His major contribution to the genre is a long children’s series chronicling the adventures of Dr. Dolittle, who can communicate with animals. It comprises The Story of Dr Dolittle (1920), The Voyages of Dr Dolittle (1922), Dr Dolittle’s Post Office (1923), Dr Dolittle’s Circus (1924), Dr Dolittle’s Zoo (1925), Dr Dolittle’s Caravan (1926), Dr Dolittle’s Garden (1927), Dr Dolittle in the Moon (1928), Dr Dolittle’s Return (1933), Dr Dolittle and the Secret Lake (1948), Dr Dolittle and the Green Canary (1950), and Dr Dolittle’s Puddleby Adventures (1952). The Twilight of Magic (1930) is an elegiac quasi-historical fantasy.

  LOGSTON, ANNE (1962– ). U.S. writer. The trilogy comprising Shadow (1991), Shadow Dance (1992), and Shadow Hunt (1992) is a picaresque fantasy featuring a larcenous female elf; Greendaughter (1993) and Wild Blood (1995) are prequels, Dagger’s Edge (1994) and Daggers’s Point (1995) sequels. Firewalk and Waterdance (1999) are paranormal romances. The Crystal Keep series, launched by Guardian’s Key (1996)

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  and Exile (1999), is set in a citadel with a surfeit of doors, a resident Oracle, and an all-powerful Guardian.

  LONDON, JACK (1876–1916). U.S. writer whose short fiction made a considerable contribution to the development of sf (refer to HDSFL); some of his prehistoric fantasies— Before Adam (1906)—employ reincarnation as a narrative device. He wrote several offbeat ghost stories, including “The Eternity of Forms” (1911). The Star Rover (1915; aka The Jacket) is a visionary/escapist fantasy about serial reincarnation.

  Hearts of Three (1918) novelized an unproduced film script written in collaboration with scenarist Charles William Goddard, which features a lost race and drug-induced visions.

  LORRAIN, JEAN (1855–1906). Pseudonym of French writer Paul-

  Alexandre-Martin Duval, one of the most enthusiastic participants in the Decadent movement. His poesque fantasies include the title piece of Sonyeuse (1891) and the psychic vampirism story “The Egregore”

  (1887), but his most distinctive work is a sequence of hallucinatory fantasies based on his experiences using ether as a stimulant; most are collected in Nightmares of an Ether-Drinker (2002), alongside a few occult fantasies and dark-edged fairy tales, including “The Princess of the Red Lilies” (1894). His archetypal decadent novel Monsieur de Phocas (1901; tr. 1994) also features some graphic hallucinatory sequences.

  LOST RACE. An exotic society newly discovered or rediscovered by modern explorers. Such societies figure in many naturalistic adventure stories, including almost all of those bordering on sf or utopian fantasy.

  The lost races most relevant to fantasy preserve some kind of working magic; the eternal flame in Rider Haggard’s She is a cardinal example.

  Edgar Rice Burroughs and E. Charles Vivian made particularly prolific use of the motif; other examples from the pulps include The Seal of John Solomon (1915; book 1924), by Alan Hawkwood (H. Bedford-Jones), and Francis Stevens’s The Citadel of Fear. Relics of Atlantis often feature in lost race stories, including Frank Aubrey’s A Queen of Atlantis (1898) and Pierre Benoît’s Atlantida (1919). Exotic lost races often inhabit underworlds, like the ones featured in James de Mille’s Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder (1888), Joyce Preston Muddock’s The Sunless City (1905), and John Beynon’s The Secret People (1935).

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  LOUŸS, PIERRE (1870–1925). French writer. Aphrodite (1895; tr. 1900) is a feverish erotic fantasy set in ancient Alexandria. The Adventures of King Pausole (1901; tr. 1926) is
a Rabelaisian comedy set in the imaginary kingdom of Tryphême. Six prose-poems with motifs drawn from

  classical mythology were collected as The Twilight of the Nymphs (1893–95; 1925; tr. 1928); his other short stories, collected as Sanguines (1903; tr. 1932), include several ironic fantasies. All are reprinted in The Collected Works of Pierre Louÿs (1932).

  LOVECRAFT, H. P. (1890–1937). U.S. writer whose work is equally significant as sf (refer to HDSFL), horror (refer to HDHL), and fantasy.

  The United Amateur Press Association, which he joined in 1914, put him in contact with Clark Ashton Smith, Frank Belknap Long, and others, with whom he formed a postal neo-Romantic cénacle dedicated to the production and promotion of supernatural fiction adapted to a rationalistic era. He turned down the editorship of Weird Tales in 1924 but exerted a considerable influence on many of its key contributors by means of voluminous correspondence; his early disciples included Donald Wandrei, Robert Bloch, Henry Kuttner, and Fritz Leiber. Wandrei and August Derleth founded Arkham House to reprint Lovecraft’s work in The Outsider and Others (1939), providing a haven for many other writers of weird fiction.

  Most of Lovecraft’s pure fantasy stories, which are heavily influenced by the works of Lord Dunsany, are reprinted in Dagon and Other Macabre Tales (1965; corrected 1986); they include “The Cats of Ulthar” (written 1920; 1926), “The Other Gods” (written 1921; 1938),

  “The Doom That Came to Sarnath” (written 1919; 1938), and “The

  Quest of Iranon” (written 1921; 1939). The longest of them, the hallucinatory fantasy The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (written c1924; 1943), was reprinted along with the related stories “The Silver Key”

  (1929) and “Through the Gates of the Silver Key” (1934, with E. Hoffman Price) in At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels (1964; corrected 1985).