Classics of Fantasy

[mmadsen]

I have read a selection of Dunsany short stories. I'm rather disappointed in them, really. For example: The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth completely lacks any narrative tension. The hero acquires the sword Sacnoth by exactly following the instructions for how to do so, and then just wades through the fortress showing off his mighty blade (er... that sounds raunchier, by far, than it really is). There's never a sense of danger or excitement. Can anyone recommend some of the better Dunsany short stories?

I've found that a lot of old fantasy reads that way; many of Clark Ashton Smith's works, for instance, lack narrative tension. I suppose we're expected to be "wowed" by the imagery and poetic language, because we haven't encountered anything like it before -- only we're 21st-century readers who have encountered plenty of fantasy fiction. We already know that the unstoppable beast can be stopped with the magic sword, that the pale owner of the castle is obviously a vampire, etc.

 

[Mark CMG]

For those who'd like a free PDF copy of The Book of Wonder by Lord Dunsany.

 

[mmadsen]

I have not yet read:

Hobberdy Dick
The Books of Wonder
Tales of Averoigne
The Book of Three Dragons
The Night Land
The Face in the Frost
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
A Voyage to Arcturus
Silverlock
Collected Ghost Stories
The Forgotten Beasts of Eld
The Well at the World's End

I just realized that I have only read one more book on the list since posting this, a collection of Clark Ashton Smith's stories (roughly comparable, I'm assuming, to Tales of Averoigne). Smith's works had a clear influence on D&D:

A writer like Smith, who could throw off ideas like a flaming pinwheel, has proved a godsend to DMs and RPG designers over the years: his works were full of monsters, characters, ideas, and motifs that could be sprung on unsuspecting players who had never read the original tales, as relatively few have. The first RPG product based on his work, Tom Moldvay's excellent Chateau d'Ambreville (a.k.a. X2. Castle Amber, 1981) was not only an exceptional D&D adventure in itself that enabled PCs to play through the four major Averoigne stories ("The Colossus of Ylourgne", "The Enchantress of Sylaire", "The Beast of Averoigne", "The Holiness of Azedarac"), it also provided the template for one of the most famous of all AD&D modules, I6. Ravenloft, and the Ravenloft campaign setting that followed. The original stand-alone module was further developed by products like Gaz 3. The Principalities of Glantri (1987), eventually becoming a major part of the D&D "Known World"/ AD&D Mystara setting -- cf. the Glantri boxed set by Monte Cook and the audio-CD adventure Mark of Amber (both 1995).

In addition, Smith's work has not only inspired a number of D&D monsters but also has set the tone and thus had a major impact on the treatment of necromancy as it has appeared in roleplaying games, in such products as The Complete Book of Necromancers (1995), the Al-Qadim setting's Cities of Bone (1994), Return to the Tomb of Horrors (1998), and Secret College of Necromancers (2002). Surprisingly enough, his stories have had little impact on the Lovecraftian Call of Cthulhu game, being represented only by a very few scenarios -- e.g., a single encounter in Trail of Tsathoggua (Chaosium, 1984), a markedly un-Smithian use of the sorcerer Eibon in Spawn of Azathoth (Chaosium, 1986), the Great Old One Mordiggian hovering ineffectually in the background of The Realm of Shadows (1997, probably Pagan Publishing's weakest CoC release), and the like. Gamers who are admirers of Smith's work are better off creating their own scenarios around his ideas. Zothique, his end-of-time setting for some of his best stories, is probably too bleak for an ongoing campaign, though very effective for self-contained scenarios inserted into a pre-existing game (e.g., in Pelgrane Press's The Dying Earth RPG). But Averoigne is perfect for fans of both D&D and Call of Cthulhu: It combines the medieval sensibilities and possibilities for heroic adventures of the one with the eerie horror, lurking menace, and overwhelming terror of the other. (I am myself currently running a d20 Call of Cthulhu campaign set in Smith's Averoigne and can testify to its effectiveness as a setting.) Considering its historical links with the development of the whole "Land of Mist" concept underlying Ravenloft, the domain of Averoigne can easily be into a Ravenloft campaign; Averoigne is also an apt setting for a Vampire: the Dark Ages scenario (it even already has its resident vampires, "A Rendezvous in Averoigne"'s Sieur Huge du Malinbois and his wife Agathe).​

 

[Krypter]

Since my original reply was eaten long ago by the great Database Crash Dragon, I'd like to once again bump this thread and thank mmadsen (and Mr. Ratecliffe, of course) for bringing these books to our attention. This list rekindled my love of fantasy at a time when I had grown bored of it, and inspired me to read a lot of other great literature as well.

That said, here's my quick 1-second review of them:

Hobberdy Dick: 5/5, warm, wonderful and filled with fairy glamour and good English values.
The Hobbit: 5/5, exciting, thoughtful and quintessentially adventurous.
The Books of Wonder: 3/5, kind of hit-or-miss, with some Dunsany greats along with a few tepid stories
Tales of Averoigne: 4/5, I think the words "purple prose" where invented for CAS, but his worlds do stand out and his sentences are adventures in themselves.
The Book of Three Dragons: 5/5, glorious and epic, full of celtic wit and the best use of a bard as a hero that I've ever read.
Watership Down: 2/5, quite disappointing. I never empathized with the characters and the plot was downright banal. A long read for not much reward.
The Night Land: 4/5, brilliant imagery but marred by the saccharine love-words of a teenage poet. Recommended with reservations.
The Face in the Frost: 2/5, completely went over head, I think, because I just didn't get into Sir Bacon running around after an amorphous threat and cowering at every knock on the door.
A Wizard of Earthsea: 5/5, an fantastic, organic world with a magic system that puts most others to shame, though the "deep plot" isn't as deep as it seemed when I first read it as a teenager.
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath: 5/5, long, but worth the extended opium hallucinations and Lovecraft's trademark florid prose.
The Worm Ouroboros: 5/5, brilliantly written in an affected style, but the unsympathetic characters almost drove me mad. Yes, I was rooting for the villains most of the time. Also, bring an unabridged OED along, you'll need it.
Bridge of Birds: 5/5, wonderful, uplifting, funny as hell and amazingly fun adventure in a China that never was. Recommended.
A Voyage to Arcturus: 4/5, trippy: oh yeah. Surreal, experimental and very thoughtful, it yanked fantasy into places later explored by Burroughs and Herbert.
Silverlock: 5/5, a truly inspiring read, though the adventurer himself is not exactly a hero. Maybe this should be first on the list, to bring people into the Commonwealth of Letters?
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser: 5/5, the best of primeval sword-and-sorcery combined with a wit and flair that hasn't been matched since. Later books get a little less interesting, but the first 4 are gold.
Collected Ghost Stories: 3/5, meh, well written but not my style and will generally not have the expected effect on modern readers as it would have had on the delicate sensibilities of Victorian ladies.
The Forgotten Beasts of Eld: 5/5, beautiful, poetic and heart-wrenching, the best example of a fantasy story that reveals the hundred-fold emotions of its protagonists. Definitely recommended.
The Well at the World's End: 4/5, good medieval romance but a little long-winded. Tragedy, stout hearts, betrayals and many turns of the road make this a fantasy that's quite unpredictable.

I've now got my own list of fantasy favorites, starting with Grendel, and I hope Mr. Ratecliffe will one day continue his series of articles.

So what are you waiting for? Get reading!

 

[Jasperak]

Thank you Krypter for the necro. I was never aware that Wizards had something like this on their site. Time for me to go read.

 

[Rl'Halsinor]

I've read the following:

The Hobbit - The first time while in college. A fun read.

The Face in the Frost - I picked this up in a Drug Store book rack. Little did I know how excellent it was going to be. John Bellairs says more in a few pages than some writers do in an entire book.

A Wizard of Earthsea - Absolutely excellent trilogy. Everything following needs to be avoided like the plague.

The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath - One of my absolute favorite H.P. Lovecraft stories.

A Voyage to Arcturus - It really, really helps to have a background in philosophy and religion to understand fully what the author is saying, but it still can be read as is.

Silverlock - Tried it, finished, but didn't care for it.

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser - Read every story.

The Forgotten Beasts of Eld - Diffrent, enjoyable and the main character is in many aspects an anti-heroine.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I didn't realise at first that this was thread-necromancy, and I didn't see it at all the first time round (nearly 5 years ago!)

All I can say is what a brilliantly perceptive and clear writer John D. Rateliff is.

And big thanks to mmadsen for providing the links here in the first place

Cheers

 

[mmadsen]

I'd like to once again bump this thread and thank mmadsen (and Mr. Ratecliffe, of course) for bringing these books to our attention.

And big thanks to mmadsen for providing the links here in the first place

Thanks, guys. I guess I wasn't visiting the boards much in January, so I didn't get to witness the resurrection of one of my favorite threads. Sadly, I still haven't made much progress on reading these classics. (I've been reading too much non-fiction, I suppose. And some SF classics.)

 

[jeffh]

I'm necroing this thread again to ask if anyone has current, working links to these columns. All the ones above just take me to the general novels page, which makes no mention of this column ever having existed, and an admittedly quick look through the (unforgivably, non-searchable) archives didn't turn them up either.

 

[Mark CMG]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=books/main/classicshobberdy  - - - > Hobberdy Dick

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=books/main/classicshobbit  - - - > The Hobbit

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=books/main/classicsdunsany  - - - > The Books of Wonder

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=books/main/classicsaveroigne  - - - > Tales of Averoigne

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=books/main/classicsbook3dragons  - - - > The Book of Three Dragons

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=books/main/classicswatership  - - - > Watership Down

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=books/main/classicsnightland  - - - > The Night Land

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=books/main/classicsfacefrost  - - - > The Face in the Frost

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=books/main/classicswizardearthsea  - - - > A Wizard of Earthsea

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=books/main/classicsdreamquest  - - - > The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=books/main/classicworm  - - - > The Worm Ouroboros

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=books/main/classics8  - - - > Bridge of Birds

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=books/main/classics3  - - - > A Voyage to Arcturus

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=books/main/silverlock  - - - > Silverlock

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=books/main/classicsoffantasy  - - - > Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=books/main/ghoststories  - - - > Collected Ghost Stories

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=books/main/classics2  - - - > The Forgotten Beasts of Eld

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=books/dnd/classics  - - - > The Well at the World's End

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