The Tough Guide to Fantasyland | |||||||||
Diana Wynne Jones | |||||||||
DAW Books, 302 pages | |||||||||
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A review by Rich Horton
The conceit behind the book is that Fantasyland is a tour stop (though most will want to make at least three trips!) and
The Tough Guide to Fantasyland is a sort of Fodor's for this tour. It is complete, of course, with map and an alphabetical glossary of the terms used throughout the tour.
So, what to say about it? First off, Jones is as consistently funny a
writer as we have, and she does not disappoint here. The book
is clever and witty throughout. As ever with Jones' writing, the humour is
dry:
The book isn't just humour, however. There is a serious point behind it,
to wit: lots of Fantasy these days is awfully full of clichés.
The backgrounds start to look the same, and the plots as well. The writers
often fail to think through the rationale for their geographies or
social structures, to say nothing of the economic underpinnings of
these societies! In addition, elementary details such as how long a
horse can run, or how people in certain climates dress, are
missed. Jones skewers cliché after hackneyed cliché: the MISSING HEIR,
the giant SPIDERS, the COLOUR CODING for evil and good.
She also catches out pacing problems: I loved her entry on TIME:
One further cavil: some of the clichés are based in
reality. Jones has a lot of fun with the ubiquity of STEW as a Fantasyland
meal, and she has a point. However, in the past when meat was hard
to come by and often tough, and refrigeration nonexistent, stew really
was common and a good way to prepare less than tender meat and
vegetables. She also wonders why impractical CLOAKS are so common? Well, because
cloaks are easy to make, and they don't waste fabric. (For both of these
points, I am indebted to a long discussion on the Usenet
newsgroup rec.arts.sf.composition.) Her main point stands, though: the
writers who use these clichés seem to be using them because they read about
them in another book, not because they understand the reasoning behind it all.
All said, this is a very enjoyable book to read -- in small snippets.
And any writer venturing on creating his or her own tour through
Fantasyland would do well to read it, and at least think twice about
his or her use of any clichés skewered herein!
Rich Horton is an eclectic reader in and out of the SF and fantasy genres. He's been reading SF since before the Golden Age (that is, since before he was 13). Born in Naperville, IL, he lives and works (as a Software Engineer for the proverbial Major Aerospace Company) in the St. Louis area and is a regular contributor to Tangent. |
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