DOC ✓ READER The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories Oxford Books of Prose ☆ 9780192803825 Ý HORTICULTURETRADER

> The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories Oxford Books of Prose

EBOOK The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories Oxford Books of Prose

DOC ✓ READER The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories Oxford Books of Prose ☆ 9780192803825 Ý HORTICULTURETRADER ✓ ✯ [BOOKS] ⚣ The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories Oxford Books of Prose By Tom Shippey ✼ – Horticulturetrader.co.uMages characters and landscapes with great imagination and subtlety Featuring writers as diverse as John Buchan and Mervyn Peake Angela Carter and Terry Pratchett this is an anthology for the newcomer and dedicated fan ali Originally published on my blog here in December 1999This collection of short stories aims to be representative of the history of the modern fantasy genre from the mid nineteenth century onwards The authors include many important shapers of the genre though there are odd omissions Tolkien Morris MacDonald and Donaldson for example The selection concentrates on the earlier years probably because the average reader of fantasy relies on the selection in the local bookshop and only ever sees relatively recent literature The introduction explains something of the importance of the writers though its thematic rather than historical arrangement makes it difficult to gain a coherent understanding of the history of the genre from it It is clearly intended as a discussion of what makes a story fantasy and what elements are contained in a fantasy story The book would have been improved by giving a short editorial introduction to each story to set it into the context of the author's work some are entirely typical like Robert Holdstock's Thorn others not at all like Mervyn Peake's Same Time Same Place and to describe the author's role in the fantasy genre in generalFor my taste the selection ran rather too close to the horror end of the genre and one or two of the stories are very unpleasant indeed while few have the lightheartedness so typical of another side of the genre a tradition running from Pratchett back to de Camp and beyond The most humorous stories are the first and last The Demon Pope by Richard Garnett from 1888 and Troll Bridge by Terry Pratchett from 1992

EPUB ¶ The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories Oxford Books of Prose î Tom Shippey

An anthology of fantasy stories selected by the eminent Medievalist and Fantasy scholar Tom Shippey The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories gathers together thirty one tales brimming over with imagination This rich and intrigui Oct 12 2019On the intermittent occasions when I spend time in the public library at Harrisonburg Virginia I typically have a short story anthology that I'm reading in bits and pieces The current one is this entry in Oxford Univ Press' long line of uality fiction collections; Tom Shippey is also the editor of a companion volume of science fiction stories which got five stars from me Here he's assembled 31 selections by as many American and British authors arranged by publication order dates are given for each story and dating from 1888 to 1992 Only six of the authors are women but of the eight writers represented from 1978 on five are female Shippey's definition of fantasy like that of other editors such as Gardner Dozois and David Hartwell is eclectic including supernatural fiction set in this world and the great majority of the included authors are well known in the speculative fiction field I started to read the Introduction; but since I uickly discovered that it contains a lot of information I consider spoilerish I decided to read it as an afterword insteadIn my reading session last week I actually read only the first story The Demon Pope by one of the few lesser known authors here Richard Garnett Set mainly in the year 1001 in the pontificate of Pope Sylvester II reigned 999 1003 he was a real life person and the portrayal here is very consistent with what's known of his character; see this is a masterpiece of wry humor Garnett doesn't suggest that Pope Sylvester was a demon; the story title well you'll just have to read it to understand No punches are pulled in delineating the corruption of the Roman Curia in that day but nonetheless I don't think the tale is anti Catholic nor broadly anti Christian in any true senseThough my immediately recent reading in this book's contents was very limited though there are at least six stories here I've previously read in other anthologiescollections The swords and sorcery tradition is well represented by The Tower of the Elephant by Robert E Howard featuring REH's iconic hero Conan and by C L Moore's Jirel Meets Magic Manly Wade Wellman's Silver John appears in The Desrick on Yandro and the late Tanith Lee's outstanding piece of vampire fiction Bite Me Not or Fleur de Fur is another fine addition as is Ray Bradbury's The Homecoming Peter S Beagle's Lila the Werewolf uses lycanthropy as a means for exploring human relationships than for scaring the reader All of these IMO are good selections as uality speculative fiction reading though I wouldn't label most of them as fantasyNote May 14 2020 I just discovered that The Demon Pope is a story I also read before some years ago I just didn't remember it which is surprising Anyway this review will have to be done piecemeal until I finish the book; but at that time I'll edit it into a unified final form

Tom Shippey î The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories Oxford Books of Prose DOC

The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories Oxford Books of ProseNg collection of fantasy stories features classic figures the Devil trolls and werewolves sorcerers and dragons that have long been a part of the human psyche The authors of these marvelous tales draw upon a deep well of i I didn't love all of the stories But there were a gems in the collection from Robert E Howard Fritz Leiber Larry Niven and Terry Pratchett