By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) As a literary genre, fantasy is one of the oldest and most recent. Although modern fantasy only began to be recognised as a distinct genre in the late twentieth century, thanks largely to the popularity of J. R. R. Tolkien and his imitators, its […]
Tag: Fantasy Fiction
A Summary and Analysis of Ursula Le Guin’s ‘The Rule of Names’
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘The Rule of Names’ is a 1964 short story by the American science-fiction and fantasy author Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018). Le Guin’s literary style is rightly praised as being several rungs above the usual style found in science fiction, and ‘The Rule of […]
His Short Materials: Philip Pullman’s Serpentine
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle enjoys a slim but beautifully illustrated short from the world(s) of His Dark Materials Philip Pullman’s new book, Serpentine, is not a novel, nor even a novella. Nor is it technically new: it dates from 2004, although it is […]
12 of the Best Fantasy Novels for Children
Selected by Dr Oliver Tearle Ever since the Victorians, fantasy fiction has been a huge part of children’s literature. Indeed, classic fantasy novels for children actually emerged some time before serious fantasy literature for adults – modern fantasy, at least – became popular. In this post, we introduce 12 must-read […]
Advanced World-Building: Jack Vance’s Tales of Dying Earth
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle enjoys Jack Vance’s inventive quartet of picaresque fantasy novels I’ll admit that Tales of Dying Earth, the fat bumper edition of Jack Vance’s novels set on an Earth whose sun is about to go out forever, sat on my […]