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 roots can be traced back millennia. […]
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle reviews a lyrical early novel by Patricia McKillip Sybel, a teenage girl living all alone among the mountains, spends her days caring for a menagerie of mythical creatures, including a cat, a falcon, and a boar, until a man […]
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle reads a rare but revealing extended interview with one of fantasy fiction’s greatest writers When John Steinbeck was once asked how he went about writing, he replied, ‘With a pencil.’ Some writers are reluctant to give away too much […]
Selected by Dr Oliver Tearle In the 1980s, with his debut novel Legend (1984), the British author David Gemmell revolutionised heroic fantasy. Drawing on the stories of Robert E. Howard and the novels of Michael Moorcock and J. R. R. Tolkien, Gemmell also took inspiration from his favourite novelist, the […]
Interesting George R. R. Martin trivia 1. Contrary to popular belief, George R. R. Martin’s middle initials are not a homage to J. R. R. Tolkien. Although George R. R. Martin is often referred to as ‘the American Tolkien’, it would appear that the two middle initials shared by both masters […]