{"id":2592,"date":"2016-08-14T11:10:50","date_gmt":"2016-08-14T11:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/?p=2592"},"modified":"2016-08-14T16:32:45","modified_gmt":"2016-08-14T16:32:45","slug":"five-weird-fantasy-books-not-on-fantasy-lists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/five-weird-fantasy-books-not-on-fantasy-lists\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Weird Fantasy Books Not on Fantasy Lists"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the current and welcome resurgence of weird fiction, sometimes it’s nice to know that your mama and your grandmama had cool stuff to read as well. So we thought that we’d revive interest in five wonderful weird fantasy<\/strong> books which still hold their own. From a book which influenced Stephen King, L Sprague de Camp<\/strong> and Italo Calvino<\/strong>, through C S Lewis<\/strong> and Alan Moore<\/strong> and finally to a novel by an Irish genius which should influence more people, we surge through the years with our fur flying\u2026<\/p>\n

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None of these are most people’s idea of fantasy nowadays, but they all contain elements of fantasy \u2013 and some are particularly weird. Our point, if we have one, is these five books are important pieces of writing in one way or another. We read all these when we were pups, and know that they still lurk there at the back of our collective mind.<\/p>\n

And if you have already read them all lots of times, then what do you want? A medal? Honestly, clever people, coming into our house, eating our chicken carcasses \u2013 go back to your Ligotti and stop leaving mud on our carpets. See if we care.<\/p>\n

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Print-wise, we notice that three of these were published in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy<\/em> series edited by Lin Carter<\/strong>, and one had been published by Ballantine before Carter took the reins of the endeavour. Our own copies of the Bramah, the O’Brien and the Chesterton are random early editions, but we do have the Ariosto and Lindsay in the Ballantine versions, with very nice covers.<\/p>\n

Their presence here, though, is based on their influential nature and the fact that we love them, each for a different reason. We’ll do this thing in chronological order, for no especial reason\u2026<\/p>\n

Orlando Furioso (1532)<\/h1>\n

Written by Lodovico Ariosto<\/strong><\/span> (1474-1533)<\/p>\n

OK, we’ll be honest. This one is an epic poem, one of the longest in European literature, but it’s also a series of wild adventures with hippogriffs and intertwining themes of love, war and sacrifice.<\/p>\n

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early cover with architectural border and portrait of author; engraved by Giacomo Franco.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The whole thing is a chivalric romance, being based on the story of Roland (Orlando), the hero from the times of Charlemagne when war between Christian and Saracen warriors surged across Europe. That’s Roland as in \u201cChilde Roland to the Dark Tower came\u201d<\/em>, the 1855 poem by Robert Browning<\/strong>, an influence on so many books (including Stephen King’s<\/strong> Dark Tower series<\/em>) that we can’t list them here. And as in the poem The Song of Roland<\/em>, based on the Battle of Ronceveaux<\/strong> in 778. Now that we write this, we realise that the whole Roland thing deserves a post of its own, really.<\/p>\n

Trivia: For pure fantasy buffs, the paladin characters beloved of Role-playing Games and medieval fantasy novels come from the twelve mostly fictitious companions of Roland.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

We fell in love with the idea of the female knight Bradamante, possibly because we’d never come across the idea of a female knight before, and her Saracen lover Ruggiero, with the sorcerer Atlantes and many more. Mentioning Atlantes, who had a castle of iron in the Pyrenees, you might know that The Castle of Iron<\/em> by L. Sprague de Camp<\/strong> and Fletcher Pratt<\/strong>, the third story in their Harold Shea series, takes place in the same setting as Orlando Furioso<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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The character of Bradamante has been used many times since, and she was even in the film Heart and Armour<\/em> 1983, portrayed by Barbara di Rossi<\/strong>. Unfortunately the film is variable in its quality, and the plot wanders all over the place.<\/p>\n

Orlando Furioso<\/em> is sometimes cited as a major precursor of later fantasy writing. The on-line Encyclopedia of Fantasy<\/em> considers it what they call a Taproot Text<\/em> for Adventure Fantasy, where the protagonists wander strange lands generally trying to thrive or survive.<\/p>\n

Italo Calvino<\/strong> was a great fan, and took elements of it for his book The Castle of Crossed Destinies<\/em>, a Tarot-linked book which is well worth reading in its own right (although we suspect that it has something to do with semiotics, which hurts our brain). Jorges Luis Borges<\/strong> was also an enthusiast.<\/p>\n

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The Man Who Was Thursday (1908)<\/h1>\n

Written by G K Chesterton<\/strong><\/span> (1874-1936)<\/p>\n

Utterly free of hippogriffs, this marvellous book is difficult to describe without wrecking it for new readers. The adventures of Gabriel Syme take place in an imagined Edwardian London, a period which is much beloved here. Consider police detectives seeking out anarchist plots, undercover officers who aren’t what they seem, anarchists who aren’t anarchists and blend them together in a highly original novel of deception and delusion. We can give away the fact that Syme joins a council of anarchists (or are they?) who are each named after a day of the week, hence the title.<\/p>\n

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Over (or under) everything lies the question of what we believe and what role we really play in existence \u2013 it is part a detective farce and part a philosophical examination of identity. Rebels who are conformists rebel against conformist ideas of rebellion, and true anarchists get rather lost trying to question it all. Or something like that. Chesterton said of his work:<\/p>\n

“The book… was not intended to describe the real world as it was, or as I thought it was… It was intended to describe the world of wild doubt and despair which the pessimists were generally describing at that date; with just a gleam of hope in some double meaning of the doubt, which even the pessimists felt in some fitful fashion”<\/em><\/p>\n

Orson Welles<\/strong> called it \u201cshamelessly beautiful prose\u201d and made a radio dramatization of it with his Mercury Radio Theater of the Air. You might also have a look at Chesterton’s The Napoleon of Notting Hill<\/em> (1904), which is a future alternate-reality novel set in 1984 (yes, it may have been the inspiration for Orwell’s date as well).<\/p>\n

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A Voyage to Arcturus (1920)<\/h1>\n

Written by David Lindsay<\/strong><\/span> (1876\u20131945)<\/p>\n

We read this when rather young, and got completely lost in its allegorical passages. If we say that it’s the story of a man who goes to a seance and later gets transported to wander around another planet, then we’re probably not helping. It is just that, but in the process it explores the nature of communication, the role of God and what humans do to each other. It’s Bunyan’s<\/strong> Pilgrims Progress on acid, a science fantasy adventure with weird new organs growing on people, and lots more.<\/p>\n

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It’s a fascinating book, though you need a philosophical bent to pick up everything at which Lindsay was driving. Maskull, the protagonist, travels to Tormance, an imaginary planet orbiting Arcturus’ imaginary binary system. There he meets characters from the various lands of Tormance, often with dire results. Adventure Fantasy again, in some degree.<\/p>\n

It’s almost worth reading for the names themselves \u2013 Maskull, Joiwind, Crimtyphon, Haunte, Oceaxe and so on \u2013 and includes the character Nightspore. Eagle-eared listeners will note that last week we talked about The King of Nightspore’s Crown<\/em>, a new novel by Raphael Ordonez (<\/strong>see nightspore’s crown<\/a>)<\/strong>. As Raphael mentioned being a great enthusiast of the Ballantine series, we suspect a touch of homage there. Lindsay had in fact originally intended his book to be called Nightspore in Tormance<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Sadly for Lindsay, it didn’t sell well. It does still stand out as a unique vision, and it had considerable influence on C S Lewis’s<\/strong> ‘Space Trilogy’ \u2013 Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra<\/em> and That Hideous Strength<\/em>. Lewis said:<\/p>\n

“The real father of my planet books is David Lindsay\u2019s A Voyage to Arcturus, which you also will revel in if you don\u2019t know it. I had grown up on Wells’s stories of that kind: it was Lindsay who first gave me the idea that the \u2018scientifiction\u2019 appeal could be combined with the \u2018supernatural\u2019 appeal.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Extra trivia: There is a disputed manuscript published as <\/em>The Dark Tower, which is supposed to have been written by Lewis around the time of the Space Trilogy.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Alan Moore<\/strong> said of A Voyage to Arcturus<\/em>:<\/p>\n

“A Voyage to Arcturus demands that David Lindsay be considered not as a mere fascinating one-off, as a brilliant maverick, but as one worthy and deserving of that shamanistic mantle; of the British visionary and apocalyptic legacy.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Because we like oddities, you might be interested that in the seventies, an Ohio student called <\/span>William J. Holloway<\/strong> made an independent 35mm feature film of the book. Distributed by Brandon Films on 16mm as part of their underground film series, the film is now available again to watch. It’s odd, and quite seventies \u2013 possibly best watched if you’ve already read the book.<\/span><\/p>\n