The Mammoth Book of Awesome Comic Fantasy

by Mike Ashley

With the hilarious "Happy Valley," a story originally written by John Cleese and Connie Booth for Monty Python's Flying Circus, this third volume in an extraordinarily popular Mammoth Book series gets off to a suitably silly start. It continues merrily apace with "Attack of the Charlie Chaplins" by Garry Kilworth, visits "The Strawhouse Pavilion" by Ron Goulart, and takes in "A Bad Day on Mount Olympus" with Marilyn Todd. Along the way it introduces Esther Eisner's "Gunsel and Gretel" and Cherith Baldry's "Broadway Barbarian" and renews acquaintance with F. Anstey's "Ferdie." It bemuses as well as amuses with "A Case of Four Fingers" concocted by John Grant, not to mention "The Absolute and Utter Impossibility of the Facts in the Case of the Vanishing of Henning Vok" from Jack Adrian. And before this wildly comic romp ends, it discovers "Math Takes a Holiday" (Paul Di Filippo) and "Mother Duck Strikes Again" (Craig Shaw Gardner). Fantasy finds broad definition in this wackily comic tour. While some of the stories approach the domain of science fiction, others are lodged in an everyday reality. None of them, though, fails to entertain. Together, the more than thirty selections -- thirteen of them brand-new and the balance of them often rare finds or forgotten gems -- provide a fresh sampling of comic genius in the sphere of fantasy fiction and a wide range of tales to suit every taste in humor.

* xi · Another Introduction · Mike Ashley · in *
* 1 · Happy Valley · John Cleese & Connie Booth · ss The Brand New Monty Python Book, 1973; based on a sketch on Monty Python
* 13 · Attack of the Charlie Chaplins · Garry Kilworth · ss New Worlds #222 ’97
* 24 · Mother Duck Strikes Again [from An Excess of Enchantments; Ebenezum and Wuntvor] · Craig Shaw Gardner · ex New York: Ace, 1988
* 35 · The Blackbird · Jack Sharkey · ss Fantastic Sep ’59
* 52 · Pale Assassin · James Bibby · nv *
* 76 · The Strawhouse Pavilion [Max Kearny] · Ron Goulart · ss Coven 13 Jan ’70
* · A Bevy of Beasts
* 90 · Dragonet · Esther M. Friesner · ss Amazing Jan ’86
* 96 · The Diplodocus · Porter Emerson Browne · ss The New Broadway Magazine Aug ’08
* 110 · Nothing in the Rules [Squaredeal Sam] · Nelson S. Bond · ss Blue Book Aug ’43
* 124 · Bad Day on Mount Olympus · Marilyn Todd · ss *
* · A Bunch of Fiends
* 137 · How Much Would You Pay? · Craig Shaw Gardner · ss *
* 147 · The Devil Times Three · Fredric Brown · gp; Nasty, vi Playboy Apr ’59; Rope Trick, vi Adam May ’59; The Ring of Hans Carvel, vi Nightmares and Geezenstacks, Bantam, 1961; Retold and somewhat modernized from the works of Rabelais.
* 152 · Fair-Weather Fiend [Kedrigern] · John Morressy · ss F&SF Jan ’91
* · A Pair of Oddities
* 175 · The Byrds · Michael G. Coney · ss Changes, ed. Michael Bishop & Ian Watson, Ace, 1983
* 190 · Polly Put the Mockers On · Stan Nicholls · nv *
* · A Trove of Oldies
* 211 · Ferdie · F. Anstey · ss The Strand Dec ’07
* 234 · The Queen’s Triplets · Israel Zangwill · ss The Idler Dec, 1892
* 247 · Crispin the Turnspit · Anthony Armstrong · ss Pearson’s Magazine Dec ’30
* · A Halo of Angels
* 258 · Touched by a Salesman · Tom Holt · ss *
* 277 · Math Takes a Holiday · Paul Di Filippo · nv *
* 304 · Broadway Barbarian · Cherith Baldry · ss * [Damon Runyon]
* 315 · The Winds of Fate · Tony Rath · nv *
* 337 · Not Ours to See · David Langford · ss The Fortune Teller, ed. Lawrence Schimel & Martin H. Greenberg, DAW, 1997
* 244 · The Caliber of the Sword · Larry Lawrence · ss *; Published in the e-zine, Fantasy, Folklore and Fairytales, Sept 1999.
* · A Recursion of Fairy Tales
* 353 · Gunsel and Gretel · Esther Friesner · nv *
* 391 · Frog · Tina Rath · ss *
* 398 · The Swords and the Stones · E. K. Grant · ss *
* · A Touch of the Impossibles
* 413 · A Case of Four Fingers · John Grant · nv *
* 435 · The Absolute and Utter Impossibility of the Facts in the Case of the Vanishing of Henning Vok (a.k.a. The Amazing Blitzen) (r.n. Jack Ralph Cole) · Jack Adrian · ss New Crimes 3, ed. Maxim Jakubowski, London: Robinson, 1991
* 443 · Milord Sir Smiht, the English Wizard [Dr. Eszterhazy] · Avram Davidson · nv The Enquiries of Doctor Eszterhazy, Warner, 1975
* 473 · “Put Back That Universe!” [Smedley Faversham] · F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre · ss Analog Oct, 2000
* 490 · You’ll Never Walk Alone · Scott Edelman · nv *

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories, Humor, Anthologies, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

512 pages, Paperback

First published May 15, 2001

About the author

Michael Raymond Donald Ashley is the author and editor of over sixty books that in total have sold over a million copies worldwide. He lives in Chatham, Kent.

Reviews

[Tommy Verhaegen · Rating 5 out of 5]

500+ pages of awesome comic fantasy, that promises a few hours of top quality entertainment.
And sure, not every story will be to the liking of everybode, but certainly everybode will find at least some stories to be highly enjoyable.
Some authors are household names (John Cleese and Connie Booth e.g.) others had been lost in time had it not been for editor Mike Ashley. The small biography that he (Mike) added to each story is both informative and entertaining in itself.
This book clearly illustrates how broad Fantasy actually is - not even referring to the definition of grandmaster Terry Pratchet who calls it everything coming from the imagination, thus hereby reducing all other genres like thrillers, SciFi, romance,... to the class of sub-genres.
The Mammoth Book collection is huge, Comic Fantasy is limited (thanks to Mike Ashley) to several copies which are must-reads for every Fantasy & Humor lover.

[Lila · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of mostly British authors with some older, generally unknown writers. Nice gathering of puns.

[Ben White · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was going to give this three stars, but it turns out all the stories I really liked weren't actually in this book at all. So there you have it. Rubbish/quality ratio isn't good, but like other anthologies of this type there's some decent stuff. Worth a flick through.

[Ventsislav Kostadinov · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some of the stories were pretty lame and hard to follow.. I didn't even know why I bother finishing it to the very end. Contraversary, there were like two or three good stories that kept my wish for going further witht the pages...

[Danny · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stories range from dumb to quite humorous.
It's worth a read.

[Bruno Silva · Rating 2 out of 5]

Algumas histórias até tinham alguma piada mas na maioria eram demasiado aborrecidas e não despertavam suficiente interesse para serem lidas até ao fim. Algo decepcionante

[Ian Hales · Rating 3 out of 5]

The very first story by John Clease is pretty awesome. So is the story "Dragonet". The rest are hit and miss. I ended up having to return it to the library before I could finish it all.