Fantasy Fiction: An Introduction

by Lucie Armitt

This is a series of introductory books about different types of writing. One strand of the series will focus on genres such as Science Fiction, Horror, Romance, and Crime. The other strand will focus on movements or styles often associated with historical and cultural locations - Postcolonial, Native American, Scottish, Irish, American Gothic.

These introductions all share the same nine-part

1. A broad definition of the genre and its essential elements
2. A timeline of historical developments
3. Critical concerns to bear in mind while reading
4. Detailed readings of several key texts
5. In-depth analysis of major themes and issues
6. Signposts for further study
7. A summary of the most important criticism in the field
8. A glossary of terms
9. An annotated, critical reading list

Writers covered in this book

Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, George Orwell, J.R.R. Tolkien, Mary Shelley, J.K. Rowling, H.G. Wells, Thomas More, Jonathan Swift, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Yann Martel, Jeanette Winterson, and William Gibson.

Genres: Nonfiction, Academic, Academia

240 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2005

Reviews

[Joy-Aisling · Rating 3 out of 5]

My opinion of this book keeps swinging between two stars and three stars. If I could set it at two and a half, I'd be happy.

I really, really want to like it. It's tackling a lot in a very short space, and its argument for considering fantasy literature outside generic terms is great. Its survey of the development of fantasy criticism would be an excellent introduction for someone new to the field, too. But there are some decisions about the individual chapters themselves that I find really strange - in particular, the choice of texts. Armitt discusses some that are very interesting - it's refreshing to see Dickens here firmly considered a fantasy writer, not a realist writer, for example - but she misses out whole swathes of what I would consider the most obvious ways into the fantasy genre. It could be a perceived necessity to address the critical bias away from fantasy by using so-called literary fiction, but I'm still not entirely sure that it works. I would have liked to see 'literary' fiction discussed alongside more classics of the genre and also more recent developments in criticism - Neil Gaiman and Diana Wynne Jones, for example, who are hot names in postmodern fantasy criticism right now, aren't mentioned at all. Nor is Terry Pratchett! Terry flippin' Pratchett, perhaps THE force to mobilise fantasy to the fore at the end of the C20th! Nor is Philip Pullman, a pretty obvious choice in that he was writing deliberately 'literary' fantasy AND trying to attack C. S. Lewis, one of the founding fathers of the genre as we consider it today.

J. K. Rowling, however, is mentioned throughout the book, despite the fact that her works are nowhere near as literarily innovative as those of the writers I mentioned above. And I have to say that Armitt's system of referring to the Harry Potter books as 'Volume I, Volume II, Volume VI' drove me up the WALL. There's never been anything in the Potter books to suggest that they're "volumes", why on EARTh would she choose Roman numerals, I'm so bewildered I'm not even going to end this sentence as a question, why not just call them 'Book 1' or 'Philosopher's Stone', I don't even know.

Further, one of the longest chapters of the book considers the utopia as "the underlying feature of all major modes of fantasy", which is a really interesting idea, but I really don't agree that it is the underlying feature of all fantasy - so I'm not sure why it's being offered as a kind of fact in a book that's meant to be an introduction to fantasy fiction. I really enjoyed the essay for what it was, but not as a claim to explain away all fantasy fiction, for reasons that I'm currently writing about in my MA dissertation and consequently am not going to replicate at length here.

So basically, there are some really interesting ideas in this book, but they're not always very well presented, and the limited the choice of texts is frankly bewildering. There are some really great texts mentioned, particularly great historical writers - H. G. Wells, Aphra Behn, Thomas More, for example - and a nice inclusion of science fiction, too, indicating that the boundaries of 'fantasy' are blurred - William Gibson, John Wyndham, Donna Haraway's feminist criticism based on cyborgs, and George Orwell all have great mentions - the oversights I listed above make this feel like a relatively patchy work: great at what it does, but it still has some big holes in it.

[amelia · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Cathy Wang · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good bibliography

[Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this critical analysis as part of my term reading for the Masters of Writing Popular Fiction program I'm in at Seton Hill University.

Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that this book is not a good critical analysis of genre fantasy. The author glosses over much of the fantasy writing of the late 20th century and early 21st century and dwells to heavily on works from the 19th century or works that aren't really genre fantasy. It does mention Harry Potter, which is good, but does not mention any fantasy works in the 40-odd years between Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings.

There is an interesting discussion of utopic fiction, so if you're looking for more about utopias/dystopias, it might be an interesting read.

But as an introduction to the fantasy genre, it was not very useful.

More details here:

http://amergina.livejournal.com/73221...

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

It tries to be a bigger book, almost too much detail in such a little book. What is there is very interesting.