| OOTW Home | Genre Variations |
| OOTW Home | Genre Variations |
Fantasy presents a world where magic and dream have real power. Writers of high fantasy, following the tradition of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and the novels of C.S. Lewis, are modern myth-makers, writing tales about worlds pared down to their moral and psychological basics, in which heroes must find the strength and courage to battle unmitigated evil in the name of unadulterated good.
Canada's best fantasists lend added depth to their characters to make them less stereotypical and more believable.
Guy Gavriel Kay's The Fionavar Tapestry is perhaps the most successful and most famous work of Canadian high fantasy.
Charles de Lint is Canada's most prolific fantasy writer. Dave Duncan has written a large number of works of heroic fantasy as well, depicting the coming of age of young heroes.
Barry Blair's ElfLord series is a comic-book retelling of many classic high fantasy themes drawing on the illustration style of Japanese animated cartoons.
Writers of more exotic fantasy bring a sense of The Arabian Nights into their fiction, for example the work of Lily Adams Beck, Pauline Gedge and Ian Dennis.
The Coming of Wisdom
Duncan, Dave
New York: Ballantine Books, 1988.
In the second of the Seventh Sword fantasy series, the champion of the Goddess soon finds that swords are no match for sorcerers' spells.
Stargate
Gedge, Pauline
New York: The Dial Press, 1982.
One after another, the sun-lords have succumbed to temptation and fallen from power. They have one chance to save their worlds: to become mortal and risk the Worldmaker's wrath.
A Song for Arbonne
Kay, Guy Gavriel
Toronto: Penguin Books, 1993, c1992.
A colourful tale of the far-reaching consequences of confessing a love that broke the rules in a world of troubadours, castles and courtly love.
A Song for Arbonne by Guy Gavriel Kay. Copyright © Guy Gavriel Kay, 1992. Reprinted by permission of Penguin Books Canada Limited. Cover illustration by Gerard Gauci.
The Wandering Fire
Kay, Guy Gavriel
Toronto: Collins, 1989.
In this second volume of The Fionavar Tapestry, the five travellers return to a magical world to track down the secrets of the tapestry into which are woven changes to past, present and future.
The Wandering Fire copyright © 1986 by Guy Gavriel Kay. Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
Moonheart
Lint, Charles de
London: Pan Books, 1990.
A medicine bag of artifacts leads two Ottawa booksellers into a strange enchanted world in which magic and myth are normal fare. Moving between the other world and present-day Ottawa, Moonheart spins a fantastic tale of ancient magic.
The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the First Part of "The Lord of the Rings"
Tolkien, J.R.R.
Toronto: Methuen, 1971.
The first of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic three-volume epic of the battle between good and evil in the Third Age of Middle-earth, a land inhabited by hobbits and other strange and ancient peoples. Adventure story, adult fairy tale, myth, The Lord of the Rings is a work of imaginative genius that quickly transports readers into another world and has been the starting point for much heroic fantasy-style writing.
The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the First Part of "The Lord of the Rings". J.R.R. Tolkien. Toronto: Methuen, 1971. Courtesy of Methuen & Co. and Methuen Canada.
| Top of page |
|---|
Copyright. The National Library of Canada. (Revised: 1995-06-17)