Modern Classics of Fantasy

A collection of thirty-three classic short fantasy works, written since the 1940s, includes the contributions of such authors as H. L. Gold, Fritz Lieber, Manly Wade Wellman, Terry Bisson, Suzy McKee, Ursula K. LeGuin, Jane Yolen, and Roger Zelazny.

Looking back on 50 years of American fantasy writing, veteran SF editor Dozois has chosen to collect 32 splendid short stories according to one irrefutable criterion: "I liked them." In his retrospective preface, Dozois adds that he has selected only stories leading toward modern fantasy, which he feels differs from SF only in its attitude, its "emotional weather." Opening with H.L. Gold's 1939 "Trouble with Water," a quirky rendition of the Midas myth, and passing through two of Fritz Lieber's best 1950s precursors to the sub-subgenre of sword and sorcery, Dozois's choices soon exhibit his fascination with sensually charged, emotionally elegiac subcreations and with humanity facing doom unbowed. Keith Roberts's 1966 "The Signaller" delineates a church militant gone mad with power, and Poul Anderson's brilliant 1977 "Tale of Hauk" brings icy Norse sagas with volcanoes at their hearts to burning life again. Sadly, women fantasists receive scant attention from Dozois, although he does include Ursula le Guin's crystalline grief over environmental depredation in "Buffalo Gals. Won't You Come Out Tonight?" (1987), Jane Yolen's superb hymn to the huntress Diana, "The Sleep of Trees" (1980), and Judith Tarr's moving medieval otherworld of "Death and the Lady" (1992). With the best stories here, especially John Crowley's haunting 1990 "Missolonghi 1824," Dozois spreads out a tapestry of dreams, a banquet of "pain dipped in honey." (Jan.) FYI: Dozois has won seven Hugo Awards for Best Editor.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Dozois chose 32 short stories from genre fantasy magazines, dating from 1939 to 1996, because he liked them as a reader. His taste runs from high fantasy, sword and sorcery, magic realism, and urban fantasy to comic fantasy by such well-known authors as Jack Vance, Poul Anderson, Jane Yolen, Ursula K. Le Guin, Terry Bisson, and others. He includes an informative preface on the history of fantasy and a recommended reading list of contemporary authors, magazines, anthologies, and critical articles. This well-balanced compilation belongs in all fantasy collections.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Editor Dozois claims that this volume is the fruit of 30 years of fantasy reading and consists of the stories that still stick in his mind. But had he said he compiled it by using a ouija board or channeling, the results would still be worthwhile. The stories range from Horace L. Gold's "Trouble with Water" (1939, and not easy to find of late) to "Beauty and the Opera or the Phantom Beast" by Suzy McKee Charnas (1996). In between are tales by a roll of honor of significant fantasists--de Camp, LeGuin, Davidson, Vance, Leiber, Shepard, Lee, Bisson, Blaylock, Tarr, etc.--each represented by a story (and in some cases, two) of high literary quality but seldom with any pretentious literary bias. As an introduction to modern American fantasy, this book could hardly be surpassed. Roland Green