Kazuo Ishiguro has stated that his new novel, The Buried Giant, which includes dragons, ogres and an Arthurian quest, is not fantasy. This is a bit like when Margaret Atwood dismissed science fiction as "talking squids in outer space". Atwood has since recanted.
Ursula K. Le Guin clearly hopes that Ishiguro will similarly recant, calling his interpretation of fantasy "an insult". If Ishiguro read some of the authors in this fantasy roundup, such as Kelly Link, Neil Gaiman and Patrick Rothwell, he may change his view on the quality of the genre.
American author, Kelly Link, who will be visiting Australia later this year, has said that she loves two kinds of fiction, the kind that "takes things which are comfortable and familiar and makes them really strange, or else . . . takes things which are strange and impossible and finally makes them feel comfortable, to a certain extent". That is certainly true of the nine stories in her latest collection, Get in Trouble (Text, $29.99).
In 'The Summer People,' an Appalachian schoolgirl, abandoned by her drunken father, has to look after a summer rental whose occupants are decidedly strange. In 'Secret Identity', an unusual online dating relationship plays out in a hotel where both dentists and superhero fans are having conventions. In 'Two Houses' astronauts are woken from suspended animation and begin telling ghost stories, although are they ghosts themselves? A group of teenagers compete over spectral boyfriends in 'The New Boyfriend'. Link effectively mixes the dark fantastic with Borgesian quirkiness.
Neil Gaiman's third short story collection Trigger Warning (Headline, $29.99) includes 23 short stories, each of which Gaiman describes in an extensive preface. There is a never-before published American Gods story, 'Black Dog', set in the Peak District, while 'The Truth is a Cave in The Black Mountains', a now well-known Gaiman piece, set in the Hebrides, juxtaposes greed, revenge and family. Gaiman excels at gothic fatalism.
'The Sleeper and The Spindle' is less 'grimm', so to speak, and spins off Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, but with a feminist flavour. A Queen, with three not seven dwarves, tries to reach a princess whose sickness is spreading across the land. A surprise ending to this story, as also in 'Click Clack the Rattlebag', actually written in Melbourne, in which the 'life' tables are turned on a babysitter by a young boy.
Sara Douglass, who died too early in September 2011 helped establish the Australian fantasy genre. HarperCollins have now issued a twentieth anniversary edition of Battleaxe (Harper Voyager, $27.99). It sold more than 220,000 copies globally and established a publishing space for a number of younger Australian female fantasy writers. Several of them comment on Douglass' legacy on the Harper Voyager website, as does Karen Brooks in her foreword, noting that Battleaxe, a "rich and dense allegory of the mediaeval world and the Catholic Church", allows Douglass to deliver a "searing insight into humanity in history".
A new Australian entrant in the fantasy field, Charlotte McConaghy, begins her ' Chronicles of Kaya' trilogy with Avery (Bantam, $29.99). In a world based on Viking mythology, people die in pairs, but when Ava's "bond-mate" Avery is killed, she becomes the first partner in thousands of years to survive. Ava's plan for revenge on Avery's killer, the "Barbarian Queen" of Pirenti, is thwarted when she is transported to a prison island by Prince Ambrose. Their growing relationship must overcome the background enmity of their two nations. Avery is a strong fantasy debut, which will also appeal to a young adult and romance readership.
Patrick Rothfuss warns in the foreword to his novella The Slow Regard of Silent Things (Hachette, $29.99), that: "If you haven't read my other books, you don't want to start here", referring to his critically acclaimed 'Kingkiller Chronicle' novels, The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear, This would be unfortunate, as Rothfuss has constructed a lyrical and haunting take on one of the characters in his series, the enigmatic Auri. In a third person narrative, he follows Auri through a week deep beneath the University, where she was once a student. Auri is searching for a gift for someone who may or may not visit her. With very little action and dialogue, Rothfuss' novella is effective within its Beckettian bittersweet framework.
Paige Mahoney is the main teenage character of Samantha Shannon's The Mime Order (Bloomsbury, $24.99), the second in a projected seven volume urban fantasy series. Shannon provides an early info dump of events in her successful debut book, The Bone Season, set in a 2059 dystopian England renamed Scion. Australia is apparently "free-world", but with two Scion outposts, according to a recent tweet by Shannon.
Paige was imprisoned by the immortal humanoids Rephaim during the "Bone Season," when clair "voyants" like Paige are rounded up. Paige, an exceptional "dreamwalker", is a rare voyant who has the ability to leave her body temporarily. In The Mime Order, Paige has escaped from Oxford to London but her safety can be only protected by rejoining the underworld Seven Seals gang. Shannon's strong world building, which often impacts narrative pace, is reflected in her detailed structures of the voyants. Be warned, it ends on a cliffhanger, which means Shannon fans are in for the long haul.
Colin Steele is a Canberra reviewer.
