The Tough Guide to Fantasyland
Imagine that all fantasy novels—the ones featuring dragons, knights, wizards, and magic—are set in the same place. That place is called Fantasyland. The Tough Guide to Fantasyland is your travel guide, a handbook to everything you might find: Evil, the Dark Lord, Stew, Boots (but not Socks), and...
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Imagine that all fantasy novels—the ones featuring dragons, knights, wizards, and magic—are set in the same place. That place is called Fantasyland. The Tough Guide to Fantasyland is your travel guide, a handbook to everything you might find: Evil, the Dark Lord, Stew, Boots (but not Socks), and what passes for Economics and Ecology. Both a hilarious send-up of the cliches of the genre and an indispensable guide for writers, The Tough Guide to Fantasyland has been nearly impossible to find for years. Now this cult classic is back, and readers can experience Diana Wynne Jones at her very best: incisive, funny, and wildly imaginative. This is the definitive edition of The Tough Guide, featuring a new map, an entirely new design, and additional material written for it by Diana Wynne Jones. World Fantasy Award Finalist A Hugo Award Finalist (Nonfiction)
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780142407226 (0142407224)
ASIN: 142407224
Publish date: October 5th 2006
Publisher: Firebird
Pages no: 234
Edition language: English
A mock tour through the tropes of the Tolkien-imitating high fantasy genre, The Tough Guide to Fantasyland is a gem of a book, poking fun at the homogeneity and general lack of commonsense that tends to prevail in Fantasyland. (How does the economy support itself? What's happened to all the wildlife...
With all due respect to Mr. Eddings, I will be re-reading The Belgarion with a new outlook. ;-)
Jones was working on a fantasy encyclopedia with some other guys, and they kept making jokes about fantasy tropes. One of them said she should write her own encyclopedia. So she did. And then, after that, she used the idea of other-world fantasy tourism as the basis for the two Derkholm books, which...
This is hilarious, an absolute must for every fantasy writer. The book is a mock A to Z guide of the tropes of fantasy. Now and then, I just open it randomly for a dose of laughter, read a few entries starting with different letters, giggle, and close it again, till next time. As I writer, I can say...
3.5 starsAn encyclopedia of common epic fantasy fiction. The writing is enjoyable though there are some repetition. Can't be apply to all fantasy fiction, but I find many of the tropes is interesting and some has appeared a lot on fantasy RPG game's story, though.
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