The Game-changers (part 7): Fantasy

It's been a good, long while since I wrote a Game-Changers post (you can check out the last one here) so I'm taking this chilly Sunday evening as an invitation to catch up and talk about some of the books that have had a major impact on me as a writer, a reader, and a thinker.

I'm a certified fantasy nerd from my earliest days, which I spent astride a hobby horse in Snoopy galoshes and a terry towel cape pretending to be (or to befriend) the Princess of Power. She and her brother were introduced to me by my stepdad (my mom never forgave him) and they started me on the path to reading fantasy.

Like every good fantasy reader before me, I began my journeys with Tolkien. I had to earn them though. My stepdad wouldn't let me borrow his battered soft covers until I proved I could read a page of them aloud without missing a word (I was six). I read Fellowship until the spine split in half and was devastated because I was too young to know there were tens of thousands of copies! I've returned to Hobbiton almost every year since.

My stepdad also introduced me to Peter S. Beagle - through the same Rankin and Bass animation style used for the animate Hobbit (which I maintain is still better than today's modern trilogy). When my heart is sore I return to the unicorn beside her lilac pool and her quest to find the others of her kind.

I have no idea how I came to learn about Valdemar, but when I read the series it had the cover to the right and I'm sure a magnificent white horse and a waif-like rider appealed to my younger self! The writing hasn't really stood the test of time (though the plot structure is sound) but I still return for the sake of nostalgia and part of me still dreams of writing a school-centered fantasy (Lackey having done so long before Hogwarts was invented!)

I'm still reeling from the ending of The Final Quest, but I'll never forget the new vistas that opened up to me when my cousin's uncle gave me a battered paperback copy of ElfQuest to read. Completely falling apart, it still holds a place of honor in my office today!

Urban fantasy seems to have supplanted high fantasy lately and my introduction to the former came in the form of a controversial novel by Charles de Lint. I remember loving it and hating it at the same time -- and all readers know that you'll never forget a book that kindles complex and contradictory emotions! My relationship to my art (poor as it is) is still colored by the reactions of the characters in this book.

This novel isn't without flaws, but it's one of the few fantasy novels of my younger years that I can return to, appreciate, and learn something new from. It's title character Theresa (who will grate on your nerves) gets conjured through a mirror into a medieval kingdom in danger; the adventures she undergoes there make for worthwhile reading and raise questions about the nature of being, the nature of belonging, and how we contribute (or fail to contribute) to the spaces to which we belong.

For several years I have been trying (with mixed results) to introduce students to the miracle of Bradbury, an author so gifted that he makes short stories contain the wealth of novels and plain prose seem like poetry meant for recitation (yes, I am jealous). I found Bradbury in my high school library and his two major collections, The Stories of Ray Bradbury and Bradbury Stories are never far out of my reach. No matter what genre interests you - mystery, horror, fantasy, science fiction, literary fiction - there exists a Bradbury story crafted just for you, consumable in a mere fifteen minutes but marking you forever after.

I debated whether to include Flewelling in an upcoming entry about LGBTQ game-changers, but she is a fantasy writer, so she's staying here. I haven't stayed with this series past the third book, so in that sense it's a failure. In the sense that I return to the first three books and felt inspired as a writer who deals in LGBTQ characters all the time, it's a grand and worthwhile success. And, despite the sinister cover art, it has some truly saccharine moments!

Pratchett is my most recent fantasy discovery; I think he was waiting for me to learn to not to take myself so seriously before entering my life. And what discovery is nicer than finding a new author to love? Finding one that has written an enormous catalogue! I feel like an explorer setting out to trek the Discworld!