For anyone interested, I submitted a detailed review of Jamie Williamson's fine book The Evolution of Modern Fantasy over at DMR Blog. You can read it here: https://dmrbooks.com/test-blog/2020/1/28/a-review-of-the-evolution-of-modern-fantasy-from-antiquarianism-to-the-ballantine-adult-fantasy-series
In summary, if you can overcome the obstacles of price and academic language, it's absolutely worth the read. I have not read a book that does a better job of getting us from romantic poetry, lyrical ballads, and Gothic novels, up to the publishing juggernaut popularly known today as "fantasy." And it cements Lin Carter's Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series (1969-74, series proper) as a major catalyst.
If you've read it, or have any thoughts on my review or questions about the book, please leave them here (or there).
Did you learn anything that you wish you knew when you wrote Flame and Crimson?
ReplyDeleteMatthew that is a great question.
ReplyDeleteI suppose I would have given it a greater scope, and placed sword-and-sorcery in a broader context of what came before and after. Williamson's book does such a nice job covering a wide swath of literary history and you really feel like the BAFS was a culmination of that; I wish I could have better placed sword-and-sorcery as a genre at the apex of historical adventure and weird fiction. I tried to do that with chapter 2, culminating in Howard in chapter 3, but I feel like Williamson handled it more skillfully than I did. I also wonder if the in-line citations are not too distracting. The Evolution of Modern Fantasy has some, but they are not intrusive.
As far as learning, I don't think I learned much from it regarding sword-and-sorcery that I did not already know, save that my definition seems to be slightly more expansive than Williamson (who excludes Clark Ashton Smith). I did learn a lot about 18th and 19th century antecedents for fantasy.
Great answer. I like Flame and Crimson. I do think it was a microscope on particular sub-genre as oppose to a larger context. That's not bad to place it in a larger context would be a lot of extra work and you could loose focus.
ReplyDeleteTrue Matthew, and thanks again.
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