Recommended Reading List

Phantasmagorical Irony

There is something about fantastic literature that just lends itself to irony, especially when combined with lush prose and colourful imagery. When all three are combined it comes with a kind of structure all of its own. Difficult to sustain over a full novel, it is more common in short form, like the fiction of Clark Ashton Smith. When it makes it to novel length it carries its short fiction origins with it, like in Tanith Lee's series of utterly entrancing novels. Playing a kind of sleight of hand game with many small plots combining into a much longer work, side stories that dance into one another and emerge into a greater whole.

Of course sometimes the irony in a novel is used in a more traditional way, like in Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars novels, or Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion, where the ironic twist comes towards the end and acts to undermine the assumptions made earlier in the novel. Undermining the justifications that a group comes up with for making war; showing that obvious truths can be obscured by myths that become the perceived reality.

• John Brunner - The Traveller in Black Mazda the traveller in black strolls about his world as an agent of law. A seemingly harmless old man who will give a person anything they ask for. On his journey he grants many wishes and all get what they wish for, of course it is in the nature of such things that wishes don't always offer what one really desires. Comes with prose as delicious as the ironies held within, highly recommended. [in print - UK]
• Edgar Rice Burroughs - A Princess of Mars The first of Burroughs seemingly never ending Mars sequence. A great, easily to read, traditional escapist novel. With all coincidences and last minute rescues intact, and a nice pulpy cliff hanger to tide you over to the second book. Most of the Mars books are worth reading if a little repetitive, though the first few probably the best. [in print - UK / US]
• Edgar Rice Burroughs - Gods of Mars The second of the Mars books, and more of the same as John Carter finds himself in even more tricky situations, eventually resolving the cliff hanger from book one, but leaving you with another which probably means you have to read the third (Warlord of Mars) as well. The first three are pretty much the continuation of one narrative, the others are all self-contained. [in print - UK / US]
• Tanith Lee - Night's Master From the start this book is a classic, a lush fantasy that is build from a series of tightly woven short pieces, tales connected by their relationship to the Night's Master; the demon lord who rules over the under earth and creates chaos and confusion in the human worlds above. He sows the seeds of many tragedy's, including one that threatens the existence of the human race itself, one so serious that even he cannot ignore the consequences. This is a brilliant collection of fables, wonderfully written and enthralling from beginning to end. [in print - UK]
• Michael Moorcock - The Eternal Champion When John Daker is drawn from our world through a summoning in a dream he finds himself stepping into the shoes of a great legendary hero. Overcoming a natural culture shock he finds himself drawn into a battle between two cultures. Noble humanity against an ancient enemy bent on its destruction. It ends as a battle over the nature of truth and whether Daker is prepared to commit the ultimate crime to find peace. [in print - UK]

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