books like : alice in wonderland

[huxley]

I was interested in finding book, stories like alice in wonderland. like wisked to a new world. or stories like "howl's moving castle" like out of this world type stories.

 

[BookStop]

Michael Chabon's Summerland
Julie Edwards (Andrews) Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles
Wizard of OZ
Neverending Story
Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth
L'engle's A Wrinkle in Time (sort of)
Dinotopia
Castle in the Air by Dianna Wynne Jones

 

[gigantes]

thanks, bookstop. half of those are new to me.

i like 'out of this world' stories, especially the ones that have some special relevance, ie they might be allegory or archetypical.

 

[Culhwch]

You might try Gaiman's Stardust as well.

 

[ace]

the wisked to a new world is something i like and i really enjoyed the wizards bane triology

 

[Nesacat]

A Dark Horn Blowing by Dahlov Zorach Ipcar - Stolen away from her husband and newborn child, Nora is transported to the magical realm of Erland where she is assigned the task of nursing the Erl King's sickly infant, who must be able to walk before Nora is allowed to return to her own world.

The Gate of the Cat by Andre Norton - A stone ring in the Scottish Highlands becomes the gateway through which Kelsie McBlair enters a new world and becomes embroiled in a struggle beween Light and Dark for power over the Green Valley.

The Secret Country (The Eidolon Chronicles) by by Jane Johnson - When a talking cat convinces Ben to purchase it from Mr. Dodds's Pet Emporium, the boy has no idea what adventures await him. Except for his one green and one brown eye, Ben seems a perfectly normal child with two sisters, a journalist father, and a mysteriously ailing mother. After a unicorn turns up at a cricket match and a wood-sprite appears in his garden, Ben finds himself enmeshed in the fate of Eidolon, the Secret Country.

And there's the Narnia books by CS Lewis as well.

 

[j d worthington]

Depends on what level you're looking for. Lovecraft's "Dreamlands" stories -- especially The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath -- certainly fit the description above. They also concentrate much less on the horrific than on the blurring of lines between reality and dream, or the dream-world as a genuinely existing world of its own (very much an alternate dimension we enter in dreams, if you will), and a certain amount of poignancy and pathos. They were gathered together in two paperback volumes by Lin Carter, The Doom That Came to Sarnath and The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath; and more recently in Dreams of Terror and Death: The Dream Cycle of H. P. Lovecraft:

Dreams of Terror and Death: The Dream Cycle of H. P. Lovecraft - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This adds a few things that aren't, strictly speaking, part of the cycle, but which tie into it tangentially.

Clark Ashton Smith wrote several pieces dealing with this, but they've not all been collected together. However, Bison Books has reissued some of the Arkham House titles, such as Lost Worlds and Out of Space and Time, each of which have a fair number of them; I especially recommend such things as "The Abominations of Yondo", "The Uncharted Isle", and "A Night in Malnéant".

You might also try David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus and George MacDonald's Lilith. There are quite a few out there, some dark, some light, some a mixture. If you're interested, I'll try to come up with some more suggestions; just let me know....

 

[Gav]

I was interested in finding book, stories like alice in wonderland. like wisked to a new world. or stories like "howl's moving castle" like out of this world type stories.

I see no one has recommended Automated Alice. Not only is that book like Alice in Wonderland - it features her. A very good book in my opinion.

 

[Gav]

Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth

That is such a good book!

 

[chrispenycate]

While many others have whisked their characters to a variety of different environments, there is only one Alice, and only one Charles Dodgson. Have you considered his "treatise on symbolic logic"? (an unpromising title, to be sure, but less difficult and far more enjoyable than you would imagine)
I once owned the collected works of Lewis Carroll, but alas; 'twas a massive tome and my frequent perambulations across the planet involved me divesting myself of all non-portable items (into which category this fell, probably with a resounding thump). I picked it up (with some difficulty) second hand, and can't remember the publisher or anything, but remember it fondly. While Sylvie and Bruno have more been ksihwed into our world (or its Victorian ancestor) from outside, rather than the inverse, and no-one would aclaim them equals to miss Liggel's adventures, they are interesting in their own right, and a further indication that wonderland is not straight nonsense, as many have tried to claim, or emulate,but has a very firm underlying logic structure, albeit somewhaz different from our own.

 

[Ragnar]

I see no one has recommended Automated Alice. Not only is that book like Alice in Wonderland - it features her. A very good book in my opinion.

I'll second that. It was the first book I thought of when I saw the thread. Mind you, if you want to be whisked off to strange new worlds anything by Noon would do.

 

[Gav]

I'll second that. It was the first book I thought of when I saw the thread. Mind you, if you want to be whisked off to strange new worlds anything by Noon would do.

And I'll second your second!

Noon's worlds are certainly ... errr... strange and new.

 

[huxley]

thanks guys, and to answer a question: i think i'm looking for more light rather than dark. and i like adventure stories.

and who is " noon" could you post the full name please, thanks.

 

[j d worthington]

Jeff Noon, author of Automated Alice.

Jeff Noon - Summary Bibliography

Okay, I shall keep that in mind while drawing up a list of possibilities....

 

[Ragnar]

thanks guys, and to answer a question: i think i'm looking for more light rather than dark. and i like adventure stories.

and who is " noon" could you post the full name please, thanks.

If that's the case, then I think Jeff Noon is probably not for you. He's quite dark and surreal.

 

[PenDragon]

The Spellsinger books by Alan Dean Foster are great, very funny.

 

[ravenus]

I would recommend some of Haruki Murakami's books like The Wind-up Bird Chronicle or Hard-boiled Wonderland and The End of The World (the latter of which may be a more obvious choice? ). They're about protagonists who undertake journeys where they see / hear about all kinds of interesting and often dream-like scenarios.

 

[huxley]

thanks guys. just to give an idea of what i looking for, dream world stories, or wisked to new worlds. i like adventure.

more light than dark horror.

and thanks again. i'll have some to look for next time i good to the library.

 

[gigantes]

oh, cool... "the automated alice" looks nice.

btw, great books are often even greater with great drawings. ralph steadman illustrated both "alice" books and they are not to be missed if you are a fan of carol's (dodgson's) work.

weird, disturbing and wonderful. here's a couple samples of his style, altho the alice drawings are frankly better:
British Cartoon Archive

 

[Winter Lord]

A Sudden Wild Magic by Dianna Wynne Jones, the same author who wrote Howl's Moving Castle. It deals with the Ruling Circle of Witches, of England, who find out that a group of magic-users from a nearby parallel dimension are using Earth as a test bed to find solutions to problems in their world.