Ballantine Fantasy Series.alt

[Extollager]

Perhaps this will appeal to some people who like to talk about classic fantasy that can evoke a sense of wonder.

Don't get me wrong: at one time I relished the Hodgson, Lovecraft and Machen titles in Lin Carter's Ballantine Adult Fantasy series (1969-74) and enjoyed some of the Clark Ashton Smith material. However, it has seemed to me for a long time that weird-horror fiction like most of this material feels different from the rest of the books in the series that I have read (I haven't read all of it -- e.g. the Cabell and Kurtz books).

What would you nominate to fill the spaces if the following hadn't been published, as being a bit outside the purview of a fantasy classics series?

Hodgson, The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" (but retaining The Night Land)
Machen, The Three Impostors
Lovecraft, The Doom That Came to Sarnath (but retaining The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath)
Lovecraft et al., The Spawn of Cthulhu
Smith, Zothique, Hyperborea, Xiccarph, Poseidonis

This leaves room for eight book suggestions.

I'm suggesting these nominations should be for reprints of works published no more recently than 1965 (not originals) and that they should be works that were not available in paperback from anyone else before 1974, the year the BAF series ended.

Feel free to choose a then-active cover artist for your nominations!

If you prefer, just figure that the series stands as it is, but that you'd like to nominate up to eight additional titles. (Yes, I've seen the rumored additional titles listed at the Wikipedia entry on "Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series.")

Here are two nominations:

Kenneth Morris, Book of the Three Dragons (cover artist Gervasio Gallardo)

Machen, The Great Return (a collection that would include "N," "The Great Return," "The Happy Children," and "A Fragment of Life") (cover artist Bob Pepper)

Dale Nelson

 

[Fried Egg]

This sounds like a conversation I would love to join...however I don't really remember the series (perhaps it was largely before my time). A link to the original series would be useful to those of us less knowledgeable than yourself so that we might make some suggestions...

 

[Extollager]

Thank you -- I should have included a link to the series:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballantine_Adult_Fantasy

Incidentally, by my own criteria, my proposed Machen collection, The Great Return, is a little dubious, since some of those stories were in paperback at the time of the Ballantine series. However, "A Fragment of Life" wasn't, so far as I know. And I think readers could benefit by seeing the others together in a book focused on the marvelous rather than horror.

Amazon on Book of the Three Dragons:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1593600275/?tag=brite-21


I do hope you (and others) will participate!

Dale

 

[D_Davis]

This would be a good candidate:

The Garden of the Plynck, Karle Wilson Baker

Although it looks like it is in print now, it was OOP for many years. It's a classic work of fantasy (1920) that was also a huge influence on Theodore Sturgeon. It is similar to the stuff by Dunsany.

 

[Extollager]

This would be a good candidate:

The Garden of the Plynck, Karle Wilson Baker

Although it looks like it is in print now, it was OOP for many years. It's a classic work of fantasy (1920) that was also a huge influence on Theodore Sturgeon. It is similar to the stuff by Dunsany.

Ha! Sure is new to me. But is this adult fantasy? I hasten to add that my own nomination of Morris's Book of the Three Dragons is open to the objection that it was published by the Junior Literary Guild. (But read the first few pages! They musta had bright kids in those days......)

 

[D_Davis]

Ha! Sure is new to me. But is this adult fantasy? I hasten to add that my own nomination of Morris's Book of the Three Dragons is open to the objection that it was published by the Junior Literary Guild. (But read the first few pages! They musta had bright kids in those days......)

It's a fairytale, along the lines of Dunsany. I'd say it is "adult" because it is not juvenile or immature, although it was probably written for kids in the same way that Alice in Wonderland was, and I don't consider that a kids book.

 

[Fried Egg]

It's a fairytale, along the lines of Dunsany. I'd say it is "adult" because it is not juvenile or immature, although it was probably written for kids in the same way that Alice in Wonderland was, and I don't consider that a kids book.

You don't consider "Alice" a kids book? I'm reading it to my daughter now and I'd certainly say it was...

 

[D_Davis]

You don't consider "Alice" a kids book? I'm reading it to my daughter now and I'd certainly say it was...

I think it's a book for people of all ages. I've gotten far more out of it as an adult than I did as a child. There are deeper themes and layers to it. So while it's a book one might be introduced to as a child, it is one that adults should continue to revisit because it contains as much for them.

Anyways, I don't want this thread to devolve into another argument about what is or is not a certain genre or whatever.

 

[D_Davis]

I see the original series included a work by MacDonald, and so I think the Baker work would fit it just fine.

 

[Extollager]

I see the original series included a work by MacDonald, and so I think the Baker work would fit it just fine.

I'll certainly have to give it a closer look.

The BAF series included three MacDonald titles. Phantastes and Lilith are book-length romances decidedly for adults. They don't feature "graphic" sexual content, but when Time or Newsweek reviewed a reissue of the two novels in the 1950s, the reviewer indulged in a pun on a familiar Latin literary term and described Lilith as a dea sex machina. Evenor is a collection of several of MacDonald's faery novellas. New Worlds for Old, one of Carter's anthologies for the BAF, included the very fine MacDonald novella "Photogen and Nycteris." These novellas could be read by young readers, but I think adults will agree that an aura of mysterious meaning hovers over them and that they are not really intended primarily for youngsters.

Carter could be a little self-indulgent and he had, from my point of view, some defects of taste, but his series really holds up well in many cases. Someone who bought these books as they came out (I didn't, for most of them, and don't have or want a complete set) would have swept up a lot of the significant fantasy before Tolkien.

 

[D_Davis]

I'll certainly have to give it a closer look.

It's free online, so that's cool.

 

[D_Davis]

My mother read to me some MacDonald stories when I was a child, but it is only now, some 30-odd years later, that I've returned to the author. Just recently ordered the 4 volume set of his collected fairy tales. Great stuff, with lofty themes, but the writing is very archaic, and sometimes hard to get into.

I think Lilith must contain about 5,000 exclamation marks! Everything the narrator writes is uprising! And Exciting! I woke up! I made breakfast! I went to work!



I also ordered some of MacDonald's theological work. As a religious person myself, I am deeply fascinated by his views. He was quite a man.

 

[Extollager]

My mother read to me some MacDonald stories when I was a child, but it is only now, some 30-odd years later, that I've returned to the author. Just recently ordered the 4 volume set of his collected fairy tales. Great stuff, with lofty themes, but the writing is very archaic, and sometimes hard to get into.

I think Lilith must contain about 5,000 exclamation marks! Everything the narrator writes is uprising! And Exciting! I woke up! I made breakfast! I went to work!



I also ordered some of MacDonald's theological work. As a religious person myself, I am deeply fascinated by his views. He was quite a man.

The exclamation points in Lilith are intended, I think, in large part to dramatize the character of Mr. Vane, the narrator. Correct me if I am wrong, but by the end of the book, when he has undergone much change, have not the ! marks really tapered off? (You've pointed out something I hadn't noticed, by the way. Thanks. I have read Lilith several times but didn't pick up on this.)

I prepared a study guide for college students to that novel, by the way, which I can send you as an email attachment. extollager AT gmail.com

It might also still be available online somewhere.

FWIW

Dale Nelson

 

[dask]

How about Vance's short novel PARAPSYCHE? It's not sf as far as I can tell, and perhaps more than fantasy. Since it deals with the supernatural it could probably be considered horror even though it isn't scary. As far as I know it was never reprinted in book form during the time you're dealing with.

 

[Elflock]

I'm not sure I understand the question...
That Ballantine series was my introduction to some of my favourites,Morris,Dunsany,CAS,'Lud-in-the-Mist' by Hope Mirrlees etc. But I have to say,I think a lot of the titles in it are very ordinary or even complete rubbish ('The Blue Star'...I'd give 2/10 for that at best...the Kurtz and Walton titles...even less) As a teenager I liked the MacDonald ones,but they were just too religious for me the second time around....like Lewis' Perelandra or something,all the constant religious symbology just grates on my nerves after a while...'Phantastes' isn't too bad.
Seeing as I don't quite know what you mean,I'll just make my standard recommendation for anyone who wants to read some decent intelligent old fantasy/sci-fi...have you read anything by this guy?

http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&s...sg=AFQjCNH92msOtGlGRAWYA6lfH-cBbjOpew&cad=rja

I'd suggest 'The Island of Captain Sparrow' for a place to start. Or 'The Amphibians' and it's sequels...or 'Dream'...or 'Elfwin'...or 'Beyond The Rim'!! They're all good! No less than 7/10 for all these...

 

[dask]

Might be a test to see if we can thunk.

 

[Extollager]

Fowler Wright's name is familiar, Elflock, but I don't think I have read anything by him yet.

I was thinking of the BAF series as beginning with the ones for which Carter wrote intros, which leaves out The Blue Star but not the Kurtz books (which I haven't read, but don't think I'd like) and the Walton ones (which I haven't read since, I suppose, the Seventies). Anyway, I thought that, without getting into a big query about what kind of fantasy the series was basically about, some people might agree that it would be fun to nominate replacements for questionable titles or, if preferred, additions to the series. What one would be doing is thinking not just about books one likes, but about the feel of the series.

For example, Carter obviously loved sword-and-sorcery, but he pretty much omitted it from his vision of the BAF. He omitted outright children's books. He omitted blatant Tolkien imitations from the small set of new titles that he published. So we have three implied criteria. I was thinking that some of the titles he did include seemed kind of odd ducks relative to the feel of the series as a whole: for example, Machen's Three Impostors. Some of the stories in that book aren't fantasy or science fiction, and what I remember as the longest story ("The Black Seal") is an evolutionary science fiction horror story: Jervase is a human-troglodyte hybrid, and the trogs and humans are twigs off the same hominid branch, evidently. As I indicated earlier, I do think that some of Machen's stories would have worked in the BAF series, but perhaps Carter didn't like them as much as the horror stuff.

Dale

 

[Elflock]

Ok,well I haven't read everything in the series of course,but I always thought it was strange that they included those Walton and Kurtz ones...in fact,I always thought it was silly to have any modern things in it at all.
According to the wikipedia entry,Carter was involved at the time they did 'The Blue Star',that was the first book in the 'series proper',with Carter as editor.

http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBcQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FBallantine_Adult_Fantasy_series&rct=j&q=ballantine%20fantasy%20series&ei=7SciTrbmM6XRmAXkoZjKAw&usg=AFQjCNFnN3Tr10YYyC5sEJXDZIMdtNQ64g&cad=rja

I've said elsewhere that this book is to my mind,hopelessly overrated...it's inclusion in this series is one example of that.
I think it's just totally out of place in a series that was,with a few exceptions,basically a series of 'High Fantasy' classics. Those Kurtz books are just not at all in the same league,either in quality,or feel,or anything...they are just like a million other ordinary things from the 60'S/70's. The Walton ones are just another ordinary retelling of the Welsh myths. As far as I can see,she didn't write anything original at all,there's no original story or characters in it,she just copied the old Welsh myths...(like a lot of other people have done over the years) Like that guy Nigel Frith,who made a successful career out of writing supposedly new versions of all the old myths,'Asgard','Krishna','Jormangund',etc etc etc (actually,all he did was copy the old stories in a sort of modern language,exactly the same with Walton) So if I was to nominate the books that I think don't fit the series,it would be all the modern ones...I haven't read 'Double Phoenix','Excalibur' or that Poul Anderson one,but I don't imagine they'd fit any better. To my way of thinking,nothing that was written after about 1930 or so would fit. I haven't read the Machen one,but from what I have read of him,I'm not sure that would be a very good choice either! As replacements for the newer things,I would definitely include at least ONE by Fowler Wright! Maybe 'The Island of Captain Sparrow'.

http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBcQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonlinebooks.library.upenn.edu%2Fwebbin%2Fbook%2Flookupname%3Fkey%3DWright%252C%2520S.%2520Fowler%2520(Sydney%2520Fowler)%252C%25201874-1965&rct=j&q=s%20fowler%20wright%20upenn&ei=7jsiTvDCMs-cmQWn0pG2Aw&usg=AFQjCNH92msOtGlGRAWYA6lfH-cBbjOpew&cad=rja

This guy was pretty much in a league of his own in the 20's etc And no one from my generation ever heard of him,he was a great example of a forgotten author who should have been brought back into print at that time,when fantasy was enjoying yet another revival,thanks to TLOTR etc. M P Shiel's 'The Purple Cloud' is a science fiction novel from 1902 or something that would also have been a good inclusion,although it's not fantasy as such,let alone 'high fantasy'.
In that list of books at wikipedia that 'never were',Francis Stevens is mentioned,she was definitely someone I would have also included and the Eden Philpott ones would be a good inclusion I think too. All those Morris ones are total classics that deserved to be in the series. I can't imagine the John Campbell one fitting,I haven't read it so I don't know...but if they had put anything by Kuttner or even worse,L Sprague deCamp,in there it would have just totally dragged the whole series down to another level altogether imho!

 

[Extollager]

I liked the Walton books, back in the day -- the two "inner ones," The Children of Llyr and The Song of Rhiannon, especially -- but I haven't read any of them since the 1970s. I don't know how well they would hold up. Back then I read Ursula Le Guin's "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie" every so often, and frankly, with what she says about Kurtz's style as excerpted by her, Le Guin just kills the Deryni books for me.

It would be pretty funny if I were actually to read one and like it.

 

[Elflock]

I've just started 'Atlantida',a lost world novel by Pierre Benoit,published 1918,I think that would have been a good one to include too,considering they had a couple of Haggard ones etc.

http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&s...sg=AFQjCNF5AWukWp9lZ_ilw-4C6UG6xr3KbA&cad=rja

My advice to any younger readers who are wanting to know which old fantasy/sci-fi books to read is don't listen to jaded old people like me,and don't read the blurb on the covers of the old paperbacks etc. I never used to read the back covers,jacket notes etc because it just 'colours' the whole experience. For instance,I hate being told anything about the author's political views etc...if it's not obvious in their stories,then I don't want to know. That has the potential to turn me off every other book by that author...same with religious views...I don't want to know (and I definitely don't want to know what the sci-fi and literary critics think!)
The reason kids shouldn't listen to us boring old folks is that I would say probably about 90% of things that I loved as a teenager or in my 20's etc,were just totally disappointing the second time around. But if a young reader just went by that,they would never read anything much...it's just better to discover authors etc yourself,and not listen to anyone else's opinion!
One really big important factor in all this used to be the cover illustrations...all the cover art for this Ballantine series was just brilliant work and it was the main reason I ever bought any of them,simple as that.