A Guide to Fantasy Literature by Philip Martin

I read this a couple months ago and have just now gotten around to posting.  This was a somewhat disappointing text.  I was hoping for something new and challenging, but this lacked the authoritative voice and originality that I was looking for.  The author didn't seem scholarly so much as enthusiastic and amateurish.  It's a short, easy-to-read guide that would appeal more to a casual reader (or writer) of fantasy than a scholar. There are few academic references in the book, but there are a whole lot of quotes from fantasy novels and authors. The organization is logical, and the prose is readable if not elegant. There are a few errors in the book--typos, really--and the author does not risk much, intellectually-speaking, or open himself up for serious critique.  It's pretty bland, overall.  The divisions of fantasy literature, or "rings" as the author denotes them (possibly a nod to Tolkien), into High, Adventure, Fairy-tale, Magical Realism, and Dark are over-broad, rough, and expansive, like cutting a piece of paper with an axe. The way the author describes it, "Dark Fantasy" is actually just horror literature, and most serious scholars would put more distance than Martin between the category of fantasy and fairy-tale or magical realism.

The first half of this short book deals with fantasy from an academic perspective and is more interesting to a reader than the second half which deals with fantasy from a writer's perspective. The first half is also more illuminating; the second half is fairly generic, as the information can be found in most books that deal with fiction-writing as a craft.

I recommend this book to a casual reader who knows little about fantasy but would like to broaden their understanding. A serious reader or scholar would likely find little of value here that might expand their knowledge base or challenge their thinking.  Farah Mendlesohn is MUCH more illuminating to read.