NOVEL IDEAS: FANTASY is an anthology of eight original short stories, which were eventually expanded by their authors into full-fledged novels. The concept is to show how these stories evolved from a complete brief episode into part of a whole of a more complex narrative. This is an interesting idea and a companion book for science fiction (conveniently titled NOVEL IDEAS: SCIENCE FICTION) is also available.
Any anthology worth its salt needs to contain old favorites and new surprises. This book succeeds, but only just, and I wonder if the truly committed fantasy reader who is already overly familiar with names like Gordon R. Dickson, Katherine Kurtz, Robert Silverberg and Orson Scott Card will want a book that features much of their work already published in different form.
What a book like this needs to do is really showcase the evolution of the piece, from short story through its expansion and into the novel, and how the story might have changed or how the novel might have developed because of the original story. Editors Brian M. Thomsen and Martin H. Greenberg attempt to do this by having introductions to each story usually written by the authors themselves, but I would have liked these efforts to be even more thorough and explicatory.
A negative example can be seen in the very first story, which is Dickson’s 1957 tale “St. George and the Dragon,” which served as the starting point for the book THE DRAGON AND THE GEORGE. This is one of those light pieces that Dickson could probably write in his sleep, concerning a human who is accidentally transported by time and place into a magical world where he is a human in dragon form. The story revolves around his return to the proper time and place. It’s cute and well done, but since Dickson is dead, and the editors had to write the introduction about the genesis and development of the story, we don’t really get a feel for why the story came out the way it did.
But where this concept takes off is in the next chapter with Suzy McKee Charnas’ 1980 story “Unicorn Tapestry,” which grew into the novel THE VAMPIRE TAPESTRY. Charnas’ own introduction explains how she decided to put her vampire character Edward Lewis Weyland into psychotherapy, and how that basis for a short story allowed her to get inside the character’s own head. And thus, the novel was born. Now let’s admit it, that’s cool! That’s one reason why you might buy this book, just to read that and to learn more about the world of Charnas’ vampires.
There are other reasons, of course. Other stories in the anthology include Card’s refreshing Early American fantasy “Hatrack River,” eventually expanded into the novel SEVENTH SON; Kurtz’s slight and disappointing “The Gargoyle’s Shadow,” turned into ST. PATRICK’S GARGOYLE; Lynn Abbey’s bizarre interpretation of elven procreation in “Jerlayne,” which spawned the novel of the same name; Robert Silverberg’s glorious “Gilgamesh in the Outback,” featuring Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft as very ridiculous characters in what became the novel TO THE LAND OF THE LIVING; and James Ward’s brilliant “Midshipwizard,” which is yet another tale of Napoleonic Era fantasy and derring-do complete with airborne fighting dragons (I had not known of this Aubrey/Maturin sub-genre of fantasy, akin to Naomi Novik’s HER MAJESTY’S DRAGON, but it’s a lot of fun), and which has been turned into a book called MIDSHIPWIZARD HALCYON BLITHE, that sounds a bit like Harry Potter does Wellington. Based on the story here, it deserves to be a hit.
And finally, there’s another Card tale entitled “Lost Boys,” which grew into the eponymous novel not related to the Kiefer Sutherland movie in any way (the editor states this directly, but the blurb on the advance reading copy I received does relate it to the movie, sadly). This story has some undeserved controversy surrounding the tale. It’s really powerful and moving, and the author’s difficulties with including real personal detail in what is a fictional ghost story shouldn’t be a distraction to any reader.
So the anthologic verdict is: It’s worthwhile. I was surprised at Kurtz’s performance, which isn’t up to her traditional epic level in the Deryni tales, and Abbey’s unsettling story of how elves reproduce just didn’t resonate. But both of Card’s tales were very readable, and I can see Ward’s Halcyon Blithe as a very enjoyable character with which to spend an afternoon. I would have enjoyed more introductory material from each of the authors, which reveal some very surprising truths about their work.
As for the actual tales themselves, it remains a mixed bag. Silverberg and Card come out the best here, with Ward’s brief piece also being a nicely polished miniature gem of a story. If you like any of these authors, it’s worth the purchase just to see the evolutionary process of how a writer begins with a story idea and to see where it goes from there. –Mark Rose
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