The Tough Guide to Fantasyland: The Essential Guide to Fantasy Travel by Diana Wynne Jones

From the Publisher

Imagine that all fantasy novels--the ones featuring dragons, knights, wizards, and magic--are set in the same place. That place is called Fantasyland. The Tough Guide to Fantasyland is your travel guide, a handbook to everything you might find: Evil, the Dark Lord, Stew, Boots (but not Socks), and what passes for Economics and Ecology. Both a hilarious send-up of the cliches of the genre and an indispensable guide for writers, The Tough Guide to Fantasyland has been nearly impossible to find for years. Now this cult classic is back, and readers can experience Diana Wynne Jones at her very best: incisive, funny, and wildly imaginative. This is the definitive edition of The Tough Guide, featuring a new map, an entirely new design, and additional material written for it by Diana Wynne Jones.

About the Author: Diana Wynne Jones is the author of many award winning novels, including Howl's Moving Castle (recently made into a major animated film by Hayao Miyazaki), Fire and Hemlock, Archer's Goon, and The Merlin Conspiracy. Her most recent novel is The Pinhoe Egg. She lives in Bristol, England.

Children's Literature

Diana Wynne Jones, the British doyenne of fantasy, is a literate writer with a well-placed sense of humor. She makes the most of the latter attribute in this tongue-in-cheek guide to the traveler—or beginning writer—who would take on the fantasy genre. No, it is not a literary history. Classic authors and characters remain unnamed. What is offered instead is an "A" to "Z" encyclopedia of terms, jokes, plots, maps, etc., gussied up as one's standard Frommer's guidebook, complete with little identifying symbols—the best signifying "cliche"—and the occasional edifying sidebar such as, "How to interact with wizards." In short, Wynne Jones is having a jolly good time. Consider her take on "colour coding." "Hair. Black hair is Evil…Red hair always entails magical POWERS…Brown generally implies niceness. Fair hair always means goodness." ‘Nuff said. Enjoy the satire, while always remembering to keep clear of people with violet or golden eyes. That is, if you want a quiet life.

VOYA

If readers have ever found themselves trying to navigate the Forest of Doom or wondered what strangeness leads arctic barbarians to be half-naked while desert dwellers are always "swathed from head to foot in robes," this is the guide for which they have been waiting. Billed as the "Official Guide to Fantasy Travel," the book is a romp through genre conventions. This updated version of the Hugo Award-winning book contains alphabetic entries for people, places, and events in a fantasy world and information on how travelers can best find their way to the epic final battle. Icons conveniently identify lodging, food, and other necessary elements that travelers will need in their journey. Each chapter begins with wise or absurd quotes by a character with several apostrophes in his name. The highly amusing text is not something that can easily be read straight through as a narrative, but it is thoroughly enjoyable as a "reference" guide to fantasy novels. This brilliantly written satire perfectly celebrates and skewers the clichTs of the fantasy genre. Any reader who has gone through two fantasy trilogies will laugh at the tongue-in-cheek "Official Management Terms" such as the evil councilor's having a "reek of wrongness" and the spirited princess one can identify by the "scattering of freckles" across her nose. It is a highly recommended purchase for most school and public library collections.

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