Modern Fantasy: The 100 Best Novels

Modern Fantasy: The 100 Best Novels, An English-Language Selection, 1946-1987 is a nonfiction book written by David Pringle, published by Grafton Books in 1988 (UK); next year by Peter Bedrick Books (US). The foreword is by Brian W. Aldiss.

Primarily the book comprises 100 short essays on the selected works, covered in order of publication, without any ranking. It is considered an important critical summary of the field of modern fantasy literature.^[1][2][3]

Modern Fantasy followed Pringle's 1985 Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels, published by Xanadu. In the introduction he commends the nearly simultaneous 'rival' followup by Xanadu: Stephen Jones and Kim Newman, Horror: The 100 Best Books (Xanadu, 1988).^[4]

Modern Fantasy

Pringle says in the introduction, rebutting one academic complaint about the sprawling scope of fantasy, "But it seems to me that fantasy is an indiscriminate form. ... We may even view it as the primal genre, essentially formless, a swamp which has served as the breeding ground for all other popular fiction genres ... Up to the eighteenth century, almost all narrative fictions, both verse and prose, were fantastic to a greater or lesser degree."^[5]

In the introduction to the earlier book, he had distinguished "Supernatural Horror" and "Heroic Fantasy" as the other important divisions of fantastic fiction beside science fiction. They may be represented by Dracula and The Lord of the Rings, featuring "the irruption of some supernatural force into the everyday world" and "set in completely imaginary worlds" respectively. Here he adds "the Fabulation, or absurdist metafiction—stories which are set in the real world, but which distort that world in ways other than the supernaturally horrific." He names Thomas Pynchon, Angela Carter, John Crowley, and Geoff Ryman as authors of fabulations included in his hundred.^[6]

While covering no foreign-language fantasies and few children's or 'light' fantasies, "I have tried to make a balanced list, and in so doing I have included some books which are not really to my taste—they may well be other people's favourites, though. In truth, there are not a hundred masterpieces of modern fantasy, any more than there a hundred masterpieces of science fiction."^[7] "[A]t least some of the novels I have selected are masterpieces of modern literature, full of beauty and wonder. The others are craftsmanlike entertainments which I happily commend to you for your enjoyment."^[8]

The 100 best novels

1. Titus Groan, Mervyn Peake (1946)
2. The Book of Ptath, A. E. van Vogt (1947)
3. The Well of the Unicorn, Fletcher Pratt (1948)
4. Darker Than You Think, Jack Williamson (1948)
5. Seven Days in New Crete AKA Watch the North Wind Rise, Robert Graves (1949)
6. Silverlock, John Myers Myers (1949)
7. The Castle of Iron, L. Sprague de Camp, Fletcher Pratt (1950)
8. Conan the Conqueror, Robert E. Howard (1950)
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis (1950)
10. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake (1950)
11. The Dying Earth, Jack Vance (1950)
12. The Sound of His Horn, Sarban (1952)
13. Conjure Wife, Fritz Leiber (1953)
14. The Sinful Ones, Fritz Leiber (1953)
15. The Broken Sword, Poul Anderson (1954)
16. The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien (1954–55)
17. Pincher Martin, William Golding (1956)
18. The Shrinking Man, Richard Matheson (1956)
19. Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury (1957)
20. The Once and Future King, T. H. White (1958)
21. The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag, Robert A. Heinlein (1959)
22. The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson (1959)
23. Titus Alone, Mervyn Peake (1959)
24. A Fine and Private Place, Peter S. Beagle (1960)
25. Three Hearts and Three Lions, Poul Anderson (1961)
26. The Girl, the Gold Watch, and Everything, John D. MacDonald (1962)
27. Glory Road, Robert A. Heinlein (1963)
28. Witch World, Andre Norton (1963)
29. The Magus, John Fowles (1965)
30. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock (1965)
31. The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon (1966)
32. Day of the Minotaur, Thomas Burnett Swann (1966)
33. The Eyes of the Overworld, Jack Vance (1966)
34. The Owl Service, Alan Garner (1967)
35. Rosemary's Baby, Ira Levin (1967)
36. The Third Policeman, Flann O'Brien (1967)
37. Gog, Andrew Sinclair (1967)
38. The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle (1968)
39. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin (1968)
40. The Swords of Lankhmar, Fritz Leiber (1968)
41. Black Easter and The Day After Judgment, James Blish (1968, 1971)
42. The Green Man, Kingsley Amis (1969)
43. The Phoenix and the Mirror, Avram Davidson (1969)
44. A Feast Unknown, Philip Jose Farmer (1969)
45. Fourth Mansions, R. A. Lafferty (1969)
46. Red Moon and Black Mountain, Joy Chant (1970)
47. Time and Again, Jack Finney (1970)
48. Grendel, John Gardner (1971)
49. Briefing for a Descent into Hell, Doris Lessing (1971)
50. Jack of Shadows, Roger Zelazny (1971)
51. Watership Down, Richard Adams (1972)
52. The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman, Angela Carter (1972)
53. Sweet Dreams, Michael Frayn (1973)
54. The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, Patricia A. McKillip (1974)
55. Salem's Lot, Stephen King (1975)
56. The Great Victorian Collection, Brian Moore (1975)
57. Grimus, Salman Rushdie (1975)
58. Peace, Gene Wolfe (1975)
59. The Malacia Tapestry, Brian Aldiss (1976)
60. The Dragon and the George, Gordon R. Dickson (1976)
61. Hotel de Dream, Emma Tennant (1976)
62. The Passion of New Eve, Angela Carter (1977)
63. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever, Volume 1: Lord Foul's Bane, Stephen R. Donaldson (1977)
64. The Shining, Stephen King (1977)
65. Fata Morgana, William Kotzwinkle (1977)
66. Our Lady of Darkness, Fritz Leiber (1977)
67. Gloriana, Michael Moorcock (1978)
68. The Unlimited Dream Company, J. G. Ballard (1979)
69. Sorcerer's Son, Phyllis Eisenstein (1979)
70. The Land of Laughs, Jonathan Carroll (1980)
71. The Vampire Tapestry, Suzy McKee Charnas (1980)
72. A Storm of Wings, M. John Harrison (1980)
73. White Light, Rudy Rucker (1980)
74. Ariosto, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (1980)
75. Cities of the Red Night, William S. Burroughs (1981)
76. Little, Big, John Crowley (1981)
77. Lanark, Alasdair Gray (1981)
78. The War Hound and the World's Pain, Michael Moorcock (1981)
79. Nifft the Lean, Michael Shea (1982)
80. Winter's Tale, Mark Helprin (1983)
81. Soul Eater, K. W. Jeter (1983)
82. Tea with the Black Dragon, R. A. MacAvoy (1983)
83. Cold Heaven, Brian Moore (1983)
84. The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers (1983))
85. Who Made Stevie Crye?, Michael Bishop (1984)
86. The Digging Leviathan, James P. Blaylock (1984)
87. Nights at the Circus, Angela Carter (1984)
88. The Businessman: A Tale of Terror, Thomas M. Disch (1984)
89. Mythago Wood, Robert Holdstock (1984)
90. The Glamour, Christopher Priest (1984)
91. The Witches of Eastwick, John Updike (1984)
92. Hawksmoor, Peter Ackroyd (1985)
93. The Dream Years, Lisa Goldstein (1985)
94. The Fionavar Tapestry, Guy Gavriel Kay (1985–87)
95. The Bridge, Ian Banks (1986)
96. The Hungry Moon, Ramsey Campbell (1986)
97. Replay, Ken Grimwood (1986)
98. The Unconquered Country, Geoff Ryman (1986)
99. The Day of Creation, J. G. Ballard (1987)
100. Aegypt, John Crowley (1987)

References

• Modern Fantasy: The 100 Best Novels, An English-Language Selection, 1946-1987, David Pringle. (UK) Grafton Books, 1988 ISBN 0-246-13214-0 ; (US) Peter Bedrick Books, 1989 ISBN 0-872-26328-2 —US title "the Hundred Best"

1. ^ Jack Merry, Fantasy Reference Works: An omnibus review. Green Man Review (no date). Confirmed 2011-07-18.
2. ^ Reference Guide to Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror, Michael Burgess, Lisa R. Bartle, Libraries Unlimited, 2002, p. 88
3. ^ The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, John Clute and John Grant, Orbit Books, 1997, p. 788
4. ^ Modern Fantasy, 23.
5. ^ Modern Fantasy, 14.
6. ^ Modern Fantasy, 19.
7. ^ Modern Fantasy, 20.
8. ^ Modern Fantasy, 23.

External links

• Modern Fantasy: The 100 Best Novels publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database