• The Light Princess and Other Stories © 1980
• Eerdmans
• 171 pages

This is the third of four volumes Eerdmans put together in 1980 to collect all the short fantasy works of George MacDonald. I have been pleasantly surprised to discover that MacDonald, whose Victorian novels span six to eight hundred pages, is able to develop a compelling story in such a short number of words.

This volume contains five stories:

• “The Light Princess” (1864 from Adela Cathcart)
• “The Giant’s Heart” (1863 from Illustrated London News)
• “The Carasoyn” (1866, 1871 from Argosy, then expanded in Works)
• “Port in a Storm” (1866 from Argosy)
• “Papa’s Story” (1865 from Illustrated London News)

The collection is very strong. The title story manages to use quite a bit of humour to tell what turns out to be an intense story. “The Giant’s Heart” is a children’s story about two kids who stumble into giant country, but you don’t have to be a child to enjoy it. In it, MacDonald makes some brilliant sarcastic jabs against Sunday Morning legalism. “The Carasoyn” is another of MacDonald’s fairy stories that use traditional motifs to spin a compelling tale.

The last two stories are not fantasy stories at all. “Port in a Storm” is the story of how a husband and wife got together. (Who knew you could buy a wife with a case of Port?) This is probably the weakest story of the lot. The final story is deeply moving, especially if you’ve spent any time reflecting on the parable of the Prodigal Son.

Like the first two collections I’ve read in this series, MacDonald’s stories are always worth the time to track down and read.

• The Golden Key and Other Stories © 1980
• Eerdmans
• 165 pages

Eerdmans has done the modern world a fine service by collecting the short fantasy stories of George MacDonald into four volumes. The Golden Key and Other Fantasy Stories is the second of the four I’ve read (Here’s my review of The Wise Woman and Other Fantasy Stories).

This volume was a bit more of a mixed bag. The good stories were very good while the weak stories simply had to be endured. Here are the stories:

• “The Golden Key” (1867 from Dealings With Fairies)
• “The History of Photogen and Nycteris” (1879 from Graphic)
• “The Shadows” (1864 from Adela Cathcart)
• “The Gifts of the Child Christ” (1882 from The Gifts of the Child Christ, and Other Tales)

The title story is strong. It’s as a classic quest tale that evokes that sense of otherness MacDonald is so good at. “The History of Photogen and Nycteris” is another fine story. What happens when a young woman who has only ever known night meets a young man who has only ever known daylight? I can’t help but think that some of MacDonald’s descriptions of the woman encountering daylight for the first time informed C. S. Lewis’ short story, “The Man Born Blind”.

“The Shadows,” while interesting in concept, failed to sustain my interest. The last story is not even a work of fantasy, but a morality tale about an irritating servant.

All that said, I would re-buy this book in a heartbeat on the strength of either of the first two longer stories.

• The Fantastic Imagination: An Anthology of High Fantasy © 1977
• Avon
• ix+325 pages

This is the good stuff. While I admit enjoying the odd swords & sorcerers style of pop-fantasy, it’s work like this that really inspires me. This is more than mere genre-fantasy—it’s literature in its own right.

Boyer & Zahorski’s collection is broad. It covers work from the 19th century as well as the 20th. It’s fascinating to watch the evolution of imaginative ideas from Johann Ludwig Tieck to George MacDonald to C. S. Lewis. The themes were broad as well. You get to read everything from fairy tales to stories about a princess who lost her gravity to an aristocrat who threw a ball and invited Lady Death.

What I found most compelling about this collection was the ability to read a satisfying work of high fantasy in less than 30 pages. I always assumed you had to construct the mythical world before you start working in it. These authors prove that all it takes is a skilled turn of phrase to evoke the feeling of otherness so necessary in high fantasy.

This collection is out of print but it’s well worth tracking down second hand.

• The Wise Woman and Other Fantasy Stories © 1980
• Eerdmans
• x+172 pages

What comes to mind when you think of fairy tales? Children’s stories? One-dimensional fables? Moralistic illustrations? George MacDonald mastered and elevated the genre of “fairy tale” to something greater.

The Wise Woman and Other Fantasy Stories is one of four books published by Eerdmans in 1980 that collect MacDonald’s shorter fantasy tales. This volume includes:

• “The Wise Woman” (1874, from Good Things)
• “Little Daylight” (1871, from Works of Fancy and Imagination)
• “Cross Purposes” (1867, from Dealings with Fairies)
• “The Castle: A Parable” (1864, from Adela Cathcart)

While each of these stories have merit, “The Wise Woman” stands above the rest. On one level, it’s a simple story about how parents should bring up their children. Look a little deeper and you can see MacDonald’s theology in the Wise Woman Christ-Figure. Her presence and absence in the lives of the children she’s helping beautifully reflect the Christian’s experience of God.

“The Castle” is another story that lays bare MacDonald’s theology. The parable is a clear allegory of the Christian life, where the elder brother is the only one among the family who adequately conveys the desires of the absent father. The way the siblings turn their lives around after the moment of crisis is pure inspiration.

These fairy tales deserve to be read by Christians of any age.

• The Book of Lost Things © 2006
• Washington Square Press: Simon & Schuster
• 469 pages

Usually the expression, “coming-of-age” steers me away from a book. With the exception of King’s The Body (later: Stand By Me), coming-of-age stories smack of Hallmark made-for-tv-style drivel. So why did I buy this book from an author I had never heard of?

• It was a store employee’s featured pick at The World’s Biggest Bookstore in Toronto.
• The cover design is striking.
• The synopsis reminded me of Ende’s brilliant The Neverending Story (okay, so I’ve previously enjoyed two coming-of-age stories).

Let me cut to the chase: this book is a lot of fun. It follows the life of a boy in difficult circumstances who escapes to another world where the fairy-tales he loves take on a live of their own (yet all governed by the boy’s own imagination). Familiar stories like The Beauty and the Beast and Snow White are re-imagined in dark and (at times) hilarious ways.

While there’s lots to praise about this tale, perhaps the best is Connolly’s treatment of evil. Fairy-tales have been so sanitized (and Disneyfied), it was encouraging to read a story where evil was frighting and brutal. Connolly doesn’t pander to the squeamish.

I should note that my Washington Square Press trade paperback edition includes over 100 pages of appendix, where Connolly offers a few words about the various fairy-tales explored in the book along with the complete text from The Brothers Grimm and other sources. This is an interesting way to revisit the various themes explored in the book.

Coming-of-age or not, this meta-fairy tale is well worth your time.

• Elantris © 2006
• Tor Fantasy
• 656 pages

How does a world carry on when its gods die? How does the political machine grind on in an immediate catastrophic power vacuum? Can a dystopic future can be reversed? Sanderson tackles all these questions in the form of a mystery novel set in a fantastic setting.

The lead theme in this volume is leadership. What role can good leadership play in the face of overwhelming odds? What effect does weak leadership have on a nation? Of course, the religion plays a lead role in this discussion, as it does in all of Sanderson’s works.

Sanderson excels at planting enough foreshadowing in the text to alert the thinking reader just before major events happen. I found myself cluing in to what was about to happen a number of times just before the events or epiphanies transpired.

Elantris is a fine novel that grips you in the preface and refuses to let go until you lay the book down sometime well after midnight.

• Warbreaker © 2010
• Tor
• 688 pages

Warbreaker is a large stand-alone fantasy novel with sequel potential. In it, Brandon Sanderson did what he does best: created a magic system that provides mystery and depth to character interactions.

Having read the Mistborn trilogy, it was nice to see some twists on the themes he developed. In particular, the details about this world’s Lord Ruler equivalent are quite unexpected.

Like the Mistborn magic system, the Warbreaker mythos has one source of power that can be accessed in various ways which have been discovered by various cultures. This allows Sanderson to play with ideas about religion and multiple routes to the divine.

While the mystery and the magic system were excellent, the political posturing felt a little too simplistic. Nations don’t behave in such predictable fashions. That said, I’ll still read the sequel.

• The Hero of Ages: Book Three of Mistborn © 2009
• Tor Fantasy
• 784 pages

I think I’ve finally been able to put my finger on what’s so compelling about this trilogy. If you’ve ever read early Asimov novels, you’ll realize they’re essentially good mystery-adventure stories that happen to be set in space. Well, strip away all the fantasy elements of Sanderson’s novels and you’re left with a good solid mystery story. While I cared somewhat about the characters, I was more interested in uncovering the meaning of prophecy and revealing the hidden secrets of their metal-based magic system.

The Hero of Ages is a suitable ending for this epic adventure. Every time you think there’s nothing greater to be learned or gained, Sanderson reveals another level of power and oversight. (If that sentence doesn’t make sense, it’s because I’m trying to write the review without giving away too much!)

I started this series because Sanderson did such a great job with the first Robert Jordan novel he was assigned. I continued reading it because I wanted to see where the story went. Now, I’m hooked on Sanderson’s style of fantasy writing. All I have to do is decide which of his works to read next!

• The Well of Ascension © 2008
• Tor Fantasy
• 816 Pages

Middle volumes of a trilogy are supposed to be weak. They advance the plot to setup the finale without the same sort of world-altering excitement of volume one or climactic rage of the final installment.

The Well of Ascension is not your typical middle book. It’s The Empire Strikes Back of trilogies (and everyone knows Empire was the best Star Wars flick). True, it advances the plot without the same sort of urgency or climax of volumes one or (I would suspect) three. It is a game-changer in the Mistborn world, though.

The book is centred on a simple question: what do the heroes do with the world after the big bad evil is defeated? Sanderson plays with and challenges classic fantasy paradigms that will leave you scratching your head in amazement after you’ve read the last page.

The character development of Sazed is an unexpected treat. The way Sanderson explores his style of magic is breathtaking.

Needless to say, I’m firmly hooked and have already started The Hero of Ages.

• Shadowheart: Volume Four of Shadowmarch © 2010
• Daw
• 730 pages

The end is near here. Once again, I received the fourth book of a Tad Williams trilogy with excitement. In one way this review is pointless. If you’ve read the first three volumes, you’ll read this one. If not, start at the beginning. Even so, here are my thoughts on the book.

Tad Williams has mastered the art of juggling a large cast of multi-dimensional characters. In particular, Lady Porcupine’s development was stunning in this final volume. Imagine writing the mind of a character from another race, descended directly from the gods, who has lived for centuries. That’s the sort of creative power you experience when Tad writes.

My only frustration with this book was the climax: it occurred far to early for my taste. That scene was vivid and immediate; so much so, the remaining chapters seemed almost boring. Maybe this is because my least favourite (and most irritating) character in the book, Briony, received the most attention in closing. So it goes.

One last note. I pre-ordered this book from Amazon. A couple weeks before it was released, Tad posted on his website that he would give samples to anyone who emailed him. I did, and promptly received the first 100 pages of his manuscript in a Word file. What a way to whet my appetite! Thanks for your generosity to the fans, Tad.