Here Be Dragons (43 page)

30
. Tolkien, “On Fairy-stories,” 26 ff., 19–20, 23.

31
. Ibid., 28–29.

32
. Ibid., 30.

33
. For example: Marion Zimmer Bradley's
The Firebrand
(1986) portrays the Trojan War from Cassandra's point of view; Neil Gaiman offers the Queen's perspective of Snow White in “Snow, Glass, Apples” (1995); in Robert Holdstock's
Celtica
(2001), a young Merlin joins Jason and the Argo for the Celtic tribes' invasion of the Balkans; in
Caliban's Hour
(1994), by Tad Williams, Shakespeare's
The Tempest
is revisited; and Lisa Goldstein has Doctor John Dee help Rabbi Judah Loew fashion a golem in
The Alchemist's Door
(2002).

34
. Examples of these respective dragon varieties can be found in, for instance, Erik Granström's
Svavelvinter
(Brimstone Winter; 2004), Patrick Rothfuss's
The Name of the Wind
(2007), Gordon R. Dickson's
The Dragon and the George
(1976), Michael Swanwick's
The Iron Dragon's Daughter
(1993), and the Dragonlance Chronicles (1984–85), by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.

35
. Many writers appear to have misunderstood the Cauldron of Story and have tried to use someone else's—frequently Tolkien's—recipe, only adding the literary equivalent of a sprig of parsley, generally with scant success.

36
. The categories are thoroughly presented and discussed in Mendlesohn,
Rhetorics
.

37
. Ibid., 2.

38
. Ibid., 182; see also earlier discussions of liminal fantasy in Farah Mendlesohn, “Toward a Taxonomy of Fantasy,”
Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts
13, no. 2 (2002); Farah Mendlesohn, “
Conjunctions 39
and Liminal Fantasy,”
Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts
15, no. 3 (2005). The outline here only hints at the complexities of liminal fantasy, given that this category has no bearing on the discussions in this book, but interested readers are encouraged to refer to Mendlesohn's book for a more exhaustive description.

39
. Mendlesohn,
Rhetorics
, xv–xvii; for a discussion of texts that exist simultaneously in several categories, see ch. 5 of Mendlesohn's work.

40
. Mendlesohn,
Rhetorics
, 114. It could even be argued that the episodes narrated by Yagharek, the stranger who has journeyed to the city on a mission of his own, are brief instances of a portal–quest voice.

41
. John Clute and John Grant, eds.,
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
(New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1999), contains some forty types of fantasy, labeled according to, e.g., setting, plot structure, origin of source material, handling of source material, portrayal of magic, type of protagonist, age of (intended) reader, and story themes.

42
. See, e.g., John Clute, “Taproot Texts,” in
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
, 921; Attebery,
Fantasy Tradition
, 5–9; Wolfe,
Critical Terms
, xviii; John-Henri Holmberg,
Fantasy: Fantasylitteraturens historia, motiv och författare
[The history, motifs, and authors of fantasy literature] ([Viken, Sweden]: Replik, 1995), 14; and Mathews,
Fantasy
, 2–3. Although he does not call attention to this fact, the earliest “modern fantasy” work Manlove discusses is George MacDonald's
Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women
(1858); see Manlove,
Modern Fantasy
.

43
. In-depth discussions of some of the genre's historical development can be found in Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn, eds.,
The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), and detailed accounts of the evolution of fantasy literature can be found in, e.g., Farah Mendlesohn and Edward James,
A Short History of Fantasy
(London: Middlesex University Press, 2009), and Attebery,
Fantasy Tradition
. For briefer overviews, see, e.g., Shippey, introduction to
Fantasy Stories
, and Mathews,
Fantasy
, 5–20.

44
. Elgin,
Comedy
, 31.

45
. Gary K. Wolfe, “Evaporating Genres,”
Evaporating Genres: Essays on Fantastic Literature
(Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2011), 24, 30. He acknowledges the existence of previous fantasy literature, though, in pulp magazines such as
Weird Tales
(1923–54 and later revivals) and
Unknown
(1939–43), digests such as
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
(1949–current), and the books of individual writers.

46
. Wolfe, “Evaporating,” 24.

47
. Tolkien, “On Fairy-stories,” 37 et passim.

48
. Wolfe,
Critical Terms
, 115.

49
. Brian Stableford, “The Discovery of Secondary Worlds: Notes on the Aesthetics & Methodology of Heterocosmic Creativity,”
The New York Review of Science Fiction
(August 2004): 6.

50
. As employed by philosophers such as David Lewis, “Truth in Fiction,”
Philosophy of Literature: Contemporary and Classic Readings: An Anthology
, eds. Eileen John and Dominic McIver Lopes (1978; Oxford: Blackwell, 2004); and in applications to literature, see, e.g., Lubomír Doležel,
Heterocosmica: Fiction and Possible Worlds
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 2 ff.; Nancy H. Traill,
Possible Worlds of the Fantastic: The Rise of the Paranormal in Fiction
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 8–9.

51
. For a more in-depth discussion of how the actual world relates to its fictional counterpart(s), see Marie-Laure Ryan,
Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence, and Narrative Theory
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), esp. ch. 2.

52
. Zahorski and Boyer, “Secondary Worlds,” 58–63.

53
. Ibid., “Secondary Worlds,” 56. The authors make clear that
high
and
low
are not to be taken as evaluative terms. Alternative terms, e.g.
indigenous fantasy
(Attebery,
Strategies
, 129), have been suggested but are not as frequently employed.

54
. Doležel,
Heterocosmica
, 128.

55
. Traill,
Possible Worlds
, ch. 1.

56
. Ibid., 8, citing Raymond Bradley and Norman Swartz,
Possible Worlds: An Introduction to Logic and Its Philosophy
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1979), 6.

57
. Clute, “Land.”

2. MAPS

1
. Elizabeth M. Ingram, “Maps as Readers' Aids: Maps and Plans in Geneva Bibles,”
Imago Mundi
45 (1993): 44.

2
. Ricardo Padrón, “Mapping Imaginary Worlds,”
Maps: Finding Our Place in the World
, eds. James R. Akerman and Robert W. Karrow, Jr. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 261–62.

3
. See, e.g., Padrón, “Mapping,” 265–66.

4
. In a piece from 1981, Walker claims that the interest in fantasy maps engendered by the Middle-earth maps has meant that “a map has become almost
de rigeur
[sic] in new and reprinted fantasy” (R. C. Walker, “The Cartography of Fantasy,”
Mythlore
7, no. 4 [1981]: 37). A quarter of a century later, Padrón expresses the same opinion: the influence of Tolkien and C. S. Lewis has made maps “standard fixtures of the genre” (Padrón, “Mapping,” 272). Kaveney concurs that “[i]n imitation [of Tolkien], almost all modern genre fantasies come equipped with a map, to the extent that maps are only much noticed when absent” (Roz Kaveney, “Maps,” in
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
, 624.)

5
. Kaveney, “Maps,” 624.

6
. J. B. Post,
An Atlas of Fantasy
(1973; New York: Ballantine, 1979).

7
. Diane Duane, “Cartography for Other Worlds: A Short Look at a Neglected Subject,”
SFWA Bulletin
11, no. 5 (1976).

8
. Lee N. Falconer,
A Gazet[t]eer of the Hyborian World of Conan, Including Also the World of Kull, and an Ethnogeographical Dictionary of Principal Peoples of the Era, with Reference to the Starmont Map of the Hyborian World
(West Linn, OR: Starmont House, 1977), vii–xiii.

9
. Diana Wynne Jones,
The Tough Guide to Fantasyland
(New York: Firebird-Penguin, 2006), [x].

10
. Frank W. Day, “The Role and Purpose of the Map in Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature” (M.A. thesis, Bowling Green State University, 1979), 3.

11
. Clare Ranson, “Cartography in Children's Literature,”
Sustaining the Vision: Selected Papers from the Annual Conference of the International Association of School Librarianship
(Worcester, UK: International Association of School Librarianship, 1996), 166.

12
. Ranson, “Cartography,” 165.

13
. Walker, “Cartography,” 37.

14
. Such as the additional maps that have been created for
The Lord of the Rings
; see Karen Wynn Fonstad, “Writing ‘TO' the Map,”
Tolkien Studies
3 (2006).

15
. Peter Hunt, “Landscapes and Journeys, Metaphors and Maps: The Distinctive Feature of English Fantasy,”
Children's Literature Association Quarterly
12, no. 1 (1987): 11.

16
. Ibid., 11.

17
. Ibid., 13.

18
. Myles Balfe, “Incredible Geographies? Orientalism and Genre Fantasy,”
Social and Cultural Geography
5, no. 1 (2004): 82–83.

19
. Pierre Jourde,
Géographies imaginaires de quelques inventeurs de mondes au XXe siècle: Gracq, Borges, Michaux, Tolkien
[Imaginary geographies by some twentieth century inventors of worlds: Gracq, Borges, Michaux, Tolkien] (Paris: José Corti, 1991), 113–32.

20
. Ibid., 126–27.

21
. Ibid., 131.

22
. See, e.g., Jourde,
Géographies imaginaires
, 125, in which the gulf of Lhûn's shape is simplified to look more like a ship—which better fits the author's argument. Jourde also makes too much of the linguistic similarity between Lhûn/Lune and “la lune” (128–29).

23
. Deirdre F. Baker, “What We Found on Our Journey through Fantasy Land,”
Children's Literature in Education
37 (2006): 239.

24
. Ibid., 240.

25
. Ibid., 242.

26
. Padrón, “Mapping,” 276, 279.

27
. See, for instance, Padrón, “Mapping,” 272–74. Calling Sauron an evil wizard and referring to the “folksy names” of the Shire (275) also detract from the force of his argument by suggesting that he is either not completely familiar with the text or prone to oversimplification.

28
. Padrón, “Mapping,” 286.

29
. Nicholas Tam, “Here Be Cartographers: Reading the Fantasy Map,”
Nick's Café Canadien
(blog), April 18, 2011,
http://www.nicholastam.ca/2011/04/18/here-be-cartographers-reading-the-fantasy-map/
.

30
. International Cartographic Association, “ICA Mission,” last modified March 18, 2012,
http://icaci.org/mission
.

31
. Arthur H. Robinson and Barbara Bartz Petchenik,
The Nature of Maps: Essays toward Understanding Maps and Mapping
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), 16.

32
. Ibid., 15.

33
. Jeremy Black,
Maps and Politics
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 100 ff.

34
. Denis Wood,
The Power of Maps
(London: Routledge, 1993), 199n43, 126.

35
. Denis Wood,
Rethinking the Power of Maps
(New York: Guilford Press, 2010), 36–38.

36
. Padrón, “Mapping,” 260–65.

37
. Gérard Genette,
Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation
, trans. Jane E. Lewin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 1.

38
. Ibid., 404–5.

39
. J. R. R. Tolkien,
The Hobbit, or, There and Back Again
(1937; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997), 19. Thror's Map is discussed further later in the text.

40
. Genette,
Paratexts
, 2.

41
. Niels Windfeld Lund, “Doceo + Mentum—A Ground for a New Discipline,” paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Document Academy, Berkeley, CA, August 13–15, 2003,
http://thedocumentacademy.org/resources/2003/papers/lund.paper.html
; see also Niels Windfeld Lund, “Building a Discipline, Creating a Profession: An Essay on the Childhood of ‘Dokvit',”
A Document (Re)turn: Contributions from a Research Field in Transition
, eds. Roswitha Skare et al. (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2007), 23; and Niels Windfeld Lund, “Documentation in a Complementary Perspective,”
Aware and Responsible: Papers of the Nordic-International Colloquium on Social and Cultural Awareness and Responsibility in Library, Information, and Documentation Studies (SCARLID)
, ed. W. Boyd Rayward (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2004), 100.

42
. Orson Scott Card,
How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy
(Cincinnati: Writer's Digest Books, 1990), 28–32.

43
. Day, “Role and Purpose,” 11. The quotation comes from a comment on the questionnaire sent by Day to Anderson. In the questionnaire itself, Anderson's answer to whether he felt the map should be created after the story is written was “Not At All,” the questionnaire's strongest possible negative choice (12).

44
. Tolkien to Naomi Mitchison, April 25, 1954, in
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien
, ed. Humphrey Carpenter (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000), 177; see also Tolkien to Rayner Unwin, April 11, 1953, 168.