Search Results for: "de lint"

Tor Double #19: Fritz Leiber’s Ill Met in Lankhmar and Charles de Lint’s The Fair in Emain Macha

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This volume of the Tor Double series offers something it hasn’t offered before.  Although several of the novellas previously published in the series have played with the tropes of fantasy novels, such as Jack Vance’s The Last Castle or Joanna Russ’s Souls, all of the stories published to this point have been science fiction. With Volume 19, the series offers two novellas which are unabashedly fantasy, Fritz Leiber’s Ill Met in Lankhmar and Charles de Lint’s The Fair in Emain…

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Vintage Treasures: Moonheart by Charles de Lint

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Moonheart (Ace Books, 1984). Cover by David Mattingly I started reading science fiction and fantasy in the late 1970s, with authors like Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, Stephen R. Donaldson, and of course J.R.R. Tolkien. I learned an enormous amount from those early books, about astronomy, and space travel, and speculative physics and chemistry. And about adult relationships, and the US. military, and the kind of alien life that might exist on Venus (the kind that resembled dinosaurs, obviously). But one…

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Random Reviews: “Wizard’s Bounty” by Charles de Lint

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“Wizard’s Bounty” is an early short story by Charles de Lint, first published in 1979 in Dark Fantasy magazine and only reprinted in de Lint’s collection A Handful of Coppers. As such an early appearance, it does not have the feel of much of de Lint’s work as he was clearly trying to find his voice when the story was written, which certainly does not mean that it isn’t a story worth reading. de Lint has published a handful of…

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Rock Stars, Bloggers, and Hidden Magic: The Wind in His Heart by Charles de Lint

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I met Charles de Lint when he was an unpublished author in the early 80s. We both hung out at the best bookstore in town, the much-missed House of Speculative Fiction in downtown Ottawa. There was a big fuss about his first novel, The Riddle of The Wren (1984), plucked out of the slush at Ace Books by legendary editor Terri Windling, but it was the bestselling Moonheart (Ace, 1984) that made us realize that Charles wasn’t just a local boy…

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Charles de Lint and The Little Country

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In talking about portal fantasies last time, I was moved to reread one of the more unusual examples of the sub-genre, Charles de Lint’s The Little Country (1991). The book is in a very real sense two books, but it isn’t a simple play-within-a-play, story-within-a-story thing: Each book is being read by the protagonist of the other. The now-overused self-referential concept known as “meta” wasn’t so common when The Little Country was written, but it might have been invented to…

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Vintage Treasures: Charles de Lint’s Wolf Moon, and a Tale of Roving Booksellers

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It pays to know excellent booksellers. On Tuesday, Rich Warren, co-owner of Starfarer’s Despatch, posted a pic of Charles de Lint’s 1988 Signet paperback Wolf Moon on Facebook and later this brief review: What a blast. Just finished this one this morning. A tale sympathetic to the Werewolf, and told from his point of view. I know there are De Lint fans who enjoy his urban fantasy (Newford) more but the great writing is still present in these older fantasies….

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A Circle of Cats by Charles de Lint and Charles Vess

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It’s always a pleasure when two creators I admire collaborate. Case in point: A Circle of Cats, a Charles de Lint short story gorgeously illustrated by Charles Vess. Although it’s very short (48 pages, at least half of which is full-color artwork), A Circle of Cats is a complete and satisfying tale. It tells the story of Lillian, a 12-year-old orphan who lives on the edge of a vast and very old wood with her aunt. One day, after all her chores…

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Charles de Lint’s Promises to Keep

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Promises to Keep Charles de Lint Tachyon (192 pp, $14.95, Paperback May 2011)  Reviewed by Elizabeth Cady Charles de Lint has become one of the big names in the worlds of Urban and Mythic Fantasy, and for good reason. At its best, his stories are beautifully crafted. They capture both the wonder of the everyday and the sheer strangeness of the otherworld that can intrude into our own. A key aspect of his work has been his creation of Newford,…

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A Review of Jack the Giant Killer, by Charles de Lint

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Jack the Giant Killer, by Charles de Lint Ace (202 pages, hardcover, November 1987) Charles de Lint’s Jack the Giant Killer is an urban fantasy novel, but it feels more accurate to call it an urban fairy tale. It’s set in Ottawa and makes frequent references to streets and landmarks; I have a feeling I’d get even more out of it if I were the least bit familiar with the city. Fortunately, geographic familiarity is not required to enjoy this…

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Quatro-Decadal Review: Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1999, edited by Gordon Van Gelder and Robin O’Connor

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This is a 50th Anniversary double issue… why did it have to be a double issue? I hate to start the review with a petty observation like that, but honestly, this was a bigger task than I was hoping for, especially because the November ’99 Asimov’s SF was also a double issue! Right inside the cover is an ad for Frank M. Robinson’s Science Fiction of the 20th Century:  An illustrated History.  Really pulling the nostalgia strings for the older…

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