Hits and near-myths

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Author: Amanda Craig
Date: Sept. 17, 2005
From: The Times(Issue 68495)
Publisher: NI Syndication Limited
Document Type: Review
Length: 395,608 words
Source Library: Times Newspapers Limited

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0208 0FFO-2005-0917-0208-002-001 16[S3]

ooks Fiction

ooks Fiction

0208 0FFO-2005-0917-0208-002-001 16[S3]

Hits and near-myths

Hits and near-myths

0208 0FFO-2005-0917-0208-002-001 16[S3]

Amanda Craig meets Robin Hobb, and discovers that there is such a thing as fantasy for grown-ups

Amanda Craig meets Robin Hobb, and discovers that there is such a thing as fantasy for grown-ups

0208 0FFO-2005-0917-0208-002-002 16[S3]

IT IS A PARADOX THAT, while children's fantasy writing has soared in public esteem, fantasy for adults remains in a ghetto. With our leading imprint of fantasy, Voyager, celebrating its tenth anniversary this month and the genre dominating British and US fiction lists, the time has come to ask whether it should be put away with childish things. "i see all fiction as escapist," Robin Hobb says. "I'd say literary fiction is a sub-genre of fantasy, trying to mimic real life at its most depressing and oppressive. I'm mystified as to why people think fantasy is only for children." The author of a nine-volume sequence that has been compared, justly, with the works of Tolkien and Ursula le Guin, Hobb is one ofthe great modern fantasy writers. Yet still she remains below the literary radar. Hobb shares with le Guin the gift for thinking through the logical implications of what a world would be like if magic existed, and for writing about it in clear, vivid prose. Her fantasy world has a Shakespearean flavour, for Fitz, the narrator and hero of the Farseer trilogy, is a royal bastard who must survive in a court very similar to that of King Lear. In addition to the Machiavellian scheming of his relations, he is burdened by inheriting magic skills that must be kept secret. Witches and wizards have always had animal familiars, but Hobb makes this bond as passionate as the deepest romantic love. The closer the compassionate, agonised Fitz gets to his wolf, Nighteyes, the farther he must travel from human society. Love and slavery, secrecy and honesty are woven into a compelling series that predates many aspects of

IT IS A PARADOX THAT, while children's fantasy writing has soared in public esteem, fantasy for adults remains in a ghetto. With our leading imprint of fantasy, Voyager, celebrating its tenth anniversary this month and the genre dominating British and US fiction lists, the time has come to ask whether it should be put away with childish things. "i see all fiction as escapist," Robin Hobb says. "I'd say literary fiction is a sub-genre of fantasy, trying to mimic real life at its most depressing and oppressive. I'm mystified as to why people think fantasy is only for children." The author of a nine-volume sequence that has been compared, justly, with the works of Tolkien and Ursula le Guin, Hobb is one ofthe great modern fantasy writers. Yet still she remains below the literary radar. Hobb shares with le Guin the gift for thinking through the logical implications of what a world would be like if magic existed, and for writing about it in clear, vivid prose. Her fantasy world...

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