Did your parents read you Grimm’s Fairy Tales when you were a child? Or perhaps they read you A. A. Milne’s Winnie-The-Pooh? Or did you yourself read Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland, or J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, or some other imaginative adventure? If so then you have a start in the ever expanding world of fantasy literature. Philip Martin’s A Guide To Fantasy Literature will appeal to anyone who has an imagination, who can put aside their “disbelief” (as William Wordsworth wrote in his Preface to Lyric Ballads) and allow a story to take them wherever it will.

Martin has peppered his book with quite lengthy quotes from the novels and this serves to very much wet the appetite of those who have not read much fantasy. “That is interesting, and what happens next?” we ask ourselves.

The general reader is also guided to see what to look for in a fantasy book, or indeed any book. We are encouraged, for example, to ask: what is the character’s motivation, and do they change through the book? Thinking about these questions may at first seem a bit deep, but they are things we ask ourselves about the people we know in ordinary life. Thinking about books in this way can help us to see fantasy tales as more than simply adventure stories, to enjoy them even more because they say things about ‘real’ life.

For those who have read a lot of this genre there will be many moments of pleasurable recognition as old favourites are recalled to mind. The seasoned reader may also come away from A Guide To Fantasy Literature liking the novels they have read even more, as Martin has a great knack of bringing out the more subtle details and messages hidden by the authors in their stories.

As well as readers, this book will very much appeal to those who want to write fantasy stories. The first edition of this book was indeed published under the title The Writers Guide To Fantasy Literature. Martin examines the nuts and bolts of the genre and his enthusiasm for the subject makes us think, “I wonder if I could write fantasy?”