Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Every so often I am griped by the strange delusion that I am an author on the verge of writing a great novel. It was in one of these states that I ordered "The Writer's Complete Fantasy Reference. Upon receiving the book my first thought was that it was much thinner than I had imagined it would be. My worries that the book was less than complete were confirmed in reading just a few pages. I recognize that one book could not hope to fully cover the various worlds of high fantasy and the background necessary to create a viable fantasy world. Yet I had hoped for so much more than what was presented here. The book seems to suffer from many problems the most prominent is that it has a very bad case of bad editing. The book is obviously a collection of articles that have appeared elsewhere and they lack any sort of overall cohesion. The chapter on medieval Europe, the traditional fantasy setting, is severely lacking. It begins with a discussion of feudalism, leaving out the fact that feudal monarchies differed in structure and power from place to place. The feudal system of twelfth century Bavaria looked nothing like the system in place in England. Worse the book provides the impression that the singular kind of feudalism presented was the only governing system in use. The chapter includes a short list of titles of royalty but there is no indication of how these various personages would fit together to form a ruling class. What exactly is the difference between a Baronet and a Viscount? Who has more power a Marchioness or a Duke? What kind of social or economic benefits do these titles provide? None of these questions were answered. Additionally there is no indication of hierarchy among the nobles. Three is no indication of how nobles might interact with those of lesser stations. Would the lady of the manor speak directly to the goatherd or would she speak through an intermediary? Missing entirely is a discussion of day to day activities for peoples of various classes. The chapter on commerce, trade and law contained NO information on trade or commerce. Information about goods and raw materials valuable enough to justify the cost of shipping them across a continent are sadly lacking. There is a rather extensive list of occupations characters might have in a fantasy novel, the list is in fact the bulk of this chapter. The discussion of law was limited to a list of possible punishments one might expect to endure. We are provided with no clue as to what crimes might be connected to these punishments. What was a flogging offense compared to what constitutes and death sentence? There exists no discussion of just who enforced the laws, what sort of court system existed and the like are ignored. Most disappointing of all is the lack of information on the connection between the religious sect of society and the legal system. Orson Scott Card in his highly recommended book "How to Write Science Fiction &Fantasy" provided more information of magic and magical systems in one sentence than this book managed to provided in 67 pages. His one sentence was "What is the price of magic?" Novels of high fantasy are overrun with magical systems, many of them making no sense what so ever, yet the complete reference book does not address this issue in the least. In the sections on magic we are treated to yet another lengthy list of Native American power animals, forms of divination, possible magical powers your wizards could have and the like. In a book seemingly devoted to being a reference of high fantasy writing I had to pause to wonder why I was reading about the modern Neo-Pagan religion. There was page after page devoted to information on Wicca, Wiccan ritual structure, Gerald Gardner, the Church of All Worlds, Neo-Viking traditions and other modern Pagan organizations. What these have to do with sword and sorcery fantasy writing is beyond me. My only thought is that the editor's felt the book was to short and had this article just lying around. The chapter on fantasy races seems more a half hearted run down of what famous authors have envisioned races such as Dwarves and Elves would be like. A discussion of history or mythology of these races would have been far more useful. The chapter on creatures of myth and legend is yet another list of magical creatures. The list is neither informative nor very helpful. The book is a collection of disjointed articles and their sum does not make a whole. The pieces are disconnected in style and substance.