It's a Fantasy World!: Exploring the Best Fantasy of Page and Screen (in English)
Synopsis "It's a Fantasy World!: Exploring the Best Fantasy of Page and Screen (in English)"
In 2015, the literary world celebrated the 150th anniversary of a milestone in the history of imaginative fiction, the publication of Lewis Carroll's 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'. The year 2016 celebrated yet another literary landmark.In the summer of 1816, in a villa near Geneva, a group of young people including Lord Byron, his physician John Polidori, Percy Shelley and Mary Godwin were spending wet evenings reading ghost stories when Byron suggested they each write one of their own. The deliberations that followed produced two of the earliest and most influential works of fantasy literature: John Polidori's 'The Vampyre' and Mary Godwin (later Shelley)'s 'Frankenstein'.Dreaming the fantastical seems to be an integral part of the human psyche, and Science Fiction and Fantasy are undoubtedly among the most popular and enduring genres of literature and film. Are we alone in the universe, a single intelligence among the quadrillions or quintillions of star systems out there? Are wormholes real? Is time reversible?These are the fantasies of today - the realms of the impossible - just as, for our ancestors, flying, computers and television would have been magic in their ages. But we wonder, as they wondered. We dream, as they dreamed.From the fairy tales of childhood to the myths of ancient Greece, from the dark world of the vampire to the tantalising paradox of time travel, from the epics of Homer to the imaginary worlds of Tolkien and George RR Martin, 'It's a Fantasy World' takes the reader on a literary journey through the realms of the improbable, of myth and of make-believe.Featuring reviews of the author's favourite novels and movies, this book also includes a comprehensive bibliography of fantasy literature through the ages.'It's a Fantasy World' is essential company for fans of Isaac Asimov, CS Lewis, Tolkien, Ray Bradbury and Ursula Le Guin, to name only a few of the greats, and - on screen - aficiandos of Star Trek, Dr Who, Battlestar Galactica and the rest.
