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Like many, I cut my eye teeth on Tolkien, starting with The Hobbit (which was a delight) and then onto The Lord Of The Rings (which became something of a chore) and less than halfway through The Silmarillion I gave up on swords and sorcery completely. My only indulgence was Dungeons And Dragons but even then I leaned more towards the likes of Ravenloft than Forgotten Realms and the like. And then, in the late eighties, new horror sensation Clive Barker wrote a book called Weaveworld. At last, someone had written a fantasy with balls...and not a talking dragon in sight.
To date, the only fantasy stuff I ever entertain is Barker's. When he writes for adults, as with The Great And Secret Show and Imajica, he really writes for adults, and when he writes for kids, as with The Thief Of Always and Abarat, he doesn't shy away from the dark stuff; he never patronises his audience. |
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