First Published

Rating: Great

If you've been reading fantasy for any significant amount of time, you've probably come across at least a couple of books that bombarded you with clichés to the point that you had to wonder if the author was serious when they wrote the book. If this sounds like a familiar experience, Diana Wynne Jones' The Tough Guide to Fantasyland will make for an entertaining read.

The parody guide is written as a tourist brochure, including (of course) a map and a brief section on how to use the book, followed by a few hundred pages of alphabetically-listed entries on everything from "boots" to "economy" to "missing heirs" to...well, I won't spoil the fun of looking up all the archetypes and overused elements of fantasy that you'll find in this book. Suffice to say that, with all the cross-referencing going on, reading the guide has the same effect as spending the evening on Wikipedia--you'll be looking things up for hours.

The encyclopedic element of the book does make it interesting in its own way, but I can't help wondering if the information could have been better arranged, perhaps like an actual tourist brochure is laid out--food, locations, etc. But the focus of the book isn't the layout, and Jones seems to have a good time poking fun at genre fantasy. Not only that, but along the way she poses some interesting questions about how some fantasy worlds manage to run smoothly in between all the gaps in worldbuilding.

If you're familiar with fantasy novels and don't mind seeing certain elements of them mocked, or even if you're a writer who wants an idea of what's been done to death, pick up a copy of The Tough Guide to Fantasyland. It's probably not something you'll want to read from cover to cover, but it's entertaining as a coffee table book or a reference guide, and a great way to spend an evening.