Cover annotated centennial edition published by W.W. Norton & Company in 2014 (the edition I own)

(8) J.M. BARRIE –

PETER PAN (1902-1911)

Peter Pan, the fictional character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J.M. Barrie, needs little introduction but I’ll quote one anyway.

“A free-spirited and mischievous young boy who can fly and never grows up, he spends his never-ending childhood having adventures on the mythical island of Neverland as the leader of the Lost Boys, interacting with fairies, pirates, mermaids, Native Americans, and occasionally ordinary children from the world outside Neverland…Peter Pan has become a cultural icon symbolising youthful innocence and escapism”.

On the topic of fairies, I can’t mention Peter Pan without his fairy companion Tinkerbell.

However, there are some things I might be able to introduce about him.

The first major appearance of Peter Pan was in a play rather than the novel he is better remembered by – the 1904 stage play by Barrie, Peter Pan: or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up (although that was preceded by his appearance in another of Barrie’s works, The Little White Bird in 1902), before the play was expanded into the 1911 novel, Peter and Wendy.

“The original play is fairy Child-Friendly: Captain Hook is a blustering comic villain, the violence is usually a pratfall or similar form of slapstick, and death is treated more like a time-out. In contrast, the book version (Peter and Wendy) later written by Barrie is a sly deconstruction of the Victorian notion of the sacred innocence of children, full of parental bonus dark humor and subtle gallows humor; Barrie was a master satirist for his time, though few of his satires are remembered today.”

However, Peter Pan is an archetypal magical trickster hero – “a playful demigod, with aspects of Puck and Pan” (the latter even in his name) and “a cultural symbol of youthful exuberance and innocence”. And I just can’t resist the revival of Pan, that most pagan of classical pagan gods – indeed one that came to embody classical paganism – as a trickster hero of children’s fantasy. Not to mention giving him a thoroughly Dionysian character and – particularly for the proverbial boy who never grew up – a veritable harem of fairies, mermaids and Wendy Darling.

And of course there’s his love of adventure among the Lost Boys fighting pirates, including the ‘adventure’ of his own mortality

“The story of Peter Pan has been a popular one for adaptation into other media” – film, both live-action and animated, stage plays or musicals, television, comics and so on, with perhaps the best known as the 1953 Disney animated film.

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Collage of cover art of all twelve Nightside books published by Ace (and the editions I own)

(8) SIMON R. GREEN –

NIGHTSIDE (2003-2012)

“The Nightside. That square mile of Hell in the middle of the city, where it’s always three AM. Where you can walk beside myths and drink with monsters. Where nothing is what it seems and everything is possible.”

Simon R. Green is the author of one of my favorite of the ‘trenchcoat brigade’ of occult detectives following in the footsteps of Hellblazer’s John Constantine – John Taylor of the Nightside. The Nightside itself is an eldritch and extra-dimensional suburb of London, except of course that it is not so much a suburb as a hidden world inside London. And in it is all manner of beings, gods and eldritch abominations. As for John Taylor, he has a magical gift or ‘inner eye’ for finding anything, or would if it generally didn’t find him trouble first – or worse, allow trouble to find him.

What I particularly enjoy about the Green’s writing in general and the Nightside series in particular is that it has the tongue-in-cheek sensibility of writing in comics – indeed, the Nightside series often feels like a prose comic, particularly in its vivid characters with matching names or titles. Protagonist John Taylor is of course somewhat nondescript in his name, but then there’s his colleagues like Shotgun Suzie, Razor Eddie, Sinner (and Pretty Poison), Madman, Dead Boy and the Oblivion brothers. Not to mention antagonists or abominations like the Harrowing, the Lamentation and Kid Cthulhu.

The highpoint of the series is the first half of it, with its longer story arc through the individual books in which John Taylor confronts the mystery of his mother – a mystery which was best left unsolved, particularly as it involves his apparent destiny in ushering in the Apocalypse (and the source of the Harrowing which pursues him), a destiny even more disturbing because he has seen it for himself in the future…

Close runner-up is his standalone novel Shadow’s Fall, although it has a similar premise (and was ultimately interconnected with) the Night Side series – “a town, where legends, human and otherwise, go out to live their lives as belief in them dies” on the brink of apocalypse (or apocalypses)…

RATING:
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Cover art of The Compleat Discworld Atlas, Doubleday UK 2025 edition

(7) TERRY PRATCHETT –
DISCWORLD (1983 – 2015)

Discworld needs little introduction to fans of fantasy – a literal flat-earth (hence its name) balanced on the back of four titanic elephants in turn on the back of the cosmic turtle, Great A’Tuin. This world is the setting for a fantasy comedy series (spanning over 40 books and a similar number of years) which is a parody or satire of virtually every trope within fantasy and many outside it, as well as virtually every major work of fantasy – from Lovecraft through Conan to Tolkien and even the bard himself, Shakespeare.

Books in the series follow different story threads or characters within it – with my favorite being those that follow the cowardly ‘wizard’ Rincewind, “a wizard with no skill, no wizardly qualifications, and no interest in heroics”, ever since his role as the protagonist in the first two books (escorting the naïve tourist Twoflower and his Luggage). Sprawling in some degree through most of the books is the city of Ankh-Morpork (and its City Watch, the protagonists of their own story arc or thread of books within the series) – a city clearly influenced by Fritz Leiber’s Lankhmar, and like that city, a city which somehow survives despite itself.

RATING:
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Cover art hardcover annotated centenniel edition W.W. Norton & Co 2010 (the edition I own)

(7) L. FRANK BAUM –

THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ (1900)

“I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore”

Better known these days from the 1939 cinematic adaptation – shortened to The Wizard of Oz – than from the original novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, the story and its female protagonist Dorothy Gale remain iconic in modern fantasy.

Through Dorothy’s adventures with their vivid imagery and characters, not least the central trio of her companions in the original novel and cinematic adaptation – the Scarecrow, the Tinman, and the Cowardly Lion – the book and its protagonist Dorothy have remained rich sources of adaptations and allusions throughout popular culture.

Dorothy is fundamentally (mid-western) American, befitting the protagonist of what was intended as a modern American fairy tale. She’s a Kansas farm girl, although she subsequently becomes a princess of Oz and lives there, in the numerous sequels which lack the iconic status of the first book. She’s an orphan raised by her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry, with her equally iconic dog Toto. Famously, she and Toto are swept up in a tornado to the Land of Oz.

However, Dorothy is more iconic in popular culture through the 1939 cinematic adaptation (portrayed by Judy Garland) than her original novels. Her appearance was never set out in the books, so that her cinematic appearance has become iconic – although it did retain the literary description of her clothing as her trademark blue and white gingham dress. Otherwise, the film condensed the novel – but most significantly altered the ending, that it was all just a dream – unlike the original novel, where it was all definitely real.

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Cover art 2013 Vintage edition

(6) STEPHEN KING –

SALEM’S LOT (1975)

Hail to the King! Stephen King, that is. One of the most iconic and prolific writers of our time. Lines and scenes from his work reverberate throughout popular culture, albeit particularly driven by cinematic or screen adaptations. His prose is vivid and visceral – indeed, the only books that have given me bad dreams, something which generally only occurs from the direct visualization of movies. In short, I am that Constant Reader to which King addresses his Author’s Notes.

As for which book to select for this entry, I considered It, a book that not only has its own individual mythos and is an important part of King’s overarching mythos, but also encapsulates and symbolizes King’s mythology. It traces its shapeshifting eldritch entity of evil in its favorite shape of Pennywise the Clown, as well as its lair and hunting ground, the town of Derry in Maine, and its opponents, the Losers’ Club through multiple and overlapping layers. However, I just can’t give it the spot for this entry because of its narrative missteps –and yes, I’m talking about THAT scene, which I prefer to mentally omit from the novel. There’s also The Talisman, written with Peter Straub – the closest King came to an epic fantasy in the style of The Lord of the Rings, across the United States as it overlaps with a multiverse.

Funnily enough, I went back to one of his first novels. I was tempted to choose his first novel, Carrie, but ultimately I went with King’s version of Dracula in Maine – Salem’s Lot.

RATING:
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Creative Education 2008 hardcover edition cover art

(5) SHIRLEY JACKSON –

“THE LOTTERY” (1948)

Like the Awards named after her, Shirley Jackson is known for stories of psychological suspense, horror and dark fantasy, ever so subtly bubbling to the surface of our world. This is amply demonstrated by her most famous story “The Lottery”, and indeed, in her collection of stories, named for it – The Lottery and Other Stories. One might consider the nature of her stories as fantasy to be arguable, but as I said, the fantasy in her stories is a subtle intrusion into our world – maybe mundane, maybe magical. The Lottery and Other Stories bore the subtitle The Adventures of James Harris, for a recurring figure in the stories of that collection, who may or may not be supernatural – he certainly seems to be a daemon lover or Dionysian force, complete with his retinue of maenads (who can then take over people’s apartments by sheer force of persuasion).

As for “The Lottery”, it has an ambience of dark fantasy to it – set, it seems, in an alternative United States. One in which small American towns casually celebrate an annual festival in much the same way as any other annual event – a lottery which the winner does not seem eager for the prize (and indeed vociferously protests its unfairness), but which the townsfolk insists on giving to her. Because, you know, the crops and harvest depend on it. Cue the stones…or in the words of John Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn – “Who are these coming to the sacrifice?”

Of course, the story’s power is in its symbolism, resonant of so many images of the dark underbelly of American society, or the American Dream. After all, it doesn’t take too much to imagine something like the Lottery – perhaps not so blunt of course, but still, you know…

As newscaster Kent Brockman referred to it in an episode of The Simpsons, it is a chilling tale of social conformity – and not, much to Homer’s disappointment on checking it out of the library, a guide to winning the lottery.

RATING:
A-TIER (TOP TIER)