Recently I've been reading The Face in the Frost by John Bellairs and Fair Peril by Nancy Springer and they've both helped me to reconnect with something that I had been missing in other works of fantasy--the dread of the unknown and a sense of sadness for things that pass through our lives. When I was reading Tolkien as a child, giant pony-eating goblins were frightening, as were spiders large enough to carry off small children. The bright passages were stunning and the dark ones were chill, but this is something that I see less of now than I did then.
It could be that fantasists don't write about bright and dark the same way, but it could also be harder for me to find the wonder that I did then or corral my anxieties into fear for a work of fiction; yet, these authors brought me into their worlds and populated them with that pleasant unease that makes you creep toward the door behind which is a faint banging...
Perhaps its just that at the turn of the year I'm looking for a good ghost story, something to shiver me out of the drought my tiny bit of Texas is undergoing (and over which rain clouds with a mean sense of humor linger and then fade). It's this sense of unease and possibly outright fear that feeds the stakes of a fantasy novel and it's something that is difficult to do well if you're focusing on a fantastic escape or a fantastic romance. So far, both of these books are charming me deeper down the hallway. The banging is still faint, but I'm thinking it may become louder very shortly.
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