Fantasy Encyclopedia Updates: Q to T

RACKHAM, ARTHUR The Allies' Fairy Book is an original publication, and thus its publication date should be given in bold: 1916. The publication date of Where the Blue Begins (1925) by Christopher MORLEY should not be given in bold; the novel was first published in 1922.

To Further reading add Arthur Rackham: A Biography (1990) by James Hamilton, which is heavily illustrated.

RUSSIA Fantasy as a literary genre had its origins in the FAIRYTALE, or folklore. Russian fantasy is no exception; it has grown from Russian – more precisely Slavonic – folklore. Such tales as "The Tale of Bova a King's Son" (16th century), "The Tale of the Sorrow" (17th century) and "The Tale of the Golden Tree and the Golden Parrot" (17th century) laid the foundations for Russian fantasy. But the road from folklore to literature was quite a long one. Only near the end of the 18th century, under the impact of the French literary fairytale (as written by Charles PERRAULT and others), did the first Russian fantasy writers appear – Vasily LEVSHIN (entry in Addenda), with The Russian Tales (coll 1780-83) and The Night Hours (coll 1787-88), Mikhail Popov (1742-1790) with The Ancient Wonders (1785) and Mikhail TCHULKOV (entry in Addenda) with The Mocker (coll 1765) and The Concise Mythological Lexicon (1767). All these books were very popular, being reprinted many times, but failed to arouse significant public interest in fantasy as a whole.

This interest was eventually sparked by Romanticism. Inspired by Johann W. GOETHE's Faust (1808-32) and by the works of E.T.A. HOFFMANN and other German romantics, the Russian Romantics – including Alexander Bestuzhev-Marlinsky (1797-1837), Wilhelm Kuchelbecker (1797-1846), Vladimir Odoevsky (1803-1869) and Antoni Pogorelsky or Perovski (1787-1830) – began to use fantasy motifs widely, though these motifs were not pivotal to their work. It is fair to say that Russian fantasy of that time was imitative; often of Hoffmann, but with Russian colour. The main subject of almost all these books was the opposition of the Romantic ideal to mundane life. Examples include various fantasies by Odoevsky and Adventures Taken from the Worldly Sea (1846) by Alexander Weltman (1800-1870).

The two lines of fantasy development – folkloristic and Romantic – progressed in parallel but separate for some time. Even the famous Russian poet Alexander Pushkin (1800-1837) could not combine them in his work. However, there is an anonymous novelette, "A Lonely House on Vasilievsky Island", which some specialists think was written by him. In it one can find the germ of fantasy as we now understand it. Besides this, Pushkin wrote a poem, "Rouslan and Ludmila" based on part of Levshin's The Russian Tales; it belongs fully to the folklore line of fantasy, as do some other minor verses.

The real blending of the two lines was achieved by Nikolai GOGOL. Gogol combined the folklore heritage with Hoffmann's mystique, a confluence easily seen in such works as "The Night before St John's" (1830), "The May Night, or the Drowned Woman" (1831), or "Wiy" (1835). Moreover, Gogol was the first SCIENCE FANTASY author in Russia, as demonstrated by several of the stories published in Arabesques (coll 1835), such as "The Portrait" (1835); "The Overcoat" (1842) is a further example. The hero of "The Nose" (1835) loses his nose, which begins to live its own life: it makes a promising career, outstripping its one-time owner.

Unfortunately, Gogol's syncretism passed practically unnoticed. With the exception of Alexei Tolstoy (1817-1875), with "The Vampire" (1841), fantasy authors again divided into folklorists and Romantics. But, with the death of Romanticism as a whole, Romantic fantasy gradually disappeared, while folkloric fantasy rapidly increased in importance – due largely to the fact that, towards the end of the 19th century, Russian anthropology began to develop swiftly.

At the beginning of the 20th century Alexei REMIZOV (entry in Addenda) released two collections of short stories – With the Sun (coll 1907) and Zvenigorod Revealed (coll 1910). These stories are quite original and abound with folklore. The same could be said of the poems of Vladimir Narbut (1888-1938), who was both a poet and anthropologist; his most interesting poetry was assembled in Hallelujah! (coll 1912) and Wiy (coll 1915). The distinguishing features of these poems are psychological depth and an extremely rich fantasy milieu.

A little later, Gogol's syncretism was reborn in the works of Fyodor Sologub (1863-1927) (>> SFE) and Mikhail BULGAKOV. Alexander KONDRATIEV (entry in Addenda) combined folklore motifs with an interest in the demonic side of fantasy. During this same period, the early part of this century, a new mystic line of Russian fantasy became evident. It is represented by the works of Leonid Andreyev (1871-1919) (>> SFE), Valery Bryusov (1873-1924), Zinaida Gippius (1869-1945), Dmitri Erezhkovski (1865-1941) and some others. Among further fantasy writers of the period Alexander GRIN (entry in Addenda) is outstanding.

In the former USSR – where fantasy as a genre was strictly prohibited – some writers disguised their work as SCIENCE FICTION and others turned to CHILDREN'S FANTASY. Juvenile fantasy books passed by the censors, who could not see the difference between fantasy written ostensibly for children and literary fairytales (>>>> AESOPIAN FANTASY). So fantasies such as those by Veniamin Kaverin and Pavel Bazhov – The Malachite Box (1939 – appeared.

Modern Russian fantasy, in spite of a rich literary tradition, is only at the developmental stage. Until recently, official ideology forbade anything that could not be seen to increase "the morale of the builders of communism". In a properly functioning materialistic and atheistic society, there could be no place for demons, wizards, goblins and so on. During the Soviet era, only two books for adults were published that could properly be considered fantasies – Danilov the Viola Player (1980) by Vladimir Orlov (1936- ) and Monday Begins on Saturday (1965) by Arkady and Boris STRUGATSKI (entry in Addenda). Orlov's novel takes the reader back to Hoffmann, and Monday Begins on Saturday ("a fairy-tale for junior scientists", as the authors put it) is a fantasy disguised as a comic novel. Even today young writers are inclined to naturalism, or primitivism combined with horror, or to political satire. As the sf and fantasy author Kir Bulychev (1934- ) (>> SFE) said: "In Russian literature a dragon will be associated for sure with a house-manager or a general – or with a person much higher in rank . . ."

These words precisely characterize the present situation in Russian fantasy. And there is another problem – the imitation of non-Russian genre fantasy. Most often the template is the work of J.R.R. TOLKIEN, whose books are very popular in Russia in spite of the fact that they were translated and published only after a great delay; as examples of such imitations one could take the books of Nikolai ("Nick") Perumov, like The Ring of Darkness (1994), a "free sequel" to The Lord of the Rings, and The Tales of Hjorvard (1995). These are imitations done on a commercial basis; and Perumov is not alone in this business.

It is to be hoped that, now the ideological barriers are down, sooner or later Russian fantasy will take its place on the world stage. Preconditions for this are at hand. [CMK]

SERLING, ROD To Other works add Patterns: Four Television Plays (coll 1955) and Requiem for a Heavyweight (coll 1962), both collecting screenplays. In terms of movie work, there are other items of fantasy interest, especially the "United Nations Special" A Carol for Another Christmas (1964) and Rod Serling's Lost Classics (1994 tvm), featuring a screenplay by RS and an RS story adapted by Richard MATHESON. One episode of the revived TWILIGHT ZONE was based on an RS story, scripted by J. Michael Straczynski. Add:

Further reading: The Twilight Zone Companion (1986) by Marc Scott Zicree; Rod Serling: The Dreams and Nightmares of Life in the Twilight Zone (1989) by Joel Engel; Serling: The Rise and Twilight of Television's Last Angry Man (1992) by Gordon F. Sander; Into the Twilight Zone: The Rod Serling Programme Guide (1995) by Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier.

SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM Shakespeare's Planet was published in 1976, not 1968, and does not feature the historical Shakespeare. In a 1963 TWILIGHT ZONE episode called "The Bard" WS is summoned to the present to help a tv writer with his scripts. Insert, between "wide intervals." and "In each a HEALING", at the end of the second full paragraph on page 857, the following:

In each, the STORY, which may be elaborate and full of coincidences, is so conspicuously foregrounded that each drama's fairytale protagonists seem precisely to be acting out a "Winter's Tale" – seem in other words to be re-enacting a profound yarn whose underlying, prior truth is undeniable, despite its implausibilties. Each play has been constructed to climax in the moments of RECOGNITION for which each is famous, moments through which remarkably complex labyrinths of story are successfully brought to book, and the true nature of the world and its coils is revealed ("O she's warm", as Leontes utters, awestruck, on recognizing that his long-dead wife is alive, and that his foul jealousy has been enfolded in a larger story).

SOUTHEY, ROBERT For "thought for time" read "thought for a time". Better ascription: Amadis of Gaul (cut trans of Amads de Gaula 1508 vols 1-4 by García Ordez de Montalvo; 1803 4 vols) as by Vasco Lobeira.

It should be noted that Southey's translation – which is an abridgement of the first four (of over 20 canonical) volumes – has led some modern scholars to underestimate the influence of Amadis de Gaule (the normal title, from the French) on Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), Edmund SPENSER and others. This is perhaps understandable in that the full text is hard to come by today: it was widely available (and very widely read) in the 16th century, and writers like those cited were influenced by the whole.

STRUGATSKY, ARKADY (NATANOVICH) (1925-1993) and BORIS (NATANOVICH) (1933- ) Russian writers who always worked together; the brothers were the best-known Russian sf writers outside the former USSR. In some of their books appear demonic beings from the other side of the world, and these beings determine the destinies of people. But the Strugatskies wrote very little pure fantasy – almost certainly in part because Soviet ideology frowned on fantasy. Their only pure fantasy is Pomedel'nik nachinaetsia v subbotu (1965; trans Leonid Renen as Monday Begins on Saturday 1977 US); it lies somewhere between satire and FAIRYTALE. Darko Suvin has described it as a "loose picaresque work ranging from fabulistic fun to the Goyaesque horrors of charlatanism and bureaucratic power". It was filmed as The Magicians (1988). [CMK]

See also: RUSSIA (entry in Addenda).

SUPERMAN Wayne Boring did not only work on the newspaper strip: during the 1950s he was the standard illustrator of the comic books. The fifth-dimensional imp introduced in the 1940s was named Mr. Mxyztplk; later, his name was changed to Mr. Mxyzptlk, which is now the standard spelling.

Due to production errors the entry fails to mention the iconic figures of Jimmy Olsen and Perry White as well as S's extensively chronicled adventures as Superboy, his longstanding partnership with Batman, and his increasingly important membership in the Justice League.

TCHULKOV, MIKHAIL (1734-1792) Russian writer whose The Mocker (first two parts as coll 1765) is the first Russian fantasy collection. Further works, some anthropological, include The Concise Mythological Lexicon (1767) and A Dictionary of Russian Superstitions (1767-87). It could be said that he, along with the more talented writer Vasily LEVSHIN (entry in Addenda), created Russian fantasy as a genre. [CMK]

See also: RUSSIA (entry in Addenda).

THEOSOPHY For "Nor is it insignificant that Robert E. HOWARD both" read "Nor is it insignificant that Robert E. HOWARD and Clark Ashton SMITH both". This entry was heavily cut in production; the following text should appear after the first paragraph:

In Isis Revealed, Blavatsky concentrates, rather unoriginally, on ancient EGYPT; it is in The Secret Doctrine that the full intoxicating complexity of her system is revealed. In presenting that system, we follow the numbered elucidation provided by David Morris in The Masks of Lucifer: Technology and the Occult in Twentieth-Century Popular Literature (1992):

1. As in much of the occult tradition, a Great Architect of the Universe underlies the created world, but does not operate directly upon it. 2. That world is an AGON, both spatially (for GOOD and EVIL are contraries in constant conflict) and temporally (for – as in The Worm Ouroboros [1922] by E.R. EDDISON – the conflict recurs and recurs in a great CYCLE, though on different levels). "The war of the Titans,"" Blavatsky says, "is but a legendary and defilied copy of the real war that took place in the Himalayan Kailas (heaven) instead of in the depths of Cosmic interplanetary space."" 3. The universe (like almost every secondary world to come) is animate: "This cosmic dust,"" she says, "is something more; for every atom in the Universe has the potentiality of self consciousness in it; IT IS AN ATOM AND AN ANGEL."" An author like John CROWLEY need not, in other words, bother to trace this notion back to its Gnostic roots (>> GNOSTIC FANTASY): it is available here. 4. Each soul is complexly connected to a Universal Oversoul. 5. Governed by the Law of Karma, each soul progresses through a cycle of REINCARNATIONS. 6. This refutes Darwin. 7. Each soul passes through 7 (>> SEVEN) rounds of reincarnation, and on each round traverses the 7 planets, there being life forms on each planet. 8. On Earth, each reincarnation represents a progress into greater corporeality and higher consciousness. 9. Each of the 7 rounds take place in an Age, and each Age has a "root-race"" whose nature is inescapable (>> THEODICY). In the First Age, humanity lived on a continent called "The Imperishable Sacred Land"" and looked like astral jellyfish. In the Second Age, we lived in the polar continent of HYPERBOREA (the name was later appropriated by Clark Ashton SMITH who set a series there). In the Third Age we were HERMAPHRODITES in LEMURIA (where Lin Carter set his Thongor sequence); in the Fourth we were GIANTS in ATLANTIS. The Fifth Age is now. Each root-race is, moreover, divided into 7 races, the 7th of each representing the seed (>> PARIAH ELITE) of the next root-race. The Negroid hermaphrodites of Lemuria have left as fossils on Earth the Negroes and some other Black races (it is here that T works as a justification for racism and imperialism, because the Lemurians are lower than us in the cycle; and as a generator of the "philosophical"" background of many LOST RACE/WORLD tales). The 7th subrace of the giant Mongoloids from Atlantis are the Semites, who bear the seed of the White man today. 10. The portrait of humanity's long evolution through the cycles incorporates the knowledge that humanity, having been created by a Superior Being, pre-exists other forms of life on Earth; and that the holocausts which end each cycle happen because humans err and sin – i.e., they are caused by the subsequent karmic disturbance. 11. All SOULS are equal, but some souls are more equal than others: ours. 12. SATAN is the PROMETHEUS figure who helps humanity, the SERPENT in the GARDEN who brings us light. 13. Jehovah is an important ANGEL, but fatally opposed to the bringing of the light. 14. CHRIST was an adept, one of several, and his teachings were occult – i.e., intended for the elect.

TINTIN Right-wing views or not, Hergé was no collaborationist; our statement that he was accused of so being is correct but has been misread. "King Ottakar's Scepter" explicitly attacks the Nazis.

Delete the comment about the "Tin-Tin" spelling, which is misguided; accordingly, for "Tin-Tin et les Picaros" read "Tintin et les Picaros". We cannot trace the origins of the sentence beginning "The series is undistinguished . . ."

TREECE, HENRY According to K.V. Bailey, a close friend of the Treeces who attended the funeral, HT had a coronary and died in hospital: there was no inquest. Our remark concerning HT's suicide would thus seem to repeat a popular myth.

A further title of note is The Magic Wood (graph 1992 US) illus Barry Moser; this is Moser's version of HT's poem "The Magic Wood", from The Black Seasons (coll 1945).

TRICKSTER Wil E. Coyote is properly Wile E. Coyote. The entry on Chuck JONES appears in the Addenda, not the main text. A better range of examples than Davy Crockett and Mike Fink is Davy Crockett and Pecos Bill.

This entry should mention bird tricksters, especially the trickster element in modern uses of the crow, as in Ted HUGHES's Crow (coll 1970; exp 1972), which is a collection of trickster poems.

TWILIGHT ZONE, THE and NEW TWILIGHT ZONE, THE Alan Brennert has noted: (a) The New Twilight Zone is misnamed: it was always called The Twilight Zone. (b) It was not exclusively syndicated, as initial sentence implies: the first 2 seasons were on CBS; only the third season was shot for syndication. (c) Our claim that the show was not thereafter seen is false – it was syndicated for several years, and remains on cable.

For "Susanne Cupito" read "Suzanne Cupito". For "William Demerest" read "William Demarest". For "Robert Serling" read "Robert Sterling". There were 137 half-hour episodes (plus one drawn from another source and forced into the format) 18 hour-long episodes. A number of superior episodes with strong fantasy interest are unmentioned, including "The Hitch-Hiker", "Night of the Meek", "In Praise of Pip", "Twenty-Two" and "The Howling Man". The follow-up tv series was on CBS for the first two seasons, then syndicated for the third season.

The parallelism of the expression "Both made use of episodes of the original television series" is misleading. In Twilight Zone: The Movie three of the four segments were remakes of series scripts, while in the new series only 4 out of over 150 segments derived from original series scripts.

Rod Serling's Lost Classics featured one unproduced SERLING teleplay and one adaptation of an unproduced story scripted by Richard MATHESON; in no sense were they "based on unfinished stories by Serling".