Charles de Lint pioneered the urban fantasy genre with critically acclaimed novels and stories set in and around the imaginary modern North American city of Newford: The Onion Girl, Moonheart, The Ivory and the Horn, and the collection Moonlight and Vines, for which he won the World Fantasy Award. Among de Lint's many other novels are Mulengro, Into the Green, and The Little Country.
"In de Lint's capable hands, modern fantasy becomes something other than escapism. It becomes folk song, the stuff of urban myth." --The Phoenix Gazette "Charles de Lint shows that, far from being escapism, contemporary fantasy can be the deep mythic literature of our time." --The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
This collection of conceptually innovative, thematically simple stories proves again that de Lint ( Spiritwalk ) is a leading talent in the urban fantasy subgenre, which seeks to unite the escapist whimsy of fantasy with the hard edge of cyberpunk SF. The stories are all set in Newford, a New York/Chicago-style urban jungle where citizens often encounter strange beings--worldly monsters, as well as unearthly ghosts--who coexist in what one character calls ``a consensual reality where things exist because we want them to exist.'' In what may be his cleverest stylistic twist, de Lint links the stories through overlapping characters, all of whom have some familiarity with the fictional writer Christy Riddell, who (like de Lint) writes ``mythistories,'' the ``odd little stories that lie just under the skin of any large city.'' De Lint is at his best when his sense of wonder at the possibilities of imagination is rooted in an unsentimental view of harsh human realities: ``Freewheeling'' includes a sad view of urban street kids, and ``In the House of My Enemy'' takes a tough look at child abuse. However, De Lint's obviously sincere feeling that ``if we learned to care again about the wild places from which we'd driven the magic away, then maybe it would return'' leads him to spell out his moral messages, to the detriment of his fiction. (Apr.)
YA-A collection of urban fantasies, interconnected in unexpected ways as characters slip between past and present. Most of the selections are akin to fairy tales, but not all have direct antecedents. The result is a delighfully naturalistic fairy tour of the city of Newford, where events are at times shocking, involved, or dreamlike. Jilly Coppercorn, Geordie Riddell, and his brother provide some of the links, and the city creates others. Ghosts, spirits of place, goblins, and conjure men all make appearances and remind readers that it's their ability to see magic that allows it to exist. Jilly and her friends' relationship with the otherworld is attractive, but so is their deep commitment to this one. deLint's unassuming prose is always in the service of his vision, never in its way. A thoroughly engaging book, sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, full of ideas and characters that won't let go...but then, YAs won't want them to.-Cathy Chauvette, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
"In de Lint's capable hands, modern fantasy becomes something other than escapism. It becomes folk song, the stuff of urban myth." --The Phoenix Gazette "Charles de Lint shows that, far from being escapism, contemporary fantasy can be the deep mythic literature of our time." --The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
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