Critical Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy #26: The Mythic Fantasy of Robert Holdstock: Critical Essays on the Fiction

This collection of critical essays edited by Morse (U. of Debrecen) and Matolcsy (translator, poet, and composer) serves as a memorial to fiction writer Robert Holdstock. The essays, written by a prodigious group of scholars from Europe and the US, present critical analyses of Holdstock's many novels and themes. Holdstock's usage of folklore, fantasy, science fiction, and myth to convey complex human emotion and interaction are at the center of the contributing works. This book will appeal to those with an interest in Holdstock's oeuvre of work as well as those with a general interest in science fiction and fantasy literature. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Robert Holdstock was a prolific writer whose oeuvre included horror, fantasy, mystery and the novelization of films, often published under pseudonyms. These twelve critical essays explore the varied output of Holdstock by displaying his works against the backdrop of folk and fairy tales, dissecting their spaciotemporal order, and examining them as psychic fantasies of our unconscious life or as exempla of the sublime. The individual novels of the Mythago Wood sequence are explored, as is Holdstock's early science fiction and the Merlin Codex series.