Chronicles of the Deryni Archives

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by Cora Buhlert

The Fantasy Resurgence

The fantasy genre, science fiction's weirder sister, is currently experiencing something of a boom. The enormous success of the paperback editions of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and Lancer's reprints of Robert E. Howard's stories about Conan the Cimmerian have whetted the public's appetite for more fantastic fiction. As a result, many of the fantasy works of yesterday, long since relegated to dusty second-hand bookstores, are coming back into print.

In particular, the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series has been doing the Lord's work to bring long out of print fantasy fiction from the first half of the century back onto bookstore shelves in affordable paperback editions. I do quibble a bit with the "adult" part of the series title, since it reinforces the misconception that fantasy is mainly intended for children, but I cannot quibble with the series itself and the selection of titles, which is excellent. I know that I have been harsh on Lin Carter's work as a writer in the past, but he truly seems to have found his calling as editor of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series.

Whenever I spot one of the distinctive psychedelic covers of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in the spinner rack of my trusty import bookstore, I pick it up at once, whether I'm familiar with the author or not. Because I know that these colourful covers and the unicorn colophon guarantee a good read.

So of course, I had to buy the latest offering in the series, already the nineteenth book to appear under the Ballantine Adult Fantasy banner: Deryni Rising by Katherine Kurtz.