Alison Flood's world of fantasy Alison Flood surveys the classics of fantasy literature
Let's mash up some SF classics with children's books! Alison Flood: Frank Herbert's Dune has been very entertainingly blended with Goodnight Moon. Which other sci-fi and fantasy should morphed this way?
Women's fantasy fiction: join the quest for a world unknown to bookstores 'Blokes in cloaks' are still the overwhelming presences in the genre section. Who are the writers they've overlooked?
World of fantasy: Tales of a Dying Earth by Jack Vance Alison Flood Alison Flood: As well as keying into the chilly thrills of dying sun stories, Vance's work is the motherlode for much subsequent fantasy
World of fantasy: Death's Master by Tanith Lee Alison Flood: Standing out as the only woman ever to win a British Fantasy award, Lee has many other unique accomplishments to her name
World of Fantasy: Conan the Barbarian and his lily-white women Alison Flood: Is it ridiculous to criticise Robert E Howard's enjoyably pulpy Conan stories for their 1930s attitudes to women and race?
World of fantasy: The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers Alison Flood: With no pretensions to anything beyond cracking entertainment, this novel succeeds brilliantly
The Book of the New Sun: science fiction's Ulysses? Alison Flood: Gene Wolfe's vast tome sets many puzzles for the reader, not the least of which is why on earth it isn't better known
World of fantasy: The Worm Ouroboros It's a 520-page epic with an Elizabethan twang, but ER Eddison's circular myth, The Worm Ouroboros, has won me over
World of fantasy: The Forgotten Beasts of Eld Alison Flood: The winner of the inaugural World Fantasy award, Patricia A McKillip's book is a powerful story of memory and captivity
Cracking Poul Anderson's Kraki Alison Flood: Hrolf Kraki's Saga, Poul Anderson's British Fantasy award-winner, is a great retelling of Norse myth. Shame his Yoda-style syntax so irritating doth be
The Knight of the Swords: the first British Fantasy award winner Kicking off our new series on the winners of the British Fantasy awards, the first in Michael Moorcock's Corum trilogy doesn't quite live up to the prolific author's mightyy reputation