ANN and JEFF VANDERMEER, The Big Book of Modern Fantasy. New York: Vintage Books, 2020. 876 pp. $25.00 tpb. ISBN: 978-0-525-56386-0
“The Ultimate Collection” presented here is “the last anthology together” from The Vandermeers. Supposedly.* Ninety-one stories include not only “A Mexican Fairy Tale” (1988) by Leonora Carrington but the gossamer-winged surreality of Carrington’s“Myth of 1,000 Eyes” (1950) scampering across the front wraps. For giving Carrington’s distinctive visual voice current mass market exposure, the editors should be commended alone.
In The Big Book of Classic Fantasy (2019) and earlier anthologies such as The Weird (2011) The Vandermeers “tried to be objective about classic authors…for example, Robert E. Howard” and, heaven forfend, that “problematic” H. P. Lovecraft. For this Big Book, they seem to not be holding their editorial noses as much and are better for it. They are on surer footing among their contemporaries. They are not trying to define examples of “steampunk”, “The New Weird”, etc. or retrofit older works to support a thesis. Although there is a reiteration in this book’s introduction that “Fantasy becomes something of use to a writer to make a political or social statement. It’s not just a mode…” that seems to apply a lot less to a fair amount in this collection. There is no “agenda”, for example, to Garth Nix’s yarn “Beyond the Sea Gate of the Scholar-Pirates of Sarsköe” (2008) featuring the swashbuckling Sir Hereward and his superior, Mr. Fitz, a three and a half foot tall sorcerer—who also happens to be an animated puppet with a painted face on a papier–mâché head the size of a pumpkin. No agenda save fun.
Three writers appeared previously in this volume’s Classic Fantasy companion. Two other stories, (by Margaret St. Clair and Elizabeth Hand,) were already in The Weird. However, selections by J. G. Ballard, Paul Bowles and Gabriel Garcia Marquez are finally offered here due to publication rights clearing.
The Marquez tale of “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” is a perfect example of what some might call Magic Realism with an over abundance of magic pleasing this reader. Written in 1955, it is contemporary with similar work stateside by Ray Bradbury–especially his collection, The October Country which was also published in 1955–who is inexplicably not represented in this collection despite a mention in the introduction to the Greg Bear story in this volume. According to an Entertainment Weekly interview with the Vandermeers, Stephen King “really wanted to be in this anthology”. And is—it is a shame Bradbury is still not around to lobby for himself.
In that same May 4th interview, Anne Vandermeer speaks of “this huge world of influence, back and forth” among fantasy writers. Jack Vance’s “Liane The Wayfarer” (1950) included here is a mordant travelogue through The Dying Earth, that series long acknowledged as a worthy successor to Clark Ashton Smith’s tales of Zothique. M. John Harrison’s “The Luck in the Head” (1984) is a tale of Viriconium following that. And Jeff Vandermeer’s own tales of Ambergris—a new edition to be published December 2020—rests on those foundations (Far from suis generis, Vandermeer’s Borne (2017) has an ursine ancestor in Richard Adams’ Shardik (1974)—a writer also surprisingly absent in this book). Anne was an editor for Weird Tales from 2007-2011. She includes writers from that tenure: Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Ramsey Shehadeh and Erik Amundsen, the last whose “Bufo Rex” (2007) is a carbuncle of poisonous black humor.
Fred Chappell’s “Linnaeus Forgets” (1977) is A Day In The Life of Carolus Linnaeus spent in his greenhouse, while “Alice in Prague or The Curious Room” (1990) by Angela Carter is—well, you should just read everything by this woman—dedicated to Jan Švankmajer and his film Alice (1988) but stars John Dee and his assistant—not Ed Kelley—but Ned Kelly the highwayman. “What is the use of books without pictures?” Dodgson’s Dreamchild would ask. Tove Jannson’s “Last Dragon in the World” (1962) has text and Jannson’s illustrations from this Tale of Moominvalley. The introduction to this Big Book mentioned “a preponderance of dragons.” This is the only one you’ll ever need. Utterly charming.
“The Fey” is depicted from both sides of The Fields We Know: Sylvia Townsend Warner’s “Winged Creatures” (1974) and Caitlin Kiernan’s “La Peau Verte” 2005). Victor LaValle fights a troll! Well, in his modern folktale “I Left My Heart in Skaftafell” (2004) he does, while Maurice Richardson’s Engelbrecht goes “Ten Rounds with Grandfather Clock” (1946). Crazy stuff but it all works.
These are all just highlights, but I must list at least one more. Rosario Ferré’s “The Youngest Doll” (1972) could have fit the editors’ criteria for The Weird. Women’s rights and income inequality are factors in this story, but it is foremost definitely one of the creepiest stories, you, Dead Reckonings reader, will ever come across. After all the anthologies Ann and Jeff Vandermeer have done, there are still stories we will be lucky(?) to get behind our eyelids. The legerdemain of this last collection being The Charm.
*The editors mention in this book’s introduction (as well as in some recent interviews) the idea to assemble an anthology of Latin American women fantasy writers. Given some pleasures proved in this Big Book, may bright doubts be cast on resolutions otherwise…