ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.After his post-WWII convalescence in France, Steven Huxley is returning to his family's home on the edge of Ryhope Wood, a patch of ancient forest, in Britain. For as long as Steven remembers, his father, who recently died, had been so obsessed with the for...
Celtika held so much promise. It is an ambitious, startlingly original work that is partly undone by a convoluted plot and certain confusing creative choices that personally didn't appeal to me, although others may not be bothered by them. Holdstock has built an intriguing world that mixes Arthur...
It's no longer as clear as in the first book whether to call Jason Merlin's friend or Medea his enemy, but he is still as involved as ever in their lives. Furthermore, he feels a responsibility to help the Celtic king Urtha, who is being attacked by an army of ghosts and unborn men for uncertain ...
4.5 stars, really, but I'm rounding up on account of Robert Holdstock's very heady signature cocktail of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell. Only it's not a cocktail at all, but a visionary paste made of viscous golden sap mashed up with wildwood and heartwood, berries and blossoms, vivid algae and fo...
A NOVEL IN THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD-WINNING MYTHAGO CYCLERyhope Wood, Mythago Wood, is the great forest steeped in mystery, whose heart contains secrets that change all who come there.Alex Bradley is a damaged and visionary child. Little does he know that the distorted creations of his mind are al...
Martin and Rebecca return to the outskirts of Brocéliande, an enchanted forest in Brittany where they grew up as children approximately 15 years earlier. They have returned for the funeral of their mother. Despite being warned to leave by family and local friends, they stay to settle the estate a...
Jackillä on ollut pienestä pitäen kyky nähdä mielikuvitukselliseen myyttiseen todellisuuteen. Tämä toinen ulottuvuus sijaitsee Jackin mielen Takamaassa, mutta se ei ole tyystin kuvitteellinen vaan hyvinkin todellinen paikka. Toisesta todellisuudesta heijastuu muinainen Galnum kaupunki lahoavine t...
A collection of eight short stories set in a mystical wood features a snow woman, a scientist succumbing to an age-old madness, roaming demons, conjurers working their pagan magic, and more.
It had been present for weeks. It was affecting everything: the forest, the river, the spirit glades with their giant wooden statues, the mortuary house on the hill … It was even affecting the people, the Tuthanach, the Neolithic clan which inhabited this part of the forest realm. At first, the o...
Yssobel, Steven and Hurthig rode back the next day to find Egwearda on her knees in the snow, face pressed hard into the ground, as if grieving, as if to freeze her tears. ‘What’s happened here?’ Yssobel whispered. ‘I don’t know. But it’s not good.’ Jack was elsewhere, but Yssobel was certain tha...
He looked back over his shoulder, back to the woods, then down at the small object he was bringing home. The air was hot and he was still damp inside his loose shirt. The shock of what had happened a few minutes ago had brought him out in a feverish sweat. From the house came the sound of his mot...
The gift was repeated about two weeks later, but then nothing, and the months passed. I had not been back to the wood. Over the long winter I had read my father's diary ten times if I had read it once, steeping myself in the mystery of his life as much as he had steeped himself in the mystery of ...
She stepped back into the shadows, hugged the cold stone wall, nervous now, and trying to remember. Remember! There was something familiar about the ship. Something so familiar about the ship. It couldn’t be. It can’t be. So long ago … so long ago … There was something familiar about the ship. Bu...
It was set apart from the others, though like them in construction: a crude affair of bent wood and roughly cured hides, playing fitfully with the pale glow of the tallow lantern that was the only illumination within the dark interior. The hut was cold and damp, and not even the furs piled around...
He surfaced out of a dream in which he floated at night through drifting mist, the water of the lake lapping gently below his small boat. He woke with a shiver to find that he was still in Conrad’s fishing lodge, the lake burnished with orange as the sun began to set. A swirling flight of dark bi...