The Tough Guide to Fantasyland
First edition
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| Author | Diana Wynne Jones |
|---|---|
| Cover artist |
Steve Crisp (first) Tony Sahara (rev.) |
| Country | United Kingdom United States (revised) |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Fantasy literature, children's stories |
| Genre | Dictionary |
| Publisher | Vista Books Firebird Books (rev.) |
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Publication date
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1996 2006 (rev.) |
| Media type | Print (paperback) |
| Pages | 223 pp 234 pp (rev.) |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 34674975 |
| 828/.91407 | |
| LC Class | PR6060.O497 Z468 1996 (same) 2006 |
| Followed by | Dark Lord of Derkholm (fiction) |
The Tough Guide To Fantasyland is a nonfiction book by the British author Diana Wynne Jones that humorously examines the common tropes of a broad swathe of fantasy fiction. The U.S. Library of Congress calls it a dictionary. However, it may be called a fictional or parodic tourist guidebook. It was first published by Vista Books (London) in 1996. A revised and updated edition was completed in 2006 and published by Penguin (Firebird Books), first in the U.S.
Jones has written many fantasy novels, mainly for children or young adults, including some that simply rely upon and some that subvert common fantasy motifs. (The) Dark Lord of Derkholm (1998) is one that subverts and a conceptual sequel. It is set in a fantasy world that maintains the cliches detailed in the Tough Guide for the benefit of commercial tourism from our world.
The inside back cover of the revised edition is a 2006 postscript by Jones, "How I Came to Write This Guidebook". While hospitalized in 1994, she and Chris Bell worked on projected entries for the The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (Clute & Grant, Orbit Books, 1997). "Our job was to decide whether each entry was necessary, to suggest new ones, to discuss whether some of the entries made sense (many didn't), and to provide examples in support of what each entry said."
Unusually, the book presents itself as a tourist guidebook; its title alludes to the Rough Guide series, The Rough Guide to Finland and so on. Its conceit is that the fantasy worlds depicted in many fantasy novels, games, and films are identical, although tours visit different places such as provinces of Finland. In an extended metaphor, the readers (or viewers or players) are tourists; authors are tour guides, and their stories are sight-seeing tours or package holidays to this Fantasyland. Also preceding the title page is a phoney list of ten "Other Tough Guides" such as The Tough Guide to Transport in the Multiverse (mostly by Telephone Box). The Guide proper begins with a generic "Map of Fantasyland", "How to Use This Book", and a key to the marginal symbols ("Identification Symbols"), all preceding the alphabetical catalogue: A, Adept to Z, Zombies (pages 1–234).
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