Wattpad brings you a guest post from Gytha Lodge, writer of fantasy adventure “The Fragile Tower”:
There’s something uniquely exciting and wonderful about the thought of another world just around the corner, or within touching distance of ours. With the launch of The Fragile Tower, which is my own other worldly tale, it seems like a good time to look at some of the greatest fantasy tales to feature other worlds.
[Photo via IMDB]
1. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis’ series of adventures featuring Narnia started with the story of four children evacuated to a gloomy country house during the war. It was to become the trigger for their great adventure, after the youngest, Lucy, stumbled through the back of a wardrobe whilst playing hide and seek, and found a new world.
What makes it great:
It isn’t hard to understand why the series struck a chord with readers. In a time of hardship after the Second World War, finding something magical to come out of that war would have been powerful and consoling. There is just as much power in the idea of a figure who watches over us, testing us and acting as conscience, but in the end also saving us, as Aslan does for the children.
What it meant to me:
I was seven when I first read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and I was captivated by the idea that there might be a strange and magical world hidden behind the ordinary one I lived in. I spent much of the next year peering through holes in fences and searching out gaps in walls in the hope that I would find the door to another world. I gave up on wardrobes pretty quickly after my poor mother lost her temper with my determination to empty everything out of them and clamber in. (Strangely, to this day I dislike putting anything into wardrobes and prefer to use “floor storage” as a method. My mother still finds this irritating.)
[Photo via IMDB]
2. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
Philip Pullman writes of not just one, but a multitude of other worlds. Lyra’s world, with its powerful church determined to stamp out what it sees as sin, its armoured bears, and the daemons which represent part of each person, is captivating from the first book. And the magic only increases as the series progresses, and we follow Will from our world into Citagazze, a place where awful beings called Spectres have chased all the adults away, and on into the world of the Dead and the land of the Mulefa, creatures which create their own wheels.
What makes it great:
The series doesn’t just provide well-realised and detailed other worlds, but a whole philosophy of existence that links them all together and reflects back on our own world and existence. The skill with which Pullman reveals that philosophy little by little is nothing short of extraordinary, and the scope of the tale (with wars between men and angels, witches and creatures) is equally vast. And yet, in the end, it’s really a very personal story about a young boy and a young girl, and at times it is heartbreaking.
What it meant to me:
The series was one I reached for whilst waiting for Harry Potter book four to come out, and I started with The Subtle Knife before going back to read about Lyra’s story in The Northern Lights. Any series which motivates you to do that is a good one, and I was itching for that final instalment for the next year (as well as talking about it incessantly to my poor, long-suffering school-friends. Fourteen-year-olds can be a lot more patient than you’d think).
I don’t mind admitting that I cried buckets when I got to the end. For about an hour and a half. I can’t remember another book doing that to me except The Book Thief, which is one of my favourites of all time.
[Photo via Wikipedia]
3. The Dark is Rising – Susan Cooper
This is actually the second book in the sequence, but the first one I read, and remains my favourite of the five. Strictly speaking, Susan Cooper’s series is a re-imagining our world, but lifting up the corner of it shows a whole realm of wonder, with good fighting evil.
What makes it great:
Any child who dreams of becoming important is bound to love Will Stanton’s story. He wakes up on his eleventh birthday to discover he is the last in the line of Old Ones, powerful magical people who have been fighting a battle against the forces of dark for centuries. Like the Narnia series, Will (and likewise the Drew family who appear in the other books) is watched over by a wise old figure, Merriman Lyon (Merlin) but must fight his own battle to secure the six Signs which will help the Light to fight the Dark.
What it meant to me:
I discovered this book in the library at a new school age 11, where I was immediately miserable having left my friends behind, been introduced to a load of new and confusing subjects (like Latin) and then made the headmaster hate me about two weeks in by correcting him in a History class (don’t ever do this). Being able to escape into Susan Cooper’s world got me through a really hard few months. That’s got to be one of the best things about books.
[Photo via IMDB]
4. Peter Pan – J. M. Barrie
One of the very first other-world stories, Peter Pan is really the story of the Darling children, who are whisked away to Neverland using fairy dust after they meet Peter. There, they help him to fight the frightening figure of Captain James Hook and his pirates, before deciding to return home to their parents.
What makes it great:
The joyous imagination behind Neverland, and Peter Pan’s carefree adventures, have an enormous appeal. But the story also has elements of realism in it, with Wendy’s love of Peter which is destined to go nowhere, and with the Darling children’s eventual realisation that they have to go back to their parents. Peter also provides a surprisingly moving idea for those who have lost children. He is the boy who will never grow up because he is based on Barrie’s own brother, who died at fourteen.
What it meant to me:
I read Peter Pan at what was probably the perfect time. I was fourteen, writing books for myself, and caught between wanting to be adult enough to write about important things without wanting all the responsibilities I saw looming on the horizon. For a while, I could believe that I didn’t really need to grow up and face exams, university, jobs, etc. By the time I got out of this phase I had, naturally, become one of those teenagers who sighs about not being allowed to be independent.
5. Sabriel – Garth Nix
This is the first book in the Abhorsen series, and has all the qualities of a wonderful other world book. Sabriel was born in the magical Old Kingdom, the daughter of the undead-fighting Abhorsen, but has been sent to school in Ancelstierre. The two worlds border each other, and Ancelstierre is much like our own world a few decades ago, one where technology is paramount. The Old Kingdom, in contrast, is a land where technology doesn’t work, and where magic takes its place. Sabriel is called into that other world to rescue her father from an evil creature, using his sword and bells to control the undead.
What makes it great:
Nix creates such a detailed and original world by combining different elements. He brings necromancy alongside magic, and makes the Abhorsen (who is sworn to protect the kingdom from the undead and the necromancers who try to raise them) someone who has to walk the borders between the world of the undead and the world of the living.
He is also excellent at creating a feeling of threat, and his crumbling Old Kingdom feels a very dangerous place which Sabriel must navigate with care. Add in a touch of romance, and this is a fantastic read, as are the second and third books of the series.
What it meant to me:
Sabriel was released whilst I was at university, and immersed in a lot of serious literature which was both good and bad. Having something escapist to read was one of the few ways I found to really relax, and I spent many an hour in the bath with the book after freezing winter rowing outings. There’s something particularly satisfying about reading about cold, wild worlds from the comfort of a really hot bath.
If you haven’t read any or all of these, I can’t recommend them strongly enough. If your experience of life is anything like mine, I’m sure that you will have experienced the need to escape, and perhaps to look at your own life in a way a little removed, as several of these books encourage.
All of them (and many more) have provided inspiration for The Fragile Tower. In fact, looking over this list has given me some interesting reflections on what I write. For one thing I note that I have chosen to write another world cloaked in snow, as both C. S. Lewis and Garth Nix have done. Perhaps there is something particularly powerful in a coldly glittering land. Or perhaps we all just like to read in the bath.
Read Gytha Lodge’s “The Fragile Tower” on Wattpad:
One girl; one quest; and a love strong enough to cross worlds…
Grace Lane is a shy fourteen-year-old girl living in a small town in New York state. She has been looking for something to make her feel like she matters for most of her life. After a beautiful and exotic fair arrives on her street in the middle of winter, her brother vanishes during the night.
Grace realises that getting him back is up to her, even if it means travelling to another world. She faces dark magics, the beautiful and dangerous sorcery of the Fragile Tower, and a Queen willing to risk anything to keep her world within her control. But in standing against her, she has to come to terms with the truth about her family, and her own feelings for the resourceful huntsman Afi who helps her in her quest.