The Tough Guide To Fantasyland

Diana Wynne Jones has been one of my favourite authors since I was a child but this book really highlighted just how much wit she had and how much of it she probably had to hide since she's most well known for her children's books. This book is a parody of the entire fantasy genre pre-90s (this was published in 1996) with the tone of a very disapproving aunt.

FELLOW TRAVELERS: These are people who join the Tour for a short while and then leave or get killed. If they have NAMES and characters, then you will be sorry to lose them, otherwise not.

GAY MAGE may be one of your COMPANIONS on the Tour. He will be very beautiful and he will dress in gorgeous colours.

Baths are the occasion for SEX with one or more of your FELLOW TRAVELLERS. No matter how irritating you have found her/him up to then, after or during the Bath you will find her/him irresistible. It is probably something in the WATER.

Yes, it is clear that only males get to visit the human islands and only females find their way to the Dragons. This is the tough, sexist way the Management wrote the Rules.

DARK LADY: There is never one of these—so see DARK LORD instead.

Curses on RINGS and SWORDS: You have problems. Rings have to be returned whence they came, preferably at over a thousand degrees Centigrade, an the Curse means you won't want to do this.