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World-Building Papers by Stefan Ekman

Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, 2021

Secondary worlds are constructed from a wide range of building blocks. In this article, epigraphs... more Secondary worlds are constructed from a wide range of building blocks. In this article, epigraphs that refer to fictional sources in secondary worlds are analyzed in terms of their world-building characteristics. The analysis starts from the (implied) paratextual and intertextual properties of epigraphs that are part of and refer to a secondary world. Four functions of such world-intrinsic epigraphs are explored: the way in which they (1) set a mood that indicates the world’s dominant themes or ethos; (2) give details that extend, explain, and familiarize the fictional world; and (3) provide perspectives with complementary or conflicting worldviews. Finally, (4) how the double nature of fictional epigraphs, as fictional paratexts and as purported quotations from world-intrinsic sources, extends and solidifies the world is addressed. These four functions lead us to conclude that fictional epigraphs deserve thoughtful analysis in any critical world-building endeavor.

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Tidskrift för litteraturvetenskap, 2012

In fantasy literature, the setting is as important to the story as are character and plot. This a... more In fantasy literature, the setting is as important to the story as are character and plot. This article demonstrates how topofocal (place-focused) perspectives yield valuable insights into various fantasy texts. The examples include discussions on how the nature/culture relationship is tied to the ideological centre in Charles de Lint’s Newford stories; how a careful examination of Sauron’s land in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings reveals how the text views the nature of evil; and how the structure of the land develops along with the stories in the Mythago Wood novels by Robert Holdstock. In a genre where there are no limits to the shape a setting can take, the central question must be: Why is it shaped the way it is?

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Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research, 2019

In this essay, I look at non-narratival world-building. I introduce the concept of critical world... more In this essay, I look at non-narratival world-building. I introduce the concept of critical world-building and outline my view of world-building as architecture. "World-architecture" then provides the basis for my analysis. I propose that the world-architectural way of reading a world would work just as well with worlds built in any medium, textual or non-textual, narrated or non-narrated. My first example shows how a collection of “lore” in a computer game or (in my case) a graphic-novel app can offer material for a scholar who analyses the world of the story. Then I turn to a world without any explicit narrative, using the illustrations from a Dungeons & Dragons rule book to show what they can say about the implied game world.

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Imaginary worlds and how they are constructed are central to fiction. The term world-building, ho... more Imaginary worlds and how they are constructed are central to fiction. The term world-building, however, has been applied so broadly in scholarship that it has become ambiguous and difficult to use in critical discussions. Aiming to contribute to greater clarity in the critical use of the term, this article introduces the concept of critical world-building. This is distinguished from other types of world-building, such as that performed by an author or reader, mainly by the fact that a critic analyses a world through a combination of their sequential presentation, as complete world, and with critical interpretation and theoretical filters in place, applying all three perspectives simultaneously. Two possible approaches to critical world-building are presented, based on the functions of a world’s building-blocks and how to interpret those functions. The first approach focuses on a world’s “architecture” – its structural and aesthetic system of places – and the form, function, and meaning of those places. The second emphasises the dynamic interplay between building-blocks and their interconnections in a web of explicit, implied, and interpreted information about the world. The authors base their discussion on textual, secondary fantasy worlds but invite applications of critical world-building to other genres and media.

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Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction, 2019

A practical demonstration of how critical world-building can be used in reading a world. As a tes... more A practical demonstration of how critical world-building can be used in reading a world. As a test-case, we use the alternate history 'Biographical Notes to "A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with Airplanes" by Benjamin Rosenbaum' by Benjamin Rosenbaum (2004). Critical world-building tools are applied to the relation between the fictional worlds and the actual world, to a close-reading of the first sentence of the short-story, and to a thematic interpretation of world elements related to the two female characters.

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In this essay, the author argues that analysing a fantasy novel that comes with a map without tak... more In this essay, the author argues that analysing a fantasy novel that comes with a map without taking into account the dynamic between map and text would be to omit a vital part of the fictional world. By drawing on the Vitruvian triad of architectural theory, the construction of the world in China Miéville's Perdido Street Station (2001) is analysed through some building-blocks of that world that emerge prominently on the novel's map. After a brief discussion of world-building and fantasy maps, the map is taken as a starting point in order to demonstrate how the transport network in general and railways and skyrail in particular are given distinctive form. One function that these building-blocks have in the novel is to provide locations which the reader can use to link dynamically between text and map, thus relating locations to each other spatially and adding layers of meaning to them, turning them from spaces into places. Passages in the text are used to show how it is possible to move between map and text, and how such movement not only augments the spatiality of the world but that it also provides a way to discuss the city's social and economic issues by juxtaposing different characters' perspectives.

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Extrapolation, 2018

This article demonstrates how we can gain critical insights into a fantasy world by reading its a... more This article demonstrates how we can gain critical insights into a fantasy world by reading its accompanying map, using Ben McSweeney's map from Brandon Sanderson's The Rithmatist as an example. An analysis of the map's topography, linguistic signs, and surround elements is carried out in terms of Denis Wood's proposition that all maps have authors, subjects, and themes. The results show that even without reference to the text, a map can comment on the fantasy world's technological level, its colonial history, and the central conflict of the story. Interpreting the map also invites a broader examination of the relationship between the fantastical and the actual.

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The Mythic Fantasy of Robert Holdstock: Critical …, Jan 1, 2011

Ryhope Wood, the central setting of the Mythago Cycle, is not simply a naturalist's ... more Ryhope Wood, the central setting of the Mythago Cycle, is not simply a naturalist's fondest dream. Within the impenetrable boundaries of this ancient stand of wildwood, inherited memories of the mythic heroes in our collective unconscious come to life, along with the ...

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Urban Fantasy Papers by Stefan Ekman

Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, 2018

London is one of the more popular settings for urban fantasy, standing out by offering both a gre... more London is one of the more popular settings for urban fantasy, standing out by offering both a great many famous locations and a history of two millennia. This essay argues that the city’s past is used to create a sense of “London-ness” by examining ten urban fantasies set in London. It identifies and analyzes the functions of four prominent aspects of history in these texts: the city’s origin and pre-origin, the Great Fire of 1666, the periods of building various subterranean tunnels, and the notion that London, at some point, has gone through an architectural Era of Uglification. Apart from conveying London-ness, these aspects are often connected to critical parts of the plots, and provide bridges between the familiar London and its fantastical versions, allowing the reader to help bring the city alive while crossing into the fantastical domain of the story.

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Clues: A Journal of Detection, 2017

Among the many unexplored areas of urban fantasy is its relation to crime fiction. This article e... more Among the many unexplored areas of urban fantasy is its relation to crime fiction. This article explores how features of the crime story are used to emphasize, reinforce, or introduce urban fantasy’s social commentary. It looks at the genres’ relationship, analyzing three urban fantasies and their respective crime fiction elements.

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Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, 2016

This article analyzes the nature of urban fantasy by aggregating the claims, suggestions, and ob... more This article analyzes the nature of urban fantasy by aggregating the claims, suggestions, and observations made by several different accounts of what urban fantasy is. These accounts comprise six scholarly sources and four sources written by people who are producers and purveyors of urban fantasy. An eleventh "account" is made up of the impressions conveyed by a vast number of book covers identified through Google Image Search. These eleven accounts are analyzed with regard to their views on worlds and settings, cities and urbanity, central characters, and the sources of fantastic elements. Finally, the article presents how three major threads in the accounts reveal that urban fantasy has a central, thematic concern with the Unseen. This Unseen is largely related to a social Other that portrays unpleasant aspects of urban life, such as criminality, homelessness, addiction, prostitution, and physical and sexual abuse.

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FOUNDATION-DAGENHAM-, Jan 1, 2005

Publikationsansicht. 22720253. Down, Out and Invisible in London and Seattle (2005).Ekman, Stefan... more Publikationsansicht. 22720253. Down, Out and Invisible in London and Seattle (2005).Ekman, Stefan. Abstract. No abstract. Details der Publikation. ...

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Miscellaneous Papers by Stefan Ekman

ArdaNEWS Studio, 2020

The goal of the epic quest in epic fantasy is often to thwart the machinations of a Dark Lord in ... more The goal of the epic quest in epic fantasy is often to thwart the machinations of a Dark Lord in order to prevent them from becoming ruler of the world. Dark Lords have a number of features in common: their strategies to achieve world domination are similar as are the ways in which they, their servants, and their domains are portrayed. Satan and Sauron are two central figures that echoe in the fantasy Dark Lords. Tolkien’s Dark Lord in particular has come to dominate the genre’s conception of what the Lord of Evil ought to be like, what his servants are like, and what his country should look like. And through Tolkien’s influence, the shadow of Satan also looms over the epic fantasy genre.

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Tolkien Studies, Jan 1, 2009

... Christopher Tolkien, in his comment to the poem, observes that Gondobar is also mentioned in ... more ... Christopher Tolkien, in his comment to the poem, observes that Gondobar is also mentioned in a later (c. 1940) version of Tolkien's early poem "The Happy Mariners" but that elsewhere, it is one of the seven names of Gondolin (Lost Road 104; cf. Lost Tales II 160). ...

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tolkiensarda.se

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Books by Stefan Ekman

Lever Press, 2024

Open Access ----- Urban fantasy, the genre of fantastic literature in which magic and monsters me... more Open Access ----- Urban fantasy, the genre of fantastic literature in which magic and monsters meet modern society, is fairly young but has old roots. Stefan Ekman’s book, Urban Fantasy: Exploring Modernity through Magic, examines the genre in depth, including its inherent social commentary, its historical development, and its interplay between modernity and the fantastic. The author draws on a wide range of urban fantasy texts from five decades, combining detailed analysis of dozens of novels and other media with broad discussions to provide a comprehensive understanding of the genre across three sections. The first section presents an overview of what the genre looks like today-both in terms of its common traits and its variety of settings-and how it has developed over time, including the history of urban fantasy scholarship. The second section examines urban fantasy’s core concern with the unseen, for example through a focus on unseen individuals overlooked by society or hiding within it, and on ignored urban spaces or labyrinthine undergrounds. The third section addresses how urban fantasy explores the relationship between the supernatural and modernity. Ekman offers readings of fiction by Ben Aaronovitch, Lauren Beukes, P. Djelí Clark, Charles de Lint, Neil Gaiman, Max Gladstone, Kim Harrison, N.K. Jemisin, and Megan Lindholm, among others. Urban Fantasy will appeal to teachers and students of the fantastic as well as to urban fantasy enthusiasts and literary scholars. Ekman illuminates the genre’s evolution and defining traits, inviting readers to rethink urban fantasy as a creative tool for using magic to explore modernity.

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Fantasy worlds are never mere backdrops. They are an integral part of the work, and refuse to rem... more Fantasy worlds are never mere backdrops. They are an integral part of the work, and refuse to remain separate from other elements. These worlds combine landscape with narrative logic by incorporating alternative rules about cause and effect or physical transformation. They become actors in the drama—interacting with the characters, offering assistance or hindrance, and making ethical demands. In Here Be Dragons, Stefan Ekman provides a wide-ranging survey of the ubiquitous fantasy map as the point of departure for an in-depth discussion of what such maps can tell us about what is important in the fictional worlds and the stories that take place there. With particular focus on J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Ekman shows how fantasy settings deserve serious attention from both readers and critics. Includes insightful readings of works by Steven Brust, Garth Nix, Robert Holdstock, Terry Pratchett, Charles de Lint, China Miéville, Patricia McKillip, Tim Powers, Lisa Goldstein, Steven R. Donaldson, Robert Jordan, and Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess.

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Papers by Stefan Ekman

London is one of the more popular settings for urban fantasy, standing out by offering both a gre... more London is one of the more popular settings for urban fantasy, standing out by offering both a great many famous locations and a history of two millennia. This essay argues that the city’s past is used to create a sense of “London-ness” by examining ten urban-fantasy versions of London. It identifies and analyzes the functions of four prominent aspects of history in these texts: the city’s origin and pre-origin, the Great Fire of 1666, the periods of building various subterranean tunnels, and the notion that London, at some point, has gone through an architectural Era of Uglification. Through these, London is portrayed as a literary place suitable to urban fantasy: it is a modern city but with a long history reaching back to a beginning where facts and legends mix. This long history gives rise to supernatural entities that hide in the underground tunnels constructed at various points in the city’s history

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Among the many unexplored areas of urban fantasy is its relation to crime fiction.This article ex... more Among the many unexplored areas of urban fantasy is its relation to crime fiction.This article explores how features of the crime story are used to emphasize, reinforce, or introduceurban fantasy’s social commentary. It looks at the genres’ relationship, analyzing three urbanfan tasies and their respective crime fiction elements

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, 2021

Secondary worlds are constructed from a wide range of building blocks. In this article, epigraphs... more Secondary worlds are constructed from a wide range of building blocks. In this article, epigraphs that refer to fictional sources in secondary worlds are analyzed in terms of their world-building characteristics. The analysis starts from the (implied) paratextual and intertextual properties of epigraphs that are part of and refer to a secondary world. Four functions of such world-intrinsic epigraphs are explored: the way in which they (1) set a mood that indicates the world’s dominant themes or ethos; (2) give details that extend, explain, and familiarize the fictional world; and (3) provide perspectives with complementary or conflicting worldviews. Finally, (4) how the double nature of fictional epigraphs, as fictional paratexts and as purported quotations from world-intrinsic sources, extends and solidifies the world is addressed. These four functions lead us to conclude that fictional epigraphs deserve thoughtful analysis in any critical world-building endeavor.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Tidskrift för litteraturvetenskap, 2012

In fantasy literature, the setting is as important to the story as are character and plot. This a... more In fantasy literature, the setting is as important to the story as are character and plot. This article demonstrates how topofocal (place-focused) perspectives yield valuable insights into various fantasy texts. The examples include discussions on how the nature/culture relationship is tied to the ideological centre in Charles de Lint’s Newford stories; how a careful examination of Sauron’s land in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings reveals how the text views the nature of evil; and how the structure of the land develops along with the stories in the Mythago Wood novels by Robert Holdstock. In a genre where there are no limits to the shape a setting can take, the central question must be: Why is it shaped the way it is?

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research, 2019

In this essay, I look at non-narratival world-building. I introduce the concept of critical world... more In this essay, I look at non-narratival world-building. I introduce the concept of critical world-building and outline my view of world-building as architecture. "World-architecture" then provides the basis for my analysis. I propose that the world-architectural way of reading a world would work just as well with worlds built in any medium, textual or non-textual, narrated or non-narrated. My first example shows how a collection of “lore” in a computer game or (in my case) a graphic-novel app can offer material for a scholar who analyses the world of the story. Then I turn to a world without any explicit narrative, using the illustrations from a Dungeons & Dragons rule book to show what they can say about the implied game world.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Imaginary worlds and how they are constructed are central to fiction. The term world-building, ho... more Imaginary worlds and how they are constructed are central to fiction. The term world-building, however, has been applied so broadly in scholarship that it has become ambiguous and difficult to use in critical discussions. Aiming to contribute to greater clarity in the critical use of the term, this article introduces the concept of critical world-building. This is distinguished from other types of world-building, such as that performed by an author or reader, mainly by the fact that a critic analyses a world through a combination of their sequential presentation, as complete world, and with critical interpretation and theoretical filters in place, applying all three perspectives simultaneously. Two possible approaches to critical world-building are presented, based on the functions of a world’s building-blocks and how to interpret those functions. The first approach focuses on a world’s “architecture” – its structural and aesthetic system of places – and the form, function, and meaning of those places. The second emphasises the dynamic interplay between building-blocks and their interconnections in a web of explicit, implied, and interpreted information about the world. The authors base their discussion on textual, secondary fantasy worlds but invite applications of critical world-building to other genres and media.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction, 2019

A practical demonstration of how critical world-building can be used in reading a world. As a tes... more A practical demonstration of how critical world-building can be used in reading a world. As a test-case, we use the alternate history 'Biographical Notes to "A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with Airplanes" by Benjamin Rosenbaum' by Benjamin Rosenbaum (2004). Critical world-building tools are applied to the relation between the fictional worlds and the actual world, to a close-reading of the first sentence of the short-story, and to a thematic interpretation of world elements related to the two female characters.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

In this essay, the author argues that analysing a fantasy novel that comes with a map without tak... more In this essay, the author argues that analysing a fantasy novel that comes with a map without taking into account the dynamic between map and text would be to omit a vital part of the fictional world. By drawing on the Vitruvian triad of architectural theory, the construction of the world in China Miéville's Perdido Street Station (2001) is analysed through some building-blocks of that world that emerge prominently on the novel's map. After a brief discussion of world-building and fantasy maps, the map is taken as a starting point in order to demonstrate how the transport network in general and railways and skyrail in particular are given distinctive form. One function that these building-blocks have in the novel is to provide locations which the reader can use to link dynamically between text and map, thus relating locations to each other spatially and adding layers of meaning to them, turning them from spaces into places. Passages in the text are used to show how it is possible to move between map and text, and how such movement not only augments the spatiality of the world but that it also provides a way to discuss the city's social and economic issues by juxtaposing different characters' perspectives.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Extrapolation, 2018

This article demonstrates how we can gain critical insights into a fantasy world by reading its a... more This article demonstrates how we can gain critical insights into a fantasy world by reading its accompanying map, using Ben McSweeney's map from Brandon Sanderson's The Rithmatist as an example. An analysis of the map's topography, linguistic signs, and surround elements is carried out in terms of Denis Wood's proposition that all maps have authors, subjects, and themes. The results show that even without reference to the text, a map can comment on the fantasy world's technological level, its colonial history, and the central conflict of the story. Interpreting the map also invites a broader examination of the relationship between the fantastical and the actual.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

The Mythic Fantasy of Robert Holdstock: Critical …, Jan 1, 2011

Ryhope Wood, the central setting of the Mythago Cycle, is not simply a naturalist's ... more Ryhope Wood, the central setting of the Mythago Cycle, is not simply a naturalist's fondest dream. Within the impenetrable boundaries of this ancient stand of wildwood, inherited memories of the mythic heroes in our collective unconscious come to life, along with the ...

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, 2018

London is one of the more popular settings for urban fantasy, standing out by offering both a gre... more London is one of the more popular settings for urban fantasy, standing out by offering both a great many famous locations and a history of two millennia. This essay argues that the city’s past is used to create a sense of “London-ness” by examining ten urban fantasies set in London. It identifies and analyzes the functions of four prominent aspects of history in these texts: the city’s origin and pre-origin, the Great Fire of 1666, the periods of building various subterranean tunnels, and the notion that London, at some point, has gone through an architectural Era of Uglification. Apart from conveying London-ness, these aspects are often connected to critical parts of the plots, and provide bridges between the familiar London and its fantastical versions, allowing the reader to help bring the city alive while crossing into the fantastical domain of the story.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Clues: A Journal of Detection, 2017

Among the many unexplored areas of urban fantasy is its relation to crime fiction. This article e... more Among the many unexplored areas of urban fantasy is its relation to crime fiction. This article explores how features of the crime story are used to emphasize, reinforce, or introduce urban fantasy’s social commentary. It looks at the genres’ relationship, analyzing three urban fantasies and their respective crime fiction elements.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, 2016

This article analyzes the nature of urban fantasy by aggregating the claims, suggestions, and ob... more This article analyzes the nature of urban fantasy by aggregating the claims, suggestions, and observations made by several different accounts of what urban fantasy is. These accounts comprise six scholarly sources and four sources written by people who are producers and purveyors of urban fantasy. An eleventh "account" is made up of the impressions conveyed by a vast number of book covers identified through Google Image Search. These eleven accounts are analyzed with regard to their views on worlds and settings, cities and urbanity, central characters, and the sources of fantastic elements. Finally, the article presents how three major threads in the accounts reveal that urban fantasy has a central, thematic concern with the Unseen. This Unseen is largely related to a social Other that portrays unpleasant aspects of urban life, such as criminality, homelessness, addiction, prostitution, and physical and sexual abuse.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

FOUNDATION-DAGENHAM-, Jan 1, 2005

Publikationsansicht. 22720253. Down, Out and Invisible in London and Seattle (2005).Ekman, Stefan... more Publikationsansicht. 22720253. Down, Out and Invisible in London and Seattle (2005).Ekman, Stefan. Abstract. No abstract. Details der Publikation. ...

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

ArdaNEWS Studio, 2020

The goal of the epic quest in epic fantasy is often to thwart the machinations of a Dark Lord in ... more The goal of the epic quest in epic fantasy is often to thwart the machinations of a Dark Lord in order to prevent them from becoming ruler of the world. Dark Lords have a number of features in common: their strategies to achieve world domination are similar as are the ways in which they, their servants, and their domains are portrayed. Satan and Sauron are two central figures that echoe in the fantasy Dark Lords. Tolkien’s Dark Lord in particular has come to dominate the genre’s conception of what the Lord of Evil ought to be like, what his servants are like, and what his country should look like. And through Tolkien’s influence, the shadow of Satan also looms over the epic fantasy genre.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Tolkien Studies, Jan 1, 2009

... Christopher Tolkien, in his comment to the poem, observes that Gondobar is also mentioned in ... more ... Christopher Tolkien, in his comment to the poem, observes that Gondobar is also mentioned in a later (c. 1940) version of Tolkien's early poem "The Happy Mariners" but that elsewhere, it is one of the seven names of Gondolin (Lost Road 104; cf. Lost Tales II 160). ...

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

tolkiensarda.se

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Lever Press, 2024

Open Access ----- Urban fantasy, the genre of fantastic literature in which magic and monsters me... more Open Access ----- Urban fantasy, the genre of fantastic literature in which magic and monsters meet modern society, is fairly young but has old roots. Stefan Ekman’s book, Urban Fantasy: Exploring Modernity through Magic, examines the genre in depth, including its inherent social commentary, its historical development, and its interplay between modernity and the fantastic. The author draws on a wide range of urban fantasy texts from five decades, combining detailed analysis of dozens of novels and other media with broad discussions to provide a comprehensive understanding of the genre across three sections. The first section presents an overview of what the genre looks like today-both in terms of its common traits and its variety of settings-and how it has developed over time, including the history of urban fantasy scholarship. The second section examines urban fantasy’s core concern with the unseen, for example through a focus on unseen individuals overlooked by society or hiding within it, and on ignored urban spaces or labyrinthine undergrounds. The third section addresses how urban fantasy explores the relationship between the supernatural and modernity. Ekman offers readings of fiction by Ben Aaronovitch, Lauren Beukes, P. Djelí Clark, Charles de Lint, Neil Gaiman, Max Gladstone, Kim Harrison, N.K. Jemisin, and Megan Lindholm, among others. Urban Fantasy will appeal to teachers and students of the fantastic as well as to urban fantasy enthusiasts and literary scholars. Ekman illuminates the genre’s evolution and defining traits, inviting readers to rethink urban fantasy as a creative tool for using magic to explore modernity.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Fantasy worlds are never mere backdrops. They are an integral part of the work, and refuse to rem... more Fantasy worlds are never mere backdrops. They are an integral part of the work, and refuse to remain separate from other elements. These worlds combine landscape with narrative logic by incorporating alternative rules about cause and effect or physical transformation. They become actors in the drama—interacting with the characters, offering assistance or hindrance, and making ethical demands. In Here Be Dragons, Stefan Ekman provides a wide-ranging survey of the ubiquitous fantasy map as the point of departure for an in-depth discussion of what such maps can tell us about what is important in the fictional worlds and the stories that take place there. With particular focus on J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Ekman shows how fantasy settings deserve serious attention from both readers and critics. Includes insightful readings of works by Steven Brust, Garth Nix, Robert Holdstock, Terry Pratchett, Charles de Lint, China Miéville, Patricia McKillip, Tim Powers, Lisa Goldstein, Steven R. Donaldson, Robert Jordan, and Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

London is one of the more popular settings for urban fantasy, standing out by offering both a gre... more London is one of the more popular settings for urban fantasy, standing out by offering both a great many famous locations and a history of two millennia. This essay argues that the city’s past is used to create a sense of “London-ness” by examining ten urban-fantasy versions of London. It identifies and analyzes the functions of four prominent aspects of history in these texts: the city’s origin and pre-origin, the Great Fire of 1666, the periods of building various subterranean tunnels, and the notion that London, at some point, has gone through an architectural Era of Uglification. Through these, London is portrayed as a literary place suitable to urban fantasy: it is a modern city but with a long history reaching back to a beginning where facts and legends mix. This long history gives rise to supernatural entities that hide in the underground tunnels constructed at various points in the city’s history

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Among the many unexplored areas of urban fantasy is its relation to crime fiction.This article ex... more Among the many unexplored areas of urban fantasy is its relation to crime fiction.This article explores how features of the crime story are used to emphasize, reinforce, or introduceurban fantasy’s social commentary. It looks at the genres’ relationship, analyzing three urbanfan tasies and their respective crime fiction elements

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

In this essay, the author argues that analysing a fantasy novel that comes with a map without tak... more In this essay, the author argues that analysing a fantasy novel that comes with a map without taking into account the dynamic between map and text would be to omit a vital part of the fictional world. By drawing on the Vitruvian triad of architectural theory, the construction of the world in China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station (2001) is analysed through some building-blocks of that world that emerge prominently on the novel’s map. After a brief discussion of world-building and fantasy maps, the map is taken as a starting point in order to demonstrate how the transport network in general and railways and skyrail in particular are given distinctive form. One function that these building-blocks have in the novel is to provide locations which the reader can use to link dynamically between text and map, thus relating locations to each other spatially and adding layers of meaning to them, turning them from spaces into places. Passages in the text are used to show how it is possible ...

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

This article analyses the nature of urban fantasy by aggregating the claims, suggestions, and obs... more This article analyses the nature of urban fantasy by aggregating the claims, suggestions, and observations made by several different accounts of what urban fantasy is. These accounts comprise six scholarly sources and four sources written by people who are producers and purveyors of urban fantasy. An eleventh “account” is made up of the impressions conveyed by a vast number of book covers identified through Google Image Search. These eleven accounts are analysed with regard to their views on worlds and settings, cities and urbanity, central characters, and the sources of fantastic elements. Finally, the article presents how three major threads in the accounts reveal that urban fantasy has a central, thematic concern with the Unseen. This Unseen is largely related to a social Other that portrays unpleasant aspects of urban life, such as criminality, homelessness, addiction, prostitution, and physical and sexual abuse. Urban fantasy — literatura Niewidocznego 8

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A discussion Literature of the Unseen—Visions and (Re)visions of Urban Fantasy collects theoretic... more A discussion Literature of the Unseen—Visions and (Re)visions of Urban Fantasy collects theoretical reflections upon the subgenres of urban fantasy and paranormal romance, along with a brief commentary on the body of text representative for both conventions. Participants include „Creatio Fantastica” editors—Sylwia Borowska-Szerszun, Krzysztof M. Maj, and Barbara Szymczak-Maciejczyk—as well as renowned experts in the field of fantasy studies: Stefan Ekman, author of the first monograph of fantasy map-making, Here Be Dragons. Exploring Fantasy Maps & Settings (2013), and Audrey Taylor, author of Patricia A. McKillip and the Art of Fantasy World-building (2017). Literatura Niewidocznego. Wizje i rewizje urban fantasy 178 Krzysztof M. Maj: Wydawać by się mogło, że w rozmowie o fantastyce miejskiej w numerze poprzedzonym tak znaczną liczbą tekstów teoretycznoliterackich nie muszą być już poruszane kwestie natury genologicznej czy inne naukowe rozstrzygnięcia o podstawowym charakterze. A ...

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Magic, Monsters, and Make-Believe Heroes, 2019

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All works of fiction build imaginary worlds in which they set their stories. What makes genres su... more All works of fiction build imaginary worlds in which they set their stories. What makes genres such as science fiction and fantasy different is that their worlds are often created not as twins to our actual world but as cousins or even distant relatives to it. Some of these worlds are built to stage a particular narrative, others to house certain casts of characters, and yet others to offer exciting possibilities for exploration. They can be shaped by, for example, text, film, graphic novels, computer games, or combinations of these media. I find such worlds fascinating objects of study, not only as backdrops to particular stories but as aesthetic and cultural objects in themselves, and I am intrigued by how worlds can be built by elements that are not part of the narrative. Such non-narratival elements are often ignored in world-building analyses, while potentially being of great importance to the world to which they contribute. In this essay, I look exclusively at non-narratival w...

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Imaginary worlds and how they are constructed are central to fiction. The term world-building, ho... more Imaginary worlds and how they are constructed are central to fiction. The term world-building, however, has been applied so broadly in scholarship that it has become ambiguous and difficult to use in critical discussions. Aiming to contribute to greater clarity in the critical use of the term, this article introduces the concept of critical world-building. This is distinguished from other types of world-building, such as that performed by an author or reader, mainly by the fact that a critic analyses a world through a combination of their sequential presentation, as complete world, and with critical interpretation and theoretical filters in place, applying all three perspectives simultaneously. Two possible approaches to critical world-building are presented, based on the functions of a world’s building-blocks and how to interpret those functions. The first approach focuses on a world’s “architecture” – its structural and aesthetic system of places – and the form, function, and mean...

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Extrapolation, 2018

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Septentrio Conference Series, 2018

As a central part of its work towards Open Science, Sweden is building an infrastructure for mana... more As a central part of its work towards Open Science, Sweden is building an infrastructure for managing, storing, and providing access to research data. A vital component of this infrastructure will be functions at Swedish universities for supporting researchers with data access and management. To support these local functions, here referred to as Data Access Units (DAUs), a national network of DAUs from 28 universities is under formation.To assist in establishing DAUs and strengthening the network, the Swedish National Data Service and the University of Borås offer a joint professional development course to DAU staff. This course ran for the first time in spring 2018, with 21 participants from 12 universities. The course has three main objectives: to develop data management skills; to increase understanding of the institutional conditions for providing access to research data; and to strengthen the national network through interpersonal connections and collegial ties.The methodology ...

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A discussion Literature of the Unseen—Visions and (Re)visions of Urban Fantasy collects theoretic... more A discussion Literature of the Unseen—Visions and (Re)visions of Urban Fantasy collects theoretical reflections upon the subgenres of urban fantasy and paranormal romance, along with a brief commentary on the body of text representative for both conventions. Participants include „Creatio Fantastica” editors—Sylwia Borowska-Szerszun, Krzysztof M. Maj, and Barbara Szymczak-Maciejczyk—as well as renowned experts in the field of fantasy studies: Stefan Ekman, author of the first monograph of fantasy map-making, Here Be Dragons. Exploring Fantasy Maps & Settings (2013), and Audrey Taylor, author of Patricia A. McKillip and the Art of Fantasy World-building (2017). Literatura Niewidocznego. Wizje i rewizje urban fantasy 178 Krzysztof M. Maj: Wydawać by się mogło, że w rozmowie o fantastyce miejskiej w numerze poprzedzonym tak znaczną liczbą tekstów teoretycznoliterackich nie muszą być już poruszane kwestie natury genologicznej czy inne naukowe rozstrzygnięcia o podstawowym charakterze. A ...

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MFS Modern Fiction Studies, 2016

than a thorough inquiry into it. One photograph, for example, shows a modern BT Tower equipped wi... more than a thorough inquiry into it. One photograph, for example, shows a modern BT Tower equipped with an array of satellite dishes next to an old-fashioned rooftop of a pub. This contrast has plenty to imply, but the absence of any contextualizing commentary leaves the way it relates to multiculturalism unclear. At the same time, Perfect is the first to acknowledge that any study of multiculturalism is inevitability incomplete. To attempt to draw a holistic portrait of a living and breathing populace or the fiction that it inspires would be, as he says, to miss the point. Despite its limitations, then, this book generously furnishes a field of study that will only increase in relevance with ample insights and critical ingenuity, furthering the understanding of how the composition of a contemporary metropolis shapes novelists and is, in turn, shaped by them.

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