flawed but noble man faced with a difficult job.
The fantasy element is primarily associated with
his mortal enemy, Morgana, who derives her magi-
cal powers from the fairies. Beloved Exile(1984) is
an interesting attempt to extend the story after the
death of Arthur, chronicling the efforts by Guine-
vere to hold the splintering kingdom together in
his absence. The two novels provide an unusually
original rethinking of the story of King Arthur.
Godwin returned to that setting for The Last Rain-
bow(1985), in which a Christian priest travels to
the land of the Celts, hoping to convert them, and
discovers that not only do the natives still worship
the pagan gods, but that magic is real and an im-
portant part of their culture.
Godwin wrote a second trio of novels based on
the legend of Robin Hood that are even less fan-
tastic and amount to historical novels about events
that never took place. The three titles are Sher-
wood(1991), Robin and the King(1993), and Return
to Nottingham(1993). The Tower of Beowulf(1995)
is based on the Norse legend and covers the early
life of Beowulf, his training as a warrior, the culture
that produced him, his battle against Grendel, who
dies midway through the book, and his subsequent
alienation from his own people. The Lovers(1999)
is a retelling of the story of Tristan and Iseulde and
is Godwin’s weakest novel.
Several of Godwin’s early short stories involve
the supernatural, and most of these were collected
in The Fire When It Comes(1984), which won the
World Fantasy Award as best collection. A Cold
Blue Light (1983), written in collaboration with
Marvin Kaye, is a sort of haunted house story with-
out ghosts but with plenty of supernatural events
anyway. A Truce with Time(1988) involves ghosts
but is basically a humorous love story whose plot is
enlivened by the pranks of the mischievous spirits.
Many writers have written novel-length retellings
of legendary stories, but few have done so as skill-
fully and intelligently as has Parke Godwin.
Goingback, Owl(1959– )
Owl Goingback began producing short fiction in
1993 and sold half a dozen stories before his first
novel appeared. The most remarkable of his short
tales from this period is “The Spoils of War”
(1993). His popularity soared following the publica-
tion of his first novel, Crota(1996), which won the
Bram Stoker Award for first novel and was also a fi-
nalist for another as best novel altogether. A prehis-
toric creature is freed from an underground cavern
by an earthquake and begins preying on people in
the area. Its destruction is made more difficult by
the fact that it has an intelligence to rival our own
and is immensely more powerful. With the help of a
medicine man, the protagonists finally track it to its
underground lair for some particularly suspenseful
sequences in an abandoned ruin.
Shaman Moon(1997) appeared in the omnibus
The Essential World of Darknessand has never been
published alone. It is the story of a young orphan
who escapes a brutal institution and is subse-
quently befriended by a shaman who realizes that
she has the potential to be a guardian of a mystical
gateway between worlds. When a legion of super-
natural creatures make a subsequent attempt to in-
vade our world, they are thwarted only when she
acknowledges and masters her abilities. The idea
that our world interfaces with another is repeated
in Darker Than Night(1999). The protagonist in
this case is a horror writer who inherits a house
from the grandmother he believed was unbalanced
in her belief that she was harried by inhuman crea-
tures, but he discovers that she was right after he
moves into her home and has a similar experience.
Evil Whispers(2001) is less interesting, an unre-
markable possession story mixed with voodoo. Breed
(2002) is considerably better, another story of the
thinning of a border between realities. Three would-
be witches inadvertently stumble on a genuine mag-
ical spell, unwisely open a doorway, and allow a
malevolent, shape-changing creature to enter our
reality. Goingback consistently demonstrates excep-
tional writing skills, although individual scenes from
his novels are often more memorable than the main
plot. He frequently draws on his Native American
heritage to good effect and is one of the more skill-
ful horror writers in crafting his characters. He has
also written two children’s books.Golden, Christie(1963– )
A short-lived subset of the role-playing-game–re-
lated fiction produced by TSR publications wasGolden, Christie 135