thoughtful fantasy that deserves more recognition
than it has received. Swords against the Shadow-
lands(1998) was to have been the first of several
novels based on the popular characters FAFHRD
AND THE GRAY MOUSER, created by Fritz LEIBER,
but no additional titles have appeared. Bailey con-
tinues to write occasional short fiction, of which
“Cocoons” is his most notable effort.
Bangs, John Kendrick (1862–1922)
Despite the success of Terry PRATCHETTand Piers
ANTHONY, humorous fantasy has not been able to
maintain consistent popularity in the United States
in recent years. Humor is even less common in the
horror field. John Kendrick Bangs, who wrote
under a variety of pseudonyms in addition to his
own name, poked fun at both genres, and while
much of his work has fallen into obscurity, his
best efforts are still considered minor classics.
Perhaps the most famous of these is the Houseboat
sequence, consisting of A House-Boat on the Styx
(1895), The Pursuit of the Houseboat(1897), and
The Enchanted Typewriter(1899). The three books
are written in a leisurely style that is no longer pop-
ular, recounting numerous conversations among
the dead, both the famous and the obscure, as they
reside in Bangs’s sketchily described afterlife. The
first two are novels of a sort, while the third is a se-
ries of interrelated stories involving a typewriter
that allows the living to communicate with those
who have passed on.
Bangs also wrote a substantial body of short
stories, many of which are designed to invoke hu-
morous rather than horrified responses. The best of
his stories in this vein are collected in The Water
Ghost and Others(1894) and Ghosts I Have Met
and Some Others (1898). Roger Camerden: A
Strange Story(1887) was his only straightforward
horror novel, and it has largely been forgotten.
Toppleton’s Client(1893) is considerably better but
still slight, as is his satirical look at biblical events,
The Autobiography of Methuselah(1909). Olympian
Nights(1902) is his only other novel of real merit,
an account of the meeting between a modern man
and the Greek gods. The best of his short fiction
includes “The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall” and
“The Exorcism That Failed.”
Barker, Clive(1952– )
Clive Barker’s emergence as a major horror writer
was accomplished in a fashion that had never been
done before and has not been duplicated since. Al-
though he had never published any supernatural fic-
tion at all, he wrote a considerable body of short
horror stories that were published in three volumes
in 1984 as The Books of Bloodand that collectively
won the World Fantasy Award as best collection.
The subject matter was frequently extreme, many of
the plots were highly original, and with no previous
history in the field at all his name was suddenly men-
tioned in the same breath as that of Stephen King.
Three more volumes appeared the following year,
which appeared in the United States as The Inhuman
Condition, Cabal,and In the Flesh. Cabalis actually a
short novel about a society of strange creatures living
underground, which was filmed as Nightbreedin- Although not quite as popular as the first set,
the new stories were remarkable enough to ensure
his continued status as a genre leader.
Barker’s first full-length novel was highly an-
ticipated, although it proved to be less impressive
than his shorter work. The Damnation Game
(1985) follows the exploits of a creature who lives
disguised as a human being and who has the power
to command the dead. The title refers to a form of
supernatural gambling that affects the lives of sev-
eral characters. Although the plot was original and
the writing excellent, the novel was not nearly as
intense as his short fiction. Barker’s second novel,
Weaveworld (1987), is a very long fantasy with
some dark overtones. A large cast of characters
battles for control of a magical carpet that contains
the design for countless realities, including ours,
woven into its intricate patterns. Manipulating the
designs affects the worlds depicted, which makes it
a potentially powerful weapon. The Great and Se-
cret Show(1989), also very long, blends fantasy and
horror in an uneasy mix that involves a method of
consciously controlling evolution and the erosion
of what we think of as reality. Barker was clearly
not willing to remain just a horror writer, but he
also avoided writing mainstream fantasy.
His next novel, Imajica(1991), was so long that
it was later split into two volumes. This was more
overtly a fantasy, reminiscent in some ways of the
AMBER SERIESby Roger ZELAZNY. Our world is one of
Barker, Clive 15