Dying Earth is a fantasy series by the American author Jack Vance, comprising four books originally published from 1950 to 1984. Some have been called picaresque. They vary from short story collections to a fix-up, perhaps all the way to novel.
Lyon Sprague de Camp was an American writer of science fiction, fantasy and non-fiction. In a career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, including novels and works of non-fiction, including biographies of other fantasy authors. He was a major figure in science fiction in the 1930s and 1940s.
Gordon Randall Phillip David Garrett was an American science fiction and fantasy author. He was a contributor to Astounding and other science fiction magazines of the 1950s and 1960s. He instructed Robert Silverberg in the techniques of selling large quantities of action-adventure science fiction, and collaborated with him on two novels about men from Earth disrupting a peaceful agrarian civilization on an alien planet.
Lord Darcy is a detective in an alternate history, created by Randall Garrett. The first stories were asserted to take place in the same year as they were published, but in a world with an alternate history that is different from our own and that is governed by the rules of magic rather than the rules of physics. Despite the magical trappings, the Lord Darcy stories play fair as whodunnits; magic is never used to "cheat" a solution, and indeed, the mundane explanation is often obscured by the leap to assume a magical cause.
Historical fantasy is a category of fantasy and genre of historical fiction that incorporates fantastic elements into a more "realistic" narrative. There is much crossover with other subgenres of fantasy; those classed as Arthurian, Celtic, or Dark Ages could just as easily be placed in historical fantasy. Stories fitting this classification generally take place prior to the 20th century.
Wall of Serpents is a collection of two fantasy short stories by American science fiction and fantasy authors L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt, the third volume in their Harold Shea series. The pieces were originally published in the magazines Fantasy Fiction and Beyond Fantasy Fiction in the issues for June 1953 and October 1954. The collection was first published in hardcover by Avalon Books in 1960, with a new edition from Phantasia Press in 1978. The first paperback edition was published by Dell Books in 1979. A 1980 edition published by Sphere Books was retitled The Enchanter Compleated. An E-book edition was published by Gollancz's SF Gateway imprint on September 29, 2011 as part of a general release of de Camp's works in electronic form.
Caroline Stevermer is an American writer of young adult fantasy novels and shorter works. She is best known for historical fantasy novels.
Too Many Magicians is a novel by Randall Garrett, an American science fiction author. One of several stories starring Lord Darcy, it was first serialized in Analog Science Fiction in 1966 and published in book form the same year by Doubleday. It was later gathered together with Murder and Magic (1979) and Lord Darcy Investigates (1981) into the omnibus collection Lord Darcy. The novel was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1967.
The Eyes of the Overworld is a picaresque fantasy fix-up novel by American writer Jack Vance, published by Ace in 1966, the second book in the Dying Earth series that Vance inaugurated in 1950. Retitled Cugel the Clever in its Vance Integral Edition (2005), the story takes place in Vance's Dying Earth setting, where the Sun is dying and magic and technology coexist. It features the self-proclaimed Cugel the Clever in linked episodic stories. Cugel is an anti-hero character; while he is typically a crafty scoundrel who seeks to turn a profit from a situation, he retains some good values at times. In the novel, Cugel is caught stealing from a wizard, who forces Cugel to travel to a faraway realm to find a rare magical jewel.
Ten Little Wizards is a novel by Michael Kurland featuring Randall Garrett's alternate history detective Lord Darcy. It was first published in paperback by Ace Books in 1988.
A magician, also known as an enchanter/enchantress, mage, magic-user, sorcerer/sorceress, spell-caster, warlock, witch, or wizard, is someone who uses or practices magic derived from supernatural, occult, or arcane sources. Magicians are common figures in works of fantasy, such as fantasy literature and role-playing games, and enjoy a rich history in mythology, legends, fiction, and folklore.
The Mathematics of Magic: The Enchanter Stories of L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt is an omnibus collection of seven fantasy stories by American science fiction and fantasy authors L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt, gathering material previously published in three volumes as The Incomplete Enchanter (1941), The Castle of Iron (1950), and Wall of Serpents (1960) together with additional material from The Enchanter Reborn (1992) and The Exotic Enchanter (1995). It represents an expansion of the earlier omnibuses The Compleat Enchanter, which contained only the material in the first two volumes, and The Complete Compleat Enchanter, which contained only the material in the first three volumes. The expanded version also differs from the previous omnibuses in its selection of supplementary material. The Mathematics of Magic is the first edition of the authors' Harold Shea series to include every one of their contributions to it in one volume. Contributions to the series of other authors from the collections of the 1990s are omitted.
Murder and Magic is a collection of short stories by American writer Randall Garrett, featuring his alternate history detective Lord Darcy. It was first published in paperback in 1979 by Ace Books, and has been reprinted a number of times since. It was later gathered together with Too Many Magicians (1967) and Lord Darcy Investigates (1981) into the omnibus collection Lord Darcy.
Lord Darcy Investigates is a collection of short stories by Randall Garrett featuring his alternate history detective Lord Darcy. It was first published in paperback in 1981 by Ace Books, and has been reprinted a number of times since. It was later gathered together with Murder and Magic (1979) and Too Many Magicians into the omnibus collection Lord Darcy.
"The Bitter End" is a science fantasy short story by American writer Randall Garrett, featuring his alternate history detective Lord Darcy and magician Master Sean. It was first published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine and has been included in the second edition of the collection Lord Darcy.
Diana Wynne Jones was a British writer of fantasy novels for children and adults. She wrote a small amount of non-fiction.
Mixed Magics: Four Tales of Chrestomanci is a collection of four fantasy stories by the British author Diana Wynne Jones, first published by Collins in 2000. One was original to the collection, "Stealer of Souls", a novella about half of the book in length; three had been published in the 1980s. It was the fifth book published among seven Chrestomanci books and the only collection in the series.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Narnia:
Witches is an anthology of themed fantasy and science fiction short stories on the subject of witches edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh as the second volume in their Isaac Asimov's Magical Worlds of Fantasy series. It was first published in paperback by Signet/New American Library in April 1984. It was later gathered together with Wizards, the first book in the series, into the omnibus hardcover collection Isaac Asimov's Magical Worlds of Fantasy: Witches & Wizards (1985).
The Eyes Have It is a fantasy short story by Randall Garrett, the first to feature his alternate history detective Lord Darcy. It was first published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact in 1964 and included in the collection Murder and Magic in 1979.
