If you buy SFX Magazine this month you will notice that there is a book club feature written by someone called “Mark Charon Newton” with the interesting and much cooler “o” spelling of Charan.
I don’t know who this chap is, but his write-up on Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock makes me want to read the book.
I mention the term Rural Fantasy in the article. Now it’s in print, the sub-genre is officially real.
5 replies on “SFX Book Club Feature”
Congratulations! Sorry that SFX dropped the ball on something as complicated as “the famous author’s name”, but promises to be a great article. Glad to see Mythago Wood staking a claim in the top 100… well done.
Hi Jared,
Yeah, I don’t mind that much though. What’s more important is that people go out and read Mythago Wood!
How’d it work? Did SFX have their top 100 sorted, or did someone spot that you were a Mythago Wood fan and go, “that’ll do in the, I dunno, 30-60 range…”.
I’m charmed by the idea that the brief was super-specific. “Mark,” the SFX guy says (or maybe “Mork”), “we need your help… what is the fifty-second best must-read genre classic?”
Yeah, when I was asked to do a feature, there was a big ol’ list of titles to choose from, though we could suggest our own.
Mythago Wood wasn’t originally on the list, but there was no problem in having it featured. And I don’t think there was a chart as such, it was quite an organic way of doing things. So Mork got the go-ahead.
Sounds like one of those trade surnames like Smith or Baker, except in this case one’s ancestral trade would be ferrying the deceased across the Styx.