The New York Review of Science Fiction

Mike Barrett: “A Story to Be Read for Its Own Sake”: The Worm Ouroboros

It was the epic three-volume novel The Lord of the Rings that set the scene for what was to eventually become the enormous popularity of a genre that barely existed prior to the mid-1960s. However, as I mentioned in my article “Rites of Passage in Neustria” (NYRSF 323), heroic fantasy had its origins somewhat earlier, and one of the very first novels of its kind was The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison in 1922, a book that introduced violent action and dark sorcery to fantasy, features that came to define much of the field.

Invaders: 22 Tales from the Outer Limits of Literature, edited by Jacob Weisman, reviewed by Joe Milicia

San Francisco: Tachyon Publications, 2016; $16.95 tpb; 384 pages

The first thing to say about Invaders is that it’s a good collection of sf and borderline-sf short stories. I’d argue that all but a couple of the 22 are quite worth reading: a nice percentage. The stories are recent or nearly so, with copyright dates 1990 to 2015, except for one by Max Apple published in 1975.