BFS Journal #27

In this special issue - our most powerful and topical yet - we take a hard look at War in Fantasy. Conflict, from skirmishes to mass battles, tavern brawls to planet-wide apocalypses, is a staple of Fantasy: The Battle of the Five Armies in The Hobbit, The Last Battle in Narnia, War in Heaven by Charles Williams, and Lyra Belacqua’s fight against death and the consciousness-stifling strictures of the Magisterium, are a few examples. In Warhammer 40K, which expanded the original Fantasy table-top wargame into the far future, we learnt ’in the grim darkness of the far future there is only war’. There are very few large-scale Fantasy texts that do not acknowledge the impact of war in some way, whether through invasion, siege, massacre,colonisation, spoils of war, legacy, or trauma. Protagonists and places are scarred by it. Narratives are often prominently ante-, para-, or postbellum. Powerful weapons - key to victory or defeat, depending on whose hands they fall into - their acquisition and mastery, are the MacGuffins that drive plot. But does the prevalence of conflict in Fantasy normalise violence and even perpetuate it, or does it offer a useful mirror, allowing us to have a perspective on real-world conflict, narrativize trauma and learn to overcome it? In this issue we have our usual, wonderful regular columns - Anna Milon looking at monstering in LARP, Eilís L. Phillips goes hunting the manticore; Lauren McMenemy sinks her teeth into the Vampire; PS Livingstone pulls back the curtain on Dark Romantasy; Alexandra Beaumont reflects on the ghosts of the battlefield; and sleuthing Katy Soar ponders the case of the missing prehistoric ghosts. Filmmaker Fred Warren charts the development of his dark folk road movie project, Elecampane, in Film, describing the challenges of creating a sizzlereel in a heatwave. And in Graphic Novels I am delighted to offer a preview of the brilliant WW2 comic book series, Spearpoint, by Matthew Soffe and Benito Gallego. We have our usual eclectic range of reviews - a folk horror novel, a dystopia, and two Prog Rock albums. And in our Special Features we have a phalanx of formidable international scholarship exploring the theme of the issue: Ukrainian in exile, Karina Andrusiak, reflects poignantly on the impact of war in the writing of her fantasy, in ’Shadows of Memory: How War Transforms Magic in Fantasy’. Klara Tolic compares the Battles of the Hornburg and of the Five Armies in ’Two Battles, Two Visions’. Anthony Dominguez discusses ’Ludic Expenditure: Violence and the Limits of War in Drakengard’. Murray Eiland shares his thoughts on ’War Inkling Style: Medievalism in Tolkien and Lewis’. Jared Mancil deconstructs George R.R. Martin’s manufactured understanding of Fantasy in his article on ’Tolkien, Truth, and War’. Giulia Pellegrinotti considers the ’Cost of War in Harry Potter and Throne of Glass’. And Mario Valori ends our Special Features with a flourish in his article on Terry Pratchett’s depiction of war, in ’When Swords Gleam Like Toothpaste Ads’. Finally, in our Other Features John Linwood Grant explores the creation of his anthology, Darker Continents. And the editor is in conversation with the amazing author R.J. Barker.