Hi new to your f'list, but loved Kingspeaker, on BCS.
I haven't expanded all the threads, but I don't think anyone has mention Michael Ende's "The Neverending Story" which, I think is the only portal story I've really liked apart from Narnia. But I think that's because there was purpose beyond wish fulfillment for bringing the MC to Fantasia, and also beyond saving fantasia. When he goes, he's already saved it; he's there to develop himself as a person.
I didn't like The Fionavar Tapestry, BTW, since so many people have lauded it already. I read it wondering why the portal element was there at all, seeing in it something that I had got over doing early on in my writing development. (This aside from the stylistic quirks that annoyed me.)
But that's where I see the difference between good and bad portal stories; the transportation to another world needs to be intrinsic to the story. The Fionavar tapestry could have been written without the portal element; the Neverending Story couldn't. I don't think the Narnia ones could either, since the first one had such a dependency on the fact that there were no humans in narnia, and the last one expands to the infinite Narnias beyond the door.
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yati
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Date: 2009-04-21 09:50 pm (UTC)I haven't expanded all the threads, but I don't think anyone has mention Michael Ende's "The Neverending Story" which, I think is the only portal story I've really liked apart from Narnia. But I think that's because there was purpose beyond wish fulfillment for bringing the MC to Fantasia, and also beyond saving fantasia. When he goes, he's already saved it; he's there to develop himself as a person.
I didn't like The Fionavar Tapestry, BTW, since so many people have lauded it already. I read it wondering why the portal element was there at all, seeing in it something that I had got over doing early on in my writing development. (This aside from the stylistic quirks that annoyed me.)
But that's where I see the difference between good and bad portal stories; the transportation to another world needs to be intrinsic to the story. The Fionavar tapestry could have been written without the portal element; the Neverending Story couldn't. I don't think the Narnia ones could either, since the first one had such a dependency on the fact that there were no humans in narnia, and the last one expands to the infinite Narnias beyond the door.