Book list: Portal Fantasy (July 2022)

[SFFBC, Ancillary Mod]

These are the books that were nominated for the portal fantasy theme. Please continue recommending books that fit the theme. Nomination rules no longer apply, all formats, authors, etc. welcome!

An Accident of Stars
The City of Brass
Howl’s Moving Castle
The Hollow Places
A Deadly Education
The Magicians
The Mirror of Her Dreams
The Unspoken Name
Lord Foul's Bane
The Paradise War
The Book of Lost Things
Lobizona
Inheritors of Eschaton
Marking Time
The Kingdom of Back
Palimpsest
Imajica

[Colin]

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix Harrow would seem to fit as would the entire Wayward Children series.

[Meredith]

The Catswold Portal by Shirley Rousseau Murphy.
And I just want to point out that my beloved Pixie (RIP) apparently posed for the cover of this book in one of her earlier lives.



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[Michelle]

Well, she IS very photogenic after all.

[Stephen]

I haven’t read any of The Chronicles of Narnia in a long time, but I reread them many times as a preteen and for me they are practically the template for this kind of story.

[Beth]

I mentioned The Twelve Kingdoms: Sea of Shadow in the thread but didn't nominate it, This is a translation of a Japanese YA novel which is sadly out of print in English. Our main character's arc is quite cool as she goes from a frantic, helpless newcomer to the fantasy world, to a much better situation. Maybe someone will luck into it at their library or at a used bookstore.

[Tamara]

This is a good thread! Thank you for adding it, to continue on from the good things suggested in the nomination round. I think portal fantasies are something many of us enjoy, for their wishful qualities. (Who didn't want to step through a wardrobe into Narnia/another world in general as a child?)

[Tamara]

and (adding the covers, because they're gorgeous) are nice YA ones. Sometimes you want a fairytale-type story. Juliet Marillier makes it meaningful - she doesn't do silly. A bit like Diana Wynne Jones in that way.

[Michelle]

Those two were both very good books!

[Rosina]

The Wandering Fire and the other two books of the Fionavar Tapestry I am sure qualify, and are excellent - and Tamara is right, portal books are very appealing even when one is older.

[Meredith]

Seanan McGuire, writing as A. Deborah Barker also has the Up-and-Under series, starting with Over the Woodward Wall. If you've read her Middlegame, this is the children's story referenced and quoted in that book.

Cat Valente's Fairyland series, starting with The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, is a lot of fun. It's written for a younger audience but totally enjoyable for adults.

[Beth]

Weaveworld by Clive Barker is on the group bookshelf already and fits the prompt... however I had to stop reading that one because it was too violent for me. I really liked The Thief of Always, a middle grade portal fantasy, by the same author.