Best Fantasy Books of 1971

Below you will find a list of the fantasy books published in 1971 that we enjoyed most. Click on a book title to read the full review.

Grendel by John Gardner

When Grendel is drawn up from the caves under the mere, where he lives with his bloated, inarticulate hag of a mother, into the fresh night air, it is to lay waste Hrothgar's meadhall and heap destruction on the humans he finds there. What else can he do? For he is not like the men who busy themselves with God and love and beauty. He sees the infuriating human rage for order and recognises the meaninglessness of his own existence.

"Adam Brown claims that 'mostly though, the novel is just Grendel himself, encountering the rainy, stony earth, the indifferent vastness of the sky, the cold of winter... Grendel setting his will against the inevitability of history.' the reality is that the 'truth' of Grendel, the only proof, evidenced in so much literature, is that he is a monster that encourages imagination and rationalisation of humanity’s endless struggle to rise above Nature. No matter what lies within his breost-hord his meaning is 'You stimulate them! You make them think and scheme. You drive them to poetry, science, religion, all that makes them what they are for as long as they last. You are, so to speak, the brute existent by which they learn to define themselves... You are mankind, or man’s condition: inseparable as the mountain-climber and the mountain'. Indeed. Read this novella for it will make you think and define yourself again.'

Published: 1971