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This is a brief discussion of Peter Tinniswood and, of course, of some speculative-fiction books by Tinniswood.
This discussion and list does not necessarily include every book by Tinniswood: it includes only those books that I both know and like. Just as with the author list itself, omission of a particular item may mean I didn’t think highly enough of the omitted item, or it may simply mean that I have not yet sufficient familiarity with it. (In a very few cases, I have listed some books merely on the strength of my opinion of the author: all such books are clearly marked below, as throughout these lists, with a hash mark (#) before the title so you know what’s what.)
I don’t pretend that this discussion is a deep analysis. My intent is no more than to give you a rough idea of what kinds of tales Tinniswood tells, how those tales are usually told, and what makes them and Tinniswood worthy; in sum, to help you rank Peter Tinniswood (and the works by Tinniswood listed here) on your personal literary “to do” list.
Regrettably, I have not yet had an opportunity to write an essay on this author, but the “Other Resources” section below will lead you to some information about the “Notable Books” listed farther down this page.
It is more than sad that Peter Blackwood’s posthumous appreciation of Tinniswood, “Why wasn’t Peter Tinniswood a household name?” [archived copy] (in The Independent) is so aptly titled—and is now only available via the Wayback Machine. Almost everything available about him (as opposed to this or that particular broadcast series he wrote) is an obituary: the BBC News; and the JRank site; and The Independent [archived copy]. The only non-obituary item of any consequence at all is basically just another bibliography.
And notice that none of those so much as mention The Stirk of Stirk, though Phillip Purser (one-time television critic of the Sunday Telegraph) has written in The Guardian that “He also created a strange poetic masterpiece called The Stirk Of Stirk (1976), in which Robin Hood is an old man and Maid Marion a young boy. This is Tinniswoodland. The book is a triumph of style, so perhaps it is to be expected that it is forgotten today.” For that matter, Neil Gaiman has written “Tinniswood is someone who tends to be forgotten when people talk about great fantasy writers, but he wrote The Stirk of Stirk, a strange, wonderful, historical fantasy…” Alas.
I could find none.
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