Soundtrack: MYSTERIOUS ISLAND (1961) Bernard Herrmann

I listen to a lot of film scores when I write, and Bernard Herrmann is among my favourite film composers of the golden age of cinema. His score for Mysterious Island, is one of many Fantasy scores that he did for Ray Harryhausen movies.

Tribute Film Classics recently debuted on the film score scene as a new soundtrack label, re-recording classic film scores in their entirety. Mysterious Island was previously released by CD label Cloud Nine, fourteen years ago! It’s long out of print, and once of many Herrmann scores in my collection.

This new – complete – version by Tribute features nearly an hour and ten minutes of Herrmann’s classic Fantasy score. Many tracks have never been heard, outside from viewing the film, and it’s a revelation to hear the intricacies of score cues that are new to the ears. Pure awe and wonder from track-to-track.

My favourite track, the most famous, is called ‘The Bird’. It runs 2mins43seconds and is a frantic Scherzo-type piece that is heavy on brass, with contrasting rhythms that resonate with booming low-tones, typical of Herrmann’s psychological film music. It’s a great listen, and great music to write to.

Non-Fiction: THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FANTASY by John Clute & John Grant

Just got back from town – after an exhausting Saturday rush, my legs like jelly and my body aching with all the walking I’ve done (nothing in Nottingham is flat!). Nipped into my favourite antiquarian book shop and browsed the Fantasy section like a kid in a candy store.

I bought a big tome of a Fantasy encyclopedia. It retailed at £50 originally, a massive, oversized hardback book, over 1,000 pages of tiny text – it’s long out of print – and I got it for £18, so I’m well chuffed that I was able to pick it up.

It covers every aspect of the Fantasy genre, and is absolutely mind-numbing with the detail of its entries. The scope is pretty huge. It defines a lot of elements that you find in Fantasy fiction, so it’s a total resource for my Fantasy writing. It’s very inspiring to be able to read in detail certain elements that set the imagination going.

This huge volume is the first comprehensive encyclopedia of the fantasy field. It will prove to be the definitive guide for years to come, not only describing the genre, but redefining it – offering an exciting new analysis of this highly diverse and hugely popular sphere of literature, from precursors such as Shakespeare and Dante, through Lewis Carroll, George MacDonald and L. Frank Baum to J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and their modern successors, like Ursula K. Le Guin, Peter S. Beagle, Stephen R. Donaldson and Jostein Gaarder.

With over 4,000 entries and over 1 million words, it covers every aspect of fantasy – in literature, films, television, opera, art and comics. Written and compiled by a team of editors with unparalleled collective experience in the field, it will be an invaluable reference work not only for anyone with an interest in how elements of the fantastic are used in the imaginative arts.

‘Its scholarship is immaculate, its enthusiasm profound’
The Times

‘Superb; accurate, detailed, critical’
New Statesman & Society

 

‘The best reference book on its subject to appear’
Washington Post

 

‘Scholarly, accurate, detailed, critical and interesting … an essential purchase’
TLS

 

‘Excellent’
Literary Review