The Tough Guide to Fantasyland was published by Vista in 1996. The book is formatted as a travel guide — alphabetically organized, with entries on the “features” a tourist to Fantasyland can expect to encounter — but its actual purpose is satirical: it identifies and mocks the cliches of commercial fantasy fiction with devastating accuracy.
Jones spent decades reading and reviewing fantasy novels, and The Tough Guide distills that experience into a comprehensive taxonomy of the genre’s laziest habits. The entries cover everything from character types (the Doddos Companion who exists only to be rescued, the Dark Lord whose motivation is never explained, the Doddos Wise Old Man who dispenses cryptic advice) to worldbuilding failures (economies that make no sense, maps that show terrain but no trade routes, horses that need no feeding) to prose tics (the pseudo-medieval dialogue, the portentous capitalization, the stew that characters eat at every meal).
The humor is sharp but not cruel. Jones clearly loves fantasy — her own novels demonstrate what the genre can achieve — and her satire is directed not at the genre itself but at writers who use its conventions as a substitute for thought. The book implicitly argues that every fantasy novel should invent its own world rather than borrowing a prefabricated one from Tolkien’s estate.
The book also functions, inadvertently, as a creative writing textbook. By identifying every cliche so precisely, Jones enables aspiring fantasy writers to recognize and avoid them. Many writers have credited The Tough Guide with improving their work.
Collecting The Tough Guide to Fantasyland
First edition (Vista/Gollancz, London, 1996): Trade paperback (no hardcover first).
Market values:
- First edition paperback, fine: $20–$50
- US hardcover (DAW, 1998): $30–$80
- Signed: $60–$150