Fantasy Adaptations

In a similar vein to my list of "multicultural fantasy," I'm here trying to build a list of fantasy novels whose plots are largely based on specific pre-existing narratives. If you know of additional titles that should go here, please let me know; specific criteria for the list may be found at the bottom of this page.



Determining whether or not something is faithful enough to count as a retelling/adaptation/whatever is even more muddy than guessing what culture a setting is based on. The best I can to is to give examples: I would count West Side Story as an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet; O Brother, Where Art Thou? would be a borderline case for the Odyssey; the 2004 movie of King Arthur would NOT qualify. Why? Because that film lacked the Grail Quest, the Mordred business, the Arthur/Lancelot/Guinevere triangle -- pretty much everything recognizable as an Arthurian narrative. In fact, its Arthurian content consisted of some names, a setting, a cameo appearance by a table that happened to be round, and a brief scene with a sword that a small boy had trouble pulling -- but out of his father's grave, not a stone. As far as I was concerned, they were flimsy Arthurian decorations on a story that had nothing to do with actual Arthurian folklore. Therefore, it does not qualify.

As with the other list, I'm looking for novels, not short stories, and will probably end up mostly with fantasy, but am not averse to SF if it happens to retell an existing narrative. What narratives am I looking for? Folkloric ones. Yes, I know that's fuzzy. Folktales, myths, ballads, legends, epic poems, etc. I'll take retellings of Shakespeare plays if you know of any, and of other public-domain material, but things like Terry Brooks' The Sword of Shannara as a retelling of The Lord of the Rings are not for this list. (A later list, quite possibly.)

I'm interested in getting a comprehensive set of Arthur and Robin Hood retellings, but I'm also very keen on getting things that aren't so very well-worn in the genre. Please send me titles.