Charles de Lint

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Charles de Lint in late-March 2005, at Swancon XXX in Perth, Australia.

A Canadian fantasy writer, Charles de Lint has published 60 books, both novels and short story collections, and is widely regarded as a master writer. His work tends to straddle the line between urban fantasy and mythic literature. He is also a Celtic folk musician, writing original music.

Works written by Charles de Lint include:

An extremely incomplete list - see Wikipeida or the author's website for more.

Works set in Ottawa:

Works set in Newford:

Works set elsewhere:

Beginning with the book The Dreaming Place in 1990, de Lint has continually written what is known as the Newford series, a set of loosely connected novels and short stories, all written about characters in the fictional city of Newford.

Charles de Lint provides examples of the following tropes:
  • Badass Normal: Imogene from The Blue Girl. She gets a Crowning Moment of Awesome taking down a Jerk Jock with a switchblade.
  • Big Good: Lucius Portsmouth and White Buffalo Woman share this role in the Newford stories. His earlier fantasy works often feature such a figure as well.
  • Bunny Ears Lawyer: The Riddle of the Wren has Markj'n, an eccentric treasure hunter who won't stop talking. He also happens to be extremely deadly in combat.
    • Newford has The Crow Girls, a pair of godlike beings who like to pass the time disguised as a pair of silly, giggling teenaged goth girls.
  • Disc One Final Boss: Yarac in Harp Of The Grey Rose turns out to be just one member of a pantheon of evil godlike beings who can keep entering the world as long as a member of the pantheon that opposes them is present.
    • In Widdershins Grey's bogan gang who instigate all the conflicts in the novel. Their violent actions give a Blood Knight the pretense he has been looking for to mobilize a massive army of Native American spirits for war.
  • Fable Remake: Jack of Kinrowan is Jack the Giant Killer and other fairy tales in then-modern (late-1980s) Ottawa.
  • Five-Man Band: In Widdershins:
  • In The Riddle of the Wren:
  • Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Jilly Coppercorn.
  • Karma Houdini: The original version of Del. By the time we finally meet him in The Onion Girl he is a drunken shadow of his former self and both of his victims come to feel a sort of pity for him but his crimes have still technically gone unpunished.
    • The hit-and-run driver who cripples Jilly is never caught.
  • Native American Mythology: Not only borrows heavily from Alaskan and Northwest tales, but in Newford, it's actually Canon.
  • Petting Zoo People: The cousins around Newford definitely qualify, especially when they're in their between forms and have human bodies and animal heads.
  • Rape as Backstory: Lots of characters. De Lint is too subtle for an Author Tract, but abuse and its impact are definitely major themes.
  • Urban Warfare: Between Native American manitou and Old World fae, no less!
  • Urban Fantasy: De Lint was one of the first to start writing it.
  • Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Newford. Canadian readers tend to think it's somewhere in the USA, while American readers tend to think it's somewhere in Canada.
  • A Wizard Did It: The antagonists or both Trader and The Mystery of Grace are ordinary humans who set substantial supernatural events in motion with no clear explanation given of just how they did it, the resulting situation itself being seen as far more important than its cause.
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