Bangsian Fantasy Books
Explore books, themes, and recommendations in Bangsian Fantasy Books.
Bangsian Fantasy is a sub-genre primarily concerned with the afterlife and specifically with the exploration of the afterlife. The sub-genre gets its name from author John Kendrick Bangs. Bangs wrote stories about the afterlife and the supernatural, but with a humorous style. Bangs is not the first writer, nor the last, who wrote stories like these, but his work gave the sub-genre shape.
Characteristics of Bangsian Fantasy
- Level of Magic
Low. Magic is not a part of most Bangsian Fantasy.
- Level of Grand Ideas and Social Implications
High. These are exploratory stories about life and about death and so the implications can be far reaching
- Level of Characterization
High. Characters are the driving force of a Bangsian story. Indeed, there are some common characters (grim reaper, angels, demons) who frequently haunt the pages of a Bangsian story. The use of well known people/characters, like Shakespeare, may be construed as a cop-out, but it requires a great deal of skill and character understanding to craft a story around characters who may have been actually living once.
- Level of Plot Complexity
Variable. Many Bangsian stories are unconcerned with plot development and instead focus on character interactions and philosophical musings. While other stories have very clear cause and event stories with action.
- Level of Violence
Variable. Bangsian stories that are more like thought experiments tend not to have much violence. However, others are stories about hunting demons and ghosts down who are causing problems in the living world. While the stories are all about what happens after death, scenes of death are inevitable.
Popular Bangsian Fantasy Books
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1
A House-Boat on the Styx
by John Bangs
A kind of literary thought experiment where multiple literary and other famous figures are put together in a series of short stories.
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2
Riverworld series
This series can also be considered Science Fiction. Humanity is resurrected (from across all of history) on the banks of a constructed world.
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3
The Lovely Bones
by Alice Sebold
A story narrated by a teenage girl who has died and comes to terms with her own death.
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4
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5
Rest in Peace Department
A comic book about undead officers. The protagonist is the victim of murder who signs on to the R.I.P.D in exchange for finding out who killed him.
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6
The Divine Comedy
This epic poem is a canonical text that presents an imaginative and allegorical vision of the afterlife and of the soul's journey.
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7
God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian
A collection of stories where Vonnegut as an interviewer is granted access to heaven for short periods of time and meets a range of people like Shakespeare, Hitler, and one of Vonnegut's own fictional characters Kilgore Trout
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8
Heroes in Hell
by Janet Morris
Chris Morris, and C.J. Cherryh et. al. A series of short stories written by various authors is a modern take on Bagsian Fantasy. The premise of this shared world series is that people die, go to Hell, and then pursue whatever they did while living
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9
Everlost
The souls of children (aged 5-15) who die become afterlights and wander the Earth eternally.
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10
What Dreams May Come
A novel about a husband who is sent to heaven, but descends to hell in order to rescue his wife. A stunningly visual movie of the same name was based on this novel.
The shortlist
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