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Review of The Sky Giants
Oct. 15th, 2024 03:24 pmBailey, K. V., 2008, The Sky Giants, cover and interior drawings by Ian Brown, Hilltop Press, 4 Nowell Place, Almondbury, Huddersfield, HD5 8PB UK, saddle-stitched, stiff plastic-coated cover, not paginated, but 48 pages, $7. ISBN 978-0-905262-40-6.
A sturdy offering, reprint of an out-of-print 1989 chapbook by the late K. V. Bailey. According to Steve Sneyd, the publisher of this edition, Bailey was a much-underrated British science fiction and fantasy poet. All of his chapbooks are now out of print, although some of his work is available in other publications that remain in print. Accordingly, it seemed opportune to Sneyd, whose interest in the history of genre poetry is well known, to make it easy for a younger generation to become acquainted with one of Britain's best fantastic poets.
"The Sky Giants" includes, in addition to the preface written by the author, a foreword by Steve Sneyd about Bailey. Bailey's 10 poetry collections were published over a period of 16 years, from 1982 to 1998. However, all but one saw print during the 1980s, which makes him rather prolific. Especially when you consider that poetry collections were by no means his only literary output
In this, his penultimate chapbook, Bailey retold the story of Parsifal, a Knight of the Grail. This has been done before, but Bailey transposes his knight to a far future world of spaceships, multiple inhabited planets, and anachronistic castles and other trappings of Parsifal's medieval origin.
The main part of the book consists of a single poem in 16 parts. I confess to having only a passing knowledge of Parsifal's story. Nevertheless, I found the poem enjoyable and I don't think a detailed knowledge of Arthurian legends is at all necessary to appreciate this chapbook. There are multiple versions of the story, but in a nutshell, one version goes as follows. Parsifal, after a childhood passed isolated from society, observes the heroism of knights and decides that's the career he wants. He is invited to join the Knights of the Round Table (after proving his worth), and ends up being one of Galahad's two companions in the successful quest for the Grail. In what is perhaps the oldest known version of the story, it is Parsifal himself who finds the Grail.
Bailey's version of the story begins with Parsifal's thoughts about Arthur's kingdom, for which he plans to search.
"And how is Logres seen?
The spectral summoner has been
for ship and drifting raft
a gleam: it glows; is lightning-shaft;"
In successive chapters Parsifal visits a city of spinning towers, a deadly and psychedelic chess game, and is given a task that will, if he completes it, lead him closer to the Grail
"circling, the stallions prance and shy:
before again their ivory hooves go clattering by
turret and mitred tower
upon the elbow-crooked lanes
of worlds restored."
In the pursuit of the Grail, Parsifal visits worlds torn by war, covered with strange and hostile vegetation, and inhabited by fearsome beasts. His quest takes him off world to space habitats and their peculiar inhabitants, until he reaches the Round Table (suitably updated).
Well I'm not going to tell you how it ends. The published versions of the tale have a number of different endings, and that makes a new retelling all the more interesting.
Glorious and uplifting, fraught with peril and wonder, that's what we have here. I am glad that Steve has made some of K. V. Bailey's poetry accessible to us all.
A sturdy offering, reprint of an out-of-print 1989 chapbook by the late K. V. Bailey. According to Steve Sneyd, the publisher of this edition, Bailey was a much-underrated British science fiction and fantasy poet. All of his chapbooks are now out of print, although some of his work is available in other publications that remain in print. Accordingly, it seemed opportune to Sneyd, whose interest in the history of genre poetry is well known, to make it easy for a younger generation to become acquainted with one of Britain's best fantastic poets.
"The Sky Giants" includes, in addition to the preface written by the author, a foreword by Steve Sneyd about Bailey. Bailey's 10 poetry collections were published over a period of 16 years, from 1982 to 1998. However, all but one saw print during the 1980s, which makes him rather prolific. Especially when you consider that poetry collections were by no means his only literary output
In this, his penultimate chapbook, Bailey retold the story of Parsifal, a Knight of the Grail. This has been done before, but Bailey transposes his knight to a far future world of spaceships, multiple inhabited planets, and anachronistic castles and other trappings of Parsifal's medieval origin.
The main part of the book consists of a single poem in 16 parts. I confess to having only a passing knowledge of Parsifal's story. Nevertheless, I found the poem enjoyable and I don't think a detailed knowledge of Arthurian legends is at all necessary to appreciate this chapbook. There are multiple versions of the story, but in a nutshell, one version goes as follows. Parsifal, after a childhood passed isolated from society, observes the heroism of knights and decides that's the career he wants. He is invited to join the Knights of the Round Table (after proving his worth), and ends up being one of Galahad's two companions in the successful quest for the Grail. In what is perhaps the oldest known version of the story, it is Parsifal himself who finds the Grail.
Bailey's version of the story begins with Parsifal's thoughts about Arthur's kingdom, for which he plans to search.
"And how is Logres seen?
The spectral summoner has been
for ship and drifting raft
a gleam: it glows; is lightning-shaft;"
In successive chapters Parsifal visits a city of spinning towers, a deadly and psychedelic chess game, and is given a task that will, if he completes it, lead him closer to the Grail
"circling, the stallions prance and shy:
before again their ivory hooves go clattering by
turret and mitred tower
upon the elbow-crooked lanes
of worlds restored."
In the pursuit of the Grail, Parsifal visits worlds torn by war, covered with strange and hostile vegetation, and inhabited by fearsome beasts. His quest takes him off world to space habitats and their peculiar inhabitants, until he reaches the Round Table (suitably updated).
Well I'm not going to tell you how it ends. The published versions of the tale have a number of different endings, and that makes a new retelling all the more interesting.
Glorious and uplifting, fraught with peril and wonder, that's what we have here. I am glad that Steve has made some of K. V. Bailey's poetry accessible to us all.
