[Cadfael]

I would be interested to here from the members which cross-over book they think handled the transition of a hero from our world, to the world that the story takes place in?

I personally think the best writer to do this was Stepen Donaldson with 'Thomas Covenant'... I mean if this ever happened to us, who is to say we might not go a little bonkers, which is exactly what Covenant does, and his past had already pushed him to the edge.

What I find a little hard to take are books that pluck someone from our world, dump them in a magical wonderland, tell them they are here to save the world from evil, and they reply..."right you are, pass me a big sword!", and off they go, no culture shock at all.

[Bardos]

Generaly, I don't like it when someone from our world ends up in another universe -especially if that person is a little boy/girl.

[Rob B]

Dennizm-without a doubt Donaldson is the best at this, as well as being one of the better writers in general.

Greg Bear had a crossover duology that was reprinted a few years ago as one volume that was pretty good. Songs of Earth and Power is what it was reprinted as by TOR books. While Bear is better known for his hard-sf stuff (yeah yeah, here I am contradicting my spec fic statement) I thought it was a good story and the world was vibrant.

Mark Anthony's Book of the Last Rune is not bad either. Three books in the series so far. Not the best but light entertainment.

How about a story where fantasy creatures crossover to OUR world (i.e. all of a sudden a dragon appears in the suburbs or elves and dwarves appear in NYC)?

[Cadfael]

FitzFlagg... Clive Barker is the man for this. Weaveworld and The Great and Secret Show brought elements of fantasy into our world, though maybe not to the extent you mentioned, Cabal is another.

A few years ago I read a book that brought demon in our world, I can remember a huge house in the middle of a city, an hell's angel called Blue (I think), and a gunfight through the corridors, any ideas?

There is also a book called 'The Winter's Tale' it is about 20 yrs old, and I can't remember who wrote it. The story spans the Millenium in both 1900 and 2000

[Liselle]

I remember some books of this kind... let me think...
Daughter of light (Or something like it - I only know the German title) by Barbara Hambly. (She wrote some other fantasy books and for the rest mainly historical books, strange, isn't it?) I do not remember the story exactly, only that I liked it much.
Dragonfire by Wolfgang Hohlbein, though I don't think it exists in the English version as he is a German author...

[Liselle]

Sorry, I forgot something to say: there are some books in the middle between our and another world, like Mirrorworld by Hohlbein. You never know wheter it is the real world, or the irreal one, but the hero doesn't, either and this makes it very confusing but interesting.

[Ntschotschi]

One of Orson Scott Card's latest books "Enchantment" deals with this topic. It's an adaptation of the Sleeping beauty story and very nice to read although the heroes tend to be too idealistic and it's much too harmonious. nevermind i can still recommend it.
I also liked Diana Gabaldon's time travel books - at least the first two - i think she almost didn't leave out any genre: First the middle ages knight novel, then the classic pirate adventure in exotic places and last the western with cowboys and red indians. You have to read it with a wink.

As to your question of something otherworldly coming into our world - isn't it the way phantastic literature often works?
I think of Lovecraft for eaxample or even Bram Stoker, where a great part of the book deals with it and the tension stems from the fact that people - reasonable people - just won't believe that there are vampyrs.

[Lani]

I remember reading some book by Zelazny on this topic which was pretty good...
It was called Exchanged or something in that kind, I'm not sure because I read it in a translation...

And I agree with Dennizm about books when heroes just start saving worlds without any real problems a normal person would have if he would get into a new world.

[Eventine]

The oldest books dealing with this would probably have to be CS Lewis' Narnia books.
I don't remember them really dealing with the shock of going to another world however - from memory it was just one big game for the kids.

[wynterfel]

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was one of my favorite books when I was younger Eventine. In fact whenever it rained I used to sneak into our closet hoping that a doorwary would open up http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif But the oldest book I remember dealing with cross-overs is A Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

Back to the topic hmm Terry Brooks tried his hand at it in his Magic Kingdom of Landover series. Yeah I remember Zelazny writing a book about it too. Orson Scott Card's 'Enchantment' was ok but in my opinion of all the authors who wrote about the topic, Donaldson did it best. You can really sympathize with Thomas Covenant's 'culture shock' http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif I remember I read a book where the main character was a scientist from our world who crossed over. It was a pretty hilarious book but for the life of me I can't remember the title or the author. Yet another book was the Compleat Complete Enchanter? Not sure about the title.

I wonder if it happened to us, will we experience culture shock too? I guess not I mean we are fantasy fanatics and all. We'll probably take to the fantasy world like duck to water http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/wink.gif