A Counterweight to the Recent Fan Fiction Bashing...

[harmony_bites]

Some fan fiction bashing by Diana Gabaldon, GRR Martin and Katherine Kerr (recap here) has been mentioned on my f-list lately. Ironically, when this came up, I had been reading the bestselling Temeraire books by Naomi Novik--they've been optioned by Peter Jackson who produced the Lord of the Ring films. I came across this in the author

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[harmony_bites]

First off--really *cool* quote.

The must-read list? You can find it here and it's taken from The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Ultimate Reading List. Given I overindulged in fanfic so around February I felt about it the way I do about turkey after Thanksgiving, I've been using that list to cleanse the palette--specifically (and alternately) the fantasy and literary fiction list. I found I've read a lot on that fantasy list already--the literary list I had only read two though. So far thumbs down in the fantasy list has been Terry Brooks LotR's rip-off (talk about fanfic...) Sword of Shannara and David Drake's Lord of the Isles (and yeah, I noticed the low rating when I looked afterwards--usually even crud has 4 and a half stars). Novik's books are a definite thumbs up, so you can imagine my delight over her attitude about fan fiction.

Literary list--thumbs down--way down on Tortilla Curtain, but I loved A Handmaid's Tale and absolutely adored Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. I now want to go and read all of Chabon's other books, but I'm bravely going to go on to the next on the list--Cunningham's The Hours--if I can get past that I hate Virginia Woolfe's Mrs Dalloway--because, you see, The Hours is Woolf fanfic...

[christinex1001]

I've actually read more of those than I thought. One of my favorites is Lord Valentine's Castle by Robert Silverberg -- I actually read that as it was serialized in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and I adored it. Technically it's science fiction because Majipoor is another planet, but the overall feel is more fantasy than SF.

[harmony_bites]

More than one of those is more sci-fi than fantasy. Certainly McCaffrey's Pern is--those dragons, the threads--all have a science gloss--Pern is a "lost colony." I also recall The Crystal Cave as more historical fiction than fantasy--but it's been several years since I've read it. Tanith Lee's Biting the Sun is futurist science fiction--I don't think anything about it is like fantasy that I recall.

And I love all three of those btw--and a whole lot of the books listed. It makes the choice of Duncan all the more puzzling. And Wintertide by Linnea Sinclair. Never heard of her, and I think that book is already out of print. Most of the others I've at least heard of even if I had never gotten around to reading.

I haven't read Silverberg at all. Which is kind of strange. I have as much sci-fi as fantasy on my bookshelf and am a fan of both genres, and he's celebrated in both. Soemthing to look forward to.