Ta Da! The Fantasy List!

[harmony_bites]

I've been reading off this list from The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Ultimate Reading List and did a post on the Romance List--which is my least favorite genre. Now I just finished the list of my favorite genre, the Fantasy List. Naturally I'd read a lot more of these to begin with and I liked a lot more. I tried to rate the below on something of

Comments

[shiv5468]

Of the ones that I have read, I agree that Watership Down was brilliant, and he did nothing to top it since. I didn't know that there were some follow up tales. Plague Dogs was a very strong book though.

I've heard that Asaro was interesting conceptually, with clever ideas, so I hope you just picked a bad book.

Not read The Last Unicorn, but it's on the to read list.

I read a lot of MZB and then came to the conclusion I didn't like her. Too miserable and not enough humour in her work. Even Tolkien leavened his high work of fantasy with another homely register, with warmth and humour.

Brooks - I agree. I read the whole series, can't remember a damned thing about it.

Bujold - love the Curse of Chalion, not bothered by the sequels. Quite like the Vor series but cannot see how A Civil Campaign owes anything to Heyer at all.

Eddings... well his style is dreadful, but his characters are engaging. It's not about the plot but about the back up characters, and yes women do get to be important, which is nice.

Feist - all right, I suppose. Series has gone on too long and become flabby. Dead horse flogging taking place.

Jasper Fforde = meh. It's like one of those fanfics you see and think ooohthat's such a brilliant idea, I can't wait to see what you do with it. Oh, that. Mmmm. Pratchett would have had hufge fun with that and had characters you'd want to take home for a drink afterwards. Too many ideas, not enough characterisation. I really don't think he can write women either.

Don't like Gaiman. I think he's a stunted writer. He doesn't make his characters live. Especially his female characters. ~pokes him hard~ Another one where clever invention hides fundamental flaws in his writing.

I tried to read The Princess Bride, because my god do people go on about its brilliance. Can't see it. Didn't get past the first ten pages. Dullllllllllllllllll. One liners do not a book make.

Redwall is on the to read list. Suspect it will have usual Tolkienesque feel but without the nice hobbitses.

Robert Jordan lost me at around book three when I thought that the main character was a whinger, unaccountable attractive to women and a self insert for the author. Lost track of the plot, the characters and will to live. Another dead horse flogging series.

I like Mercedes Lackey in general. She's not worthy or high minded and her latest books have tended to dead horse territory but they are ones I reread from time to time because I like spending time with those characters.

Tanith Lee... read, appreciated their technical skill, never want to spend time with her characters again. Ever.

I read CS Lewis young and never picked up the Christian symbolism at all. I still don't see it and put fingers in my ears and go alllallala. After all, most of that was nicked from pagan cultures so it's not Christian at all. Still like the series. Just never read the Last Battle. Ever. Miserable book, god knows what it's about, suspect religion had eaten his brains by that point.

Wicked. Dire. As are all his other books. Cannot see why they're liked at all. Miserable, nasty, hateful books. Nearly provoked me to Cinderella the true story ofic.

Song of Fire and Ice series... Bollocks is it better than Tolkien. It's flashy. It pretends its based on the War of the Roses but even the war of the roses wasn't that nihilistic, and damn it why do we have to slip into third rate fanfic territory to show that one family are teh evil by having incest. Heavy handed, clunky characterisation, and the rotating narrative gets worse as you move through the series to the point you give up. There's no character in whom you are sufficiently interested to read further to find out what happens. Rocks fall everyone dies but with some kunky sex first.

[shiv5468]

I still like Anne McCaffrey. ALmost the first fantasy author I read.

Elric... ah he was a pretty, tortured boy, but the prose is laboured on re reading. For teenagers, I think. Remembered fondly, but not to be reread.

I'm prepared to like Noviki, but do not believe that her tone is Austenesque. No one's is but Austen and perhaps Edgeworth. No later writer can pull that off.

Pterry is brilliant. My mother doesn't like him. I boggle.

I like lots of Mary Stewart and still reread her other romances, which had a bit of meat on them. The Hobbit was the first fantasy book I was read at school, and adored it, and went out and bought it so I could see what would happen before we got there.

The Dragonbone chair etc series is ok as fantasy goes, nothing special, ah but the twist at the end of the series made me laugh out loud. Very clever and ALMOST worth the reading to get there.

As to suggestions on new authors:

Dianne Wynne Jones
Rosemary Edgehill
Mary Gentle especially Rats and Gargoyles
Susan Cooper
Louise Cooper
Guy Gavriel Kay
Alan Garner
Andre Norton books that are not the Witch WOrld
David Gemmel
Gabriel King if you like cats
Holly Black - I didn't like her, but I could see they were well writtne books

Jonathon Stroud
L Sprague De Camp
Joseph Delaney's spook series.

[harmony_bites]

I still like Anne McCaffrey. ALmost the first fantasy author I read.

I think of her as a sci-fi author--all her books have sci-fi rather than fantasy premises behind them even if Pern "feels" like fantasy. I still love her first 8 or so Pern books--like Lackey they're comfort reads I return to from time to time. However, like Lackey, I also think her later ones suffer from tired blood.

Pterry is brilliant. My mother doesn't like him. I boggle.

Heh. A couple of friends whose tastes I respect don't like him at all. And I'd tried him before and couldn't get into him. So he's not for everyone. I think both of those friends found his style off-putting. Omniscient isn't something people are used to anymore I think--at least one where the author inserts so much of his personality and viewpoint rather than this eagle-eye distance. I didn't (initially) care for the footnotes myself. And I had a hard time giving into the bizarreness of the flat earth. I remember finally enjoying that part and suspending my disbelief when the philosophers went into all that debate about it being a disc not a sphere, and loved then the riff on the historical controversies about heliocentricism. It clicked. I liked Pterry more and more as I went along and by the end did find him brilliant--but it took a while. Of all the books, it's the one I still think about even weeks after finishing.

The Dragonbone chair etc series is ok as fantasy goes, nothing special, ah but the twist at the end of the series made me laugh out loud. Very clever and ALMOST worth the reading to get there.

I don't think I can bear getting there. For whatever reason, despite the painful slog, Williams was one I liked enough to pick up the next book. As in literally picking it up the shelf in the store, looking at the first pages, whimpering, then putting back...

[shiv5468]

I'll tell you then, if you like. It is almost inspired piss take of fantasy novels.

[harmony_bites]

Spoil away then. As I said, I don't think I can bear to get through 3 more doorstopper books of Williams. He's just not a good enough writer for that.

[shiv5468]

The whole prophecy / legend thing is a plant by the evil king to make people come and try and depose him.

I lol'd.

The side of light etc still bloody win though.

[harmony_bites]

The whole prophecy / legend thing is a plant by the evil king to make people come and try and depose him.

Ah. I do admit, especially after getting through this list above, that does come across as brilliant.

But I just couldn't face the thought of wading through 2,400 pages more of tiny print to get to it. So I thank you.

[harmony_bites]

Oh, and thanks for this:

Dianne Wynne Jones
Rosemary Edgehill
Mary Gentle especially Rats and Gargoyles
Susan Cooper
Louise Cooper
Guy Gavriel Kay
Alan Garner
Andre Norton books that are not the Witch WOrld
David Gemmel
Gabriel King if you like cats
Holly Black - I didn't like her, but I could see they were well writtne books

Jonathon Stroud
L Sprague De Camp
Joseph Delaney's spook series.

And didn't you call Edgehill Austen-esque? *iz intrigued*

[shiv5468]

No. Maria Edgeworth is because she's a contemporary. Edgehill is good but nothing like that.

[shiv5468]

I think I gave the book away in the Great Move. And I saw the film doesn't end happily so....

Thursday Next never seems to miss her husband that much.

[silburygirl]

The film does have a happy ending... And is much, much better than the book, even though I enjoyed the book in a vague way.

[harmony_bites]

I've never seen the film...

*ducks*

OK, OK, I promise I'll see it! I did hear this is one of those cases where the film is better than the book. (I liked the film version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe better than the book too--and as much as this comment might cause me to be lynched, I'd say the same by and large of Lord of the Rings

[shiv5468]

Wikipedia says otherwise !

[silburygirl]

We are talking about The Princess Bride, right? Because a fairly major character dies, but is promptly brought back to life by Billy Crystal. I promise there is a happy ending. I've only seen the film like ten million times.

[shiv5468]

Ah, ~rereads entry~ so I see.

Now I just don't want to watch it because it doens't have any English actors in it ;-)