I'm not really a fantasy or sci-fi novel kind of guy, but recently I have been having pangs and cravings to read a fantasy book. Something with wizards and creatures and some kind of quest to defeat evil would hit the spot, I think.I dabbled a little as a teeny-ager, read The Lord Of The Rings, The Earthsea Trilogy (which I loved) and the first couple of The Wheel Of Time books before giving up when I realised there were about 17 more books in the series. I need something not too long, and something that doesn't stretch on for a million books.
Any recommendations?
34 comments:
CS Lewis's Cosmic Trilogy? Can lend them 2 you tom nite if you like...
Thanks mate. I've actually got that on the shelf at home, but haven't read it.. I'd like to, but it looks a bit too spacey and sci-fi for me. I'm more after wizards and barbarians with loincloths and sandals..
Did you like the trilogy?
The Name of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss - best fiction I've read for years
Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson - really interesting world, possibly more so after marrying a materials engineer - the metals have powers!
The trick with all fantasy/ sci fi is for the writing to be good enough for the characters and plot to hook you long enough to figure out the world.
George Macdonald is the guy who inspired both CS Lewis and JRR Tolkein to write fantasy - try his book 'The Princess and the Goblin'. I read it earler in the year and loved it.
Tolkein wrote a really short story called 'Leaf by Niggle' - it's a part of an essay on why adults should read fantasy - but you can just read the 'short story' bit - it's one of the best fantasy stories i've ever read - either short or long.
Depends on your preference for mix of writing style, mode of dialogue, and "weight" of the world in the story, etc. LOTR and Earthsea aren't the lightest reads being more classic "high fantasy" than modern slash and flash.
Raymond Feist's Magician /Silverthorn/Darkness at Sethanon are a good read. Magician can be read stand-alone, the others tend to rely on it. After that there's about 20 books in the same world that vary from average to good. The collaboration with Janny Wurts on the Daughter/Servant/Mistress of the Empire are also good. Suffers perhaps from revisionist history in later books, and some characters become "too good" so he has to adjust the stakes accordingly.
I found early Eddings enjoyable - high stakes, lots of powerful magic, strong fighters. Pros - engaging dialogue, and enjoyable story. cons - Characters are shallow & one-dimensional as sterotypes abound. Also he's very formulaic - His main two early series - Belgariad (5 smaller novels) followed by the Mallorean (another 5 novels) and Elenium(3) followed by the Tamuli(3) are almost the same story told 4 times. Generally an easy page-turning read.
For another change of pace. Sci-fi/fantasy mix (no goblins/barbarians) Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern are good, though she also suffers from consistency lapses in her later books.
Stephen Lawhead has also done the nominally Christian teen pulp Dragon King trilogy which is an ok snack for the genre, but not very filling.
Lots of other choices, eg David Gemmell, Terry Brooks, Elizabeth Moon, Tad Williams, and if you really want the Mills and Boon of Fantasy, go for the Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance brands.
Oh, Karen Hancock is also very good. Her Guardian King series is well written and she brings out her Christian worldview without it feeling forced - others may differ.
Thanks guys, that's a big help. though I'm feeling a touch baffled by options now!
just stick to 'Who Weekly' hey. it's a whole new world
I will second The Name of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss - a truly excellent book. Not standalone unfortunately but not hideously cliffhangery.
The Accidental Sorcerer by K.E. Mills is great fun - a sort of half old school/half modern day mix of fantasy and comedy (and it's an Aussie writer).
Or of course, if you want the top of the top there is always Terry Pratchett. Going Postal and Making Money are stand-alone enough that you don't have to read the previous books (though I'd highly recommend them too).
I'd personally avoid McCaffrey, Eddings, Feist et al because they are pretty much the same plot over and over again.
yeah, go for Terry Pratchett! You'll laugh your loin-cloth off.
I can lend you some :)
The thing is, I'm looking for something specific. I kind of want the traditional aspects of the genre, more than deviations from it. So, I guess I'm not really wanting laughs for example, or clever twists on the genre. I want a po-faced warrior going on a quest to kick some trolls butt or something, to save his people.
Drew, I've read one Pratchett book, I think it was called The Colour of Magic. I definitely enjoyed it, but, yeah, kind of want a more standard swords and scorcery deal.
That Magician one by Feist sounds a bit appealing.
Hmmm, more traditional...
You could try the Shadow's Edge trilogy by Brent Weeks. I think it is more an old school quest/save the world type adventure. Nathan and my husband both enjoyed it.
Once I get home and look at my bookshelf I'll probably list 50 more. You've created a monster here.
..yet, ironically, the more suggestions I get, the more I will be paralysed by choice and whack the tele on instead!
There is an online tag-cloud fantasy author program on the internet which can lead you through to a new author. You start with an author you like and it make suggestions based on similar content/style.
I'll see if I can worry it up for you tonight.
You're right Amy, in that there are stong similarities in those authors' plots, but that's true of any genre - and probably the a reason that the "mainstream" will dabble with it. After all is an escape - where seemingly insurmountable problems are overcome often by the most unlikely hero(es) that the reader can identify with and wants to succeed.
Why spoil a good yarn with too much reality, tragedy, explicit violence(increasingly sexual - to make nastier villians than the last author), and/or morally dark grey "heroes" (recent fantasy authors seem to think this makes them "edgy") who leave you with a bad taste, even if they "win", or write worlds that are completely inaccessible to someone not familiar with the genre?
Writers are free to do so, and they can be great writers in their idea and expression, but it necessarily doesn't make it a "good read".
In other words, don't diss some of my favourite authors who were part of bringing SFF into mainstream stores over the last 20 years. These guys & gals have paved the way for SFF sections in Borders/A&R/etc so Sanderson actually can bring Mistborn to the wider crowd. Not everyone knows about Pulp Fiction.
Of course there's room for other story tellers to enter the fray and it's good to hear about them. Mistborn was already on my library watch list. Will have to check out Rothfuss and Weeks as well. I'd love to see your author/novel list (just tell Ben not to look).
Stephen Lawhead's "Song of Albion" trilogy is pretty good once you've got past your tunnels and trolls phase :)
The Farsala Trilogy is some of the best fantasy I've ever read. They're by Hilari Bell. The first book is called Fall of a Kingdom.
Hi Mark -
that's cool. It's all taste (and I will have a healthy debate about books and authors any time - keep an eye out on my blog for this topic).
For background, having been a judge in a largish fantasy/sci-fi award before I got to read A LOT of bad, derivative fiction so I am going to be harsher on 'traditional' if it isn't done well. And I find it really lazy when an author gets successful and then writes the same thing over and over (Eddings and Wurts are my main bugbears here) - but I guess it is the same as if you have a band you like that keeps producing the same kind of music, which is fine if you like that sort of music, but boring to everyone else...
Ben - sorry your blog got hijacked! I'll move this over to mine later this week :)
no, no, don't mind me!
Here's the link I was talking about:
http://www.literature-map.com/
So you type in an author you like already, and then it generate names of authors that people read that are similar - the closer to the middle the closer to the original author.
Strangely addictive...
Thanks Amy, that is very cool.
I've trumped everyone by thrusting a copy of Elric into his hands. It's pretty much classic sword and sorcery, although it's pretty dark.
The Conan novels are pretty good examples of the genre...
According to wikipedia, here are the "seminal" sword and sorcery novels -
The genre has been defined, strongly, by the work of Robert E. Howard, particularly his tales of Conan the Barbarian and Kull of Atlantis, mostly in Weird Tales from 1932 and 1929 respectively.[11] [12]
Other books and series that define the genre of sword-and-sorcery include:
* Michael Moorcock's Elric sequence, beginning with The Dreaming City (published in Science Fantasy 1961), notable for its adherence to counterstereotype.
* Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser sequence, beginning with "Two Sought Adventure" (1939).
* Karl Edward Wagner's Kane novels, beginning with Darkness Weaves (1970), credited with reinvigorating the genre.[13]
* Lin Carter's Thongor series, starting with The Wizard of Lemuria first published in 1965.
* C. L. Moore's Jirel of Joiry tales, beginning with "Black God's Kiss" (1934), which introduced the first notable sword and sorcery heroine.[14]
* Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique and Hyperborean tales, beginning with "The Empire of the Necromancers" and The Tale of Satampra Zeiros in 1932 and 1931 respectively.
* L. Sprague de Camp's Pusadian series, beginning with The Tritonian Ring (1951).
* Charles Saunders' Imaro novels, beginning with Imaro (1981), a collection of short stories first published in the seventies for Dark Fantasy fanzine. Notable for being the first notable black sword and sorcery character.
Thanks for the book Craig. Looking forward to having a read.
Happy to see Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser on that list- I haven't read it, but have a comic book adaptation of it which I like.
None of you other guys have mentioned Micheal Moorcock, is he not up your ally?
So I gather the Sword and Scorcery thing is deemed a different genre to say, whatever LOTR and stuff like that is?
Yeah, LOTR is usually called "High Fantasy", which is a bit more heroic and epic.
Right. I think I like 'high fantasy' but get frustrated by the epic-ness. My attention span runs out with run ins with Tom Bombadill and dilly dallying at The Prancing Pony. Slay some freakin orcs already.
Here's a wiki page on fantasy sub-genres -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fantasy_subgenres
I'm surprised that we're 27 comments in and nobody has mentioned the assassin series by Robin Hobb.
I will mention them. They are good.
Is the Assassin's series 'traditional' though? I guess it is questy. But I'd second them.
Just don't bother with her two new series because they are awful.
From that big list of sub-genres, tho only two that appeal to me are 'high fantasy' and 'sword and sorcery'.
ps- it worried me a tad that Elric was also listed under 'Metaphysical Fantasy'. Yowza.
Traditional? Well, it's got magic, dragons, swords, intrigue, romance... what more could a guy ask for?
Sorry Ben, can't remember Moorcock very well - it's been almost 20 years. IIRC his eternal champion always had to restore the balance between Good/Evil/Law/Chaos, but don't hold me to that. I think I enjoyed at least some of them, but I prefer the traditional "good" to triumph (even if at a cost) rather than just split the difference.
Nathan - not traditional in the sense of has a magic sword, muscly hero who will save the world against some dark lord.
Fritz is more anti-hero really.
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