Any Decent Fantasy Novels?

[Pielorinho]

Yay Perdido Street Station! Great stuff, written by a former gamer/current Socialist candidate for British office/punk. Despite the author's weird history, he succeeds better than just about anyone else at putting nightmares on paper.

His Dark Materials series, by Phillip Pullman, is mismarketed as children's literature. It's a great trilogy. Opinion is hotly divided on the third book; I liked it, others despised it. Everyone adores the first one, though. Complex character, richly detailed world, intelligent philosophy.

Earthsea, by Ursula Le Guin, is a world with six books set in it. They range from mediocre to awe-inspiring. The first one, A Wizard of Earthsea, is an absolute poetic classic.

Have you read any Peter Beagle? Despite its name, The Last Unicorn isn't an homage to seven-year-old girls with glittery unicorn stickers; instead, it's a lyrical, sardonic, funny and dark fairy tale of a novel. Almost everything I've read by Beagle has been top-notch (although his book about a cat was less than stellar).

If you dislike David Eddings, you'll hate Robert Jordan. That's my sweeping generalization, anyway. I think Jordan aspires to someday rise to the level of a hack. Your tastes, of course, may vary; for my tastes, he's hopelessly derivative, first of Tolkien and then of himself.

Guy Gavriel Kaye has written a number of epic pseudo-historical novels set in a world with just a smidgen of magic and based on real-world medieval history. Plenty of good fun in his books, sort of like George Martin without the crazy perversions and horror. Many people's favorite works by him, the Fionavar tapestry, are my least favorite works: again, they read to me like thinly-veiled Tolkien. My favorites are a two-book series beginning with Sailing to Sarantium.

Them's my recommendations!

Daniel

 

[Dr. Talos]

I'll echo Sailing to Sarantium by Guy Guvriel Kay and add Tigana to that list.

Also of note is Jack Vance's Dying Earth and Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. Both are Science Fantasy and are some of the best in the fiels. Both are placed in far future earth.

Le Guin's Earthsea is good as well as Tad Williams Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy.

Also try John Marco's Tyrants and Kings series, though stay away from his newer stuff.

Surprisingly Eye's of the Dragon by Stephen King is excellent as is his Dark Tower series which has just been rereleased.

Hope this helps

 

[Gizzard]

Starting by saying, "What else is as good as The Song of Fire and Ice?" is setting yourself up for a bit of a fall. I think that series is one of the best things I've read over the last 10 years. Mieville and Perdido Street Station is the only other book I can think of that filled me with the same sense of awe. Fair warning, PSS jumbles a lot of genres together - there's fantasy, steampunk and horror in there. Part of what makes it so refreshing to me.

I think Jordan aspires to someday rise to the level of a hack.

Lol. Reminds me of a similarly blunt critique by Mieville, "Consolatory fantasy makes me puke." Note his economy of prose; 5 words to utterly dismiss not just one author, but an entire stable of authors. ;-)

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

My favorites are a two-book series beginning with Sailing to Sarantium.

I'll echo Sailing to Sarantium by Guy Guvriel Kay

I just have to stand up here and say that I was the assistant editor on this book. So if you find any major typos, you can probably blame me...

 

[kingpaul]

I didn't see them menionted, but the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy by Tad Williams is another good read. If you like tongue'n'cheek, Weiss & Hickman's Death Gate Cycle is both funny and serious in spurts. Finally, and maybe I'm a minority here, but I really enjoyed all but book 8 of Jordan's Wheel of Time.

 

[Pielorinho]

I just have to stand up here and say that I was the assistant editor on this book. So if you find any major typos, you can probably blame me...

Very cool! I enjoyed those books much.

Gizzard, not to show my ignorance or anything, but what's "consolatory fantasy"? I've never heard the term before.

edit: I googled the phrase, and got the full Mieville quote:

"The idea of consolatory fantasy makes me want to puke. It's not that you can't have comfort, or even a happy ending of sorts, but to me the idea that the purpose of a book should be to console intrinsically means the purpose is therefore not to challenge or to subvert or to question; it is absolutely status quo oriented - completely, rigidly, aesthetically - and I hate that idea. I think the best fantasy is about the rejection of consolation... using the fantastic aesthetic to do the opposite of Consolation."

That makes sense!

Daniel

 

[kkoie]

Anything by Micheal Moorcock, particularly his Elric Saga.

 

[s/LaSH]

Just about anything by Dianna Wynne Jones will float my boat. Again, marketed as children's books, but they're often further out there than most adult stuff. Unless specifically noted, reading them in order doesn't really matter because they're all ripping good tales. And she's been writing for decades. If anyone dares a comparison to Harry Potter, they will be shot. Possibly with something rather painful from Chrestomanci's world.

I'd second reading Howard's Conan stories, if only to get an idea of what the barbarian is really like, and it's not the Incredible Hulk.

The Last Rune (I forget the author; Terry Goodkind?) has some interesting stuff in it. I enjoyed the books I've read so far.

H. P. Lovecraft isn't strict fantasy, but it goes over a lot of the same topics as Howard albeit with a bit more creeping horror. The two are very similar on certain levels...

Terry Pratchett. It's unusual in format, and the fantasy is often secondary to the exploration of ideas, but I'm shocked and dismayed nobody's mentioned this before...

 

[Gizzard]

Gizzard, not to show my ignorance or anything, but what's "consolatory fantasy"? I've never heard the term before.

I'm pretty sure he made the term up, but it does damn a set of authors pretty effectively.

To me it's connected back to the word "hack", that the author isn't doing anything more than turning the crank on the standard fantasy tropes and seeing what falls out. If the hero of a book is an unappreciated but plucky lad who goes on a mystical quest with a band of stout companions and, in the process, discovers his hidden wizardly / draconic / noble bloodline - well, the author isn't exactly breaking new ground. She's offering the same old warmed-over fantasy -- "Oh, the hero starts out and things are sucky for him. But then things get better and better and better until he's....um....a wise Wizardy-King-thingy. Can you identify with this, loyal reader? I hope you can, 'cause I'm not presenting anything new."

Taking it back to recommendations, I'd say that the Harry Potter books flirt with this genre, but manage to avoid it. OTOH, I'd say that Bujold, despite being a pretty good writer technically, can't pull free of the morass. And there are scores of authors (hacks?) who just happily wallow in turning out the literary equivalent of a warm hand rubbing your tummy.

The key is what Mieville says, that consolatory fantasy is, "not to challenge or to subvert or to question; it is absolutely status quo oriented." People sit down with a book expecting to have the same experience they had with the previous book.

 

[Lurks-no-More]

R. A. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft have been already mentioned, but I'd like to draw your attention to two other great authors.

Clark Aston Smith's stories, set mostly in the distant past (pre-Ice Age Hyperborea) and the distant future (Zothique, the Last Continent), are... Well, the best adjective to describe them would be savory.

Also, try out the man who started it all: lord Dunsany, and his books about the land and gods of Pegana. I think he was the first writer who made up imaginary pantheons and imaginary myths, instead of just using the existing ones. His work is nothing short of marvellous.