Fantasy Fiction

finn17

New member
You reminded me...

Originally posted by Sturmhalo
Yeah, it\'s one of those things I guess. It\'s not really fantasy in the sword and sorcery sense though. I think it\'s a very \'English\' piece of writing, and all the peculiarities that go with it are just wonderful. For example the way Peake comes up with characters names. Almost every word has been carefully selected to spark some sort of itense imagery, in some cases the word is irrelevent and it\'s just the sound that is needed to spark that imagery or feeling.

You are so right...
In fact you reminded me that many years ago I introduced a girlfriend to Gormenghast and she adored it as well. She had a Masters in linguistics and, just as an exercise highlighted all the passages in a section of the book that had to do with weather/seasons etc. She then just stuck them together in the order they came, and called it:

…Seasons…
(Extracts from ‘Gormenghast’ by Mervyn Peake)

… And the days move on and the names of the month change and the four seasons bury one another and it is Spring again…
The days lengthen and Summer sprawls across the countryside in all the swathes of it’s green, with it’s gold and sticky head, with it’s slumber and the drone of doves…it’s sunflowers, each one an echo-child while fruits ripen…
And smells of such rotten sweetness as brings a hunger to the breast and makes of the heart a sea bed…

… And a tear – the fruit of salt and water, ripens, fed by a summer sorrow, ripens and falls…
falls gradually along the cheekbones, wanders over the wastelands listlessly, the loveliest emblem of the heart’s condition.

… And the days move on and the names of the months change and the four seasons bury one another…
The clouds are clothed…the sky has been stabbed and left to die above the world, filthy, vast and bloody.
And the great winds come and the sky is blown naked…
… The days wear out the months and the months wear out the years, and a flux of movements like a unique tide, eats at the black coast of futurity.

That is not a poem. That is just sentences taken from context and strung together. If that sort of language use compises the body of text in a novel then I can see why Sturmhalo couldn\'t be arsed to read anything else afterwards. I felt pretty much the same way.
 

Dr.Morbius

New member
Hmmm...I don\'t read much in the way of \"high\" fantasy. I\'m more of a Ray Bradbury type of reader than a Tolkien reader. I must admit to being surprised that no one has mentioned Bradbury yet, though. Certainly, The Illustrated Man and The October Country, among others, contain terrific fantasy stories. Some others in that vein: John Collier\'s Fancies and Goodnights, Charles Finney\'s The Circus of Dr. Lao, Harlan Ellison\'s Deathbird Stories, and so on...

Of currently publishing fantasy writers, my own favorite is Jonathan Carroll, of whom Neil Gaiman is but a pale shadow. The Land of Laughs, Outside the Dog Museum, and The Bones of the Moon are among my favorite fantasy novels. If you want science fiction that reads like fantasy, you won\'t go far wrong with Dan Simmons\'s Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion. And the unsung classic of fantasy fiction is The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, a novel upon which The Rolling Stones based Sympathy for the Devil. Great stuff.

Salut.
 

ahmacrom

New member
fantasy books

I agree,Dune has got be there!
Fave authors or books,Stranger in a Strange land by Heinlein.(Sf i guess)Enders game by Card(sci fi again)Any Philip k Dick.
Robert Anton Wilson,Crowley,Any Rudy Rucker.
Robert Jordan(he lost me).
Pratchett is very good.
Neil Gaiman,Moorcock, Barker are top.
Terry Brooks? lost me as well.
The classic too.Grendel and Beowulf.Norse.
Greeks and Roman ,Native myths.
C.S Lewis .
I should read Gorhmengast!

Any others?
Read or paint?Read or ....
 
S

Sturmhalo

Guest
Originally posted by finn17
If that sort of language use compises the body of text in a novel then I can see why Sturmhalo couldn\'t be arsed to read anything else afterwards. I felt pretty much the same way.


Once you\'ve had the finest steak why go back to McDonald\'s for a Big Mac?

lol

I wish I was inspired to read fiction again, but I just feel that anything else would now be a let down.

Anyone mentioned Harry Potter yet? Hope not!

lol
 

Beelzebrush

Active member
Erm... ahem! .... Harry Potter :D:D:D:bouncy:

I vaguely remember my first fantasy reads aged about 10. The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin (sp?) and anything by Leon Garfield, B.B (little Grey Men) and I guess Roald Dahl books.

I still prefer other genres to fantasy though.

My wife (sitting here atm :p) feels Duncton Wood is the most spiritually uplifting, emotional fantasy series ever.

I\'m currently reading \'A Song for Arbonne\' by Guy Gavriel Kay.
 

Zora

New member
I\'ll chime in...

Boy, have my tastes changed over the years. I used to read everything I could get my hands on, and now I haven\'t read but maybe 12 books in the last 2 years. Pretty sad.

I attempted to re-read LOTR, and found I didn\'t care for his writing style all of a sudden. Sounds odd, I know, but I still love the series, just can\'t drag myself through it again without some anguish.

My best friend turned me on to Steven Brust (the Vlad Taltos series and related books), and I must say it\'s the best set I\'ve read ever.

Brust\'s style of writing is different. It\'s hard to explain, you\'ll have to take my word for it.

Another author I would recommend is Orson Scott Card, but really only for his \"Ender\" series. I know it\'s not fantasy, but I always feel I have to mention it.

Other than that, the Black Company books were high on my list. I\'m looking forward to re-reading them and then going after the few I haven\'t read yet.

Why is everyone so down on Harry Potter? I know it\'s not high literature, but I found myself getting quite engrossed in the books, and am looking forward to the next one.

I guess it\'s appropriate to say that when I\'d rather buy the hardback as soon as it comes out rather than wait for the PB, that\'s a good sign. With HPotter, Steven Brust, and the Ender series, that\'s what I do.
 

Dragonsreach

Super Moderator
Staff member
Yeah Ok so Harry Potter books aren\'t high fantasy, but they are entertaining, and as you read through the series they definitely take on the approach that kids do to the world as they gain more experience. JKRowling has written them with the world view of a kid of the appropriate age.

As for the rest of this thread there are a few authors names cropping up I don\'t recognise and I\'ve been reading SF/Fantasy for more than 35 years.
Good grief I\'m old.lol

One name I haven\'t seen mentioned is J.V.Jones, has anyone read her books?

Another name and possibly my all time favourite author is Vonda N. McIntyre. I read \'Dreamsnake\', finished it, then went back to the first page and read it again I liked it that much.

Here\'s a question can anyone remember the first SF or Fantasy book they read?
Mine was either Arthur C Clarke,Isaac Asimov or Robert Heinlen.
 

finn17

New member
Arry Potta

Harry Potter, I\'ve read them all. I had to. I work with Kids so you have to keep up to date with their interests. They are not bad, but they are not good either. I really don\'t see what all th fuss is about. IMO it\'s just Enid Blyton bought up-to-date. Stuffed full of middle-class aspirations and sentiments and not an original idea to be seen anywhere. I don\'t object to them per se, I just disagree that they are children\'s classics and on a par with C.S. Lewis, Kenneth Graham etc.
Wouldn\'t mind her bank balance however:bouncy:
 

mouse

Member
My take...

JRR Tokkien is good but not that good. He is much respected as he is considered the \"father\" of all fantasy.

I myself cannot read through his stories a second time around especially with all that hype going around. Kinda killed the \"sacred\" feel of it with the recent hip-hop over it.

JV Jones is pretty good. \"A Game of Thrones\" was a nice intro and the second book (title escaped my precarious brain) was not bad (that\'s good in my dictionary). However, sometimes I hate the politicking. Why can\'t fantasy be ...like fantasy?

That\'s the argument that I had with most recent authors. They start to throw in all the \"real world\" stuffs and spice it up as fantasy. Elaborated court cases (aka John Grisham) in a fantasy theme, politicians hawkering (aka real world politicians) in a fantasy theme...sigh...what happened to good ole\' fantasy?

Enid Blayton (sh*t! can\'t seem to spell the name correctly) has some really good fantasy books. \"Enchanted Forest\", \"Faraway Tree\", ...

CS Lewis...I saw it mentioned in a posting...he\'s a classic. :)

Terry Brooks first three shananra were good...

Terry Patchet pretty good...

Margaret Weis & Mr Hickman never fails...

Pier Anthony is a genius...

David Gemmell...what can I say...:)

Raymond E. Feist...a wonder until he carried on to cash it in...

Ed Greenwood ... he\'s grammar let him down...

Anne McCarthy...one in the million...

David Eddings...he should have stopped when he was ahead...

Robert Jordan...milking for all its worth...

Terry Goodkind...he needs to organise his thoughts...

Issac Assimov...a round of applause!!

R.A. Salvatore ...his style is getting stagnant although started out really strong

Forgotten Realm series...only a handful worth reading...

Many more...many more...

PS: To Beel\'s wife...agree...Duncton Wood is goooood. :)
 

frenchkid

New member
Well, got loads of time to read on my hands now that summer is here. Just started re-reading Song of ice and fire, but though I\'d a bit of threadomancy to see what interesting books are out there, that way I\'ll know what to read once I\'m down with the RR martin book and Harry potter 7 ( Nooooo it\'s the last one !!!:(:()
 

Roger Bunting

New member
I haven\'t read much fiction for ages, excepttrereading LotR and a version of the Chinese classisc, Monkey by Wu Cheng\'en.
I won some book tokens years ago, but was ill so my friend went a chose some for me. One was Ghormenghast but being under the weather with Glandular Fever, I just couldn\'t get into it. I will give it another go. Another n=book that he chose was Good Omens (not fantasy as such) by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. I just love that book.
 

fortunesfool

New member
The first book I read was \"King\'s Blood Four\" by Sheri Tepper. Her game novels are very good.

Although it\'s not technically fantasy, I would like to highly recommend Douglas Preston and Lincoln Childe. When they write together they can do some pretty amazing stuff. In particular the Pendergast books can be amazing.

Edited to include the following:

Two authors came to mind that haven\'t been mentioned by anyone so far.

1. Villains by Necessity by Eve Forward- this book takes the classical tale and flips it on it\'s ear. I haven\'t met anyone who\'s read it that didn\'t immediately feel that life was suddenly much better.

2. Dragondoom by Dennis L. Mckiernan- He\'s written many books but this one is just special. This is the only book that I repeatedly cry for when I\'m reading (besides when I read the closing comments of the Mallorean). It\'s difficult to describe him. For the most part he took Tolkiens \'genre\' and wrote it the way it should have been written.

It can\'t be all bad as one of the two main character\'s is a dwarf.

By the way, now that I mentioned dwarfs, Joel Rosenberg wrote an interesting series of novels if you ever get around to reading it.

So going over it again:
Tepper-good
Preston/Childe-amazing
Forward-amazing
Mckiernan-my favourite stand alone novel of all time
Rosenberg-good for a laugh
 

Highbulp Billy

New member
I have to say that my favourite Fantasy books are the original Dragonlance series (Chronicles and Legends). They\'re always worth a re-read. Also like Tolkein (but have to skip some of the drawn out parts like Tom Bombadil) and a huge Pratchett fan, met him once and he\'s a really nice guy.

Slightly off the Fantasy route I recently read most of the Emperor series by Conn Iggulden (sp?) about the rise of Julius Caesar. They were an entertaining read and I learned a bit too.
 

MacBrown

New member
Threadomancy, terrible.

No one seems to mention Steven Erikson, but I am re-reading \"Gardens of the Moon\" before I start the latest book in the series.

I recently read a James Barclay novel, \"Dawnthief\", it was quite good. I surprised myself when I read the GW \"Konrad Saga\" and enjoyed that too. (the novelists name escapes me)

I know the wife can\'t wait for the next installment of Harry Potter, but I can\'t stand it, its like turgid sludge.:|~
 

Ebonbuddha

Active member
American Gods is a good read.

I was going to say Wheel of Time series too.


Originally posted by No Such Agency
I found Eddings to be appalling (hard to pin down why though). Guy Gavriel Kay is pretty good. Neil Gaiman is great but he doesn\'t write \"high fantasy\", more like contemporary dark fantasy. I *highly* recommend Gaiman\'s \"Neverwhere\" but it doesn\'t have any elves or dragons, so if you\'re jonesing for that kind of thing you might prefer \"Stardust\". I hear \"American Gods\" is also good, but again, it\'s more contemporary.
 

treide

New member
\"Dragon\'s Egg\" was a nice stand-alone sci-fi novel from Robert L. Forward. Haven\'t read any of his other stuff, but I recommend that one. \"Blood Music\" by Greg Bear was interesting as well.

For fantasy, I enjoyed \"Grendel\" by John Gardner. Most of the other fantasy genre books I have enjoyed have already been mentioned.

For horror fantasy, some of Harlan Ellison\'s short stories are brilliant. I liked Clive Barker\'s \"Cabal\", but some of his other books seemed to wander too much.
 

Swordwind

New member
Does fantasy masquerading as history count?

If so inbetween revising for my exams and playing Counterstrike I\'m reading The Sunne in Spendor by Sharon Kay Penman. I mean I love Richard III as much as any white rose waving nutter, but youd think the bloke had wings and a harp!
 

Severatus

New member
Don\'t be fooled into these flat, lame Fantasy series type books.

******** GAME OF THRONES ********

There are 4 books and they are the most amazing works of fantasy literature.

If yer a painter save a lot of time and buy the books on tape or save some money and download the audio from Amazon.

The reads by Roy Detrice are the best.

Time will roll, you will paint like a monster, and the next thing you know you will need the next book.

Unabridged, sounds daunting maybe, let me tell you the opening sequence will grab your imagination and pay respect to you intellectual historical interests all at once.

Seriously though if your under 18 or someone who is put off by the flimsy nature of human exsistance, the evils of regular people than maybe this is not for you.

George R.R. Matin is by far the most talented writer of our time.

Not just in Fantasy genre either, The Game of Thrones is an epic story with twists and turns you dont see coming.

Check out Thunderboltmountain.com

Tom Miere is sculpting a line of 54mm models for the Testors company.

http://georgerrmartin.com/news/miniature-jon.jpg

the above link shows the 54mm green of the John Snow, Brother of the Night Watch.

https://www.thunderboltmountain.com/news.php?news_id=90&page=3

The above link is for another TM 54mm scale green, famous conflict between the usurper Robert Baratheon ( Antler helm )
& the Tygarion King Titled \" Battle at The Ruby Ford \", I wont tell you who wins though :)

Do yerself a favor and get em!

TH
 

Severatus

New member
******** Pillars of the Earth ********

Author : Ken Follett

If your in the mood for something More historical, where you learn about everything from stone cutting, farming, economics, flying buttresses, wool production ect.

You can enjoy a story set in the harsh times of the middle ages and feel smarter doing it.

Only 1000 + pages enjoy :)
 

darthfoley

Active member
Originally posted by Severatus
******** GAME OF THRONES ********
/snip GRRM gushings

Too bad Testor\'s canceled the game. The minis were looking pretty interesting. The new company with the license seems to be an unknown commodity, so we\'ll see what they come up with.

The books are good, but they can be a little...Pirates of the Caribbean. I enjoy them but the constant backstabbing gets a touch wearing after a while.

Also a little leery of the upcoming HBO series...but one never knows.

That said, I sure wish he\'d hurry up and finish the damn next one. :)
 
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