Favorite Fantasy Novels

I’ve tried my hand at several works of fantasy over the years, and they almost always come out the same way — pulpy, with swords, sorcery, monsters and bloody battles to the fore. It’s the way I roll.

I may start with good intentions, of writing high fantasy with political intrigue and courtly goings on but, as in the Watchers series, my inner barbarian muscles to the fore, says Bugger this for a lark, and starts hacking.

The blame for my enthusiasm can be laid squarely at several doors.

There’s Conan, of course, and Elric, Corum, Hawkmoon and the whole pantheon of Eternal Champions; there’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Solomon Kane, Jon Shannow, the princes of Amber and the shades of a thousand more by the likes of Poul Anderson, A E Merritt, Edgar Rice Burroughs, H Rider Haggard and many others.

Here’s a personal top ten. Ask me tomorrow and there might be more Amber in it, or more Elric, or even John Carter, but this is the one for today.

10. Dwellers in the Mirage – A E Merritt
Completely bonkers melange of lost world adventure, reincarnation, Norse Gods, faerie and pulp heroes doing what a man’s gotta do. Merritt had a wild imagination, and here he gives it full rein, and even includes a nod to the dreaming, tentacled god in the depths. Wonderful stuff.


9. The Worm Ouroboros – E R Eddison
Baroque, multi-layered and demanding of concentration, here’s a proto Game of Thrones -knightly chivalry, dark deeds,threatening monsters and all. Full of strange names, archaic language and strangely compelling, sucking you into the world completely.


8. Ill Met in Lankhmar- Fritz Leiber
The best double act in S&S history, and my favorite adventure of theirs. Not much to say except it’s a great read, full of wit and charm as you’d expect from one of the best genres writers of the Twentieth Century.


7. Mythago Wood – Robert Holdstock
I’ve loved this since first reading – a prime example of how a simple idea can build into a complex plot and back story, and how mythology and storytelling build the reality we live in. Coupled with the fact that Holdstock’s prose is gorgeous and full of almost poetic rhythms and you have a classic on your hands.


6. The Runestaff Quartet – Michael Moorcock
Another wild imagination and, like Merritt, Moorcock is never afraid to throw everything and the kitchen sink into the mix. In this four book series he does just that – massive battles, courtly intrigue, high weirdness and multiverses, comedy sidekicks and proto-steampunk in his depiction of the empire of Londra. I read this when I was 14, and again recently and it sucked me in all over again.


5. The Crystal Cave – Mary Stewart
Something far quieter, far more reflective. Stewart’s Merlin is moody and introspective and very much rooted in Celtic mythology. The whole series is a fresh look at Arthurian myth with much of the chivalry stripped away, and I love it.


4. Conan the Conqueror – Robert E Howard
The granddad of the genre, and still one of my favorites. I keep hoping for the chance to submit to a Conan anthology. Hopefully someday.


3. Elidor – Alan Garner
And now for something completely different. Arthurian again, but set in the UK in the years after the war in bombed out buildings and urban wastelands-a quest tale, a child’s nightmare and the one single book that molded my love of the genre way back in the ’60s even before I found The Hobbit. It’s not well known, but it bloody well should be.


2. Lord of the Rings – J R R Tolkien
Still a favorite, and has been since a first read back in 1969 or so. I read it again every couple of years, and although the movies have altered the way I see it in my head now, I still find the books’ warmth and charm, and the sense of deep myth and history, to be my favorite way of consuming the Middle Earth experience.


1. The Broken Sword – Poul Anderson
Top of the Pops is another old favorite. Moorcock recommended it in an essay in the ’70s and I sought it out. I’m very glad I did for it’s a tale of mismatched brothers, changelings, high elves and low deeds, cursed swords and mayhem. Full of doom, gloom and despair, it’s prototype grimdark, and one of the classic tales in the genre. I’ve been recommending it to people for years, and they always thank me later.

I don't think I've read enough fantasy now... Doh.  My list feels so tiny by comparison.

In no particular order of importance or love, because I adore them all for different reasons.

The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
I actually ran a roleplay channel based on this concept for about 2 years, because we all loved his world so much. The Fae, the Red Court, so many neat things here. I have not read the most recent two books however because, despite my immense love and fondness for the series, I'm tired of Harry. It's been 12 or 13 novels and I'm ready to move on!

Harry Potter - J.K. Rowling
Maybe if I did have to choose, I'd say these are my favorite. Nostalgia, and the one series of book that I simply had to buy on release day no matter how broke or sick I felt. If the release fell on a day when I had only a handful of pennies, I went to my mother of all people and told her I needed a twenty, please.

Nightwatch - Sergei Lukyanenko
This is Russian urban fantasy, but it's freaking brilliant. It's got so much of what I love about Dresden files, and I only discovered it due to watching the movies over and over on Netflix then waiting eagerly for the novels to release on kindle. They're long books though, which is fantastic. I like long books, even if it does sometimes take me longer to read them.

The Gentleman Bastards - Scott Lynch
I fell in love with these after a friend visiting for the summer put the audiobook on her phone then played it obnoxiously while I was trying to sleep, because SHE couldn't sleep without noise. So I humored my houseguest and tried to ignore it. Then couldn't stop listening. Then Locke Lamora was in my damn every where we went for every outing because I had to know what happened next. Now I'm a solid fan and I own all the books on kindle.

I'm mainly a mystery and SF reader, but a few fantasy things stand out.

The first five Amber books by Roger Zelazny

The first three or four Dresden books by Jim Butcher

Glen Cook's Garrett, P. I. series

Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos series, especially the early ones

Gregory Frost's Lyrec I recall as being way above average IMHO. I bought the ebook a while back, but haven't got around to re-reading it yet.

I'll second Ill Met in Lankhmar by Fritz Leiber

Simon Green's Nightside series . I thought the first two or three volumes were excellent, the rest are pretty darned entertaining.

I greatly enjoyed some of Terry Prachett's work. Going Postal stands out (as well as the movie).

I thought Jane Lindskold's Child of a Rainless Year was outstanding.

I liked Robert Nathan's Portrait of Jennie. I liked the movie also, even though the writer/director made a change that was pointless and robbed the movie of some of its impact.

I'm fond of Thorne Smith's fantasies, written back in the twenties and thirties. Very funny stuff. Pretty much unknown today except for his creation of George and Marion Kirby, the ghosts from the book and movie Topper.

Mike

a more lyrical bent, but I loved the Riddle Master of Hed

and the Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper was a childhood favorite

I remember them. As someone who ran a LARP once, I can tell you it must have felt that way, trying to manage the character developments, plot twists, and overall power structure of a setting like that. Except of course that Thieves' World must have been far more stressful.

This interview with Lynn Abbey describes it very well: https://www.sfsite.com/11a/la139.htm

Say you're shooting a soap opera. It's dominated by a few characters, played by big actors with long-term contracts, and you can't have your writers suddenly killing those characters off, or handing them life-changing events like financial ruin, severe physical trauma, or a 20-year-jail sentence. (At least, not without these "permanent" events turning out to NOT be permanent, so that they end up bouncing back as strong as ever --- however unlikely that might be from a logical standpoint).

A traditional TV soap opera could do this because the writers were *employees*. But in the Thieves' World series, each writer started gradually taking greater and greater liberties about plot events that could --- intentionally or otherwise --- mess with the setting (and thereby mess with the plans of the other writers).

It must have been a huge headache.

Nicholas Andrews said:

...sounds like the title of a porno film!

Click to expand...

Do not make fun of Amber -- anything else, but not Amber. If you do, I shall set Benedict upon your trail:

It was almost a mystical experience. I do not know how else to put it. My mind outran time as he neared, and it was as though I had an eternity to ponder the approach of this man who was my brother. His garments were filthy, his face blackened, the stump of his right arm raised, gesturing anywhere. The great beast that he rode was striped, black and red, with a wild red mane and tail. But it really was a horse, and its eyes rolled and there was foam at its mouth and its breathing was painful to hear. I saw then that he wore his blade slung across his back, for its haft protruded high above his right shoulder. Still slowing, eyes fixed upon me, he departed the road, bearing slightly toward my left, jerked the reins once and released them, keeping control of the horse with his knees. His left hand went up in a salute-like movement that passed above his head and seized the hilt of his weapon. It came free without a sound, describing a beautiful arc above him and coming to rest in a lethal position out from his left shoulder and slanting back, like a single wing of dull steel with a minuscule line of edge that gleamed like a filament of mirror. The picture he presented was burned into my mind with a kind of magnificence, a certain splendor that was strangely moving. The blade was a long, scythe like affair that I had seen him use before. Only then we had stood as allies against a mutual foe I had begun to believe unbeatable. Benedict had proved otherwise that night. Now that I saw it raised against me I was overwhelmed with a sense of my own mortality, which I had never experienced before in this fashion. It was as though a layer had been stripped from the world and I had a sudden, full understanding of death itself.

~ The Guns of Avalon (book #2)