Fantasy Literature!

[PRAISE]

We have been talking in the various theads about books having "FANTASY" themes. Why don't I start a thread about fantasy literature, & we can find out how many people have any imagination out there!:hrm: I only have one condition:

I took a course back in college called "FANTASY IN LITERATURE", & it laid down a very simple rule that I ask that we all follow:

FANTASY IS ANYTHING THAT DOES NOT HAVE ANYTHING SCIENTIFIC OR ANY KIND OF ITEMS FROM THE REAL WORLD IN IT! IT IS TOTALLY OUTSIDE THE REALM OF THE REAL WORLD! Anything non-technological! This is the ONLY condition that I set! Here are some of my favorite fantasy literature:


1. The Thomas Covenant books-Stephen R. Donaldson
2. The Shanarra Books-Terry Brooks
3. The Spellsinger Books-Allan Dean Foster
4. The WITCH WORLD books-Andre Norton

Anyone have other suggestions?

PRAISE :thumb:

[Entropic Gnosis]

Alright:

The obvious choice of the Middle Earth Books-Tolkien
The Gormenghast Novels- Mervyn Peake
The Amber Chronicals- Roger Zelazny
The Book of the Long Sun- Gene Wolfe

[Jaltus]

Drenai Saga, by Gemmell
The Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan
Belgariad et al by David Eddings
Nearly anything by Modesitt
The Fionivar Tapestry, which is the best trilogy this side of JRRT's work
Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay, the best stand-alone fantasy novel I have ever read (and I have read at least 500 fantasy books, probably more like 2000, but I can generally recall around 500)

If I think of more, I'll list them.

[One Bad Pig]

FANTASY IS ANYTHING THAT DOES NOT HAVE ANYTHING SCIENTIFIC OR ANY KIND OF ITEMS FROM THE REAL WORLD IN IT! IT IS TOTALLY OUTSIDE THE REALM OF THE REAL WORLD! Anything non-technological! This is the ONLY condition that I set! Here are some of my favorite fantasy literature:


1. The Thomas Covenant books-Stephen R. Donaldson
2. The Shanarra Books-Terry Brooks
3. The Spellsinger Books-Allan Dean Foster
4. The WITCH WORLD books-Andre Norton

The Thomas Covenant books bounce in and out of the real world. Wouldn't that disqualify it? Good series though.

Some of my favorites:
1. The Hobbit/tLotR/Silmarillion
2. Everything I've read so far by David Gemmel: the Drenai saga, Morningstar, Knights of Dark Renown, Echoes of the Great Song
3. The Black Company series and Dread Empire series by Glen Cook
4. The Coldfire trilogy by C. S. Friedman
5. The Morgaine saga, The Paladin by CJ Cherryh
6. The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan
7. Anything by GG Kay
8. Tara K. Harper's Wolfwalker series
9. Raymond Feist's Midkemia/Tsuranni books
10. Deryni series by Katherine Kurtz

[Sher]

Pern series ... Anne McCaffrey

I have a passion for anything with dragons.
These were so good, I spent many nights reading
into the wee mornings every time a new book was released.

[automatthew]

I much prefer "naturalistic fantasy," as Orson Scott Card calls it; fantasy with clearly defined rules, where magic is scarce, has costs and limitations. I also prefer novels where I don't have my nose rubbed in every possible piece of information. Yes, that means you, Robert Jordan.

Robin Hobb
the Farseer (or Assassin) series
the Liveship Traders
the Tawny Man (in progress)

Dave Duncan
A Man of His Word
The Seventh Sword
The King's Blades

[PRAISE]

Yesterday @ 04:07 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=145137#post145137)
Sher:

Pern series ... Anne McCaffrey

I have a passion for anything with dragons.
These were so good, I spent many nights reading
into the wee mornings every time a new book was released.

Ok, Sher-I'll let the Pern Series go, although, they actually do get science involved in the later books. I really did love them, though:smile:

PRAISE:thumb:

[PRAISE]

07-05-2003 @ 06:58 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=140154#post140154)
Entropic Gnosis:

Alright:

The obvious choice of the Middle Earth Books-Tolkien
The Gormenghast Novels- Mervyn Peake
The Amber Chronicals- Roger Zelazny
The Book of the Long Sun- Gene Wolfe

EG-Were the GORMENGHAST boks as hard to read as I had heard that they were? When I took that fantasy course back in college, I heard that there were one of the toughest of all fantasy at that time to read? Just wondering. Thanx 4 your input!:cheers:

PRAISE:thumb:

[Entropic Gnosis]

Praise: The Gormenghast Novel's are no walk in the park, they read like what would happen in Chalres Dickens went on an acid trip and decided to write fantasy. Peake is very fond of description and detail, which i enjoy but many find it tedious and dense, the characters are very well developed and the plot(s) themselves are quite enjoyable. Its not the sort of thing one sits down and casually reads, it is deffinatly a "project" but one that is well worth it.

If i may add to my list here

The Deathgate Cycle (7 books) - Weis and Hickmann
Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn (3 books)- Tad Williams
The Elric Saga & The Books of Corum (lots of books)- Michael Moorcock
Actually anything by Gene Wolfe.

And on the lighter side:

The Diskworld books.

[Sher]

Yesterday @ 05:53 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=146878#post146878)
PRAISE:

Ok, Sher-I'll let the Pern Series go, although, they actually do get science involved in the later books. I really did love them, though:smile:

PRAISE:thumb:

Hey Praise,

Too right ... they did get a bit more SciFi later ... but thanks for letting that slide.

(tell the truth, you cried too when a certain Master Harper died, didn't you?)

:shersig:

[Entropic Gnosis]

[sci-fi purest hat on] Having never read the pern books i wonder, what do you mean by sci-fi? Did the just aquire technology and exist in a more "futuristic" society with space craft and all of those bells and whistles? Most "sci-fi" isn't really sci-fi proper as it has very little to do with the internally plausible science and more to do with fantastic technology. For example Star Wars is not science fiction, it is fantasy. Stories like Azimov's Nightfall are science fictions as they deal with the application of certain scientific priciples and require far less suspentions of belief. the vast majority of sci-fi is really techno-fantasy and has very little to do with science itself[sci-fi purest hat off] carry on then.

[One Bad Pig]

Entropic Gnosis:

[sci-fi purest hat on] Having never read the pern books i wonder, what do you mean by sci-fi? Did the just aquire technology and exist in a more "futuristic" society with space craft and all of those bells and whistles? Most "sci-fi" isn't really sci-fi proper as it has very little to do with the internally plausible science and more to do with fantastic technology. For example Star Wars is not science fiction, it is fantasy. Stories like Azimov's Nightfall are science fictions as they deal with the application of certain scientific priciples and require far less suspentions of belief. the vast majority of sci-fi is really techno-fantasy and has very little to do with science itself[sci-fi purest hat off] carry on then.

The dragons of Pern were bio-engineered from a much smaller species. This and most other knowledge was subsequently lost, causing Pern to revert to an agrarian society. The recurring problem on Pern that the dragons were engineered to mitigate is scientifically explained, and the Pernese eventually awaken a long-dormant computer and use its knowledge to increase literacy and do some basic research. The science isn't a main part of the story, but it pops up now and again, making the series rather borderline.

[PRAISE]

Yesterday @ 07:22 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=147308#post147308)
Entropic Gnosis:

Praise: The Gormenghast Novel's are no walk in the park, they read like what would happen in Chalres Dickens went on an acid trip and decided to write fantasy. Peake is very fond of description and detail, which i enjoy but many find it tedious and dense, the characters are very well developed and the plot(s) themselves are quite enjoyable. Its not the sort of thing one sits down and casually reads, it is deffinatly a "project" but one that is well worth it.

If i may add to my list here

The Deathgate Cycle (7 books) - Weis and Hickmann
Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn (3 books)- Tad Williams
The Elric Saga & The Books of Corum (lots of books)- Michael Moorcock
Actually anything by Gene Wolfe.

And on the lighter side:

The Diskworld books.

EG-Wow!:thumb: I compeatly forget about Moorcock's Elric saga! Now there was a real tragic hero! :bow: Those were fabulous!

PRAISE:thumb:

[PRAISE]

Yesterday @ 07:49 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=147314#post147314)
Sher:



Hey Praise,

Too right ... they did get a bit more SciFi later ... but thanks for letting that slide.

(tell the truth, you cried too when a certain Master Harper died, didn't you?)

:shersig:


Yes, Sher, I did cry when Master Robinton died!:sad:That was such a great series!

PRAISE:thumb:

[djnoz]

I think as fantasy goes, the longer and more detailed, the better. Robert Jordan's stuff is amazing!

[Entropic Gnosis]

I am going to disagree with you there, i went through a Jordan phase and quite frankly i dont care for him. His characters are generic, his plots died after about book 3, and his writing style is lacking in expression. I applaud his world building but the execution is sadly lacking.

[Yog^sothoth]

ahh pern. you know that anytime i hear Yanni live at the acropolis I run for fear of the thread coming from the sky? It's so weird!

[Bill the Cat]

I actually love the absurdity of the XaNth series by Piers Anthony. They get even weirder and punnier as they go along...

[Entropic Gnosis]

A general question: Am I the only human to have ever read gene wolfe? Granted there must be others but i have yet to meet any.

[AcousticJS]

David Gemmell is fantastic - I've just read Legend and plan to work my way through the rest of his books.

It's too cliche to say LotR but it is great.

Stephen Lawhead's stuff is good - not too sure it totally qualifies though. The Albion series is mostly fantasy, but flits a bit into this world. Most of his Pendragon cycle would fit though.

I used to read David Eddings a lot - really well written stuff.

I just love heroic fantasy - I'm not too into the sorcery type stuff. I much prefer battles and stuff, so Gemmell suits me down to the ground at the moment.

God bless
Jon

PS. oh yeah, I'm reading 'The Princess Bride' at the moment too. It's actually as good as the film!

[One Bad Pig]

Entropic Gnosis:

A general question: Am I the only human to have ever read gene wolfe? Granted there must be others but i have yet to meet any.

I started the first "Long Sun" book (don't recall the title), but didn't get more than a few chapters into it. I must've picked it up to read somewhere to pass the time, 'cause I don't have a copy. It didn't interest me enough to go out and buy up the series, at any rate. Does it get better?

I haven't seen any mention of Glen Cook, who is one of my favorite authors. He tends to write gritty fantasy from the point of view of the grunt on the ground (or someone who started out that way), not the general.

[Entropic Gnosis]

Wolfe tends to be a slow read, he very carefully builds up, very few things tend to happen quickly. I prefer his style to the more fast paced fantasy. So, to answer the question, yes it does get better.