What other fantasy books do YOU read?

[MLD-Grounds-Keeper-Willie]

Birdland:

did you know that Jack London wrote a time travel novel, called Star Rover?

Actually no, I didn't. But I'll have to check it out. It seems wierd that Jack London would write something like that. Did he write any other books like that?

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Maia. A plucky heroine saves a kingdom. At 891 pages, this is one honkin' big book, but it's a page turner.

I will definately read that. i like lnog books because when you get in to a book and it's short, it seems like such a pity it was over so fast, but when you read a book that you get in to and it's long, I seem to enjoy it much more. Thanks Birdland! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Amanaduial the archer:

One of the books I read more recently was 'Spartan', by valerios Massimio Manfredi

Maybe this is just me, and sorry if it is, but isn't there a myth like that where the boy is adopted by a pack of wolves? I think I heard of a story like that but it may be just a variation or I may be getting two stories confused with each other.

[ April 22, 2003: Message edited by: MLD-Grounds-Keeper-Willie ]

[Amanaduial the archer]

Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl

No!!! Well, the Arctic Incident was better than the first one; during the first one I thought I was going to fall asleep. Artemis is a great character, as is Holly, but in the first one, I just couldnt get into it- it was devoid of description. However, I heard a rumour that they were making a film of one or both of the books...

The Named and Old Magic though....Good grief, how havent I said them yet?! I love those books, they are seriously some of my favourites ever. Arkarian, Jarrod, Ethan, Isobel and even Rhauk are such fantastic characters!

[Lady Alasse]

I enjoyed the C. S. Lewis Chronicles of Narnia and his space trilogy - Out of the silent planet, Perelandra, & that Hideous Strength.

I also enjoy reading star wars books especially the New Jedi Order (I can't belive they killed Anakin!)

I read one of the sword of Shanara books but it just seemed to weak after Tolkein.

I also like Robin Mckinleys Rose' Daughter- a retelling of Beauty and the beast.

[vanwafeniel]

Yes!!! An Artemis Fowl movie would be excellent! I agree with amanaduial, Arctic incident was much better than the 1st, I found the plot to be better. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] Has anybody read the wishlist, another Eoin Colfer book. It isn't as good as the Artemis Fowl books but is a good, short read. Very short actually, about an hour! [img]smilies/evil.gif[/img]

[Amanaduial the archer]

Oh, its not that short! Yes I have- the ending seemed a bit too quick, like it was rushed, but it would also be quite high on my list. Its much better from Eoin Colfer.

[drigel]

I feel so old now lol
Watership Down was such standard fare in the 70's im shocked people never heard of it. Donaldson's Covenant series and the Dune series was as well. I suppose Dino DeLaurentis effectively killed the Conan image for the young pups here but if you like LeGuin, try Robert E Howard. She helped finish a few Conan tales herself.

[MLD-Grounds-Keeper-Willie]

I knew I was forgetting something!

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, by Robert C. O'Brien

[Hilde Bracegirdle]

I personally, knew of Watership Down but didn’t know about the sequel. Did you?

(Adams does like his racy stuff.)

Hope the rabbits aren’t racy in this one! [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

Saw some George MacDonald at the library yesterday. Think I'll check one out after we finish Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass.

Ursula LeGuin - Earthsea Stories, really-really magnificent creation, a lot of things written by Strugatski brothers and Ray Bradbury. I guess I´m a bit old fashioned...

[Birdland]

Since we're bringing up animal-based fantasy, I might as well throw in Tad William's Tailchaser's Song, a cat-centric adventure.

I understand Tad Williams has written two fantasy trilogies as well. Has anyone read these?

Oh, And G.K.-Willie - Since Jack London is now in the public domain, the complete text of Star Rover is available online here. There is another novel based on past-life experience, called Before Adam. It is also available at the above link.

[ April 23, 2003: Message edited by: Birdland ]

[Mitheithel]

I like Anne McCaffrey and her dragon-realms. I`ve read "The Flight of Moreta" and "Dragonflight", wich I think is her best.

[Luinalatawen]

I just finished reading Summers at Castle Auburn by Sharon Shinn. Has anyone else read it? It has great plot development and I really got into it.

[Luinalatawen]

I have read Watership Down. I love rabbits. I currently have 5 as pets. That's why I absolutely had to read it.

I had to read Slaughterhouse Five for school. I usually don't like novels we have to read in school, but actually really enjoyed it. It's SciFi and totally different than what I usually like, so I guess it was a nice change.

[Lyra Greenleaf]

I haven't read Watership Down but I used to watch it on the BBC. It was too sad for me, I used to cry in the Animals of Farthing Wood for crying out loud!

Personally I liked both Artemis Fowl books equally, and preferred the Named to Old Magic but I agree about the characters. Well, actually Jarrod seemed too digging for popularity. OK, so he turned out good in the end but still...

[vanwafeniel]

How odd!i'm exactly like Lyra, i used to watch Watership down and it was so upsetting!We'd sit like an inch away from the tv cos we were stupid but it was still my fave program as a kid! Plus i love Artemis Fowm books! Eoin Colfers a funny writer,
I still adore Iain Banks or Iain M. Banks and Anne Rice. I know i said i would not attempt Philip Pullman because of a bad first try but i am re-readng the amber spyglass! I will let you all know! [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[Amanaduial the archer]

No, I think Jarrod was just trying to fit in, and he was after all trying to distance himself from Kate as much as possible. I mean, the girl told him he had a curse on him, he had a right to be a little freaked...

[Hilde Bracegirdle]

Yes, Watership Down is sad….. I remember having a night of semi-insomnia…. I was trying to design the prefect rabbit hutch while half asleep! Take-care of dem rabbits, you know?

[Durelin]

Read Malory's Le Morta D'Arthur. Arthurian legend is cool. And Robert Jordan's books are great! All of them! They don't get boring! Seriously, it tells a great story with great characters, it rocks! Okay?

[img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Keneldil the Polka-dot]

For Arthurian Legend fans I'd suggest Mary Stewart, Bernard Cornwell, Jack Whyte, and Stephen Lawhead. Susan Cooper also wrote a sort of Aurthurian spin off.

Only one other fan of Stephen R. Donaldson's Covenant books? The hero is hard to like, but I grew up reading his stuff along with Tolkien and Le Guin.

Someone asked about George R.R. Martin...I like his stuff a lot. Looking forward to the next book.

Robert Jordan....loved his early stuff...now he just needs to get it over with. Same with Eddings...he should have known when to quit.

Jack L. Chalker has some good sci-fi stuff. The Quintara Marathon. And Rings of the Master.

Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series and Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy are both good too.

Not one single mention of Michael Moorcock. Unbelievable.

[Tinuviel of Denton]

Where do I start?
Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth, C.S. Lewis, definately, love Frank Peretti, anyone else read The Stone and the Flute by Hans Bemman, I like Dragonlance too. Le Guin, absolutely. Most of the authors you all have mentioned I like.
Robert Jordan is going to write thirteen books, I think, because thirteen seems to be an important number in there.

[ April 27, 2003: Message edited by: Tinuviel of Denton ]

[Sophia the Thunder Mistress]

Oh yes! Whoever mentioned Mary Stewarts Arthurian things, they're great [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] Lawhead's are good too, Taliesin in particular.

Another vote for Perelandra, Rats of Nimh, Watership Down, and Earthsea (Tombs of Atuan is my favorite!)

Sophia

[Airerûthiel]

• Philip Pullman books - I've just finished The Amber Spyglass and I'm looking for more of his work to read
• William Nicholson's The Wind on Fire trilogy
• Terry Prachett's Discworld books - if you haven't read these, they are absolutely hilarious
• C S Lewis - Chronicles of Narnia
• Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea books
• Rats of Nimh - I love those books
• and I don't know who it's by, but the book is called Across the Nightingale Floor

[ April 27, 2003: Message edited by: Airerûthiel ]

[Amanaduial the archer]

Talking of Arthurian legend, The Seeing Stone and the sequel, At the Crossing Places by Kevin Crossley-Holland are quite good. The second one is better, but I am waiting eagerly for the final part of the trilogy, The King of Middle Marsh.

What books are most popular here then? Ursula Le Guin seems to have some up quite alot, and Philip Pullman's acclaimed Dark Materials.

[The Saucepan Man]

Not one single mention of Michael Moorcock. Unbelievable.

I would refer the honourable member to my earlier post:

However I do recall greatly enjoying Robert E Howard's Conan books and Michael Moorcock's Prince Corum series.

I think that Moorcock's works (the Corum and Elric books) get a few other mentions on thus thread too. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

[Salocin]

In order from Best to not as good as Best, here are my favorite fantasy/SciFi authors.


************Tolkien*****************

Besides ME stuff I really liked Roverandom, Farmer Giles of Ham, Smith of Wotton Major, and Leaf by Niggle in that order. Is it just me or is Leaf by Niggle about Pergatory?


***************C.S.Lewis**************

In order:

The Space Trilogy-
Amazing. The best SciFi I have ever read. I would include the Dark Tower here.

The Screwtape Letters-
Increadable insite into the wiles of the enemy. Required reading for anyone who wants to not go to hell [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] .

The Great Devorce-
Increadable insite to why certain aspects of Christianity that one might question are the way they are. Again, required reading for above reason.

The Chronicals of Narnia-
Maybe its just that I take these for granted because I grew up with them and sort of "discovered" Lewis's other stuff, but I like his other stuff better. Still really good though.

Shadowlands-
Say the BBC production. Really good.
Animal Land-
I am not sure if that is the title. Stories of cute fuzzy animals Lewis wrote with his brother at a young age. Published post-humerously from notebooks that were almost burned. Anyone else ever seen this?


*************George MacDonald*************

His books are the only ones I can not put in order:

Lilith-
Besides the Universalism, a pretty good Fantasy. The presence of a plot is questionable though. It seems as if the nameless protagonist could have done any number of things different and the outcome would have been the same. Again, the Universalism.

Fantasties-
Another good Fantasy (they called them Romances back then) I never finished it though. Again, an intreging plot is lacking. Besides his letting out his shadow and falling for the evil willow lady, the nameless (see a pattern) protagonist never does anything but walk [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img].
Please don't be turned off by my negative reviews of those two books. They are really good, its just that their good qualities are hard to explain.

The Princess books(The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie)-
Really nice fairy tails with good morals. Good for reading to small children though, as with all of MacDonald's stuff, there is a lot of deeper meaning, so you should probably read them again when you are older (I assume almost everyone here is "older")


************Lloyed Alexander************

Pyridain Chronicals-
Really cool. Tarran matures before you're very eyes!

Some weird books about a tom boy herroine in the 19th century-
Probably the only girlly books I ever read. The first one was sort of good, but they are all the same and the plots are completely rediculase given the time, place, and characters.

Doesn't he have a bunch of weird books about cats? I mean really weird ones like Time Cat or something? Oppinions please.


*****Stephen Lawhead (tie with Alexander)*****

Pendragon Cycle-
Taliesin and Merlin are works of art. I never got past the third part of Aurthur and never read any of the other books. The last two points of view in Aurthur were just to boring though the first one (was it Pelias?) was really good.

Dragon King Trilogy-
Pretty good. Way to protestant and it seems to artificial compared with, say the Pendragon Cycle and Pyridain Chronicles. It is quite comical seeing him try to portray a civilization of protestants that got raptured as mystirious, mystical, and ancient. [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img]

Bizantium-
I haven't actually read this *yet* (its length is very intimidating) but I have heard good things about it.

Doesn't he have a SciFi trilogy? Anyone read it who could tell me if it is any good?


*************Frank L. Baum**************

The Life and Adventures of Santa Clause-
I really nicely done, fairy tale type, "alternative" to any Santa Clause myths. Unlike the Oz books there seems to be a deffinate hyrrerarchy and Order of power in this book. I liked it a lot. Is it true they did a messed up chartoon based on this?

The REAL Oz series (not the run offs published after he died)-
Good fairy stories with nice plots, interesting magical items (I love the three magic pearls!), and interesting characters, though one or two are extremely similar. No really underlying meaning or messages (though there is an interesting theory of The Wizard of Oz being an Allegory of the first William Jennings Brian Presedential campain. The Scarecrow is the Farmers, the Tim Woodman is industrial workers, the Cowardly Lion is Brian, and they are taking the free silver standard (the silver slippers) up the gold standard of the Yellow Brick Road. There is more to it than that, but that's all I remember.), just a mindless fairy story. The main draw back I see is that, for such a developed fantasy world, there is no underlying power structure controlling the magic, or atleast we never see more than glimpses at it (the magic cult with the aprons is the only example I can think of). It just seems like everything is possible. There is not Higher Order. There is a nice detailed map in the latter ones though [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img].

Other Oz like Fairy Tails (Queen Zixi of Ix, Dot and Tot of Merryland, The Demon of Electricity)-
His lesser known books, surely. They are basically the same as the Oz books, though a little better developed (he was bored with Oz, so I think he put more effort into them). I own Queen Zixi of Ix. They have Dot and Tot of Merryland in some closed stacks in a library out here. I got them to let me in and read the first few chapters once (I think they thought I was doing a report because they kept asking if I wanted to take notes and if I did to please do them in pencil [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img] ). I have never been able to find The Demon of Electricity, though the description I read sounds very intreagueing.


Well that sure was long. I won't be posting here in a while [img]smilies/redface.gif[/img] .

Hey, this is my 100th post! One more and I'm a wright

[ April 27, 2003: Message edited by: Salocin ]

[Amanaduial the archer]

Has Diana Wyne-Jones been mentioned yet? Both the Chrestomanci series and the Dalemark Quartet.

[vanwafeniel]

I loved Farmer Giles of ham and Roverandom Still ploughing my way through The amber spyglass aswell as other banks books. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[Keneldil the Polka-dot]

*nods to Saucepan man*

Sorry, I missed your post Saucepanman. This thread was six pages when I got to it, lot of authors mentioned.

Someone help me out.....can't remember an author's name..he wrote "Sword of the Lictor", "Claw of the Concilator" a few more....aww nevermind I just remembered. Gene Wolfe. Has anyone read these? I tried to once a long time ago and couldn't get into them.

[ April 29, 2003: Message edited by: Keneldil the Polka-dot ]

[Helkahothion]

Not much I'm afraid.

Harry Potter and the philosophers stone
Harry Potter and the prisinor of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the the goblet of fire

Okay I admit it, I read HP. Don't kill me!

[vanwafeniel]

Im afaid i must kill you because hp is a ginormous crime!!mwhahaha...ugh, can't stand Daniel Radcliffe let alone his eyebrows. [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img]

[Melephelwen]

Right, so here I go.
Any fantasy I ever read is fantastic! (I should've been born as a boy - then people wouldn't glance as much when I say I love it... *sigh* [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img] )
Anyways, everythings been mentioned before, I believe, but you'll get it anyways.

Terry Brooks, Shannara stuff
Terry Pratchett, (I especially love the books he wrote about Escape of the Gnomes, I think, even though it's for children)
David Eddings, Belgariad books.
J. K. Rowling, I don't care what anybody says about Harry Potter, I have to admire her - c'mon, the books are well-written, and in such few years, and... *rambles on for a few minutes*
Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials
And Tamora Pierce! I know they're mostly childrens books, but they're still good. I read all I could find on my local library, and looking for more.

And all mentioned in this thread is now on my to-read list, (every author mentioned, cut&paste, takes more than 3 pages A4! [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img] )

[The Saucepan Man]

J. K. Rowling ... I have to admire her ... and in such few years ...

Yes, and in those few short years, she has (according to the Times "Rich List") become the richest woman in the UK, more wealthy than the Queen. I have to admire her too, although with a tinge of jealousy. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

I cannot believe that, in my previous posts on this thread, I neglected to mention Enid Blyton's Faraway Tree books - The Enchanted Wood, The Magic Faraway Tree and The Folk of The Faraway Tree. Although they are books for young children, they are nevertheless fantasy books of a sort.

For those who haven't read them, they are about a group of children who discover the magic Faraway Tree in the Enchanted Wood, which is populated by such wondrous folk as Moonface, Silkie the Fairy and, of course, the Saucepan Man (no, my nick is not original [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img] ). The children and their new friends have adventures in the different lands that come to the top of the Faraway Tree.

There were my favourite books as a child, until I read the Hobbit, and I recently "rediscovered" them by reading them to my 5 year old daughter. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

[Helkahothion]

ugh, can't stand Daniel Radcliffe let alone his eyebrows.

*grab's his black list and scribbles down(with a eagle feather ofcourse) "vanwafeniel"*

*takes out a two barrled shot gun and scouts for vanwafeniel*

Mwuhahahaha, I'm evil [img]smilies/evil.gif[/img]

[Amanaduial the archer]

Down, Helka, down!

ugh, can't stand Daniel Radcliffe let alone his eyebrows.

*raises one of her own eyebrows* And if I told you I knew him in real life, then what?

[Salocin]

Real life? Whats that?

[manaratowen]

ok, ive noticed a few dragon lance readers out there, so ill chime in...lol. ive read every single dragonlance book since margret weiss and tracy hickman started out with just one trilogy...lol. i even have the leaves from the last home, and have made some of the recipies from it. oticks spiced potatos are the best.

[Helkahothion]

And if I told you I knew him in real life, then what?

OMFG! You know Daniel Radclif?

[GaladrieloftheOlden]

ugh, can't stand Daniel Radcliffe let alone his eyebrows.

Right... "live and let live" mutters Menelien to herself [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

OMFG!

How did that 'f' find it's way into that? *looks innocent* [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img]

~Menelien

[Helkahothion]

I guess it slipped in. I hate it when that happens. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[Amanaduial the archer]

Yes. I met him at Gloucester Cathedral, and have met him a few times since then, not at big fan meetings things. Nice guy.