Fantasy Book Post of Doom
Jun. 7th, 2006 03:54 amI found a list of recommended fantasy book authors and since I am just made of time (read: I have another essay to write and haven't slept in two days) I decided to make a list of how many I'd read already, which new authors sounded particularly interesting, etc. Somehow this morphed into entirely subjective descriptions of every book on the list I was familiar with, clearly I am insane.
If you have a little bit of time, comments are below the cut. WARNING: not feeling particularly coherent right now.
( Long list, but not as long as it could have been (ie my mind is a sieve) )
Before I started blogging, my memory was terrible: everything earlier than 11th grade is hazy, so it's likely I've read more listed fantasy and simply don't remember it. With all of my books at home, I can't make this complete, but here's some fantasy I liked that wasn't on the list:
Lawrence Yep
#Dragon of the Lost Sea
#Dragon Steel
#Dragon Cauldron
#Dragon War
Shimmer/Thorn OTP!!! Snooty disposessed dragon princesses who are forced to rely on intrepid but uneducated peasant boys for the win. I seem to recall Shimmer had a human form, which puts her a step ahead of Temeraire, but that she considered it beneath herself to use it. XD. This series intersects with Chinese folktales, most noticeably Monkey (a major character from Steel onwards).
Anne Logston
#Waterdance
More than anything else, this reminds me of Patricia Wrede's Lyra books. No literary merit, but I liked the romance subplot, the cultish main plot, and the characters.
Kate Forsyth
# Dragonclaw
# The Pool of Two Moons
# The Cursed Towers
# The Forbidden Land
# The Skull of the World
# The Fathomless Caves
This series must be good because it is Celtic fantasy and yet I still liked it. (For those just tuning in, I HATE Arthurian and Celtic fantasy, there is something about the half-wild mindset that drives me absolutely crazy.) This book is full of characters doing dumb things with terrible consequences, another thing I am not so wild about in fantasy -- but the worldbuilding is amazing, the pacing is very consistent and there are a lot of memorable characters.
If you have a little bit of time, comments are below the cut. WARNING: not feeling particularly coherent right now.
( Long list, but not as long as it could have been (ie my mind is a sieve) )
Before I started blogging, my memory was terrible: everything earlier than 11th grade is hazy, so it's likely I've read more listed fantasy and simply don't remember it. With all of my books at home, I can't make this complete, but here's some fantasy I liked that wasn't on the list:
Lawrence Yep
#Dragon of the Lost Sea
#Dragon Steel
#Dragon Cauldron
#Dragon War
Shimmer/Thorn OTP!!! Snooty disposessed dragon princesses who are forced to rely on intrepid but uneducated peasant boys for the win. I seem to recall Shimmer had a human form, which puts her a step ahead of Temeraire, but that she considered it beneath herself to use it. XD. This series intersects with Chinese folktales, most noticeably Monkey (a major character from Steel onwards).
Anne Logston
#Waterdance
More than anything else, this reminds me of Patricia Wrede's Lyra books. No literary merit, but I liked the romance subplot, the cultish main plot, and the characters.
Kate Forsyth
# Dragonclaw
# The Pool of Two Moons
# The Cursed Towers
# The Forbidden Land
# The Skull of the World
# The Fathomless Caves
This series must be good because it is Celtic fantasy and yet I still liked it. (For those just tuning in, I HATE Arthurian and Celtic fantasy, there is something about the half-wild mindset that drives me absolutely crazy.) This book is full of characters doing dumb things with terrible consequences, another thing I am not so wild about in fantasy -- but the worldbuilding is amazing, the pacing is very consistent and there are a lot of memorable characters.