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Post by calithena on Dec 30, 2007 8:00:54 GMT -6
I thought it would be fun if people listed their favorite fantasy novels in a 'top x' format. Let's say maximum 10.
Mine are (the order varies from list to list):
1. The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien 2. Eyes of the Overworld, Jack Vance 3. Night's Master, Tanith Lee 4. Darkness Weaves, Karl Wagner 5. The Pastel City, M. John Harrison 6. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Leguin 7. In Yana, the Touch of Undying, Michael Shea
What about you?
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Post by Finarvyn on Dec 30, 2007 9:14:17 GMT -6
My order also varies with mood. 1. Hobbit and Lord of the Rings (JRRT) -- "The Hobbit" = favorite 2. Chronicles of Amber (Zelazny) -- "Nine Princes in Amber" = favorite 3. "Jack of Shadows" (Zelazny) 4. Dresden Files (Butcher) -- "Summer Knight" = favorite 5. "Savage Tales of Solomon Kane" (Howard; cheating since it's a omnibus of short stories) 6. Conan (Howard; not sure which is favorite) 7. "Three Hearts and Three Lions" (Anderson) 8. "Neverwhere" (Gaiman) 9. Elric (Moorcock) first one = favorite 10. Vlad Taltos series (Brust) first one = favorite
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serendipity
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Post by serendipity on Dec 30, 2007 9:50:03 GMT -6
Objection! Blatant rule violations in numbers 1 and 6, with violation of the spirit of the law in numbers 2, 4, 9, and 10. (I'll let you have 5, since that's an actual book, even if it does have lots of short stories in it.) Now post again, Fin, and this time list exact titles that fit on your top ten list.
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Post by calithena on Dec 30, 2007 9:54:13 GMT -6
Short stories is a whole other can of worms IMO. Much of the best fantasy ever written is in the short story form. But deciding on one's favorite novels is a much more manageable task, at least for me.
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Post by Finarvyn on Dec 30, 2007 10:07:19 GMT -6
(sigh) Okay, here goes...
My order also varies with mood. 1. The Hobbit (JRRT) 2. The Lord of the Rings (JRRT) 3. Nine Princes in Amber (Zelazny) 4. Jack of Shadows (Zelazny) 5. Summer Knight (Butcher) 6. Three Hearts and Three Lions (Anderson) 7. Neverwhere (Gaiman) 8. Elric of Melnibone (Moorcock) 9. Jherig (Brust)
I had to delete all references to Robert E. Howard (one of my favorite authors of all time) becasue he basically only wrote short stories.
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Post by calithena on Dec 30, 2007 10:26:48 GMT -6
Well, you have Hour of the Dragon and Almuric for novels, but Howard's best stuff was short stories.
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serendipity
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Post by serendipity on Dec 30, 2007 10:31:25 GMT -6
Well done, Fin. I'm proud of you. Here's my list (such as it is. I may have to add more later if they spring to mind) 1. Watership Down (Richard Adams) 2. Sorcery and Cecelia (Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer) 3. Lost in Translation (Margaret Ball) 4. Caught in Crystal (Patricia Wrede) 5. Wizard of Seattle (Kay Hooper) 6. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (JK Rowling) --Sere Edit: I removed Alice from the list when I realized that although I read it a lot through college, I haven't read it recently and don't currently possess a copy.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2007 13:07:27 GMT -6
Well, let's see: 1. The Legend of Huma (Knaak) 2. Dragons of Autumn Twilight (Hickman/Weis) 3. Dragons of Winter Night (Hickman/Weis) 4. Dragons of Spring Dawning (Hickman/Weis) 5. The Hobbit (Tolkien) 6. Flight from the Dark (Dever--I know, it's a gamebook... ;D]) 7. Grey Star the Wizard (Page--Another gamebook) 8. The Black Company (Cook) 9. Shadows Linger (Cook) 10. The White Rose (Cook) This is kind of a hard question for me; I prefer Howard & Smith above ANYTHING else, period. If I could only ever read 2 writers for the rest of my life, it would be R.E.H. & C.A.S.--but since they both predominantly wrote short stories, I didn't put them in. And I didn't want to invoke the ire of the Bunny Master...
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Post by Finarvyn on Dec 30, 2007 18:05:11 GMT -6
And I didn't want to invoke the ire of the Bunny Master... LOL! And I noticed that 40% of your list was DragonLance stuff. While I enjoyed the series, it's tough for me to imagine it being 4 of my top 10, or any single author being 4 of my top 10 for that matter. That's really why I wanted to focus on series instead of individual novels.,,,,
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Post by makofan on Dec 30, 2007 20:55:38 GMT -6
1) The Silmarillion (Tolkien) 2) The Lord of the Rings (Tolkien) 3) Watership Down (Adams) 4) Nine Princes in Amber series (Zelazny) 5) Tigana (Kay) 6) Lord of Light (Zelazny) 7) Bridge of Birds (Hughart) 8) Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath (Lovecraft) 9) Knight/Queen/King of the Swords (Moorcock) 10) The Belgariad (Eddings)
That is probably pretty close
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Post by thorswulf on Dec 30, 2007 22:54:59 GMT -6
1)The Hobbit 2)Lord of the Rings trilogy 3)Hour of the Dragon 4)Three Hearts and Three Lions 5)Glory Road 6) The Elenium 7)The Belgariad 8)Synthetic Men of Mars 9)Any of the Intergalactic Viagens (Krishna) novels 10)The Popul Vuh
Most of my favorite writers wrote short stories, so in fairness I did not list any of their best works. On the other hand I had a ver hard time deciding if Moorecock's Elric books were just collections of short stories!
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Post by Rhuvein on Dec 31, 2007 0:19:12 GMT -6
1) The Hobbit - Tolkien 2) Dragonflight - McCaffrey 3) Tarzan - ERB 4) Wizard of Oz - L. Frank Baum 5) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - JK 6) Three Hearts & Three Lions - Anderson 7) Redwall - Brian Jacques 8) The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - Lewis 9) Sword of Shannara - Brooks 10) Dragons of Autumn Twilight - Weis/Hickman
;D
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Post by jdrakeh on Dec 31, 2007 0:36:49 GMT -6
1. The Eye of the Hunter (Dennis L. McKiernan) 2. The Dying Earth (Jack Vance) 3. Cugel's Saga (Jack Vance) 4. The Dark Tide (Dennis L. McKiernan) 5. The Shadows of Doom (Dennis L. McKiernan) 6. The Darkest Day (Dennis L. McKiernan) 7. The Traveller in Black (John Brunner) 8. The Blue World (Jack Vance) 9. The Black Company (Glen Cook) 10. The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper)
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Post by dwayanu on Dec 31, 2007 11:24:52 GMT -6
Beware the Bunny! The Dying Earth and The Traveller in Black are really story collections. Classics, though, and there's a "novelistic" aspect in how the stories work together, so in the same spirit I'll offer The Incompleat Nifft by Michael Shea and DeCamp's and Pratt's "Harold Shea" stories (collected in The Incomplete Enchanter and under other titles).
I think McKiernan's Iron Tower "trilogy" is really as much a single long novel as Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.
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Post by jdrakeh on Dec 31, 2007 12:27:00 GMT -6
Beware the Bunny! The Dying Earth and The Traveller in Black are really story collections. Originally, though both were later published as novellas, with each story composing a chapter. . . so I think that they qualify Yeah, but it's published in three parts, so I figured that I would break it up. If I hadn't, The Dragonstone and Dragon Doom would have also made the list. I really like McKiernan. It's like Tolkien with more character development.
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Post by dwayanu on Dec 31, 2007 13:12:50 GMT -6
I'm coming a bit late to an appreciation of McKiernan's work for what it (quite openly) is in its own right. I still find his "linguistic" efforts jarringly comedic, but otherwise have become able to take it all in the spirit in which it is intended (basically as "comfort food" rather than haute cuisine).
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Post by jdrakeh on Dec 31, 2007 13:35:29 GMT -6
Interestingly enough, a large number of the Mithgar novels are drawn from a long-runnning Rolemaster 2e campaign that Mr. McKiernan is responsible for (he sent me an envelope of rather detailed rules for said campaign back in 1998 or so).
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Post by doc on Dec 31, 2007 14:52:23 GMT -6
I've never been big on most of McKiernan's work, but I always thought that Eye of the Hunter was one of the best fantasy books around. No big surprises in it, but just a good, all-around fantasy novel with interesting characters, a good length, and no real glaring flaws. Of course, now I have to give McKiernan props simply because he's a gamer Which raises an interesting question: Just how many fantasy writers out there are actually gamers (either now or in the past)? Doc
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Post by calithena on Dec 31, 2007 15:54:31 GMT -6
Steven Brust, Elizabeth Moon, and Raymond Heist all come to mind, just for starters.
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Post by badger2305 on Dec 31, 2007 15:54:41 GMT -6
Lessee... Off the top of my head? - Steve Brust
- Pamela Dean
- Patricia Wrede
- George R.R. Martin
- John M. Ford (but that's a gimme and I still miss Mike)
...interestingly enough, not Joel Rosenberg. Joel knows about gaming, but never really expressed a lot of interest in it, at least since he moved to Minneapolis. There's more, but that's a quick off the top of my head.
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Post by coffee on Dec 31, 2007 15:57:42 GMT -6
Terry Pratchett played D&D waaaaay back in the day (well, he didn't play, he DM'd).
I'm still trying to get his books in my proper top ten order; he'll be very well represented on the list.
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Post by doc on Dec 31, 2007 16:22:44 GMT -6
Brust is a gamer? Wow, you'd think that there would have been a Jhereg rpg out a long time ago by now. I'd have played it. But then, I'm the guy who loves assassins Doc
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Post by calithena on Dec 31, 2007 16:46:22 GMT -6
Brust said he had to stop gaming after he started writing regularly because it used the same part of his brain and he got worn out. Interesting.
I would have loved the Vlad Taltos books except they have raise dead magic.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 31, 2007 16:47:04 GMT -6
Yeah, top "X" questions are always really hard for me to answer with any true accuracy. To be honest, the most engaging & riveting stuff I've read has been short stories (which truly is a dying art, IMO).
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Post by coffee on Dec 31, 2007 16:49:30 GMT -6
Brust said he had to stop gaming after he started writing regularly because it used the same part of his brain and he got worn out. Interesting. Somebody once said (I think it was Joe Haldeman), when asked if he role played, "No; why should I do for free what I get paid to do?"
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Post by badger2305 on Dec 31, 2007 18:36:52 GMT -6
Brust is a gamer? Wow, you'd think that there would have been a Jhereg rpg out a long time ago by now. I'd have played it. But then, I'm the guy who loves assassins Doc I played in his Dragaera campaign when I was MUCH younger and far more brash. It was a very very different gaming experience. Steve developed Dragaera on his own, but was inspired by Adrian Thornley's world of Piara (spelling?). There are about three scenes in Jhereg that had their origin in gaming sessions I was present for (probably more than that, but I wasn't always there).
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Post by greentongue on Dec 31, 2007 19:01:08 GMT -6
Yeah, top "X" questions are always really hard for me to answer with any true accuracy. To be honest, the most engaging & riveting stuff I've read has been short stories (which truly is a dying art, IMO). My "favorites" change with my mood so I can't post a "fixed list" of top ten. I also want to add that many authors produce "Fantasy" even if they intend other genre. (Having a science background is also a curse.) =
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Stonegiant
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Post by Stonegiant on Dec 31, 2007 21:30:15 GMT -6
My top ten list-
1. The Black Company (Cook) 2. The Tower of Fear (Cook) 3. The Cave of Socrates (McKiernan) 4. The Hobbit 5. LotR 6. The Guardian of the Flame Trilogy (Rosenberg) 7. A broken down castle (Brust) 8. The Book of Gnomes (Don't rember who wrote it but it had an impact, their historical book "Holland in 1568" is outstanding and highly recommended.) 9. The Chamber of Secrets (Rowling) 10. Any of the Mythago books by R. Holdstock (Mythago Woods, etc.)
These aren't in order of all time favorite to number ten because I don't have an all time favorite but these are very influential writers of the fantasy genre for me.
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serendipity
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Post by serendipity on Jan 1, 2008 18:20:23 GMT -6
Stonegiant brings up an interesting point. Are your most influential writers the same as your favorites? I have a few in common, but many of the books I reread most didn't change my thinking in any particular way. They're just fun.
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Post by Finarvyn on Jan 1, 2008 18:23:51 GMT -6
Obviously, authors Weiss and Hickman (DragonLance) were gamers.
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