Anyone reading any fantasy novels?

Dwayanu · Post by **Dwayanu** » Tue Jun 10, 2008 6:08 pm

Another fantasy worth reading (and rereading) is Soldier in the Mists. If ever folks pay half as much attention to my work, I may be in a position to say what I learned not to do as Gene Wolfe does it.

I've picked up, but not yet delved again into, Beagle's A Fine and Private Place and The Last Unicorn.

I eagerly await this year's completion (and bargain omnibus) of John Crowley's "Aegypt" sequence.

Hopefully sooner than later, I'll get my hands on a China Mieville novel!

Oh, yes -- actual reading!: Robert Holdstock's The Hollowing, engaging despite my having no previous expeditions into the Mythago Wood.

JRMapes · Post by **JRMapes** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 4:14 pm

I have been plowing through all the Traveller novels, hit just under the halfway point in Jefferson Swicaffer's Condordat books. He wrote 7 in all. I was a bit skeptical as to their being a good read when I started but he has turned out to be a bang up writer and has impressed me much.

However with all the OD&D madness that has swept over the net, then into me I have decided to pick up a few fantastical books to re-read. The first was Jules Vern, Journey to the Center of the Earth. I had forgot just how much I loved that story. I have a good collection of Vern and Wells that I want to get back to since most of the stories I haven't really read since I was just a pup. But in the mean time I am starting R.E. Howard tonight, reading the new hardback releases, The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian and The Bloody Crown of Conan.

After those I think I am going to go ahead and go through the E.R. Burroughs Barsoom series. I read them about 3 yrs ago and skimmed them a few months ago prior to running a couple OD&D memorial games based in Barsoom.

By that time I suppose I will get back around to the Verne and Wells stories and pick up the rest of the Concordat novels at that time as well.

Although the more I think about it, since I usually read up to three books or more at once, I think I may start re-reading Leiber's Fafhard and the Grey Mouser series now as well.

Kind of funny aside. I was in the hospital back in the 80's when Yelstin and his crew pulled the coup in the USSR when Gorby was in charge. Between watching that happen live and in living color thanks to the 24 hr news channel and reading my Leiber books, I stayed quite entertained and not the least bored. But a very odd thing happened when I would read the Fafherd and the Grey Mouser stories.

It seems that I would get so engrossed that my blood pressure would rise as the action and intensity of the story would rise. About a half-dozen or so times the nurses would come in to take my blood pressure and it would be in the 190-210 over 100-110 range or a bit higher -

- either way that was in heart attack zone. It would scare the bejeebbers out of them.

I would try to tell them all was well and finally I convinced one nurse to come back in 10 minutes and retake my BP. I put down the book and switched the tv over to the ubiquitous classical music channel that you can find on every hospital tv line-up. I closed my eyes and just listened to the music for a bit, relaxing, and sure enough when she retook my BP it was a text book 120 over 80.

Of course this got reported and didn't go unnoticed by the doctors. They were actually considering that they should take my Leiber books and my other books away from me.

They actually thought that Fafherd and the Grey Mouser may cause me to have a coronary or stroke out on them.

I suppose there is a weird but actual chance something like that could happen but come on? Seriously? I still have my doubts. I have read those books many times since then and have yet to have an incident. But I guess one never really knows - so if for some reason you don't hear from me all of a sudden then you know I have succumbed to death by Leiber.

Jerry

Dwayanu · Post by **Dwayanu** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 9:24 pm

There you go: objective evidence that Leiber was a master of the craft!

(There's another activity reputed to be risky with a weak heart -- but what a way to go!)

I've never read a Traveller novel, although I did once come across a non-related Keith work that was no more memorable than to mention that.

I do remember finding Wells's The Time Machine at a library sale and borrowing its price from Mother. Instant SF fan!

That may have contributed to my gorging on older works before moving on to the more modern. I have not read Verne in decades, but keep returning to Barsoom. (I think the first two volumes, like the first two in the Tarzan series, are pretty respectable at least by the standards of non-genre popular fiction. I'm not sure I would reread Burroughs at all had my first exposure come later -- but I'm not embarrassed by taking pleasure in revisiting old friends!)

Lately, I have been slowly digesting Hugh Cook's Wizard War, with the next three volumes of the US edition of the series awaiting on the shelf.

"So well crafted a blend of magic and the mundane, sincerity and skullduggery, monsters and science that the reader is enspelled into following willy-nilly." -- E. Gary Gygax

That's fair enough if the reader happens to be Gary (who might consider "recondite" a term of approbation)!

Reading this takes a bit more work than falling off a log, and it may come off as too incoherent for some tastes. So far, I've found the effort well worth the payoff.

With no more haste, I have also been reading Tanith Lee's The Birthgrave (which might technically be SF, but plays as S&S). I have wanted for years to read it, but only recently acquired a copy.

JRMapes · Post by **JRMapes** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 3:35 am

Well I have two more that have been added ad hoc to my reading list now that I am on the R.E. Howard arm of the tour.

I don't get to the FLGS/Used & New Book Store over in Joplin as often as I would like and I have sworn off Amazon and eBay as much as I can since money has been a (lotta) bit tight this past year and still.

But today Tina wanted to go see of they had any new Charmed novels. Yeah, based on the TV Show of the same name. So I take her and I make the mistake of sauntering through the F&SF section. Usually I am on the look out for Charles Sheffield novels that I don't have but I had decided that the only thing I would buy today was a few of the new Reaper pre-painted plastic minis line, namely the monsters. I was wanting a new mind flayer, a purple worm, and a new troll. Plus a wanted a couple more of the Dwarves minis in pewter since I was thinking of running a couple of new Dwarven characters in our soon to start weekly D&D game.

Anyway, I didn't see any Sheffield books - good cause didn't want to buy books today. Then I got to the end cap and what do my eyes reveal? Every new R.E. Howard release in oversized trade paperback. Sure enough they have his Kull collection and the 3rd book in the Conan saga, The Conquering Sword of Conan. I have been wanting those for a long time now (in hardbound) but couldn't afford them. But the oversize paperbacks, same size as the hardbacks, were a lot cheaper and best of all they were brand spanking new, not used.

So I had to have them rung up as well. Major shame on me. But what the hell ya know. We got our stimulus checks the other day and most all of the money from them is going to large amounts of beef for the freezer so we will have meat thru the winter when prices go apesilly and to help pay for taxes and tags for the car. After all said and done we each had about $100 that we could spend as we wish. So I guess all is good. I dropped almost all of it at the FLGS and I got some great minis and books but that is cool. It was stimulus money, the books will definitely stimulate me and by getting the books and minis I stimulated the profit margin of my FLGS.

So all is good and right in the world tonight.
(yeah, I wish)

Jerry

Dwayanu · Post by **Dwayanu** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 12:55 pm

Among other recent acquisitions is Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. I look forward to getting at last a first-hand taste of what his novels are like.

JRMapes · Post by **JRMapes** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 2:56 pm

I was going to drop this in the Call of Cthulhu area but thought I would put it here instead/as well.

From the morning plundering of my email account,

Miskatonic River Press is pleased to announce the re-release of the
exceedingly rare Mythos anthology Dead But Dreaming. Edited by Kevin Ross and published by DarkTales in 2002, only 75 copies were released.

Dead But Dreaming, featuring stories by Ramsey Campbell and others, is
expected to go on sale by mid-August, possibly a little sooner. Stay tuned
for announcements.

Keith Herber

Miskatonic River Press
http://www.miskatonicriverpress.com/

This is quite a boon to the horror/fantastic lit community.
Last I saw a copy of this on eBay it went for well over $200.00

Jerry

Edgewaters · Post by **Edgewaters** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 11:08 pm

I've been reading a new anthology, the Jack Vance Treasury:

http://www.subterraneanpress.com/Mercha ... Code=vance

Quite good ... I haven't read a whole lot of Vance's stuff until now, and what I have read has been limited to a few Dying Earth shorts, so this has been a real treat, since it covers a broad range, from fantasy to classic sci-fi to space opera.

JamesEightBitStar · Post by **JamesEightBitStar** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 12:32 pm

Well, for once I'm actually reading a fantasy novel.

I was at the used book store yesterday and had traded in a bunch of paperbacks, most of which I got from there in the first place (one of which was the original MASH by Richard Hooker, which I greatly enjoyed). I'm re-reading Lord of the Rings right now and that got me on kind of a fantasy kick (just like it did eleven, twelve years ago).

I had actually wanted to give The Wheel of Time a second chance, but they didn't have the first volume (not in hardcover, anyway) so I ended up picking up this omnibus called Annals of the Witch World, containing the first three books of Andre Norton's "Witch World" series.

So far its kept my interest, even though I had to force myself to read it when I saw that it was another variation on the Buck Rogers plot (though its easily a far better variation than the overrated Three Hearts and Three Lions).

TRP · Post by **TRP** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 1:09 pm

JamesEightBitStar wrote: I had actually wanted to give The Wheel of Time a second chance, ....

Is that something you want to start, knowing that it will not be finished?

I never read it, but my wife gave up on it around book 6 or 7, realizing then that there would never be a satisfactory end to it.

Now she's getting the same impression of some George Martin series she's been reading. Apparently, he's following Jordan's lead and expanding (whatever it is) series in ever widening circles with no end in sight.

My advice to you Dorfman is to start drinking heavily. Oops! I mean, I advise that you get into some old-fashioned pulp lit. What's good about it, is that it comes in bite-sized morsels of short stories. You can often read one in a single sitting, and if you don't like that particular tale, well then, you're not sucked into anything longer.

Dunno if you've read them, but Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith are really, really good starting points. Avoid the hacks that have tried to ride these guys coat tails. *cough* August *cough* Lin *cough* L.Sprague *cough* Jordan *cough*.

Ancalagon · Post by **Ancalagon** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 3:25 pm

Currently rereading The Two Towers.

Flambeaux · Post by **Flambeaux** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 4:49 pm

The Wheel of Time itself isn't a bad book, but it isn't great. I'd put it in the same class as a lot of the TSR Forgotten Realms stuff: desperately wanting to be something it can't hope to achieve.

Even the first three of the series make a so-so story arc.

But after that I found it a waste of time. I think I gave up after the fifth novel, but I was barely paying attention by that point.

I couldn't get more than 50-odd pages in to Martin's Song of Ice & Fire, despite rave reviews from lots of folks I know. Dreary, tedious, post-modern, and gritty enough that I wanted to shower afterwards. Ugh...not my thing.

The only fantasy I'm reading right now is Winnie-the-Pooh to my kids.

Although in spec-fic I am working my way through S.M. Stirling's Emberverse books. Currently about to start The Protector's War.

JamesEightBitStar · Post by **JamesEightBitStar** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 5:05 pm

TheRedPriest wrote:
JamesEightBitStar wrote: I had actually wanted to give The Wheel of Time a second chance, ....
Is that something you want to start, knowing that it will not be finished?

It will be finished. The last novel will be called A Memory of Light and its being ghostwritten based on notes Jordan left behind.

In any case, what I was actually thinking of doing was just picking up the first book, and reading that. If I like it enough to continue, I'll continue.

Dunno if you've read them, but Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith are really, really good starting points.

I love Lovecraft and Howard (at least his Conan and Solomon Kane stories). Howard is also the prime reason I went almost exclusively hardcover (long story short--my copy of The Coming of Conan fell apart due to bad binding and I've hated TPBs ever since).

Geoffrey · Post by **Geoffrey** » Sat Aug 02, 2008 1:07 pm

I recently finished re-reading A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay. Published in 1920, it has never been popular with the masses, though it never ceases to be read by a few.

In terms of its imagery and concepts, it reminds me of Clark Ashton Smith's stories. Lindsay, however, is not a poet (being more of a philosopher) and thus does not have the exquisite prose of Smith.

The story of the protagonist's adventures on the alien world of Tormance circling the twin stars of Arcturus is compelling reading. It is the polar opposite of the tripe junking-up the sci-fi shelves of bookstores. If you want serious, pitiless reading, or something very out of the ordinary, pick this up. It's hard to describe, else I'd describe it better.

In terms of theme, it is most similar to George MacDonald's Phantastes and Lilith. While MacDonald's books embody Christianity, Lindsay's volume embodies Gnosticism.

Gentlegamer · Post by **Gentlegamer** » Sat Aug 02, 2008 4:30 pm

Rereading Vance's Dying Earth stories, collected in "The Compleat Dying Earth." Currently on "The Eyes of the Overworld."

JamesEightBitStar · Post by **JamesEightBitStar** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 4:56 pm

I was having a little trouble getting into Witch World but finally, I broke through... now I'm beginning to enjoy it.

I've also taken up reading other fantasy too. In particular, The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman (which I was almost going to skip due to my reaction to The Golden Compass) and, since I'm reading that, I decided to finally finish up Narnia starting with the last book I was on: A Horse and His Boy.

In addition, I've been re-reading Tolkien for a number of months now and I'm now to Return of the King.

Actually I'm on something of a fantasy kick right now, and there's plenty of hardcover fantasy around my house that I was at first going to get rid of, but now I'm not so sure. Among them:
The Chronicles of Amber vol. I and II by Roger Zelazny (an omnibus set containing the first five Amber novels)
The Riverrun Trilogy by S.P. Somtow
Eragon by Christopher Poulini (this was a hand-me-down from my sister, who read it, liked it, then dumped it--this is usual behavior for her).
Otherland (Book 1) by Tad Williams

Also rereading Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind graphic novel series.