Knights & Knaves Alehouse

From my vantage point, I have seen fantasy stories move more and more toward epic tales of heroism. What I mean is that they have the stereotypical farmer/peasant/orphan who discovers something cool and goes on a journey to save the entire universe from ultimate destruction. Don't get me wrong, I like these stories from time to time...but I also like the simple heroic stories of a smaller scale.

To elaborate a bit more, some people play D&D in the former way. The story and characters become mighty and save the planet from a great evil. I prefer the latter style where we meet in a tavern and decide to raid a nearby tomb together.

I like the Conan stories, along with the Lankhmar stories. They are simple adventures where the actions are insignificant to the world as a whole. Sure, you may end up fighting a mighty necromancer or demon, but the circle of influence is minor compared with everything else.

I think of TV shows from the 80's, where you could watch them out of order and still enjoy them. TV shows today are episodic and thus have to be watched consecutively in order to keep up with the story. A Conan story, can be read as is without having to have read them all. Sure, it helps piece the life together...but you really aren't missing anything from the story you are reading. Stories like "The Sword of Shannara" are larger in scale and it is best to read it all to get the gist of the entire story.

To digress a bit, I find the concept of the "young adult" genre humorous...but I guess it sells books. They all have a formula of a 16-22 year old kid(s) who have to save the world because the adults have screwed it up. The kids have it all figured out and the adults just don't understand.

So to make a short story long, do you all have any modern fantasy book recommendations that fall into the simple adventure style? Modern being defined as the 90's+ (ok...not so modern) as I have a pretty good grasp on fantasy literature before that point. I understand that the publishing industry has moved toward the epic stories...because it produces more books, but I have to believe someone out there writes stories for the fun of it and not to create a 12-book epic series that never seems to conclude. I like to find books with a subtitle of something like, "Another Merlin Story" and can't help but cringe when I see, "Book 32 In The Merlin Saga". The book sounds interesting, but I feel I have to get the other 31 books first.

MageInBlack wrote:From my vantage point, I have seen fantasy stories move more and more toward epic tales of heroism. What I mean is that they have the stereotypical farmer/peasant/orphan who discovers something cool and goes on a journey to save the entire universe from ultimate destruction. Don't get me wrong, I like these stories from time to time...but I also like the simple heroic stories of a smaller scale.

To elaborate a bit more, some people play D&D in the former way. The story and characters become mighty and save the planet from a great evil. I prefer the latter style where we meet in a tavern and decide to raid a nearby tomb together.

I like the Conan stories, along with the Lankhmar stories. They are simple adventures where the actions are insignificant to the world as a whole. Sure, you may end up fighting a mighty necromancer or demon, but the circle of influence is minor compared with everything else.

I think of TV shows from the 80's, where you could watch them out of order and still enjoy them. TV shows today are episodic and thus have to be watched consecutively in order to keep up with the story. A Conan story, can be read as is without having to have read them all. Sure, it helps piece the life together...but you really aren't missing anything from the story you are reading. Stories like "The Sword of Shannara" are larger in scale and it is best to read it all to get the gist of the entire story.

To digress a bit, I find the concept of the "young adult" genre humorous...but I guess it sells books. They all have a formula of a 16-22 year old kid(s) who have to save the world because the adults have screwed it up. The kids have it all figured out and the adults just don't understand.

So to make a short story long, do you all have any modern fantasy book recommendations that fall into the simple adventure style? Modern being defined as the 90's+ (ok...not so modern) as I have a pretty good grasp on fantasy literature before that point. I understand that the publishing industry has moved toward the epic stories...because it produces more books, but I have to believe someone out there writes stories for the fun of it and not to create a 12-book epic series that never seems to conclude. I like to find books with a subtitle of something like, "Another Merlin Story" and can't help but cringe when I see, "Book 32 In The Merlin Saga". The book sounds interesting, but I feel I have to get the other 31 books first.

A Midsummer's Tempest, The High Crusade, and Three Hearts and Three Lions all by Poul Anderson. You might also try The Face in the Frost.

As far as not writing multi-volume epics, two authors that spring to mind are David Gemmell and Dennis McKiernan. Gemmell does have several series but also lots of stand alone works. McKiernan has a couple two/book and three/book series but also lots of stand alones. When I read McKiernan's Eye of the Hunter, I almost felt like I was reading a D&D adventure. Some of his books have a kind of epic scope in that they span long periods of time but they don't have the farm boy grows up to save the world themes.

ghendar wrote:McKiernan - Some of his books have a kind of epic scope in that they span long periods of time but they don't have the farm boy grows up to save the world themes.

That is a decent middle ground for me. I like Drizzt books for example, where his story is episodic...but he simply goes from adventure to adventure.

Check out Joe Abercrombie. I'd recommend starting with Red Country. There are elements in Best Served Cold that are better understood after first reading The First Law trilogy, but not dealing breaking if you don't. More like added color than essential info.

Great thread idea! I too much prefer Conan/Lankhmar style fiction, rather than the "Ballad of Luke Skywalker" re-skinned!

Thanks to everyone so far. I love library systems in 2018. I can just go search for the stuff and place it on hold for pickup later. I was able to find almost everything you guys brought up so far. I'll will just try a book from each author to get a feel.

MageInBlack wrote:So to make a short story long, do you all have any modern fantasy book recommendations that fall into the simple adventure style? Modern being defined as the 90's+.

Although known for his Thomas Covenant epics, Stephen R. Donaldson has also done several collections of short stories that fit this mold.

Daughter of Regals
Reave the Just

These are slightly older than you requested, but they tend to be overlooked in favor of his more epic catalog and they shouldn't be because they are very good.

francisca wrote:I too much prefer Conan/Lankhmar style fiction, rather than the "Ballad of Luke Skywalker" re-skinned!

Yeah...I was afraid I couldn't explain myself and what I was looking for because it is kinda based on a feeling of a story type more than an exact definition. Some people would ask about books that "feel like a D&D adventure" but that statement is really subjective since we don't know how that person plays D&D.

Out of the Conan stuff, I like the early years the best. The stories where he has a few coins in his pouch so he tries a heist or joins a caravan...only to run into some wizard or mythical beast along the way. The later years, although still enjoyable, have him running groups of men and armies...just before he becomes king. Those tales have a little less of the mysterious elements.

blackprinceofmuncie wrote:These are slightly older than you requested, but they tend to be overlooked in favor of his more epic catalog and they shouldn't be because they are very good.

A know I wrote 90's, but really I welcome any opinions. I just picked that as an arbritrary line because I assume we are all in our 40's or 50's and grew up during the days of The Science Fiction Book Club and all of the stuff we ended up getting from them like the Guardians of the Flame or the Book of Swords.

MageInBlack wrote:

ghendar wrote:McKiernan - Some of his books have a kind of epic scope in that they span long periods of time but they don't have the farm boy grows up to save the world themes.

That is a decent middle ground for me. I like Drizzt books for example, where his story is episodic...but he simply goes from adventure to adventure.

For McKiernan, I recommend Dragondoom (my favorite) and/or Eye of the Hunter. Hunter is a bit slow in the beginning.

francisca wrote:Great thread idea! I too much prefer Conan/Lankhmar style fiction, rather than the "Ballad of Luke Skywalker" re-skinned!

+1. To the point that I'm sick of all the Joseph Campbell-tossers and Lucas fanboiz.

I guess it's because I'm a cynical, burned-out adult living in a corrupt, decadent world that is crumbling around me and there's nothing I can do about it, that I want my sword-n-sorcery tales to reflect that. I'll have to go back to reading my REH.

While I don't think it quite fits in the fantasy niche you might be looking at but the first 6 or so books of the Dresden Files are rather enjoyable.

Somewhere around book 7 it shifts gears a bit but you can decide to bail out earlier when it starts getting to epic.

It's probably the pulpiest/goofiest thing I read at the moment. Very formulaic but it's fun. I haven't read any of the other stuff Butcher has written because it doesn't interest me in the least.

The short lived tv series based on the first few books isn't too bad either. I actually heard about the books via the series. It might be streaming.

George R R Martin is of course known for his Song of Ice and Fire epic. However set in a different time period of the same world are his “Dunk and Egg” stories. These are his take on the more picaresque Conan-style story. The three short novellas were recently compiled into “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” and are quite fun, quick reads. Dunk might be Martin’s only really, truly noble good guy character who succeeds more often than he fails.

Michael Chambon is more known for his modern dramas, but did a great adventure novel he said was inspired by Leiber’s “Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser” stories and Sir Walter Scott’s adventures. It’s called “Gentlemen of the Road” and is a great adventure set in medieval Central Asia, starring two roguish bandits.

China Mieville’s “Bas-Lag” stories (three novels and a few short stories) are blizzaro steam punk fantasy. They are about as far away from the standard farm boy is really a king goes on a quest to defeat the Dark Lord type of pat fantasy we’ve all read. The books are relatively long, and while tangentially related, they stand alone as single works. The first two, “Perdido Street Station” and “The Scar” are the best. I might like the Scar a tad better. It’s set on a giant floating pirate city.

MageInBlack wrote:[D]o you all have any modern fantasy book recommendations that fall into the simple adventure style? Modern being defined as the 90's+ (ok...not so modern) as I have a pretty good grasp on fantasy literature before that point.

Just in case you missed it in the 1980s: the Imaro stories by Charles Saunders.

Roll the Bones, edited by Ignatius Umlaut (i.e. Calithena of Fight On! fame), has a number of rather good sword&sorcery short stories, which may be what you are looking for.

Goodman Games recently kickstarted Tales From the Magician's Skull, a magazine of pulp fantasy. I have not received my copy yet (Goodman is currently in the process of shipping them), but it is edited by Howard Andrew Jones, who has both knowledge and good taste in the field.

(Speaking of Jones, they don't fit your time criteria, but you might be unfamiliar with Harold Lamb's historical fiction, which Jones had had republished over the last decade. They are not fantasy stories, so genre fans don't tend to know them very well, but they are some of the best adventure stories out there - Lamb was one of the authors Howard was learning from.)