Best Fantasy Novels

[Buck Birdseed]

Mine would be Mad Lord Snapcase, of course.

Zhu: Go for Hogfather, which is by far the best Susan/Death series book.

[Kristalli]

Thief of time...what is it about? I think it's not in the shops yet here in Finland.

[Buck Birdseed]

It expands on the character of Lu-Tse from Small Gods as a main story, plus it gets the whole Auditors/Susan thing in again.

[Ming]

Originally posted by SpencerH
L. Spague De Camp and Andrew Offut did finish a few of Howards storys quite seamlessly but their own novels didnt have the same raw feel as Howards (although I wouldnt spit on them).

Offut was at least close... De Camp was writing Conan Lite. I hated his editing. No one really got the same feel as Howard did.
Jordan's Conan was absolutely awful.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Kristalli
Thief of time...what is it about? I think it's not in the shops yet here in Finland.

Originally posted by Snapcase
It expands on the character of Lu-Tse from Small Gods as a main story, plus it gets the whole Auditors/Susan thing in again.

More specifically, the Auditors figure out that if they can get a human to build a perfect clock, time will stop--thus making auditing of the universe so much easier. Out to stop them are the Monks of Time, monks from kind of Kung-Fu-type monestary whose job it is to see that time runs smoothly. The main character was is an apprentice who was brought up in the Thieves' Guild--thus, the title of the book.

Best scene is where Death is trying to gather up the Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse for their legendary ride, but Mrs. War won't let her henpecked husband go.

[Stefu]

First of all, greatest of all is Lord of the Rings. No questions. No arguments. Tolkien is the master. Lord of the Rings is the one.

Now, after we've got that out...

I'm shocked and ashamed that this thread has forgotten the second-greatest one. ROBIN HOBB! The Farseer trilogy is pure gold, esp. the first and the second book. Third book was also good, but the ending was, shall we say, crap. It's exciting and you can really feel for the main character - and the setting is believable. Regal makes a better villain than thousand overpowered demon evil dark lords from standard fantasy tripe, and Forged people are somehow scarier than, well, thousand evil overpowered demon evil dark lords from standard fantasy tripe. ROBIN HOBB!

Terry Pratchett is, of course, good. Funny and tends to make you think - and the world's much better than your standard fantasy worlds, too.

Eddings=crap. Crap crap crap. Read first book, about 1/3 of second and then forgot it. Apparently there's more Eddingscrap out there. I'll always remember the Eddings review (about one of later series) in Tähtivaeltaja which started with "Oh fucking fucking fuck" and also wondered "How long will David Eddings be able to keep producing this crap aimed for 4-year-olds?" That rather summarizes my opinions about Eddings.

Wheel of Time: First two books (In Finland, each book was chopped up in two, so read that as "First book") was very good if not excellent, after that it was so-so and then I just quit reading. Because nothing ever happens, and I wonder... wonder mostly about whether Jordan gets paid by page amount.

Tad Williams: Read the first book and wasn't exactly overwhelmed.

[Buck Birdseed]

The L Sprague DeCamp "editing" of Howard is one of the greatest crimes in fantasy literary history. Among other things he cut down what's possibly my favourite Conan story of all (The Black Stranger) to nearly half its length, messed with and changed the unfinished stories so that the borders between Howards words and his own vastly inferior ones was blurred, and obviously filled in non-existant "gaps" in the Conan "mythology" with nonsense. Although I was introduced to the work through his and Lin Carter's travesties, I'm relieved that I finally have all the Conan stories in "clean" books at home.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

I have a theory that if I keep plugging "Mythago Wood" someone might actually read it. It hasn't worked yet.

[Buck Birdseed]

Actually, I'm vaguely curious about lots of the stuff that's published in the Fantasy Masterworks Series. Except Lieber, Moorcock and Howard, obviously, does anyone recognise any other titles?

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Yup. All the usual suspects, and heavy on Moorcock. Turgid gubbins.

[Imran Siddiqui]

All i have to say about HP is that in the movie, he defeated the guy with LOVE. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? i'll never read one of the books.

Kinda. He was protected from Voldemort by the love of his mother, yes. A very important form of love though, enough to sacrifice herself for the boy... this Voldemort couldn't break through (it formed a magical boundry). Voldemort being pure evil could not even touch the boy or he would be burnt by the ultimate love.

And I don't care if you don't read the books. Your loss .

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Snapcase
Actually, I'm vaguely curious about lots of the stuff that's published in the Fantasy Masterworks Series. Except Lieber, Moorcock and Howard, obviously, does anyone recognise any other titles?

Clarke Ashton Smith is in the same vein as Lovecraft. I dont remember if he was a contemporary. If you like Lovecraft they're worth a look.

ER Eddison preceded Tolkien in that style of epic fantasy (compared with say ERB or Howard). I have The worm Ouroboros, fight through the first 50 or so pages. It improves.

Its been a while since I read any The King of Elflands Daughter by Lord Dunsany but I remember it as kind of slow and without the vision of Eddison. My memory may be faulty on this one, but there must have been a reason why I didnt buy more .

Two other good classic fantasy by Joy Chant that havent been mentioned are:

The Grey Mane of Morning
Red Moon and Black Mountain



Is sf bokhandlen still open in Stockholm. They used to have a website but it seems to be gone.

[Buck Birdseed]

Nope, the website is still up. http://www.sfbok.se

Bigger then ever in the new premises.

[SpencerH]

Thanks for the link. Maybe it went down when they moved?They're not in old-town anymore?

EDIT: no I see they are. I havent been there since 1994 I think. There's a decent store in Copenhagen too (kind of near the zoo) but I forget its name.

[Buck Birdseed]

They are in the Old Town, they just moved up two blocks to bigger and more prestigious premises on Västerlånggatan.