Ten there were, dusty chronicles of forgotten lore…

March 4, 2024 9:11 AM

10 Iconic Fantasy Novels Ripe for Rediscovery
posted by Artw (109 comments total)

(Yes, WE all know Elric. But think of the young ‘uns)
posted by Artw at 9:11 AM on March 4 [10 favorites]

I know of Elric but never read him and recently it seems like the universe wants me to.
posted by PussKillian at 9:18 AM on March 4 [3 favorites]

Pretty good list! A lot of overlap with D&D Appendix N.
posted by HeroZero at 9:19 AM on March 4 [8 favorites]

Of the 4 on the list I've read, I readily agree with 3: Jack the Giant Killer, Shards of Honor / Cordelia’s Honor, and The Forgotten Beasts of Eld. And of the four I've read, I've only reread Shards of Honor recently. How do the others on the list hold up to modern sensibilities? I was recently burned when I tried to read a popular fantasy book published in 2001 and could not stand the blatant racism and homophobia among other faults. I was a huge Charles de Lint fan, so maybe I need to revisit some of my favorites to see if they hold up.

That said, I'd love to see a reimagined version of Dragonflight (or the Harper Hall Trilogy, which is what got me started on the series), so as Holly Black's tagline says:
Someone please adapt these immediately.
posted by carrioncomfort at 9:28 AM on March 4 [3 favorites]

Omg this is like someone raided my high school bookshelves. The first time I ever skipped class was because I was reading a book in the Nine Princes if Amber series and decided finding out what happened next was more important then gym class.

What’s exciting is there’s a few titles here I haven’t read! To the library!
posted by lepus at 9:38 AM on March 4 [9 favorites]

So glad to see Swordspoint on the list.

Also, this list makes me feel so old, as I know it's been decades since I read most of them.
posted by daikaisho at 9:39 AM on March 4 [5 favorites]

this list makes me feel so old

You're not kidding. I remember loving Nine Princes in Amber so much that I saved up my allowance to get the Commodore 64 game.
posted by mittens at 9:47 AM on March 4 [6 favorites]

There are a couple of formative old-school fantasy series that this list is missing. For example, Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series. Which, granted, is still ongoing so maybe that's why it's not on here? But also Katherine Kurtz' Deryni series.
posted by rednikki at 9:47 AM on March 4 [10 favorites]

I don't think we really need to rediscover the edgelord rapeiness of Michael Moorcock, do we? Can we just grow beyond that shittiness (no slight to those who grew up with it and it resonated, but we're in a different place now). I remember the Fred Saberhagen Books of Swords as being suitably epic, Robert Asprin's Myth books as being suitably fun, and Robert Silverberg's Majipoor series and being suitably weird to stand out from the Extruded Fantasy Product of the day (cough cough Shannara cough).
posted by rikschell at 9:48 AM on March 4 [9 favorites]

The last time I re-read the Amber books Corwin's sexism bothered me. It gradually goes away as he becomes less of an egotistical unreliable narrator, and I couldn't decide if it was Corwin maturing, Zelazny maturing, or both.
posted by indexy at 9:49 AM on March 4 [2 favorites]

...Robert Asprin's Myth books as being suitably fun...

To anyone who gets into the Myth books now: Enjoy them, but be ready to stop the moment they start to seem not-great.

Somewhere around book 7-8 (YMMV and honestly I don't remember) there's a dramatic drop-off in quality. This is for pretty serious reasons having to do with stuff going on in the author's life and a contractual obligation to keep pumping out books. Trust me, once they start to go downhill for you, save your fond memories of the first several books and don't keep reading.
posted by gurple at 9:53 AM on March 4 [11 favorites]

Noting with shame that in Related Posts I’ve used “The Eternal Champion” twice for Moorcock posts.
posted by Artw at 9:59 AM on March 4 [1 favorite]

I read an absolutely terrifying amount of Moorcock when I was a kid. Like, sure, Elric, Corum, and Hawkmoon, but should a nine-year-old have been reading Dancers at the End of Time? Possibly not? It was my introduction to completely apeshit SFF, so there's that. But yeah, I'm slowly introducing my kids to sci-fi and fantasy now, and frankly pretty much everything I read as a kid was problematic at best. I must have read a dozen Xanth books in middle school. And how much Asimov did I waste my time on? All of the Asimov.

This kind of ties into the thread the other day about preserving neglected books. It turns out that new books are still being written; we can let the old ones age out.

(Someone gifted me the Nine Princes in Amber game when I was a kid, but I hadn't read the book and it was just completely befuddling.)
posted by phooky at 10:14 AM on March 4 [6 favorites]

I love Dragonflight dearly but for somewhat less dated character dynamics and focusing on people with more human-scale goals, I actually prefer the Harper Hall series.

Also, man I miss that old style of book cover. I'm sure they've run the numbers about what gets people to buy things but those covers for Night's Master, Nifft the Lean, and Nine Princes in Amber just make me want to know what's going on in there.
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 10:22 AM on March 4 [13 favorites]

I've read and re-read the Pern books countless times, and would love to see them adapted in the post Game of Thrones dragon era.
I fear that it would have to be a passion project though, by someone who loved them when they were published, and fear that those folks are aging past a day when they would ask Bezos for the money to make it happen.
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:33 AM on March 4 [2 favorites]

Read six ofthe ten and heartily agree with the inclusion of the Vinge, though The Snow Queen Is actually better, and the Tahith Lee, though in her case, the Birthgrave Trilogy is far better, but of course at least the latter was excluded because Quest for the White Witch, the final volume, came out in '78 — and of course I agree with the Bujold

Disagree with the inclusion of Dragonflight, however, because I read that one when it came out, and it seemed tired and cliched even then, and McCaffrey's Darkover series is still very powerful.

And maybe she didn’t include Wen Soencer's series beginning with Tinker on the grounds that it was never discovered in the first place, but I think that series is extremely good and well worth seeking out.

R A Macavoy's The Book of Kells from '83 is stilll at the top of my list of great yet unaccountably neglected fantasies, but her Death and Resurrection is a truly wonderful small scale fantasy, and might be recent enough to qualify for consideration in this list.
posted by jamjam at 10:39 AM on March 4 [5 favorites]

I loved the Elric books as a teenager, and Michael Moorcock (along with comic books) was also my first introduction to a shared mythos/canon spread across different series of books...which was both a good and a bad thing because while I loved the epic spread of it and the worldbuilding, I grew frustrated with the breakdowns in internal logic which inevitably occurred once the canon grew to an unwieldy size. This dynamic went on to repeat itself several times with other works of art over the decades.
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:44 AM on March 4 [1 favorite]

Decent list. I also think it far past time for a "Xanth" movie/series, and possibly even a Thomas Covenant series.
posted by davidmsc at 10:47 AM on March 4

Since I see some 80s representation on that list, I'd put Barbara Hambly in there somewhere. Probably The Time of the Dark (fun, dark, Lovecraftian, tropey-gender-role reversal), but maybe The Ladies of Mandrygyn (nasty trick for getting a hero to take on your quest).
posted by gurple at 10:49 AM on March 4 [5 favorites]

McCaffrey's Darkover series is still very powerful.

I like this alternate history b/c it avoids some of the most horrible revelations about a beloved author I have personally had to contend with -- but, sadly, in this timeline the Darkover books were written by Marion Zimmer Bradley [child abuse trigger warnings for even just the wikipedia article].
posted by feckless at 10:54 AM on March 4 [12 favorites]

...past time for a "Xanth" movie/series....

I'm going to stop you right there, I'm afraid. Card is just too awful.

--
WRT the list, I was reading my older brothers' SFF books when I was a kid and thus missed most YA stuff -- so I have only read four of the titles on the list. Never too old to learn, though, so I am looking forward to picking these up. Thanks for the link!
posted by wenestvedt at 10:54 AM on March 4 [1 favorite]

...past time for a "Xanth" movie/series....
I'm going to stop you right there, I'm afraid. Card is just too awful.

OK, now maybe *I'm* in the alternate timeline. What is happening.
posted by feckless at 10:56 AM on March 4 [24 favorites]

This thread is like the Berenstain Bears effect for problematic fantasy authors.
posted by feckless at 10:57 AM on March 4 [32 favorites]

I've been wondering for a while why Apple TV or someone hasn't done a miniseries adaptation of Amber. I guess it's the FX budget...as just demonstrated by Villeneuve, to do a respectable job on the acid-era books costs a lot.
posted by praemunire at 10:58 AM on March 4 [2 favorites]

I'd put Barbara Hambly in there somewhere

The fact that Those Who Hunt the Night has effectively been suppressed by the more glamorous/sexy/lurid vampire books is a pity. (Note that I like many of the g/s/l books, but one wants variety.)
posted by praemunire at 11:00 AM on March 4 [12 favorites]

I'm going to stop you right there [about Xanth], I'm afraid. Card is just too awful.

Piers Anthony's writing is pretty cringe, looking back as an adult, but he's nowhere near Orson Scott Card awful, unless there's something I don't know.
posted by gurple at 11:00 AM on March 4 [3 favorites]

Great list it even has a book I hadn't heard of. BUT it's missing some that totally should be, No Fritz Leiber? Come on Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser were awesome. And what about R. A. Macavoy's Tea with the Black Dragon? There are others (Peter S Beagle, the EARLY modern fantasy authors had some great stuff). Ok, I'll stop here, have fun reading everybody.
posted by evilDoug at 11:01 AM on March 4 [7 favorites]

I, too, would like to see a TV adaptation of the Katherine Kurtz "Deryni" books, but I am afraid most people would confuse the Catholic bits of the stories with more-contemporary Evangelicalism (to say nothing of her own more recent membership in the Celtic Christian Church schism), and miss the point of it all.
posted by wenestvedt at 11:03 AM on March 4 [3 favorites]

Piers Anthony's writing is pretty cringe, looking back as an adult, but he's nowhere near Orson Scott Card awful, unless there's something I don't know.

This is like a re-reading race to hell.
posted by Artw at 11:04 AM on March 4 [20 favorites]

I'm going to stop you right there [about Xanth], I'm afraid. Card is just too awful.

Hah, mea culpa: I have sort of mashed those two together in my brain because they both went from "liked them when I was young" to "holy cats, that's creepy."

But no, Piers Anthony's books are well-marbled with leering, gross depictions of young women and horny old dudes. Almost Heinlein levels of it. Yech.
posted by wenestvedt at 11:07 AM on March 4 [12 favorites]

Am I misremembering that Piers Anthony had a lot of pedophilia accusations floating around him? Like not just the text of the books, but also maintain contacts with known pedophiles, etc.
posted by drewbage1847 at 11:09 AM on March 4 [5 favorites]

The results of a Google search for "Piers Anthony problematic" are non-zero, that's for sure.
posted by wenestvedt at 11:15 AM on March 4 [1 favorite]

Not on the list there, but the topic in general reminds me that I was thinking again the other day what a crime it is that anything by Guy Gavriel Kay has yet to be adapted for the screen. The Lions of Al-Rassan starring Pedro Pascal would be brilliant.
posted by dnash at 11:20 AM on March 4 [19 favorites]

On Shea’s Nifft the Lean:

You can see the influence of an even older classic, the Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser series, on Nifft,

*cough*CugelTheClever*cough*
posted by ricochet biscuit at 11:21 AM on March 4 [6 favorites]

Please don't turn Zelazny's work into a movie, please don't turn Zelazny's work into a movie, please don't turn Zelazny's work into a movie....
posted by mhoye at 11:22 AM on March 4 [3 favorites]

If I remember correctly, the Xanth books aren't too bad and at least could probably be scrubbed pretty easily for a show. The only other series I read was Incarnations of Immortality and I only remember being uncomfortable.

Looking at it, apparently there's a Xanth book called, "The Color of Her Panties"... so maybe let's give Piers Anthony a miss altogether.
posted by charred husk at 11:22 AM on March 4 [1 favorite]

But no, Piers Anthony's books are well-marbled with leering, gross depictions of young women and horny old dudes.

I really liked most of the Incarnations of Immortality series (Sning! I still want a Sning!), but "oh, hey, this teenager has time traveled and now that means she's legal to fuck a 50-year-old judge!" was...... da fuck....
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:23 AM on March 4 [1 favorite]

I was ready to hate this but the first couple books sure are making me nod and go "okay I have not read much of these authors but I am certainly willing to accept these as possible Hella Good Books from their periods". The ones on this list that I've read were pretty good books, that do come with some caveats about being very much pieces of the time they were written in.

And yeah, if you have any treasured memories of reading Anthony's stuff, just leave them where they are, because his prose sure was not ambitious and he sure did spend a lot of words in the heads of boys on the cusp of puberty who were looking up the skirts of girls of the same age. Remember the good stuff like the long tangents where characters spent a couple of chapters working their way through an Interated Prisoner's Dilemna or some other stuff I'd read about in Martin Gardner's math books.
posted by egypturnash at 11:23 AM on March 4 [3 favorites]

I feel like the very real need to reexamine and potentially condemn all the fantasy books I loved as a kid is a pretty good metaphor for somethingorother.

Makes me want to write a book where a middle-aged protagonist reflects on their magical youthful adventures and recoils in horror....
posted by gurple at 11:33 AM on March 4 [3 favorites]

Piers Anthony cowrote Firefly, which is famous for trying to justify pedophilia. (And looking at some GoodReads reviews, it's also got a lot of rape.) A lot of his other stuff may be problematic, but Firefly's what gets him sidelong glances. I haven't read it and don't intend to.
Unlike many problematic authors, I haven't seen anything about him behaving badly. As far as I know, his daughters haven't complained about him, and when a teenage boy showed up at his house, he fed him dinner, let him spend the night, and sent him him the next day. He's also known for corresponding with a lot of his young readers (and wrote a book for a girl in a coma), and I haven't heard anything bad about that.
posted by Spike Glee at 11:44 AM on March 4 [3 favorites]

I feel like the very real need to reexamine and potentially condemn all the fantasy books I loved as a kid

I don't think this needs to be a metaphor at all. It can be a very valuable exercise.
posted by mhoye at 11:54 AM on March 4 [1 favorite]

Michael Shea is a terrific writer and I'd love to read Nifft the Lean, but the options I've found are:

-$300+ used paperbacks
-Centipede Press's beautiful but crazily expensive hardcover (which is also only available used)
-A dodgy PDF with formatting issues that made it look like it was a product of the first OCR software ever released

Some of Shea's unpublished horror novels have been getting released. Maybe someday there will be a reasonable option for Nifft too.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 11:56 AM on March 4 [3 favorites]

My husband and I have been running a PBEM game based on the Amber books for 20+ years and Corwin's canonical sexism is something we've made a running gag out of because none of the players can take it, or him around it, seriously. But yeah, younger friends who read it dismiss it out of hand because they don't like Corwin.

I don't want a film of the books but I would take the series that Colbert (a fan) is theoretically producing, especially if it featured less well known actors or newcomers.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 12:07 PM on March 4 [1 favorite]

MetaFilter: pretty much everything I read as a kid was problematic at best.
posted by doctornemo at 12:07 PM on March 4 [9 favorites]

Good list. Some of the books haven't aged as well as others, but I pretty much loved them all at the time I read them. The only one of these I haven't read is the Charles de Lint, and I was just the other day wondering why I hadn't read more Charles de Lint given how much I like his stuff, so I think I'll pick it up.

A few books/authors I might have added if I were making such a list of pre-1990 Books I Hope People Still Read:

Godstalk by P. C. Hodgell
The Drawing of the Dark by Tim Powers
The Silent Tower by Barbara Hambly
The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley
posted by kyrademon at 12:14 PM on March 4 [13 favorites]

I was thinking again the other day what a crime it is that anything by Guy Gavriel Kay has yet to be adapted for the screen. The Lions of Al-Rassan starring Pedro Pascal would be brilliant.

Sometimes I wish for this sort of thing, but sometimes I think that really, no adaptation could do justice. Would I love to see a (very long) miniseries of Tigana? Yes! Would I dread it? Yes...

Same with anything by Bujold: I will read and re-read all of her books, but I worry about what the entertainment industry would do with her quirky, thoughtful characters. Unless they could get a young(ish) Oliver Reed to play Aral, maybe, then. (Bujold has said that she thinks Aral moves/looks like Reed.)
posted by jb at 12:33 PM on March 4 [4 favorites]

The only one of these I haven't read is the Charles de Lint, and I was just the other day wondering why I hadn't read more Charles de Lint given how much I like his stuff, so I think I'll pick it up.

Jack the Giant-Killer (later published along with its sequel Jack of Kinrowan) is the only de Lint I have ended up reading - and that was 25-30 years ago. But it is so good that I remember it still.

Maybe I should read more de Lint.
posted by jb at 12:37 PM on March 4 [2 favorites]

CJ Cherryh's Morgaine trilogy would be my pick for underappreciated and brilliant fantasy series.
posted by Sebmojo at 12:43 PM on March 4 [12 favorites]

I haven't read Jack the Giant-Killer, but I have read de Lint's Forests of the Heart and it's one of my favorite books of all time. I think de Lint is One of the Good Ones.
posted by epj at 12:46 PM on March 4

I am really pleased to see some small but influential work on this list. Particularly The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia McKillip (RIP) and Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner. These two novels are absolutely beloved in my fannish circles, and you can point a lot of modern fantasy trends as deriving from the both of them.

Certainly a lot of gay fantasy owes a lot to Swordspoint, which I used to pitch to friends as a "slash fairy tale". But it's closer to what they call a novel of manners. Kushner wrote a few other novels in the same setting, but I suspect she's better known by most as an editor than a writer.

As for adaptations, I'd give several pints of blood for a good adaptation of the Riddlemaster trilogy by McKillip, which gets pretty epic, and has the kind of embedded mystery that many showrunners like to play with these days.
posted by suelac at 12:49 PM on March 4 [8 favorites]

On review: Or yes, the Morgaine trilogy! For all that CJ Cherryh is a powerhouse with the Foreigner series, you don't see a lot of conversation about her earlier work anymore. I am a big fan of the Morgaine novels.
posted by suelac at 12:50 PM on March 4 [2 favorites]

I think I prefer the Riddlemaster series to Forgotten Beasts, but why not both?
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:52 PM on March 4 [3 favorites]

There's definitely a lot of skeeviness in there. Like, I was going to put in a word for Jack Vance's Lyonesse, but holy crow anytime anyone female over the age of nine is alone with a man, she's in peril of attempted if not successful rape. I don't think he was in favor, but it's a little too heavily interlarded into the book.

I think we can accept that there were some creepy creep creep-ass men (and Bradley, alas) in the 60s and 70s SF scene who took sexual liberation as just more cover to be openly predators or to have them as an audience. Daenerys is 13 at the start of the first book. (And, sure, late medieval/early modern aristocrats did tend to get married off younger if politics called for it, but there's actually a decent amount of discourse about when it was appropriate for a married couple to actually live together as man and wife, it wasn't like nobody noticed it was disgusting to fuck an 11-year-old.)
posted by praemunire at 1:02 PM on March 4 [5 favorites]

The trick with Swordspoint is whether or not you find Alec’s reasons for being a complete shit compensate for him being a complete shit. I did; my brother, emphatically, did not.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:03 PM on March 4 [5 favorites]

Please don't turn Zelazny's work into a movie, please don't turn Zelazny's work into a movie, please don't turn Zelazny's work into a movie....

The existence of an adaptation doesn't take your own preferred version away from you.
posted by praemunire at 1:29 PM on March 4 [1 favorite]

De Lint had some great books, and I read a ton of “urban fantasy” as a kid. If De Lint or Kushner catch your fancy, you should also check out Emma Bull and Will Shetterly, who were also putting out books in the same subgenre. There was a small boom in modern retellings, of which Jack the Giant Killer was one, as well as Snow White, Rose Red, Thomas the Rhymer, and others which escape me now. A fond childhood memory was meeting Emma Bull and Will Shetterly at a con in Detroit, and seeing Bull perform with her band, the Flash Girls. I even bought the tape, and listened to it for years.

They were also involved in the Bordertown anthologies and novels, which were a huge part of my adolescence, a series of interconnected short stories and novellas about the return of the elf lands creating a border where magic and technology mixed, and became a place for all sorts of misfits to escape to. Possibly the most escapist possible fiction? None more escapist? Looking back on them (with nothing but love for them) the books could double as a “if you loved these, and fantasized about something like that, you had a rough time in childhood” badge.

Past that, I’d love to see a Peter S. Beagle renaissance. The Last Unicorn is a fantastic book, but I’d say I like Folk of the Air even more. It’s worth searching out, and holds a cherished place in my memories.
posted by Ghidorah at 1:52 PM on March 4 [17 favorites]

Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn is the series I always come back to when thinking sentimentally, and very fondly, about reading fantasy in this time period in my life.
posted by HumanComplex at 2:12 PM on March 4 [1 favorite]

I don't need a movie adaptation (I prefer reading) but I'd put the Rose of the Prophet trilogy by Weis and Hickman on the list.

(Their Deathgate cycle would be worth watching, but is just beyond the cutoff.)
posted by demi-octopus at 2:19 PM on March 4

It is either wrong, or I am very old, to put either Amber or Pern in the forgotten classics category. Amber was read by every serious SF fan, and Pern books were read by most SF fans and millions of non-fans, and were absolutely ubiquitous in bookstores and library SF sections for decades, to say the least of every new book for 15 years (late 70s to early 90s) making the NYT best seller list.

Agree that the big under-appreciated high fantasy series is definitely Deryni, and assert that the Pern-like big SF-that-scratches-the-fantasy-itch under-appareciated series is Julian May’s [Pliocene] Exiles.
posted by MattD at 2:24 PM on March 4 [6 favorites]

Gormenghast deserves better than the turn of the century miniseries with cheap digital effects that we ended up with.
posted by scruss at 2:33 PM on March 4 [3 favorites]

The trick with Swordspoint is whether or not you find Alec’s reasons for being a complete shit compensate for him being a complete shit. I did; my brother, emphatically, did not.

The sequel, Privilege of the Sword, has as a protagonist a relative who Alec decides to foster. He is still a complete shit but the focus is on the young woman (who isbeing forced to learn to fence, oh, the scandal!) and is probably an easier sell to people who'd bounce off the first one.
posted by mark k at 2:34 PM on March 4 [4 favorites]

It is either wrong, or I am very old, to put either Amber or Pern in the forgotten classics category.

Gen Z isn't routinely picking these up, no. Do you know how many blog posts/reaction vids you can find out there of them discovering "some book called Neuromancer, vaguely heard of it, no idea what it's about?"

A lot, my friend, a lot. And Neuromancer had an actual legacy.
posted by praemunire at 2:41 PM on March 4 [4 favorites]

neuromancer is happening.

https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/apple-neurmancer-series-william-gibson-1235925640/

piers anthony has written multiple scenes in different universes in which a female character for hand-wavey reasons temporarily becomes male and, upon being returned to their own form, are all "oh my goodness, i'm so impressed! you guys have such incredible self-control! how do you not rape every female you see all the time?"

i'll add a vote for the folk of the air and one for the hero and the crown and its sequel the blue sword.

i'd like to see some james blaylock. the last coin was a great romp.

also mindcall and sequels from wilanne schneider belden
posted by Clowder of bats at 3:11 PM on March 4 [2 favorites]

I can't believe it's been more than fifty comments before any of these authors came up:

Andre Norton
C.L. Moore
Ray Bradbury
Ursula K. LeGuin
posted by concinnity at 3:33 PM on March 4 [2 favorites]

I'm always the only one who drops Michael Scott Rohan's The Winter of the World trilogy (1986-88) into these threads.
posted by jjderooy at 4:01 PM on March 4 [1 favorite]

[CW: Explicit sex description]
Firefly's what gets him sidelong glances

and it should! Summary from decades old memory:

There's a monster, I wanna say sea monster, that feeds by making you real horny and then sticking a tentacle or pseudopod up your bum to (a) make you super-cum and (b) schlorp you up from the inside. It also schlorps up your brain or memories or whatever.

It's growing! Or spreading or reproducing or something! Oh noes, the world is in danger!

LUCKILY, the world is saved when the monster hornifies, penetrates, and schlorps up this one woman who was never sexually molested as a child. Because it didn't count as abuse, because she loved it every time! She got forcibly penetrated LOTS of times, but she always correctly understood that that was love, and anyways she was always horny! And now that the monster has eaten her brain and understands... something... it sees the light and, uh, whatever.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:17 PM on March 4 [2 favorites]

Even though I didn't read any of them until I was in my thirties, I've really wished some production companies would do miniseries of:
- the Damar novels by Robin McKinley (The Blue Sword, and its prequel that kyrademon mentioned, The Hero and the Crown)
- the Tortall books by Tamora Pierce (starting with Alanna: The First Adventure, in 1983) - I keep fan-casting Gwendoline Christie as Keladry of Mindelan, every time I think about it.

Additionally, given the miniseries attempt at Pratchett's Vimes novels, I am surprised no one seems to have aimed at a limited series of Glen Cook's Garrett P.I novels, or Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos novels, for more fantasy/crime novel crossover.
posted by Mutant Lobsters from Riverhead at 4:34 PM on March 4 [2 favorites]

I don't like all of these (don't get me started complaining about Elric) but I really appreciate that this is a list that feels like it has a coherent character. At least all the ones I've read are descended from the weird tales / swords-and-sorcery branch of the fantasy family, but also pretty strong on character. I don't get the feeling I usually get that some were added out of obligation. (OK, the Bujold military SF entry on a fantasy list is a bit odd, but given I just bought two more Bujold books this weekend I'm not going to complain.)

Makes me actually want to read the couple I haven't read, except for the Vinge. That just sounds very sulky in a teenage way? I really like The Snow Queen though, so if someone wants to convince me it's worth a read I'll listen.

I read my first Tanith Lee last year--Cyrion and then immediately The Night Master. Would recommend both, if this is your style of thing.
posted by mark k at 4:55 PM on March 4

urban fantasy

This just reminded me of a London-based urban fantasy series I was exposed to years ago. The main thing I can remember about it is that the first book opens with the protagonist sitting in a cafe in Covent Garden having some tea and thinking back to the magical combat she'd just had an hour or so ago with some faeries in Trafalgar Square.

My immediate question: why am I sitting here watching this person drinking tea and reminiscing about something dramatic when you could be showing me the actual fight?
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 4:56 PM on March 4 [2 favorites]

Please don't turn Zelazny's work into a movie, please don't turn Zelazny's work into a movie, please don't turn Zelazny's work into a movie....

Kind of an aside, but it has stuck in my craw the dismissive way Zelazny's treatment for Lord of Light was dealt with in the dreadful movie Argo. The crux of the film is the Americans stuck in Iran posed as movie producers, and the movie they were supposedly producing was from a screenplay adaptation of Lord of Light. I don't think they mentioned the book or Zelazny by name, but they did have lots of fun poking fun at it: a lot of "hey this is some goofy 70s sci fi amirite?" The irony being that Lord of Light is actually a very fine piece of art and Argo is not. So take that, Ben Affleck!
posted by zardoz at 5:02 PM on March 4 [6 favorites]

Makes me actually want to read the couple I haven't read, except for the Vinge. That just sounds very sulky in a teenage way? I really like The Snow Queen though, so if someone wants to convince me it's worth a read I'll listen.

I read Catspaw many years ago, and I recall enjoying it; it's reminiscent of Andre Norton in some ways: an orphan with street smarts but no community, who has some special talents, making their way in a politically complex world. It's a much more contained novel than Snow Queen, not epic, and therefore would be easier to adapt...

Much as I am fond of Andre Norton -- I'm an Old -- I don't think she would do well in the modern market. Her stories are pretty spare with their characterizations and the plots are pretty streamlined. And the romances are seriously underplayed. Which I think would give you a lot of room for adaptation, but the books themselves are not as emotionally-fraught as contemporary YA is, and wouldn't have the same draw.
posted by suelac at 5:05 PM on March 4 [2 favorites]

> "I can't believe it's been more than fifty comments before any of these authors came up..."

I mainly didn't bring up Le Guin because I refuse to believe that people are no longer reading Le Guin.
posted by kyrademon at 5:06 PM on March 4 [8 favorites]

I realize that it's beloved by many but I read Nine Princes in Amber for the first time earlier this year, and I kinda hated it. There's not a single solid detail to grab onto in the whole book. There's a war in which millions die, and each atrocity is related like a catalog entry. And the whole book is like that. Mentions of astounding things, but not descriptions of them.
posted by goatdog at 5:07 PM on March 4 [3 favorites]

Mentions of astounding things, but not descriptions of them.

This is part of why it makes a great rpg setting, but also why people are wary of adaptations.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 6:35 PM on March 4 [1 favorite]

Michael Scott Rohan's The Winter of the World

!! jjderooy, those might be books I've been trying to re-find for a while and I didn't know there were more than three! Interleaving geology, Nibelungish myth, sword and sorcery, and IIRC radioisotopes? And when anyone gets extremely good at something we can assume they practiced very hard for a long time?
posted by clew at 6:45 PM on March 4 [1 favorite]

My additions surplus to many made above:

Greer Ilene Gilman's Moonwise

Morris' The Well at the World's End , let that one lure people into the stranger vocabulary

And something by Jo Clayton, though I can't decide what.
posted by clew at 7:01 PM on March 4 [3 favorites]

Huh. In an interesting bit of serendipity, I just this morning finished re-reading a 1975 paperback copy of McCaffrey’s Dragonquest (oof, the cover art!) from Ballantine (Michael Whelan’s art was such a boon for that series!), just after re-reading Crystal Singer. And now I want to plunge back in to some of these other titles, despite this list making me all-too-keenly aware of my years. As an aside: If you’ve considered buying (or re-buying) Charles deLint books, this would be a very helpful time to support him.

I’m chiming in to agree with the R.A. MacAvoy love. I don’t re-read many books, but The Book of Kells has been a regular go-to since I found it on the shelf of the bookstore where I worked. This wasn’t a series, but Tea With the Black Dragon had a sequel and so could make it in. (Disclosure: worked with her on a couple of books a few years back; she’s fascinating.) Also, yes, Tad Williams!

Working at that shop was such a miraculous time for me. Read most of the books on this list and many more besides. Saw beautiful art, experienced many innovative comics. I got to meet some wonderful humans, and introduce them to books I loved. Also had my young impressionable writer’s heart broken when I listened to an industry pro tell me (1988 or so?) that my idea for a love triangle with a human, a vampire, and a werewolf would never sell. (Lesson here, kids: Advice on Your Creative Idea Should Be Regarded with Skepticism Because Experts Are Not Infallible.)
posted by Nancy_LockIsLit_Palmer at 7:45 PM on March 4 [8 favorites]

Michael Scott Rohan's The Winter of the World

!! jjderooy, those might be books I've been trying to re-find for a while and I didn't know there were more than three! Interleaving geology, Nibelungish myth, sword and sorcery, and IIRC radioisotopes? And when anyone gets extremely good at something we can assume they practiced very hard for a long time?

I've only read the original trilogy (The Anvil of the Ice, The Forge in the Forest, and The Hammer of the Sun), but it pulls together a lot of strands of fantasy (magic coming from smithing (and hinting at metalurgy and materials science - and yes its spoilery to talk about the use of radioactive materials) gods interacting with mortals and the landscape, unique twists on elves and dwarves, expeditions into the wilderness, political intrigue in villages and empires) and loads of epic imagery that would make for a great movie or television experience.
posted by jjderooy at 7:47 PM on March 4 [1 favorite]

+1 to CJ Cherryh's Morgaine series, those books have been haunting me for 40 years.

Just now realised I've been confusing the Elric books with Nine Princes in Amber all this time- I know I bounced off one of them really hard as a young adult. But which?

Surprised the author lists some of Bujold's wonderful Space Operas rather than her actual fantasy books, I guess they are more recent though.

Loved the Pern books, but that planet is in sore need of some quality consent education. (Also they are secretly Sci-Fi.)
posted by Coaticass at 7:53 PM on March 4

Tea with the Black Dragon had a sequel? :O But you can't improve perfection.
posted by Coaticass at 7:55 PM on March 4 [1 favorite]

clew > And something by Jo Clayton, though I can't decide what.

Skeen. Clayton's very obviously having a great time bashing together this pile of every trope she loves, and thinks nothing of leaning on the fourth wall and casually talking about what she's got to do to make the story works. Also it's just one trilogy, which is pretty much the same size as one sf/f novel nowadays, so it's not a giant commitment like Diadem, with or without the Shadith spinoffs.
posted by egypturnash at 9:03 PM on March 4 [2 favorites]

But where are all the kudos for Rosemary Kirstein's Steerswoman and its sequels?! So smart and creative and fun. Amazing world-building.

... and unfinished, sigh.
posted by suelac at 9:13 PM on March 4 [5 favorites]

Cherryh's Morgaine series and McCaffrey's Dragonriders series are both science fiction, so i don't know why anyone would expect them to be in a listicle of fantasy books, tbh.
posted by adrienneleigh at 9:43 PM on March 4

...oh, well, several of the books on this listicle are already science fiction. Disregard the previous; the listicle writers are apparently just stupid.
posted by adrienneleigh at 9:45 PM on March 4 [1 favorite]

Lentrohamsanin: if you want to read Nifft the Lean, it was published by Baen in 2000 in an omnibus edition with the sequel. The omnibus volume name is The Incompleat Nifft. Paperbacks of it are still pricey, but well under $300; it's also available from my favorite, er, seven-seas outfitter. MeMail me if you want details.
posted by adrienneleigh at 9:50 PM on March 4

All of the books mentioned in this listicle and this comment thread are available to read for free through Interlibrary Loan!
posted by goatdog at 5:27 AM on March 5 [3 favorites]

As time goes by, you've heard of most everything in "your" genres that are your age or older. Authors, books, series... someone, somewhere has mentioned them. The Winter of the World books were the last complete surprise I can remember encountering. I saw The Anvil of Ice on the shelf at the library and thought I'd give it a try. So glad I did!
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:42 AM on March 5

To be fair, I would expect interlubrary loan to have trouble with Nifft, but the rest? Likely.
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:26 AM on March 5 [1 favorite]

I really had no idea that my paperback of Nifft was such a pricy rarity. I bought it off the shelf in a used bookstore a decade or so ago for I think $2.50.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:28 AM on March 5

This list hits a lot of sweet spots for me, as a person who read almost everything she could get her hands on in the 80s and early 90s. I bounced off some of them (and some of the ones mentioned here) which makes me want to go back and give them another try. But I also see so many mentioned that were favorites, like De Lint, the Bordertown books, McCaffrey, Tortall, Robin McKinley...people should be reading War For the Oaks! I just got a younger co-worker hooked on Bujold! (She already knows and loves the Tortall books so they're still being read by at least the twenty-somethings.)

As I said, I was pretty omnivorous as a kid, so Xanth and the Thomas Covenant books did get absorbed into my maw along the way, but they did no harm as I was reading so much other stuff to counterbalance them. They were enjoyable, or they made me uncomfortable (Thomas Covenant was a desperation read - the only books left in the small base library that I hadn't hit up yet, and I did not like them but I read them anyway, because books.)

Anyway, I've recently been listening to the Shelved by Genre podcast's readthrough of the Earthsea books, which I have very much enjoyed.
posted by PussKillian at 8:40 AM on March 5 [6 favorites]

I need to read Farthest Shore and catch up with that.

Read Book of the New Sun for the time based on them reading that before and had a great time with it.
posted by Artw at 9:05 AM on March 5

Given that the first sentence of the article talks about recent adaptations "of classic science fiction and fantasy books from previous decades", I'm gonna assume the author didn't write the fantasy focused title.

Though I've read 7 of the 10 "iconics", I'm mostly concerned with how I ended up in the timeline where they did turn Zelazny's work into a movie.
posted by house-goblin at 9:28 AM on March 5 [1 favorite]

I didn't realize this was the newly rebranded tor.com at first, but when I did, I was pleasantly surprised that list was 1. actually quite good and 2. not written by an author who was promoting a book that just came out from TOR. Hopefully this is indicative of future of posts on the Reactor blog.
posted by 3j0hn at 11:53 AM on March 5 [1 favorite]

the only books left in the small base library

Just so I can calibrate my oof, which base? Because (usaf-side) Langley is an oof but a smaller oof than Hahn.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 12:14 PM on March 5

I said base, but that was shorthand - it was the US Embassy compound in the Philippines.
posted by PussKillian at 2:10 PM on March 5

Oh that means a real big oof. An oofoni if it were Italian.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 2:19 PM on March 5 [3 favorites]

I read Catspaw many years ago, and I recall enjoying it; it's reminiscent of Andre Norton in some ways: an orphan with street smarts but no community, who has some special talents, making their way in a politically complex world.

That's how I've always described it: a great Andre Norton tribute/pastiche. Vinge is a better writer in terms of prose style, so it makes for a delightful update.
posted by tavella at 3:21 PM on March 5 [2 favorites]

Most things that would go on my list of "I would really love to see a GOOD film/TV adaptation of this" have already been mentioned, but mine would include:

- War for the Oaks by Emma Bull - a rock 'n' roll singer gets involved in a Faerie war for control of Minneapolis. Music! Faerie! Romance between human and hot Phouka bodyguard! Ok it sounds clichéd now, but it was pretty revolutionary in 1987. Plus there is already a screenplay!

- Bone Dance by Emma Bull - Blade Runner meets voudoun in a novel almost impossible to describe because it is such an awesome mix of things. Also one of my first encounters with a non-binary character in fiction, which blew my mind in 1992 or so when I first read it.

- The Folk of the Air by Peter S Beagle. SCA/LARPing gets a little too serious when it all becomes real thanks to a teenager making a deal with a malicious supernatural being; complete with motorcycles, medieval lute music, a spiritually time-travelling Viking and an incarnated goddess.

- Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones (what you write becomes real in the creepiest and most unsettling way!) Also any/all of her Chrestomanci books. Or anything she wrote ever, really. I would be just as skeptical and nervous as I was going in to see "Howl's Moving Castle" but her stories are so good that even when there are significant and huge variations from the original, they're still pretty good.

- Vlad Taltos books by Steven Brust - the world needs a TV series featuring a wise-cracking assassin with his even more wise-cracking miniature dragon-like familiar and extensive forays into Eastern European-inspired cuisine. I would also love to see the Khaavren romances adapted but I am not sure they would work as well without Paarfi's long-winded prose.

- Bone graphic novels by Jeff Smith - though this would be risky as mash-ups of animated and live action can work well (Roger Rabbit) or extremely not-well. Maybe it would be better just to have it all animated?

- There are Doors by Gene Wolfe - I honestly think the only person who could do this rapidly-changing dreamlike mythic fantasy would be Joss Whedon, and yes problematic, but I would love to see that so much I would work through my problems.

- The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley - as mentioned above, we absolutely need these so much. Dragons. Red headed princess with self-confidence issues. Plenty of horses and horse riding in both, though more of a feature in the Blue Sword. Agh, SO GOOD.

Also down for anything RA McAvoy, and now must search out copies of The Book of Kells and Tea with the Black Dragon which I haven't read since the 90s. Actually after making it through that list I have a LOT of re-reading to do. In addition to searching out ones I haven't read yet.

PS: Inter-library loans are not free everywhere! Plus libraries are also likely to have weeded their copies of fantasy from the 1990s!
posted by Athanassiel at 5:10 PM on March 5 [4 favorites]

Vlad Taltos books by Steven Brust - the world needs a TV series featuring a wise-cracking assassin with his even more wise-cracking miniature dragon-like familiar and extensive forays into Eastern European-inspired cuisine. I would also love to see the Khaavren romances adapted but I am not sure they would work as well without Paarfi's long-winded prose.

The correct writer/director/cast mix could do a brilliant job with the Khaavren romances. It's high-risk and easy to imagine it going wrong, but high-reward. You lose Paarfi's brilliance, of course, but if you can somehow capture the right quirky touch with the banter the performance aspect will carry it. To watch Tazendra explaining to Khaavren that she's pondering would thrill me if they did it right.

An adaptation of the Taltos books would have a higher floor--like, they won't suck--but I think are more likely to come out as a sort of alternate brand Witcher.
posted by mark k at 9:39 PM on March 5 [2 favorites]

I literally never want Hollywood to adapt another SFF property, ever, at least until i'm safely dead and don't have to hear about them fucking it up which they will always do. I especially hope they don't adapt any of the books listed above that i actually like (which is most of them). I suppose they can have Michael Scott Rohan; i could never get into his stuff!
posted by adrienneleigh at 9:44 PM on March 5 [2 favorites]

After seeing what happened to The Dresden Files (so bad I couldn't make it through episode 1) I get chest palpitations thinking about what they could do to Zelazny's Amber saga. Some things are better left to the theater of the mind.
posted by Ber at 1:09 AM on March 6 [3 favorites]

Humanity is a land of contrasts, as I am here to say that The Dresden Files show was delightful, and it should not have been canceled. See also: Constantine, which Hellblazer purists (wrongly) complain about endlessly to this day.
posted by cupcakeninja at 3:56 AM on March 6 [5 favorites]

Yeah, I haven't watched it for years, but I remember the Dresden Files tv show as a pretty decent adaptation.
posted by tavella at 9:11 AM on March 6 [2 favorites]

Oh, yeah, Hollywood can have the Dresden Files again if they want it, because those books are basically just tv shows in print, and super misogynist to boot. That's perfect material for Hollywood!
posted by adrienneleigh at 2:10 PM on March 6 [2 favorites]

If I remember correctly, the Xanth books aren't too bad and at least could probably be scrubbed pretty easily for a show

Sadly, you do not remember correctly.
posted by Well I never at 12:22 PM on March 8 [8 favorites]

I have never reread Piers Anthony as an adult, but I frequently hear the claim that they’re horrible. Not trying to launch a, uh, Xanthaissance, but has anyone on this thread reread them as an adult? Not with the explicit goal of demonstrating your moral superiority and Anthony’s skeeviness, but, like, just to read them.
posted by cupcakeninja at 3:30 AM on March 9

I've read some of them since I was at least a notional adult, but not in a long time. I don't think I've read anything from him since I read Firefly, which would have been in the early/mid 90s. Some of them, like Orn, are just standard SF. Xanth and the ones that start with taking over Death's job are basic teen fare with not as much going on as harry potter or hunger games. There's a lot of leering at girls and women and some creepy attitudes towards women, but honestly the book version of _Meg_ treats women worse.

But... Firefly is out there, and it really does reach back and change how things feel. Like, he has a sexually-abused five year old girl seducing an adult. Who goes along with it because that's like true love man. And it's all presented as if it weren't horrifying. Good lord.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:39 AM on March 9 [2 favorites]

I never read Firefly, and I'd heard enough generic "uh, it's bad" to avoid it, but not specifics. That's truly terrible. Damn. :-(
posted by cupcakeninja at 6:02 AM on March 9 [2 favorites]

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:56 AM on March 9 [2 favorites]