The New Yorker recently published a list of seven fantasy books for someone who’s looking to go to “second base” with fantasy. Reaction from the blogosphere has been mixed, but on the upshot I’ve been able to uncover many great minds who are blogging about speculative fiction / fantasy.
My Reading List-a-Thon continues with my annotations of the list, my additions, and pointers to other lists. I’ll hope to consolodate them into a Big ol List of Fantasy sometime soon. I do have some misgivings about this idea of “Well, people who like bonafide novels (The New Yorker’s phrase) should try to find something soft and easy to convert them to fantasy.” What on Middle-Earth is there to understand? You mean someone who puts down A Dance to the Music of Time or The Golden Bowl long enough to look at fantasy is going to be somehow confused, lost, or disoriented? “I . . . I just don’t understand . . . Dragons? Dragons aren’t real . . . How did they get into this book? Did Anne Rice interview a dragon, to know what dragonness is like? Oh, that was Anne McCaffery. Never mind.” 

* The Dragonbone Chair: Tad Williams. “If you want to read a classic epic fantasy series that is not the Lord of the Rings, start here.”

I can’t disagree, primarily because I haven’t read it. But if you’re looking to start on something and the main component is “Don’t be LOTR,” this is just as good of a place as any . . . Except for maybe the Wheel of Time series. James Long respectfully disagrees: “its only redeeming quality in my eyes is the fact that it inspired [George R. R. Martin] to write [A Song of Ice and Fire].”

Alas, I’m really wracking my brains here, but only because the surest way to make me tire of a fantasy book is to put an elf in it . . . to my jaundiced reader self, “epic fantasy that’s not like LOTR” is like saying “A professional chef who isn’t, like, carbon based.” Of course, that’s tremendously unfair, but I think Jordan is the only other natural choice. Mark Charan Newton, author of Nights of Villjamur, accused the NYer list as being unimaginative, for such an imaginative genre. I agree.

* Anything by Guy Gavriel Kay. What kind of advice is that? Granted, they do specify several books in particular, none of which I’ve read. After reading Ysabel I don’t know that I’ll ever drag myself back to the GGK table. Adam Whitehead classified this as “Pseudohistorical Epic Fantasy” which is so much of a red flag you could use it to decorate Mao’s birthday party. Mr. Whitehead notes that it’s either Kay or Elliott’s Crown of Stars, whereby Kay would win.

What about . . . you know, I”m not sure if I can make this recommendation and live it down, but what about the Kushiel books? Several are quite good. Steamy, but that’s a given. But it isn’t smut, and it’s great fun. However, it’s not really “epic,” but each individual book helps build a huge, sweeping alternate world.

* Wizard’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind.
No no no no no. This list is dead to me. Observers rightly note that the NYer article mentions that only the first book in the series is worth reading, but I challenge that sentiment wholeheartedly. Again, Mr. Whitehead is spot-on when he notes that the first book is “okay” only in light of the tripe that follows it, but that’s like saying that you’re “okay” after getting run over by a Camry because you know the jackhammer powered garbage truck carrying a payload of lead is about to hit you next. I know a good friend who considers these books to be her favorites: nothing has ever made me change subjects in a conversation faster.
The first book is about a thoroughly unlikable man named Richard, in a world where every other character is named Zedd, Darken, Kahlan, and Demmin Nass. Richard? Anyway, the book starts rocky, ends with an eye-roller of a “twist” ending, and in the middle contains sexual abuse, torture, child abuse, sadomasochism, and I just can’t go on.
Like I said, this list is dead to me.

 * Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb.

Haven’t read it, nor has Mr. Long. Mr. Whitehead dispenses with it in short order.

* Scions of Shannara by Terry Brooks.

Aidan Moher doesn’t think Brooks gets the respect he deserves, but I’m not going to be the first one to step up to the plate. I admit that I haven’t read this book in particular, but I can’t really get behind Terry Brooks in general. To be diplomatic, when I read Sword of Shannara I realized that it hadn’t age well. I read through as much of Elfstones as I could, but had to stop. So I figured I would jump ahead in his writing career and read what was then his latest book: Ilse Witch (“Voyage of the Jerle Shannara”). I haven’t gone back since, and I don’t know when I will.

* The Name of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

Again, I can’t comment – I haven’t read this, but it’s also the only book on this list that I feel badly about not reading. I did pick it up and sniff through the first page, and I realized two things: it was probably very good, to be honest, and two—like modern dance, I would need to be in the right frame of mind. I easily see this being my early-October pre-NaNoWriMo novel.

* Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson

By the end of the “Beginner’s List” I felt as though I was illiterate: all these “gateway” novels that I haven’t read! However, our panel of commentators panned this one, unanimously saying that it didn’t begin to be on a “Beginner’s List.” Once more, I can’t comment.

 

Since I’m lukewarm about the New Yorker list, I guess it’s time to put up or shut up.

 

* Kushiel’s Scion, see above. These are easy to wrap your mind around, but are filled with spirituality, vibrant characters, and sex.

* A Wizard of Earthsea by the Ursula K. LeGuin. Since the New Yorker list is a gentle slide out of Harry Potter and into what the NYer lovingly referred to as grown-up actual novels, this might seem like I’m coddling. This book might show its age, but its Taoist undertones and fascination with the “true” can lead to the kind of contemplation a “serious” reader can appreciate.

* Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. I was torn between Elantris and the Mistborn series, but as excellent as I find Elantris to be, the Mistborn trilogy is technically superior. Mr. Moher omitted Mistborn in favor of Memory, Shadow, and Thorn because that slot “is for those who enjoy taking a step back and falling into a novel, head over heels” while also saying it took him three attempts to fall into MS&T. I fell into Mistborn on my first attempt.

* American Gods by Neil Gaiman, in place of the seemingly obligatory “Anything by Guy Gavriel Kay”, which I’ve already qualified by saying “Anything except Ysabel.” This is an extraordinarily strong “urban fantasy” that’s well-paced and great fun. I was surprised to see this left off of so many lists, although Messers. Long, Whitehead, Moher, and Newton are all residents of Commonwealth countries, whereas I’m a staunch Yankee who doesn’t think twice about reading something called “American Gods.” In fact, I remark with a touch of self-deprecating humor, I was surprised to find that there weren’t any Kennedys represented therein.

* Sabriel by Garth Nix. Sabriel is a lot like Lord of the Rings, except you take away the Fellowship and replace it with a talking cat and amnesiac. And instead of elves, dwarves, and ringwraiths you put in zombies.  So it’s nothing like Lord of the Rings.

* The Wheel of Time series. Ok, I’ll be the one to do it. Just because it has more secondary characters than the “professional reference” section of a gigolo’s resume doesn’t mean that’s its necessarily a hard or cumbersome read, and probably won’t scare away too many. Besides, Robert Jordan managed to employ every single possible trope, cliche, generic theme, and archetype into his writing, and that’s just in Eye of the World. Once a reader sees them in Jordan, he or she can move on to other ideas.

* This final entry is largely symbolic: So You Want to Be a Wizard by Diane Duane. I doubt any “serious” highbrow reader will stop chewing the fat of The Sound and the Fury in order to read the Young Wizards series. But this is fantasy, and if you don’t, in your heart of hearts, want to be a wizard, the best list in the world won’t help you.

 

 

So, here are the lists I cribbed when I wrote this, in no particular order:

James Long (Speculative Horizons), Mark Charan Newton, Adam Whitehead (The Wertzone), and Aidan Moher (A Dribble of Ink). Out of all the lists, I’m most excited to explore Mr. Newton’s, as it clearly offers a more advanced reading list. I feel similarly towards Larry’s list at OF Blog of the Fallen.