The Quest for the Soul of Fantasy

I really like Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive series. He's only on book 2 though. I like pretty much all of his stuff because he uses a rigorous Magic A is Magic A system in all of his fantasy. Fantasy is one of my favorite genres, but only when the reality breaking is done consistently.

I haven't really read much for pleasure recently so I'm kinda blanking on other names.

I enjoyed Kate Elliott's Black Wolves (it was the first in a new trilogy or series), and am impatiently waiting for the latest in Robin Hobb's newest Fitz and Fool series. I've also had fun reading some of Joe Abercrombie's books--his First Law Trilogy (a few years old now) and his recent Shattered Sea trilogy, which is ostensibly YA, but the writing style feels more like regular "adult" fantasy (it's limited third and in past tense, though this author does put a lot of voice in his narrative and has fast pacing). The protagonists are teens, but the world is such that their problems are anything but childish.

Oh, and Naomi Novik's Uprooted was a treat, and I liked Kathleen Addison's The Goblin Emperor and Zen Cho's Sorcerer to the Crown also. And if you like stories set in a different kind of speculative world, Fran Wilde's Updraft is really cool.

Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicles are very popular. I'm sort of middling on them, but they're worth checking out, and some people really love them.

Oh yeah! Robin Hobb! She's good. I love her Realm of the Elderlings books.

I need to read the Kingkiller Chronicles.

Glen Cook's The Black Company series is really nice, too. It's about a mercenary band and and the Big Bads they work for, and the whole thing is very Black vs Grey morality.

Tad Williams Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy was a favorite when I was younger. Apparently he's releasing more books set in the same world soon. Or now. (I can't remember how long ago I saw the announcement.)

Bloodsong by Anthony Ryan was good, and he's finished the trilogy, although I don't think the sequels measure up to that first book. Still worth reading I would say.

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke is a personal favorite, although it's set in an alternate history England where magic is more or less commonplace, and the story is a slow burn as opposed to a breakneck adventure. Maybe not what you're looking for in genre fantasy.

Finally, The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, and the accompanying sequels. It's a cloak and dagger caper tale set in a magical, fantasy analog of Venice. It's fun to read and extremely amusing.

I don't really know what the soul of fantasy is, as my interest tends to skew a very particular way, and I haven't read much lately myself. So I wasn't going to answer, as I'm not sure my answer would be worth much, but it occurred to me that if your fantasy elements depend on passing peas, you might in fact be interested in the um, odder or sillier side of things. Not sure. But, FWIW, I like Christopher Moore (my favorites are Fool and The Serpent of Venice), Douglas Adams wrote a couple of things more on the fantasy side (Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul) and I did like Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series till I lost track of it (starts with The Eyre Affair) as well as his nursery crimes (The Big Over Easy, The Fourth Bear). If you like fatter books heavier on description and worldbuilding, could have a look at Walter Moers' Rumo. I also enjoyed Daniel O'Malley's The Rook, and I do think that's more mainstream than anything else I just mentioned

Uh, again, I don't think any of these things are the soul of fantasy, particularly (I've gotten the impression some are sort of fringe? I dunno), and a lot of them might be older than eight years in publication date, so you don't necessarily need to run out and eat them, but just in case it matters. *slinks back into swamp *

Another vote for Scott Lynch. Are you looking for shorter secondary world fantasy? Try the online magazine 'Beneath Ceaseless Skies'.

For urban fantasy, I love Ben Aaronovitch's 'Rivers of London' series.

Aggy B. said:

Tad Williams Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy was a favorite when I was younger. Apparently he's releasing more books set in the same world soon. Or now. (I can't remember how long ago I saw the announcement.)

Click to expand...

I saw that announcement, too. Micheal Whelan is even slated to do the cover art. (It was announced on his website; for a retired guy, he sure does a lot of cover art still...)

As for the OP's question... I really don't know how to definitively answer that question. What is the "soul" of fantasy? Is it Tolkienesque epics? Is it tales told on a more human scale? Does it exclude MG and Young Adult titles? Is it light or dark? Do you want new works, or just the older ones that many new works build off of, the roots of the garden?

I'll throw out some random suggestions...

Brandon Sanderson's very popular right now. I haven't been let down yet by him. Great for "hard fantasy", where magic has definite rules and restrictions that the characters and story must work within. The Stormlight Archive is a huge, ambitious project, but so far paying off brilliantly. His Mistborn series isn't quite so large, but has a great magic system and wonderful premise: a world whose hero pulled an Anakin Skywalker and became an immortal tyrant. Sanderson also does humor very well: check out his YA title Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians (first in a series) for a hilarious yet loving jab at many tropes.

Tad Williams is a good one, though overall I find him a bit hit-and-miss. His Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy (first book: The Dragonbone Chair) is excellent, and was reportedly one of the inspirations for George R. R. Martin. I also greatly enjoyed Williams's Shadowmarch quartet (first book: Shadowmarch.)

Speaking of Martin, you owe it to yourself to at least try the first book in his series (Game of Thrones): hugely popular, very large scope, though the fantasy aspect is so subtle many people apparently missed it. (Though how one can miss the existence of dire wolves, dragon skeletons, and years-long superseasons is beyond me...)

Someone mentioned Novik's Uprooted, which is a great retelling of a Polish fairy tale. Novik also writes the Temeraire series (Book 1: His Majesty's Dragon in America, or Temeraire in UK and elsewhere), which are alt-history with dragons but no magic. It starts as a fairly simple, but still interesting, retake on Napoleonic warfare with dragons as sapient airships, but the world expands quickly: Book 2 heads to China, where it becomes clear that a nation's relationship with its dragons has a huge influence on their culture and prosperity (or lack thereof.)

Catherynne M. Valente writes some very imaginative stuff, pushing into surreal territory. Her Fairyland series (Book 1: The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making) is great, a balance of Alice in Wonderland-type surreality and decent storyline, with a main character who is much more than just an empty proxy for the reader.

Jonathan Stroud does some great stuff at the MG/YA level. His Heroes of the Valley is an interesting examination of what heroism is and what it means. I also loved his Bartimaeus books (start with The Amulet of Samarkand), a great blend of humor, character, and storyline set in an alt-modern world where magicians rule with an iron fist.

For animal fantasy, Richard Adams's Watership Down is still pretty much the foundation upon which most are built. (As a cat person, I preferred Tad Williams's Tailchaser's Song...)

Terry Pratchett. There's much more to his work than just jokes, and if you haven't read any of his stuff you really need to give it a shot.

Tolkien. Still the foundation for a lot of epic fantasy, worth an attempt.

Rowling. Harry Potter's still a big one, with kids and grown-ups, and is worth a look.

Diana Wynne Jones. Her Tough Guide to Fantasyland is still hilarious, if you're looking for fantasy tropes, and while I personally don't care for all of her stories, she's still very popular, and broke a lot of rules.

If you're exceptionally bored, follow the link in my signature line to my book review blog and website: lots of books, including many fantasy books, reviewed. (Stop at the Description if you don't want to read my opinions; I do my best to keep the Descriptions as neutral and spoiler-free as possible.)

Perhaps the soulS of fantasy?

Tolkien made up the rules. Donaldson suggested they could be broken. Mieville made them weird. GRRM executed them. Le Guin made them beautiful.

David Eddings was to the eighties as Sanderson is to now. Rothfuss and Abercrombie and Lynch are also popular. McCaffery was popular.

ETA: and my teenage self will always hold a soft spot for Gemmell.

But the soul? The real soul? Aw, man. I'm old fashioned.

Shakespeare.

I don't know that I'm qualified to define the "soul of Fantasy", but here are some adult Fantasy novels I have loved in the past 8 years:

Chalion trilogy by Lois McMaster Bujold
Sharing Knife quartet by Lois McMaster Bujold
Annals of the Western Shore trilogy by Ursula K. LeGuin
Kushiel's Legacy series by Jacqueline Carey
Elemental Blessings series by Sharon Shinn
Twelve Houses series by Sharon Shinn
Inheritance trilogy by N.K. Jemison

I find the "soul" of fantasy comes from Epics. Much of modern fantasy is made up on what Epics were and still are, and what they are not and what people hope for them to be.

Easy to start in Beowulf and the Iliad and the Odyssey. We're all trying to follow in those footsteps in some way, and if you read them you'll understand that much of what storytelling is today is built upon them.

Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory. The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spencer (it's an achievement to read it all, btw).

From there, there's fracture cracks going everywhere and you'll have to decide what to follow. Tolkien and LeGuin. Pratchett, Rowling, Robert Jordan. Pretty standard fare. Steven Erikson, George R.R. Martin, Sanderson, Lynch (only his first book for me), Rothfuss for more contemporary writers. I do like to recommend Brent Weeks as I just really love his stories.

Aggy B. said:

Tad Williams Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy was a favorite when I was younger. Apparently he's releasing more books set in the same world soon. Or now. (I can't remember how long ago I saw the announcement.)

Click to expand...

+1

I love these novels. I'm impatiently waiting the release of the next three - the first of which, The Witchwood Crown, is slated for publication in January of 2017. I'm interested to see how he continues this story. It's been a while since he wrote of Osten Ard.

You may want to take a look at The Once and Future King by T.H. White.

Anything in the Shannara world of Terry Brooks. There are multiple books, mostly trilogies to select from. I personally thought Wishsong was the strongest book, and it does a fairly good job standing alone if I'm remembering correctly.

I also have no idea what the soul of fantasy is but will throw in my vote for the Earthsea books by Ursula Le Guin and the Inheritance Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin.

For recently published fantasy that really impressed me -

Tanya Huff - The Silvered. Approx 18th century technology, with magic, werewolves, invasion and two people making a whacking great difference.

Julie Czerneda - A Turn of Light - quite different. Almost set in one village, quite a complicated world that is revealed slowly. Took me a little while to get into the first book, but kept going because of the rave reviews and then all of a sudden it worked for me.

Plus "seconds" for all of Bujold's works

2gregory said:

Perhaps the soulS of fantasy?

Click to expand...

Absolutely. Fantasy is a huge, huge field. It includes works of comedy, tragedy, and in between. Some is whimsical, some allegorical, some realistic. Styles include every kind, from lyrical to journalistically spare. Books are short, long, r e a l l y long. Some stories are contemporary, some in the past or a past-like world, some even is futuristic.

About the only common quality of most fantasy I've read is that, in ways ever-so-small as well as large, it inspires in me a sense of the strange and unmundane. But then some of the hardest of hard sci-fi does too.

Laer Carroll said:

Absolutely. Fantasy is a huge, huge field. It includes works of comedy, tragedy, and in between. Some is whimsical, some allegorical, some realistic. Styles include every kind, from lyrical to journalistically spare. Books are short, long, r e a l l y long. Some stories are contemporary, some in the past or a past-like world, some even is futuristic.

About the only common quality of most fantasy I've read is that, in ways ever-so-small as well as large, it inspires in me a sense of the strange and unmundane. But then some of the hardest of hard sci-fi does too.

Click to expand...

Agreed. If I write fantasy, it's 'weird fantasy.' In fact the combination of mundane and unusual I stuff into fantasy could be a sub-genre of its own. Probably is. But Fantasy itself is HUGE. You can cram so much into it. And you can argue that it might not be fantasy. I think it may be our nature to attempt to classify these things, but no matter what we do there will always be a blurring at the edges. I've often had difficulties 'defining' what might be Fantasy. That's probably why 'cross-genre' arose. Not exactly fantasy, not exactly SF, what is it? Anne McCaffrey comes to mind first off. (One of my favorite authors). Do we really need to define it as anything more than both SF and Fantasy? For all we know, it's hard science. And that's the key. What's unrealistic and crazy today could be pure and unadulterated scientific principle tomorrow. It all depends on where you are. It's relative.

You want the soul of the genre, you might consider reading some of the founders: George Macdonald, William Morris, Lord Dunsany . . .

caw

+1 for reading "A Game of Thrones," if none of the others. Martin writes like a guy telling the story to people around the campfire. The last line of the novel is perfection: "And for the first time in centuries, the world was filled with the music of dragons."

Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson, that's where the soul is found.

Are you looking for more recent fantasy or for classics you may have missed? I was assuming the former, but as others are tossing out older works, I'll suggest some too. I assume you've read the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, but if you haven't, they're pretty important. Leiber's Fafherd and Gray Mouser books, Moorcock's Elric series, Andre Norton's Witch World books, Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword, and Le Guin's Earthsea books are all pretty important.

Roxxsmom said:

I enjoyed Kate Elliott's Black Wolves (it was the first in a new trilogy or series)

Click to expand...

I haven't read it yet, but it's also a continuation of her Crossroads trilology, isn't it?

BethS said:

I haven't read it yet, but it's also a continuation of her Crossroads trilology, isn't it?

Click to expand...

It's stand alone, but it's set in the same world and has some characters who carry over from Crossroads.