Fantasy Reading List Requested?

Hi. I've been lurking for a while, particularly stalking Uncle Jim's writing tips. Wonderful stuff.
I've been writing, or editing, for a living for my entire adult life but have only ventured into fiction in the last two years. I have written mostly literary fiction. Each novel attempt ended up in a musty corner of my C drive after 30 pages or so.
A couple of months ago I decided to go with my instinct and write fantasy fiction, the stuff that fired my imagination as a child and teenager through the 70s and 80s.
Voila. Writer's block vanished. I'm well on my way to finishing my first novel.
The problem: my fantasy reading education ended in the mid-1980s after Terry Brooks, Tolkien and a handful of others.
I'm now reading Pratchett (I just moved to London and entire shelves in all bookstores are creaking with his novels) and a rewrite of THE MAGICIAN by Raymond E. Feist.
Can anybody suggest another bunch of books to help me catch up? I'm looking for a thorough representative sample of the genre. I am far behind but have always read a book or three a week and can probably catch up fairly fast.
Finally, are Tolkienesque novels (with dwarfs, elves and all the medieval English trappings) more or less difficult to sell now within the genre? I am sure the movies have helped revive interest but, in the fantasy sections of my nearest bookstores, I see mainly novels about contemporary wizards, genies, demons and others which are removed from the staple of my younger years. I also see lots of spoofs of Tolkienesque stuff.
Anyone have any pointers?

Hi Adam. We have a SF/Fantasy board a little further down the Cooler, in the genre section. I'm going to copy your post to that board too. It will likely generate a better response there.

Elves, dwarves, wizards, medieval settings -- sure, you can still find 'em being published. Just be aware that a lot of the changes have already been rung on them. You should be aware that they're now referred to as "LCD fantasy," for "lowest common denominator," and that they've been roundly mocked in books like Diana Wynne Jones' The Tough Guide to Fantasy.

You might pick up the last half-dozen World Fantasy Award-winning novels and read 'em, to see where the field is now.

A friend has been doing an idiosyncractic list of essential very modern fantasy (last 20 years or so), which you might find interesting:

urban fantasy

high fantasy

YA/Children's

(I believe a "miscellaneous too good to be missed" list is forthcoming.)

Thanks Kate, Jim and eraser.

This has all been invaluable to me.

Surfing the 'net, Amazon.com, or even proper bookstores often doesn't get you very far unless you have a direction, which the Cooler has provided me. This thread has been booted over to the Fantasy section lower on down the Cooler.

And Jim. Your writing tips section has been great. It's what drew me here in the first place -- one of those times when serendipitous surfing does land you somewhere.

The `Tolkienesque' fiction that I am writing may not fit fairly under that title. I've been a foreign correspondent since 1991, until recently covering wars, social strife, extreme poverty and similar issues in more than 30 countries. I'm trying to inject as much of that as possible into my fantasy fiction. I've started my fantasy novel on a version of a real leper colony I spent time on in Brazil some years back. The novel has the trappings of the much-spoofed traditional fantasy. Much grittier I hope though.
Anyway, I want to sugar-coat a bitter taste. Dwarves and elves (my childhood flames) denied a magical cure for a grave illness really seems to do that better than, say, an unread contemporary novel about the struggle of AIDs-inflicted miners in South Africa. Is there any sub-genre like this? Is this a mix that would turn off an editor or agent?

Thanks again. I would have posted this in both threads (and for all I know I did) but I'm not sure how. Any way to move all this south to Fantasy?

the only fantasy i've read in the last couple of years has been the forgotten realms series, which is more or less a ton of writers doing stories based in the same fantasy universe. i was skeptical at first, it being a dungeons and dragons line of books (tsr i believe), but some of them are actually pretty good and more adult than the 80's fantasy that just got boring after awhile.

I've been a fantasy fiction junkie for the past decade or so, and there is a lot of good stuff being done these days. Use of Irish, Scottish and various regional mythologies is a lot more interesting to me than the generic D&D fireball-hurling wizards in pointy hats (*yawn*), magic swords, treasure-hoarding dragons, fruity elves and surly dwarves (*snore*). There's more to fantasy life than killing things and taking their stuff.

The most innovative and compelling fantasy series' I've encountered in recent years are Cecelia Dart-Thornton's Bitterbynde trilogy and Robin Hobb's Liveship Traders trilogy. JV Jones has also done some very good stuff, as has Julian Mays. All qualify as fantasy for the lactose-intolerant. Save the cheese for your book launch party.

i thought ireland had a grand total of one loose national myth. it was some unreadable thing i had to put down after about 20 pages. i forget the name of it.

i'm not sure which forgotten realms books you're referring to. the several i read were well-researched, based on specific cultures and had very little to do with those things you mentioned, albeit, true, being a d&d series there *is* that. indeed, i haven't read a fantasy in years other than harry potter that had anything to do with magic swords, dragon hoardes, or one magic spell after another. maybe i just got lucky, eh? i'd meant to check out the series devoted to the villians and not the heroes, just never got around to it.

i stopped reading fantasy really in the early 90's. it was just one trilogy after another, and it became clear to me that most of what i was reading was just filler bullshit to stretch it out for another book sale. they were all the same: you had an ultimate evil that only a small band of mismatched heroes could overcome, a few would die in the end, the rest returning to their simple homes. some were less blatant than others, but none really were inspired works, either. the only reason i held on as long as i did was because of the xanth series by piers anthony, and the best of those i thought were the older ones.

check out parke godwyn's rendition of beowulf. i thought that was just beautiful.

i thought ireland had a grand total of one loose national myth. it was some unreadable thing i had to put down after about 20 pages. i forget the name of it.

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Then you don't know much about it (I'm being polite). Ever heard of Cu Chulain? Lugh of the Long Arm? The Sidhe? (pr. shee, as in ban sidhe, or banshee for the illiterati) The Tuatha de Danaan? The Fomoire? The Firbolg? Balor the necromancer? Dana? The Dagda Mor?

Or perhaps you've heard of Fragarach, the mythical sword after which the French modeled Arthur's Excalibur (Yes, the Arthurian 'legends' are French romantic fiction)

Ireland has one of the richest mythologies on the planet. Anyone interested in fantasy fiction should read them. Anyone who plans to write fantasy fiction without at least reading Irish, Scottish, Norse, Greek, Egyptian and Assyrian mythology may as well skip Tolkien too, and stick with D&D, Disney and Hallmark. There's nothing clever about ignorance, but it's certainly popular.

I agree about Irish myth. It's as rich as it gets.

On reading, I think short fiction is a good idea, especially such magazines as Realms of Fantasy, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and collections of short stories by various fantasy writers.

You can often get a feel for what's coming faster from reading short fiction than from reading novels. Short stories tend to stay ahead of the tred just a bit, while novels lag behind.

Adam, this whole thread could be moved to the SF/F board but there are some folks who don't, as a rule, frequent both. Only your original post and my reply were copied. None of the others are duplicates.

If you'd really prefer it be moved, say so, and emerald or I could do it but I think you'd miss out on some feedback.

More non-mighty-thewed-barbarian fantasy:

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0553585495/ref=nosim/madhousemanor/" target="_new">Swordspoint</a> by Ellen Kushner. (Doesn't have any wizards, no magic, no elves ... but it's sure-enough fantasy.)

More non-Tolkien fantasy: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1582344167/ref=nosim/madhousemanor/" target="_new">Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel</a> by Susanna Clarke. Napoleonic-era fantasy.

Here's a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/opinion/31clarke.html?ei=5090&en=4bfe7ebcd890d575&ex=1256965200&partner=rssuserland&pagewanted=all&position=" target="_new">short story</a> by Susanna Clarke.


Or my own <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312869886/ref=nosim/madhousemanor/" target="_new">The Apocalypse Door</a>, a modern-day fantasy thriller set in New York City, where our hero (armed with his perfect Catholic faith and a .45) takes on the powers of Satan and the Mushrooms from Dimension X.

Anyone who plans to write fantasy fiction without at least reading Irish, Scottish, Norse, Greek, Egyptian and Assyrian mythology may as well skip Tolkien too, and stick with D&D, Disney and Hallmark. There's nothing clever about ignorance, but it's certainly popular.

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I agree that ignorance is quite popular - I mean, just look at who got re-elected.

At the same time, your list of mythologies completely ignores hundreds of other cultures. Why Irish and not Japanese? Why Assyrian and Egyptian, and not Bushongo and Bantu? To preference one nation's culture over another's is just as ignorant.

If you meant to include all nations, then I'd have to say that I don't have the time to read through thousands upon thousands of European, American, African, Asian, Pacifican and Australian legends just to consider myself worthy of writing a fantasy novel. Especially not when I'm already busy reading other fantasy novels, non-fantasy novels, and books on philosophy, history, religion, and anything else my research requires.

More important, in my opinion, is to consider the pervasiveness of human myth, and the sort of depth it can lend to a fantasy novel. In that case, the specific content of the myth itself doesn't matter so much as the form.

Even if I've never read Irish, Egyptian, Ojibwa, Bushongo or Bantu myths, as long as I know the forms that myths take on, and the human needs that myths fulfill, I can use that knowledge to flesh out the world in my own stories.

To this end, a good place to start would be studies by the likes of Carl Jung, Edith Hamilton and John Gardner. Not everyone agrees with their specific assessments, but the idea that myths have patterns that repeat themselves throughout different cultures is very valid.

I've never read any Dinka mythology, but I'd be willing to bet that they've got myths that discuss the creation of the world, the founding of the nation, the making of a great king or hero, etc.

So don't feel compelled to read this myth or that because it's deemed important by someone else. Read the ones that interest you.

'i thought ireland had a grand total of one loose national myth. it was some unreadable thing i had to put down after about 20 pages. i forget the name of it.'

'Then you don't know much about it (I'm being polite).' actually, i thought you were being a rude ass, but maybe it's just late and i didn't read it right. when i said 'i thought', that, if anything, invites a pleasant reply, not 'you ignorant dumb ass.' and you conveniently failed to see the part about 'loose national myth,' which doesn't mean banshees and the lot.

king arthur is a french romance? where do you get this from? mallory, if i recall, wrote it in french while imprisoned in france. while it may have been influenced by certain french stories, it's presumed to have its factual basis in england. france can't lay claim to excalibur, one of a score of magic swords in european mythology, or horns of plenty (the grail), or any of the other more renowned elements which are shared by europe, not specifically france. merlin himself, many believe, was based on an actual hermit, most likely british (i want to say welch). wolfram's 'parcival' and the like indeed added to the stories, basically at the behest of women of the court. these are the actual romances, thus its name, the romantic era, and, yeah, those probably *were* mostly for french royals and nobles, but i'm just offering supposition on that.