Recommended Fantasy Books

31 Mar 2012 11:33

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These range from merely good reads to really outstanding books; but rather than trying to rate each one, or (what would be more to the point) explain my ratings, I've merely listed them without any particular indication of rank. Horror novels are included here for want of anyplace better to put them. Titles are added as they occur to me.

Links on titles are generally to my review or briefer comments, if I have any.

See also Fantasy; Science Fiction Recommendations.

• Joe Abercrombie, The First Law [comments with spoilers]
  1. The Blade Itself
  2. Before They Are Hanged
  3. Last Argument of Kings
• Saladin Ahmed, Throne of the Crescent Moon
• Kage Baker
  1. The Anvil of the World
  2. The House of the Stag
  3. The Bird of the River
• John Barnes, One for the Morning Glory
• Peter Beagle
  • I See by My Outfit [Not fantasy, and I have no idea what the title means, but lovely]
  • The Last Unicorn
• Elizabeth Bear
  • New Amsterdam
  • The Eternal Sky
    1. Range of Ghosts
• Robert Jackson Bennett, Mr. Shivers [Author's comments]
• K. J. Bishop, The Etched City
• Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes
• Patricia Briggs
  • Dragon Bones and Dragon Blood
  • Raven's Shadow and Raven's Strike
  • "Mercy Thompson" series
    1. Moon Called
    2. Blood Bound
    3. Iron Kissed
    4. Bone Crossed
    5. Silver Borne
    6. River Marked
  • Cry Wolf
• Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
• Steven Brust
  • The Vlad Taltos books [Enjoyable so far --- there're a good many more in the series, which hasn't ended, and will probably amount to seventeen books in all. Brust may be the last writer of real talent to be a follower of Trotsky.]
    • Jhereg
    • Yendi
    • Teckla
  • To Reign in Hell [Making sense of Milton; see under Demonology]
  • The Khaavren books [Faithful pastiches of Dumas, consistently fit into a world Brust had already made up for the Vlad Taltos books --- and more fun than I remember Dumas being.]
    • The Phoenix Guards
    • Five Hundred Years After
• Steven Brust and Megan Lindholm, The Gypsy
• Lois McMaster Bujold
  • The Curse of Chalion
  • The Paladin of Souls
  • The Spirit Ring
  • The Hallowed Hunt
  • The Sharing Knife:
    1. Beguilement
    2. Legacy
    3. Passage
    4. Horizon
• Emma Bull, War for the Oaks
• Robert W. Chambers, The King in Yellow [online]
• Suzy McKee Charnas, The Vampire Tapestry
• C. J. Cherryh
  • The Dreaming Tree [=The Dreamstone, plus The Tree of Swords and Jewels, plus Cherryh's corrections and ending]
  • Fortress in the Eye of Time [I think the story ends best here, with the first book; certainly the sequels go downhill, and the last one I read, Fortress of Dragons, had me wondering whether my copy was defectively printed and missing about, oh, two hundred pages. Sadly, no.]
  • The Gate of Ivrel
  • The Paladin
• Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
• B. W. Clough, The Dragon of Mishbil
• Seamus Cooper, The Mall of Cthulhu
• Avram Davidson [General Review: Avram Davidson's Afterlife]
  • Vergil Magus (unfinished):
    • The Phoenix and the Mirror
    • Vergil in Averno [Anyone have a copy they'd be willing to sell?]
  • Peregrine: Primus and Secundus
  • The Enquiries of Dr. Estzerhazy
  • Adventures in Unhistory [Essays on legendary subjects]
  • The Avram Davidson Treasury [The best of his numerous short-story collections]
• Avram Davidson and Grania Davis, The Boss in the Wall: A Treatise on the House Devil
• Pamela Dean, Tam Lin
• L. Sprague de Camp
• Stephen R. Donaldson [I read all his Thomas Covenant books, and cannot know imagine why, except for adolescent masochism; these are utterly different, and, to my mind, vastly better]
  • The Mirror of Her Dreams
  • A Man Rides Through
• Amanda Downum
  1. The Drowning City
  2. The Bone Palace
  3. The Kingdoms of Dust
• Doyle and MacDonald
  • Literature of the Fantastic [Electronic texts of classic fantastic stories]
  • Knight's Wyrd
• Lord Dunsany
  • The King of Elfland's Daughter
  • The Pegana books:
    • The Book of Wonder
    • The Sword of Welleran
  • The Shadow Valley books:
    • Don Rodriguez
    • The Charwoman's Shadow
• Rosemary Edghill (a.k.a. eluki bes shahar)
  • The Sword of Maidens' Tears
  • The Cup of Morning Shadows
  • The Cloak of Night and Daggers
• Harlan Ellison, see under science fiction
• Charles Finney, The Circus of Dr. Lao
• John M. Ford
  • Casting Fortune
  • The Dragon Waiting [Almost an alternate history of Renaissance Europe, except that magic works.]
  • The Last Hot Time
• Diana Pharaoh Francis
  1. The Cipher
  2. The Black Ship
• Esther Friesner, Yesterday We Saw Mermaids
• Neil Gaiman
  • American Gods
  • The Sandman
• Randall Garrett
  • Murder and Magic
  • Too Many Magicians
  • Lord Darcy Investigates
• Mary Gentle
  • Rats and Gargoyles
  • The Book of Ash [I've only seen the first half of this]
    1. A Secret History: The Book of Ash, #1
    2. Carthage Ascendant: The Book of Ash, #2
• Felix Gilman
  • Thunderer
  • The Half-Made World [Perhaps the best fantasy western ever]
• Charlaine Harris, Dead Until Dark [series fatigue sets in rapidly after that]
• P. C. Hodgell
  1. God Stalk
  2. Dark of the Moon
  3. Seeker's Mask
  4. To Ride a Rathorn
• Barry Hughart
  1. Bridge of Birds
  2. The Story of the Stone
  3. Eight Skilled Gentlemen
• Diana Wynne Jones
  • Dark Lord of Derkholm
  • Deep Secret
  • Hexwood
  • The Tough Guide to Fantasyland [Review]
• Howard Andrew Jones, Desert of Souls
• Guy Gavriel Kay, The Lions of Al-Rassan
• Brian Keene and Nick Mamatas, The Damned Highway: Fear and Loathing in Arkham: A Savage Journey into the Heart of the American Nightmare
• Caitlín R. Kiernan
  • Threshold [Southern Gothic Lovecraftian horror, with Beowulf and trilobites]
  • Daughter of Hounds
  • The Red Tree
• Stephen King [What can I say? When he's good, he is good; but his novels, increasingly, need ruthless editing, which they do not, sadly, receive. The short stories remain excellent.]
  • The Dark Half
  • The Dark Tower:
    1. The Gunslinger
    2. The Drawing of the Three
    3. The Wastelands
    4. Wizard and Glass [Review]
    5. Wolves of the Calla
    6. Song of Susannah
    7. The Dark Tower ["There I will sing all their names..."]
  • Desperation
  • Everything's Eventual
  • Eyes of the Dragon
  • Four Past Midnight
  • Misery
  • Nightshift
  • Salem's Lot
  • The Shining
  • The Stand
  • Danse Macabre [Reflections on the horror genre]
• Stephen King and Peter Straub
  1. The Talisman
  2. The Black House
• Rosemary Kirstein
  1. Steerswoman's Road [=Steerswoman + The Outskirter's Secret]
  2. The Lost Steersman
  3. The Language of Power
• Ellen Kushner, Swordspoint
• Jay Lake
  1. Green
  2. Endurance
• Sarah Langan
  • The Keeper
  • The Missing, a.k.a. The Virus
• Sheridan LeFanu, Carmilla [After whom I once named a computer]
• Ursula K. Le Guin
  1. A Wizard of Earthsea
  2. The Tombs of Atuan
  3. The Farthest Shore
  4. Tehanu [This book caps the series, but it was written much later, and is very different from the others; I'm not sure how I feel about it.]
• Fritz Leiber
  • Conjure Wife
  • Our Lady of Darkness
• Megan Lindholm
  • The Wizard of the Pigeons
  • Luck of the Wheels
• Jane Lindskold, The Buried Pyramid
• Jeff Long, The Descent [A case could be made for this being science fiction, but anything with possession and Satan in it is fantasy in my book. I hesitate to recommend it, because it's got plot- and world-building- holes big enough to drive tanks through, but in the end I couldn't put it down, or put it out of my mind once I was done.]
• H. P. Lovecraft
  • At the Mountains of Madness [Arguably, however, this is pure science fiction]
  • The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
  • There are now many short story collections. One of the nicest is the one from the Library of America (edited by the great Peter Straub), which includes At the Mountains of Madness, but I have a soft-spot for the old one edited by August Derleth, rejoicing in the title Blood-curdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre, which I re-read so much as a boy that it literally disintegrated...
• Scott Lynch
  1. The Lies of Locke Lamora
  2. Red Seas Under Red Skies
• Elizabeth A. Lynn, Dragon's Winter
• R. A. MacAvoy
  • Tea with the Black Dragon [The sequel, Twisting the Rope, is good, but not nearly so good as Tea, and hard to find]
  • The Lens of the World:
    1. The Lens of the World
    2. King of the Dead
    3. Belly of the Wolf
• George R. R. Martin [This is the kind of multi-volume, multi-threaded fantasy epic which is supposed to be absolute dreck, at least by the end of the second lap-breaking book. Sadly, it is excellent fun. He just needs to write more!]
  1. A Game of Thrones
  2. A Clash of Kings
  3. A Storm of Swords
  4. A Feast for Crows
• A. Lee Martinez, Gil's All Fright Diner
• Misty Massey, Mad Kestrel
• Seanan McGuire, Discount Armageddon
• Patricia A. McKillip
  • Alphabet of Thorn
  • The Bell at Sealey Head
  • The Book of Atrix Wolfe
  • The Changeling Sea
  • The Forgotten Beasts of Eld
  • In the Forest of Serre
  • Od Magic
  • Ombria in Shadow
  • Riddle-Master [Originally published as a trilogy]
  • Solstice Wood
  • Song for the Basilisk
  • The Sorceress and the Cygnet and The Cygnet and the Firebird
  • The Tower at Stony Wood
  • Winter Rose
• Robin McKinley, Sunshine [As a wise man has said, "nearly perfect". I have a problem with the ending, but it'd be a massive spoiler to say what it is, so I'll bite my tongue.]
• Brian McNaughton, Throne of Bones [Imagine an even more twisted and pervy version of Clark Ashton Smith]
• Christopher Moore [No relation of my friend and sometime co-author, Cristopher Moore.]
  • Bloodsucking Fiends: a Love Story
  • Coyote Blue
  • Fluke, or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings
  • Island of the Sequined Love-Nun
  • The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove
  • Practical Demon-Keeping
  • The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror
• Richelle Mead, Succubus Blues
• Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden, Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire: An Illustrated Novel
• Moira J. Moore
  • Heroes at Risk
  • Heroes Return
• James Morrow
  • Bible Stories for Adults
  • Only Begotten Daughter [A smart Jewish girl from New Jersey, of course]
  • Towing Jehovah [When God dies, what happens to His Corpse?]
• Justine Musk, Blood Angel
• Garth Nix, Sabriel
• Naomi Novik
  1. His Majesty's Dragon
  2. Throne of Jade
  3. Black Powder War
  4. Empire of Ivory
• Paul Parks, A Princess of Roumania [Recommended by Henry Farrell]
• Victor Pelevin, The Sacred Book of the Werewolf
• Tim Powers, Declare
• Terry Pratchett
  • Discworld novels [merely my favorites among the ones I've read; alphabetical order]
    • The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
    • Carpe Jugulum
    • Feet of Clay
    • Guards! Guards!
    • Going Postal
    • A Hat Full of Sky
    • Hogfather [A delight "on many levels, not least of which is a deep reminder of the old blood-on-snow huge sweating bristly virile boar nightmare ice age aspects of Christmas" --- Bill Tozier]
    • Interesting Times
    • Jingo
    • Maskerade [Not for opera-lovers]
    • Monstrous Regiment
    • Mort
    • Men at Arms
    • Night Watch
    • Reaper Man
    • Small Gods
    • Soul Music
    • The Truth
    • Witches Abroad
    • Wyrd Sisters
    • Pyramids
    • Thief of Time
    • Thud!
    • The Wee Free Men
  • Nation
  • and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens
• Cherie Priest, Four and Twenty Blackbirds
• Christopher Priest, The Prestige
• Philip Pullman
  1. The Golden Compass = The Northern Lights
  2. The Subtle Knife
• Cat Rambo and Jeff VanderMeer, The Surgeon's Tale: And Other Stories
• Kat Richardson
  1. Greywalker
  2. Poltergeist
  3. Underground
  4. Vanished
  5. Labyrinth
• Phil Rickman
  • Curfew = Crybbe [Part rural comedy, part New Age satire, entirely a well-written, scary horror novel]
  • December [Way too much about John Lennon, but still good]
  • The Man in the Moss
  • Merrily Watkins series [Mysteries about a contemporary Church of England exorcist; addictive]
    1. The Wine of Angels
    2. Midwinter of the Spirit
    3. A Crown of Lights
    4. The Cure of Souls
    5. The Lamp of the Wicked
    6. Prayer of the Night Shepherd
    7. The Smile of a Ghost
    8. The Remains of An Altar
    9. Fabric of Sin
• Diana Rowland [Enjoyable hybrids of police procedurals and contemporary fantasy, with local color for southern Louisiana.]
  • My Life as a White Trash Zombie
  • 1. Mark of the Demon
    2. Blood of the Demon
    3. Secrets of the Demon
    4. Sins of the Demon
• Jennifer Safrey, Tooth and Nail
• Michelle Sagara
  1. Cast in Shadow
  2. Cast in Courtlight
  3. Cast in Secret
  4. Cast in Fury
  5. Cast in Silence
  6. Cast in Chaos
  7. Cast in Ruin
• Brandon Sanderson, The Final Empire [first book of a trilogy which I haven't finished]
• Charles Saunders,Imaro
• Will Shetterly
  • Cats Have No Lord
  • Elsewhere
  • Witchblood
• Trey Shiels [pseud. of Linda Nagata]
  1. The Dread Hammer
  2. Hepen the Watcher
• Susan Shwartz, Shards of Empire
• Dan Simmons
  • Carrion Comfort
  • Children of the Night [Really SF, but it's about vampires, and told like a horror novel]
  • Fires of Eden [Comic horror novel]
  • Song of Kali [Scary as hell, but also borderline racist]
  • The Terror
• Clark Ashton Smith, Complete Online Works
  • Zothique [One of the roots of the dying earth]
• Lucy A. Snyder
  • Installing Linux on a Dead Badger, and Other Oddities
  • Spellbent
  • Shotgun Sorceress
• Alexandra Sokoloff, The Harrowing
• Nancy Springer, Apocalypse
• Brian Stableford, The Last Days of the Edge of the World [" 'Vanity,' said the mirror in tones of mild reproof, 'is not nice.' "]
• Caroline Stevermer
  • A College of Magics
  • When the King Comes Home
• Peter Straub
  • Floating Dragon
  • Ghost Story
  • The Hellfire Club [Arguably, no supernatural elements at all]
  • In the Night Room
  • lost boy lost girl
  • Mr. X
  • Shadowland
• Charles Stross [Lovecraftian spy fiction]
  • The "Laundry" series
    1. The Atrocity Archive [Basically upbeat, with happy ending. The second half is free online now, actually.]
    2. The Jennifer Morgue
    3. The Fuller Memorandum
  • A Colder War [Deeply horrifying]
• J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings [Does it need to be said?]
• Henry Turtledove, Between the Rivers
• Catherynne Valente, The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden
• Jack Vance [Deserves his own page]
• Carrie Vaughn
  • "Kitty Norville" series
    1. Kitty and the Midnight Hour
    2. Kitty Goes to Washington
    3. Kitty Takes a Holiday
    4. Kitty and the Silver Bullet
    5. Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand
    6. Kitty Raises Hell
    7. Kitty's House of Horrors
    8. Kitty Goes to War
  • After the Golden Age
• Paula Volsky [Volsky might --- a bit unfairly --- be called a poor person's Jack Vance. Vance writes this sort of thing better, and has for about as long as Volsky's been alive, but she's still quite good, and, besides, what is one to do in the intervals between acquiring new books by Vance?]
  • The Curse of the Witch-Queen
  • The Gates of Twilight
  • The Grand Ellipse
  • Illusion
  • The Luck of Relian Kru
  • The White Tribunal
  • The Wolf of Winter
  • A trilogy (with no title that I know of) set in Lanthi Ume (roughly, Venice with the government of Naples, plus magicians):
    1. The Sorceror's Lady
    2. The Sorceror's Heir
    3. The Sorceror's Curse
• Lawrence Watt-Evans
  • The Lords of Dûs
    1. The Lure of the Basilisk
    2. The Seven Altars of Dûsarra
    3. The Sword of Bheleu
    4. The Book of Silence
  • The Misenchanted Sword
  • Touched by the Gods
• Martha Wells
  • City of Bones
  • The Wheel of the Infinite
  • A series of loosely connected novels in a common universe:
    • The Element of Fire [now free online]
    • The Death of the Necromancer
    • The Wizard Hunters
    • The Ships of Air
    • The Gate of Gods
  • 1. The Cloud Roads
    2. The Serpent Sea
• Elizabeth Willey
  • A Sorceror and a Gentleman
  • The Price of Blood and Honor
  • A Well-Favored Man
• Tad Williams
  • Tailchaser's Song
  • Memory, Sorrow, Thorn:
    1. The Dragonbone Chair
    2. The Stone of Farewell
    3. To Green Angel Tower
• Walter Jon Williams [Not what is usually meant by "urban fantasy," but rather much better: this has brains]
  1. Metropolitan
  2. City on Fire
• Gene Wolfe
  • The Devil in a Forest
  • Free Live Free
  • There Are Doors
• Gene Wolfe and Neil Gaiman, A Walking Tour of the Shambles (volume 16 of Little Walks for Sightseers)
• N. Lee Wood, Bloodrights
• Patricia Wrede [Wrede's books are all more or less pitched at younger readers (except The Seven Towers). Lucky kids.]
  • The Book of Enchantments
  • The Seven Towers
  • Duology in a Regency England with period squalor, and scholarly magic:
    1. Mairelon the Magician
    2. Magician's Ward
  • Lyra books [Now back in print in an omnibus, Shadows over Lyra, except for Raven]:
    • Shadow Magic
    • Daughter of Witches
    • The Harp of Imach Thyssel
    • The Raven Ring
• Roger Zelazny
  • The first Amber series (of five books) is the only one worth bothering with, and even then the first two books are by far the best:
    • Nine Princes in Amber
    • The Guns of Avalon
  • A Night in Lonesome October
  • The Unicorn Variations
• Roger Zelazny and Jane Lindskold, Lord Demon