I think I’d go with the Fafrd and Mouser series, the Black Company series, the Game of Thrones series, Howard’s Conan stories, and I’ll toss in Gene Wolfe’s Executioner (not the right name) series.
But if it’s fantasy that isn’t sword and sorcery fantasy, I’d want to include some urban fantasy like The Last Coin by Blaylock and Tim Powers’ stuff.
Gene Wolfe’s “executioner” series – do you mean the Book of the New Sun, set in the far far future with the apprentice torturer as the hero?
Yeah, that’s the one.
A Night in the Lonesome October - Roger Zelazny
Corum - Michael Moorcock
Memory, Sorrow and Thorn Series- Tad Williams
The Drenai Saga - David Gemmel
Blue Moon Rising - Simon R. Green
The lord of the rings is what stands out in my mind.
I liked “Magician” by Feist, as well as the “Mistress of the Empire” books he co-wrote with an author whose name I forgot. I got into the books mainly because of “Betrayal at Krondor”. His early books are the best in my mind, and the get progressively worse with each new book he writes.
Pratchett novels are always good, but having read every book by the man I must say that I don’t see how he can continue to come up with fresh ideas for another Discworld book. The series have gotten terribly stale. I think it’s time he killed off the Discworld and retired/moved on to something different.
Actually the best fantasy for me at the moment is Willam King’s Trollslayer series. Lots of action, fairly different setting and entertaining characters and character development. It’s not going to go down in history as great literature, but it is very, very enjoyable. The author webpage can be found at http//:www.trollslayer.net
I’ve never read C.S. Lewis’s stuff, since I read that his stuff reflected his Christianity more overtly than Tolkien’s, but missing it has probably been a real omission.
Other stuff:
Hmm. . . you might want to try the Narnia stuff, Desslock. All seven books can be read easily in a weekend; they’re small and fast, if you’re a fast reader.
As an adult, you can navigate around the Christian references. Knowing they’re there, you can appreciate them as an interesting and open political slant–although Lewis actually wrote them into the story, instead of just slathering them in the way other authors do with their own beliefs. Anyway, Aslan only has a critical starring part in a couple of the books.
If you appreciate Tolkien, I think you should try them. Because he was writing for children, Lewis underwrote-- and he gets some good results with basic Anglo-Saxon prose. If someone has the books and is at home right now (Bub?), type in the Werewolf’s speech from Prince Caspian (I think).
But there is an undeniable invention, and some non-stereotypical takes on stereotypical fantasy. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Silver Chair are pretty ‘rollicking yarns’, taken in that spirit.
Kevin, I’d be happy to do this but, like Desslock, I’ve never actually read the Narnia books. (The early “Turkish Delight” reference I made came from a BBC production of the first book - it might have been a cartoon.) I think I was “passed them”, reading-level-wise, when I finally discovered them. So I left them to my little brother and went on to stuff luke Ursula K. LeGuin.
I’ve been revisiting a lot of children’s books lately though so I’ve been meaning to pick those up.
Ah, well, then, I’m sure that you’d like them, Andrew.
The passage from Prince Caspian was less impressive than I had remembered it, but here it is:
(The kids from The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe have returned to Narnia to discover that hundreds of years have passed since their last visit. They take up the battle to restore the land, and must decide along the way who are still allies and who has fallen to evil, and there is much dissension among the nominal allies. Nikabrik the Dwarf brings two strangers to the council.)
“That is all most interesting and–er–satisfactory,” said Master Cornelius. “I think I now know what you are, madam. Perhaps your other friend, Nikabrik, would give some account of himself?”
A dull grey voice at which Peter’s flash crept replied, “I’m hunger. I’m thirst. Where I bite, I hold till I die, and even after my death they must cut out my mouthful from my enemy’s body and bury it with me. I can fast a hundred years and not die. I can drink a river of blood and not burst. Show me your enemies.”
I may have to reread them again now. They are earnest and effortlessly epic.
The Christian themes in the Narnia books would probably bother me more if Lewis didn’t also include all sorts of decidedly non-Christian stuff from every corner of Western mythology. As it stands, they really don’t read like the overt Christian allegories that some people make them out to be, at least not to me. I rather like them.
The Christian stuff in the Narnia books didn’t bother me much… but then, I was (nominally) a Christian myself when I read them. I do recall a couple of overt things – the Aslan/Christ parallels are pretty apparent in places, and in general that character gets rather preachy. Also, there are a couple of satires of atheists – i.e., when the evil queen in “The Silver Chair” tries to convince our heroes that there is no sun and no surface world; or when a bunch of bad-tempered dwarves in “The Last Battle” insist that they are still in a mangy barn despite the splendors around them.
(spoilers)
The Last Battle is probably the most overtly “Christian” of the books, what with its apocalyptic scenario. There is a very odd “Platonic” ending with the characters, led by Reepicheep, heading “upward and inward” to ever-more-perfect Narnias. I guess it’s as alluring a vision of Heaven as I have ever seen presented (beats sitting on a cloud singing Hosannas all day long), but it still seems very strange…
(end spoilers)
Anyway, Lewis is a delightful writer and his imagination was wondrously fertile. I already mentioned the chapter about Charn in “The Magician’s Nephew,” but there are other great scenes in the books. I’ve always loved the first time Lucy steps out through the wardrobe into the snowy Narnia landscape… it’s just a completely captivating moment. I love the bit in “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” when Lucy is looking down through the water at a whole undersea world, complete with warriors and kings and roads and cities. (I think of that scene whenever I’m walking on water in Morrowind and see a Dreugh below the waves, looking up at me.) Or the “Wood Between the Worlds” in “The Magician’s Nephew.” Or when 2 of the kids (Jill and Eustace, I think) take a ride on the back of a centaur at the end of “The Silver Chair.” Or the first time we see the city of Tashbaan in “The Horse and his Boy.” (Though Lewis implies that the inhabits of quasi-Muslim Calormen worship the “wrong” god, he is still able to respect the glories of their civilization.)
For those who fear they are too old to read the Narnia books now, I’d recommend them anyway. The best children’s literature (i.e. Narnia, the Hobbit, Charlotte’s Web, etc.) is usually readable for adults as well. Age 10-13 or so is probably the best time to encounter Narnia, but better late than never.
A couple of other children’s fantasy books that I remember fondly, come to think of it, are “Half Magic” and “Magic By the Lake.”
Skipping books - staying with 5 authors:
George R.R. Martin
Stephen Donaldson
Guy G. Kay - If you have not tried him go find Tigana right now.
Steven Erikson - Only available in UK - Malazan Books of the Fallen
Tad Williams
These are modern authors whose books I buy the minute they hit hardcover and take home drooling from the book store.