Spider Star
The human colony on the planet Argo has long explored and exploited the technology left behind by an extinct alien race. But then an archaeology team accidentally activates a terrible weapon...
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"Seldom does a storytelling talent come along as potent and fully mature as Mike Brotherton. His complex characters take you on a voyage that is both fiercely credible and astonishingly imaginative. This is Science Fiction."
-- David Brin"Star Dragon is terrific fare, offering readers a fusion of hard science and grand adventure."
-- Locus Magazine"Star Dragon is steeped in cosmology, the physics of interstellar travel, exobiology, artificial intelligence, bioscience. Brotherton, author of many scientific articles in refereed journals, has written a dramatic, provocative, utterly convincing hard science sf novel that includes an ironic twist that fans will love."
-- Booklist starred review"Readers hungry for the thought-provoking extrapolation and rigorous technical detail of old-fashioned hard SF are sure to enjoy astronomer Brotherton's first novel."
-- Publishers Weekly"Mike Brotherton, himself a trained astrophysicist, combines the technical acuity and ingenuity of Robert Forward with the ironic, postmodern stance and style of M. John Harrison. In this, his debut novel, those twin talents unite to produce a work that is involving on any number of levels. It's just about all you could ask for in a hardcore SF adventure."
-- Paul di Fillippo, SCI-FI.COM
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My Favorite Fantasy Novels/Series
January 19th, 2009
I read fantasy and like it. It isn’t always my first choice, but I really love a great fantasy book. While there are some deeply profound and moving fantasy novels, I look to fantasy especially for escapism. I still expect it to be self-consistent but I don’t have to tear my hair out over it the way I do sometimes with science fiction. My dad tends not to like fantasy at all — his ability to suspend disbelief is somewhat limited — although he can be tricked into reading it and liking it sometimes.
It occurred to me that I would be interested in seeing what science fiction fantasy writers like, and on the flip side I’m going to suggest some of my favorites and why I like them. Some warnings and caveats first. I tend not to like many of the big fat fantasies (BFFs), and like but do not love urban fantasy or paranormal romance. Also, because my fantasy reading is more limited, I’m likely missing some books I’d really love. George R. R. Martin is a favorite writer of mine, but I haven’t read his Song of Ice and Fire books. I haven’t read C. S. Lewis. I haven’t read Philip Pullman. Highly praised and purchased writers I’ve read but do not love (detest in just a few cases) include Raymond Feist, Guy Gavriel Kay, J. R. R. Tolkien, Tim Powers, Terry Brooks, and Terry Goodkind. I always meant to read a little Robert Jordan, but that’s apparently impossible so I skipped him.
Here are some fantasy reads I have loved, in no particular order. Some books marketed as horror are going to sneak onto the list, too.
I read and loved the Harry Potter books. Heard of them?
I wrote about Eric Nylund’s forthcoming fantasy Mortal Coils last month. I think it’s going to be a fantastic series. Shades of Harry Potter, as well as one of Gaiman’s best…
American Gods is a great but flawed book in my opinion. I’d have cut the length way down and eased up on the interim sections, for starters. After reading Sandman it wasn’t super original to me, but it was still a great read.
Replay is contemporary fantasy involving time travel of a sort, without explanation. It’s an inspiration for Groundhog Day, a great movie.
Glimpses is another contemporary story of unexplained time travel, about rock music, and more. I remember being blown away by the audacity to write this sort of book and deal with Brian Wilson, Jim Morrison, and Jimi Hendrix as characters. It was cool.
A Wizard of Earthsea is a timeless classic and seems so perfect.
Zelazny is one of my favorite science fiction writers, and I enjoy his fantasies as well.
Stephen King is a fine writer, and I very much enjoyed the opening books of his Dark Tower series. I confess I haven’t gotten around to finishing it, but intend to.
Master of the Five Magics isn’t the best fantasy I ever read. It’s rather pedestrian in a lot of ways, but I really respect the hell out of the carefully constructed and logical magic systems here.
I love Glen Cook’s work. It’s sparse. It’s cynical. It’s funny. It’s moving.
Dan Simmons is a favorite writer of mine, and whether he’s writing science fiction, fantasy, or horror, I’ve enjoyed it. Carrion Comfort is a great read.
A similar sort of book is Brian Lumley’s Necroscope, contemporary fantasy bridging into horror and science fiction.
Forgotten Beasts of Eld is another one of those perfect fantasies, like a crystal or a flower. Poetic and magical.
Soon I Will Be Invincible is a very recent read, and while I consider superheroes their own genre and this particular book fun but not quite meeting my expectations, I really wanted to include it and recommend you buy it if it all appeals to you.
This is a masterpiece of dark fantasy and I found it by turns magical and chilling.
I had the privilege of listening to Bill Spencer read Zod Wallop in draft form in a workshop and it is a great book. It deserved more attention than it got.
Thomas Covenant. Some people hate it. Some love it. I’m one of the latter. Leper. Outcast. Unclean. Indeed.
Pern. Supposedly Pern is science fiction, but I never saw it. I only read the first three books and liked them well enough, but not well enough to read about the harpers and the drummers and everyone else on Pern.
Based on this list, or based on what you think a hard science guy would like in a fantasy, any suggestions? I have no doubt that when it comes to the fantasy field, there are huge swaths of good books I am ignorant about.
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Richard Morgan’s Steel Remains was a good read. I didn’t expect to like it but I think it worked well. I prefer Sci-Fi so I’ll be trying out his Sci-Fi books soon.
James Barclay’s Cry of the Newborn was a little too long but engaging enough that I will read the second part, Shout for the Dead. I love the characterisation the Raven series – the A Team of fantasy LOL
Check out Mary Gentle’s Ash: A Secret History.
Creatively twisted high Middle Ages alt history/fantasy (with a funky bit of near-future SF thrown in as well), and one of the best things written in the last twenty years.
As one of her blurb writers put it, “Mary Gentle is an author who knows her history and isn’t afraid to mess with it”. She also writes some of the best characters that I’ve ever seen.
It was released in some places as a four-book series, but there’s an omnibus version floating around as well.
How about China Mieville, especially Perdido Street Station. Set in a fantastical city, but not what I think of as urban.
“I’m not a leftist trying to smuggle in my evil message by the nefarious means of fantasy novels. I’m a science fiction and fantasy geek. I love this stuff. And when I write my novels, I’m not writing them to make political points. I’m writing them because I passionately love monsters and the weird and horror stories and strange situations and surrealism, and what I want to do is communicate that. But, because I come at this with a political perspective, the world that I’m creating is embedded with many of the concerns that I have…”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Mi%C3%A9ville
China’s work is on my radar. Been meaning to get around to reading him, but he seems to be a more challenging fantasist and I often hit the fantasy for escape rather than for a challenge. I bought my ex-wife several of his books as presents over the years, and they’re now out of the house, requiring a little more effort on my part.
On the urban fantasy thing…while I enjoy them occasionally, I rarely find myself urging anyone to read books that read like Buffy, full of werewolves and vampires running around night clubs and such. They seem to have a lot of devoted fans, but just not my passion.
I’ll take a look at Mary Gentle, Richard Morgan, and James Barclay, too. Hmm, and it occurs to me that I’ve got a kindle I need to fill up…good suggestions!
Name of the Wind , by Patrick Rothfuss. Read my rave-review here.
Caveat: It’s the first book of a trilogy, and ends rather abruptly, and the next book is only due in june.
Caveat’s caveat: But according to the author, the two other books are already written, so no danger of them not coming out.
Also: I think “Name of the Wind” is the best fantasy book I’ve ever read, and I have read many, including nearly all of those mentioned by you above.
I’ve exchanged email with Patrick and have heard great things about the book. I tend to wait until everything is out before starting because I don’t like to wait in between. Harry Potter was torture.
Your loss 😉 Although I must admit that my cries of despair echoed over Lausanne when he pushed the publishing date of the next installment to June!
Oh, just thought of another writer you might try: L. E. Modesitt. He writes science fiction and fantasy, and I love his “Recluce”-series. Almost all of the books are self-contained or at the most duologies, so there is no fear of having to read all thirteen or so of them. I especially enjoyed “The Magic Engineer”.
His “Spellsong”-Trilogy is also nice.
I often hit the fantasy for escape rather than for a challenge.
If you’re after silly escapism, Mary Gentle’s Grunts is worth checking out as well. It’s an hysterically funny parody of the classic Tolkein/D&D fantasy tropes, told from the point of view of the orcs…
Ellen Kushner’s Thomas the Rhymer and Swordspoint are also very much worth the read.
Grunts sounds fun, and in that vein I’ve been meaning to read the Goblin Hero books by Jim C. Hines.
I didn’t care much for Swordspoint. I mean, I think it’s a good book for the type of book it is, but it didn`t do much for me. Political maneuvering, court intrigue, no real magic elements. Sort of a Pride and Prejudice with swords, which is an improvement for me, but not enough of one.
I can understand not liking Swordspoint; I liked it, but it’s a fairly specialised sorta book.
I wouldn’t give up on Ellen Kushner just yet, though; Thomas the Rhymer does a damn good job at retelling that old story, and as a third of the book is spent in Elfland there’s all the magic you could want…
Zelazny!! I love too many of his books to mention – and the Amber series is certainly up there! I only read the original five books – but I’ve read the first two several times.
How about Philip Jose Farmer? I loved the Riverworld series, of course, but also the World of Tiers series. And I’m pretty sure Zelazny was a fan – and influenced by this stuff.
Farmer is one of my all time favorites, too. Riverworld and World of Tiers are great…science fiction. I couldn’t think of any of his straight-up fantasies I wanted to put on the list.
Ooh…I’ve been wittering on for a while, and I’ll stop soon, but I remembered one more book that I must recommend.
Bruce Fergusson’s The Shadow of his Wings. It’s a fantastically good dragon book; possibly the best ever done.
I’m always up for a really good dragon book!
[…] My Favorite Fantasy Novels/Series […]
I haven’t read any fantasy in quite some time, but my my all-time favorites would have to be Zelazny’s Amber series (original five; the rest were not too good) and C.S. Friedman’s Dark Sun trilogy.
Ugh….. I mis-typed that! I meant Friedman’s Coldfire Trilogy. (Thinking of too many different things right now, and getting them mixed up.)
Damn, Bill, I forgot about Friedman! I loved those books. Really cool. SF sort of fixup, but really fantasy.