fantasy novels.

i'm still gonna seek out those mole books.

Sean Russell swans’ war series is excellent. River-centric high fantasy. I think he may have stopped writing but these deserved to be a big hit.

If you want an early 80s gem with the usual trappings elves wizards etc, but taking inspiration from wind and the willows and dickens rather than Tolkien, The Elfin Ship by James P Blaylock. There’s two sequels that aren’t quite as good (he quickly moved on to writing several masterpieces of Southern California magic realism through the 80s and early 90s but is today pigeonholed as the “godfather of steampunk” based on the admittedly wonderful Homunculus and its sequels)

I’ve been too depressed to list for several months now but somehow this thread has coaxed words out of me

*post, not list

nice to see you here!

like the olden tymes of yore.

Hi Scott <3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncton_Wood

imagine tryin to convince someone how much these books will wreck you

they out of print? trying to find new copies don't see any...

Following ilx discussion of Alan Garner a while back, I just now finished reading The Owl Service for the second time in the past week, which never happens---second time was much quicker, though mainly because the whole thing was still lodged, incl. what I couldn't quite remember or forget, to near-quote one character on another, sympathetically and not: that's just how it is these days, in the book and out, to some extent---but mainly, I knew and kinda knew, with a squint sometimes, what had happened, was happening still, is happening still, anywhere and anytime I open the book, the real and modern and fantasy and ancient, recurring and mixing---I found that I did understand it/take it in (incl. class and English and Welsh and gender and generational and generative and other identity markers, clashes, proximities) a bit better for having read it the first time, also recognizing again and moreso the questions that will never be answered: my struggles somewhat mirroring/aping those of the characters, although they have it worse, or most of them do.
Enjoyed the author's afterword as well (btw, he mentions the TV adaptation, filmed in the valley of his inspiration---any of you watched it?), reminding me of enjoying Lethem's afterword to We Have Always Lived In The Castle, another rec if you want to take it as fantasy, personal mythology.

TV version seemed underwhelming to me, they didn't capture the atmosphere of the book very well and the casting was odd.

There's also this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elidor#Television_adaptation
And this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Shift_(novel)#Television_adaptation_and_popular_culture

neither of which I've seen. Elidor quite infamous in the UK for scaring the shit out of any kids that did see it though, in true British style.

Plus these, although The Moon of Gomrath doesn't seem to have been adapted at all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weirdstone_of_Brisingamen#Adaptations

is the owl service the one that takes a lot from the Mabinogion? that keeps cropping up here and there to the point where i feel i should read it.

(yes - The Owl Service interprets a story from the Welsh Mabinogion, namely, portions of the story of "Math Son of Mathonwy.")

strangely, published in the US as "Maths son of Mathsonwy"

Blurb for this edition:

In his earlier novels, The Weirdstone of Brisingstone, The Moon of Gomroth and Elidor, Garner used the sucesssful formula of the spilling of the twilight world of ancient legend into the present day. Here he uses the formula again, with an added depth, and even more compulsive terror-haunted beauty.

i pulled the trigger on the first three mole books. etsy was the only place i could find a good deal for the first three books! someone should really reissue them.

enjoy

they are pretty dense, iirc, you wont blitz through them too quickly

What other Garner should I read? All of it?

Yes, there's only nine novels (ten if you include The Stone Book Quartet which is four interlinked stories) and none of them are long. Plus what I've read of the short fiction is equally good. Haven't read anything from the 'Other Books' section from the link below, I'm guessing they're mostly for younger readers? Plus Where Shall We Run To? is a memoir.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Garner#Works

Thanks! Am I ready for Red Shift---?

Emma Donoghue recalls reading Red Shift as a teenager: "It looked like other Garners I had read: a children's fantasy. But Red Shift, with its passionately bickering adolescent lovers and vertiginous plunges through the wormhole of time, shook me to my core every time I read it, and still does... Garner makes the past numinous, terrifyingly real: anything but passed."[42]

Finished Red Shift six months ago and still have it on my desk because I'm convinced I'm going to solve the cipher.

i pulled the trigger on the first three mole books. etsy was the only place i could find a good deal for the first three books! someone should really reissue them.

― scott seward, Saturday, 5 October 2024 23:03 (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

enjoy

they are pretty dense, iirc, you wont blitz through them too quickly

― tuah dé danann (darraghmac), Saturday, 5 October 2024 23:12 (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

can scott do a mole book reax thread where he shares his trauma and everyone who read them earlier relives their own trauma

Stroke it Mole

you guys are scaring me!

looking forward though.

W-what are the---mole books---?

one who must ask has not yet achieved stoneness

(duncton books, William horwood)

kirstein (the steerswoman) (trilogy, I think?)

― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Wednesday, September 18, 2024 5:57 PM (three weeks ago)

It's planned as 7 books and she has written 4. There hasn't been a new book in two decades and her next book is not in that series.

i dont want to come across as harsh but that should be prison time tbh

I was discussing the other day that this sort of thing isn't uncommon at all. There's tons of writers who've had an ending for their series in their heads for decades but demanding day jobs, right issues, depression, illness, other book series and many other things get in the way. If anyone should be punished it should be editors who keep asking for trilogies, quartets or more and don't allow the writer to complete them if the early books sell poorly.

otm

i said what i said

That's a lot of dead people in jail.

I think it comes with the territory, if series epics are what you like to write then there's a very high probability that you won't finish them all, or even one of them.

It seems like there's quite a lot of writers who do series that consist of standalones and their fans don't know how many further books were intended. I just found out that Gormenghast was planned as at least 5 books.

can scott do a mole book reax thread where he shares his trauma and everyone who read them earlier relives their own trauma

― Tim F, Tuesday, 8 October 2024 02:15 (four weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

genuinely seeking an update scott

i love those books fiercely but jesus christ they tore me to bits

haha, sorry, didn't see this. i'm reading those daniel woodrell books first and then it will be mole winter. i'm just in a groove with the woodrell stuff. inspiring to me. but i'll get in a mole hole before you know it!

you need not sound so enthusiastic we are only waiting for your devastation

i am still a little frightened...

yes. correct approach.

is The Black Company a fun read at all? I see mookieproof described it as “military porn” upthread and I think I could be down for some of that in a dark fantasy setting.

Someone here liked it. I read a bit of the first book and thought it was okay, but maybe it wasn’t quite my thing.

I tried it, having heard people rave about it, but it's a bit try-hard. Not terrible writing, but frequently unpleasant and with deus ex machina magic stuff that can do whatever the plot demands at the time. Didn't bother past the end of book 1.

ie it was mostly the opposite of fun

i would send someone to joe abercrombie instead, easier read if nothing else

ty all

started 'red shift'; was not into it

becoming ever more certain that i will never ever be happy enough to dare reading about the moles

look honestly maybe yeah check yourself prior to launching in

decided to try Tanith Lee, picked up The Wars Of Vis at a thrift store, I'm like 15-20 pages in and holy moly that is a lot of proper names to remember already

oh i cant play scrabble anymore i just cant not see the names of magical kingdoms etc everywhere

thought i might re-read lord of the rings after 30+ years but i'm 100+ pages in and it's so fucking boring

the hobbits are so chatty and fearful and sing-songy and have barely even left the shire yet! and they've gone over hill and dale and cut through fields and missed their second breakfasts and all! and the asshole elves and gandalf are all like, you should be absolutely terrified but i shall never tell you what of or why

in a bit of a bad mood today but nevertheless i kind of hate them all