fantasy novels.

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MORMON FANTASY. hmmmmm...okay.

scott seward, Saturday, 21 September 2024 14:21 (one month ago) link

i'm still gonna seek out those mole books.

scott seward, Saturday, 21 September 2024 14:22 (one month ago) link

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.

realistic pillow (Jon not Jon), Saturday, 21 September 2024 15:17 (one month ago) link

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)

realistic pillow (Jon not Jon), Saturday, 21 September 2024 15:22 (one month ago) link

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

realistic pillow (Jon not Jon), Saturday, 21 September 2024 15:23 (one month ago) link

*post, not list

realistic pillow (Jon not Jon), Saturday, 21 September 2024 15:23 (one month ago) link

nice to see you here!

scott seward, Saturday, 21 September 2024 15:25 (one month ago) link

like the olden tymes of yore.

scott seward, Saturday, 21 September 2024 15:25 (one month ago) link

Hi Scott <3

realistic pillow (Jon not Jon), Saturday, 21 September 2024 15:27 (one month ago) link

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

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

tuah dé danann (darraghmac), Saturday, 21 September 2024 21:56 (one month ago) link

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

scott seward, Saturday, 21 September 2024 22:34 (one month ago) link

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.

dow, Friday, 4 October 2024 01:52 (one month ago) link

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

RIO Speedwagon (Matt #2), Friday, 4 October 2024 12:12 (one month ago) link

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.

koogs, Friday, 4 October 2024 12:19 (one month ago) link

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

koogs, Friday, 4 October 2024 12:20 (one month ago) link

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

tuah dé danann (darraghmac), Friday, 4 October 2024 14:29 (one month ago) link

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.

What other Garner should I read? All of it? Think there was favorable ilx mention of Treacle Walker.

dow, Saturday, 5 October 2024 20:46 (one month ago) link

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 (one month ago) link

enjoy

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

tuah dé danann (darraghmac), Saturday, 5 October 2024 23:12 (one month ago) link

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

RIO Speedwagon (Matt #2), Sunday, 6 October 2024 02:13 (one month ago) link

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]
Think I need to check Emma Donoghue as well, going by that and links in there---right?

dow, Sunday, 6 October 2024 04:20 (one month ago) link

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

default damager (lukas), Sunday, 6 October 2024 04:57 (one month ago) link

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

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

Stroke it Mole

Ward Fowler, Tuesday, 8 October 2024 02:24 (four weeks ago) link

you guys are scaring me!

scott seward, Tuesday, 8 October 2024 02:46 (four weeks ago) link

looking forward though.

scott seward, Tuesday, 8 October 2024 02:47 (four weeks ago) link

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

dow, Tuesday, 8 October 2024 20:06 (four weeks ago) link

one who must ask has not yet achieved stoneness

tuah dé danann (darraghmac), Tuesday, 8 October 2024 20:09 (four weeks ago) link

(duncton books, William horwood)

tuah dé danann (darraghmac), Tuesday, 8 October 2024 20:10 (four weeks ago) link

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.

Robert Adam Gilmour, Thursday, 10 October 2024 20:23 (three weeks ago) link

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

tuah dé danann (darraghmac), Friday, 11 October 2024 22:35 (three weeks ago) link

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.

Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 12 October 2024 02:14 (three weeks ago) link

otm

mookieproof, Saturday, 12 October 2024 02:39 (three weeks ago) link

i said what i said

tuah dé danann (darraghmac), Saturday, 12 October 2024 09:09 (three weeks ago) link

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.

Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 12 October 2024 16:35 (three weeks ago) link


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