You wonder if anyone still reads these once well-known fantasy books.

[Peppa]

Not re-read The Crystal Cave in at least ten years but have re-read a number of times. Must pick it up again. Did a Mary Stewart 50s/60s romance thrillers re-read about three years ago. All stood up very well. Airs Above the Ground and so on.

I liked Mary Stewart's writing style so much that I even tried to read her other books. But these romance thrillers turned out to be very boring for me, even though they are well written. All the plots in them seem to be the same. I've read a couple of books, but I can't even tell you the names of the characters now.

Read Stewart , superb .

Recommend Sword At Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliffe

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro recommend that one every highly also The Dragon Lord by David Drake

The Buried Giant is a really great book.

I read John Gardner's Grendel beginning of this year. I had never come across it before. I'm not really a fan of King Arthur retellings (at least not after slogging through MZB's Mists of Avalon when a teenager), so Once and Future King is not something I'm inclined to pick up.

I've read David Eddings, Terry Brooks, Donaldson, McCaffrey and Raymond E. Feist novels as a teenager, but the never-ending-series syndrome kicked in and I simply gave up due to lack of time and inclination and well - lack of freshness/originality with the series. The authors' tend to recycle ideas etc and everything becomes stale. Raymond E. Feist's standalone novel Faerie Tale I found rather enjoyable and original (at the time - haven't re-read it in decades - don't know if it will stand up to me growing up).
​

I remember reading The Elenium and The Tamuli by David Eddings when I was very young, but I haven't read them since.
In fact, it was my father who first bought and read them, so the popularity of some books can be somewhat hereditary.
As for Donaldson, I read and enjoyed his books about the lonely girl who went through a mirror and ended up in another world. But then I started reading a different series of his books, and there was a rather ugly scene in the first book, so I stopped reading it. So he's definitely not my favourite author now.

 

[BAYLOR]

I liked Mary Stewart's writing style so much that I even tried to read her other books. But these romance thrillers turned out to be very boring for me, even though they are well written. All the plots in them seem to be the same. I've read a couple of books, but I can't even tell you the names of the characters now.

The Buried Giant is a really great book.

I remember reading The Elenium and The Tamuli by David Eddings when I was very young, but I haven't read them since.
In fact, it was my father who first bought and read them, so the popularity of some books can be somewhat hereditary.
As for Donaldson, I read and enjoyed his books about the lonely girl who went through a mirror and ended up in another world. But then I started reading a different series of his books, and there was a rather ugly scene in the first book, so I stopped reading it. So he's definitely not my favourite author now.

Kazuo is one hell of a wrter I may check out his other books

I read The Belgariad by Edding an loved it but everything else I tried to read by afterwards I just never like at all. He was on hit wonder. I. As for Donaldson, I despised Covenant after what he did to Lena.


You mentioned hat you like Roman themes books, two suggestions

The Clash Eagles Trilogy by Allan Small its alt world trilogy its the 13th and Rome has sent it legions to the Americas with aim of conquest while simutaniaouly facing off against with the Golden Horde which is at Romes doorstep.

Shadow over Ararat. 4 book series Thomas Harlan it's 600 AD. And and Rome still stands though the aid powerful dark sorcery which exacts a hefty price In this timeline Persia exists as a major power rival a to both the Eastern and Western empire. Juius Caesar has been resurrected to try to save Rome a growing threat and later Alexander the Great is bought back as well.

 

[hitmouse]

The Ishiguro does not really qualify as forgotten. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature fairly recently, for goodness sake, so I think his books continue to be printed and read.
Not exactly disposable pulp.

 

[Danny McG]

The various Pern novels seem to have gone that way, though I'm no expert (I didn't read them until well after their heyday). For the series that more or less codified and popularized the concept of dragon riders, you don't hear them talked about much anymore in most fantasy spaces.

Is it time to resurrect the old disputes about Pern?
Fantasy because there's dragons or Science Fiction because it's set thousands of years in the future on a world colonised by humans?

 

[ablackenedrose]

Fantasy because there's dragons or Science Fiction because it's set thousands of years in the future on a world colonised by humans?

I think that the distinction between the two genres is a bit hazy outside of extremely "hard" science fiction, so I'm happy to say yes to both.

 

[Karapace]

Does anyone still read John Gardner's Grendel and T. H. White's The Once and Future King?

These two might have become relatively obscure (if they have) because they are revisionist treatments of Beowulf and Thomas Malory's Morte, works that (I suspect) are less often read than formerly.

What are other fantasy books that seem to have fallen out of view or nearly so? Obviously we are dealing here with impressions since hard data are probably not available.

I absolutely love Grendel. I've read it three times and think it is a fantastic take on the Beowulf story and the prose is beautiful. I also loved Once and Future King as an interesting retelling of the Arthurian myths

 

[Peppa]

Kazuo is one hell of a wrter I may check out his other books

I read The Belgariad by Edding an loved it but everything else I tried to read by afterwards I just never like at all. He was on hit wonder. I. As for Donaldson, I despised Covenant after what he did to Lena.

This was precisely the ugly episode after which I had no further interest in the book.

You mentioned hat you like Roman themes books, two suggestions

The Clash Eagles Trilogy by Allan Small its alt world trilogy its the 13th and Rome has sent it legions to the Americas with aim of conquest while simutaniaouly facing off against with the Golden Horde which is at Romes doorstep.

Shadow over Ararat. 4 book series Thomas Harlan it's 600 AD. And and Rome still stands though the aid powerful dark sorcery which exacts a hefty price In this timeline Persia exists as a major power rival a to both the Eastern and Western empire. Juius Caesar has been resurrected to try to save Rome a growing threat and later Alexander the Great is bought back as well.

Thank you very much. But I think you may have already mentioned The Clash Eagles Trilogy, or maybe someone else told me about that book back in the summer.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

I'd certainly re-read Mary Stewart if I had any. I've just finished re-reading LOTR. The Donaldson books are sort of okay, maybe, but the Shannaras are utter drivel. The Once & Future King is certainly one I shall re-read. I recently re-read the Earthsea books, and was surprised how much better the latter books were than the first.
On holiday recently, in a tiny antiques (junk) shop in Wells, I spotted some Puffin books from the 1970s. Four of them were in good nick, so I bought them at 50p each. Total nostalgia-fest! Henry Treece was one...

 

[BAYLOR]

I'd certainly re-read Mary Stewart if I had any. I've just finished re-reading LOTR. The Donaldson books are sort of okay, maybe, but the Shannaras are utter drivel. The Once & Future King is certainly one I shall re-read. I recently re-read the Earthsea books, and was surprised how much better the latter books were than the first.
On holiday recently, in a tiny antiques (junk) shop in Wells, I spotted some Puffin books from the 1970s. Four of them were in good nick, so I bought them at 50p each. Total nostalgia-fest! Henry Treece was one...

Wotan and other Novels by John James

 

[Gamilkar]

As far as other fantasy novels go,
I think that the works of James Branch Cabell and ER Eddison are more deservedly becoming obscure.

Can you please say anything about Eddison if you ve read him?
Was just going to try his book Worm of Ovraboros. Actually learned about it from the editorial article in Fantasy and SF magazine, 1955, I am currently reading.

"Tolkien has gone far beyond his memorable THE HOBBIT (though with many of the same characters) to develop an entire history, mythology and symbolism as complex (and as Wagner's elaborations upon the legend of another Ring. For wholly created and selfconsistent absolute fantasy, written in superb prose and replete with both adventure and humor, the only book even remotely comparable is THE WORM OVRABOROS. In this first section, at least, Tolkien lacks Eddison's characterization and his sense of narrative form; but there arc rich treasures of beauty and imagination here for the patient reader."

 

[hitmouse]

Eddison has his merits. His prose style makes his work a bit of a slog. I suspect the reference to “ the patient reader” is a sly nod to that.

I have read him but not in 30 years and I have never felt the need to reread him. @Extollager is your man for a considered opinion on Eddison.

 

[Extollager]

@Extollager is your man for a considered opinion on Eddison.

Only with regard to The Worm, if that -- I haven't read the Zimiamvia books.

See this:

Book Review: THE WORM OUROBOROS, by E. R. Eddison

The Worm Ouroboros is not an easy book to love. The language is archaic ("resembling nothing written since the seventeenth century," as Orville Prescott says in his introduction to the Ballentine edition), the descriptions dense and ornate, the plot rambling, the action frequently slow, and the...

www.sffchronicles.com

 

[hitmouse]

I was remembering this thread.

 

[smellincoffee]

I read Grendel a few years back, in part because I was assigned it in school in the early 2000s (2002 or so) and wanted to discard it. Wouldn't do that without reading it first. Haven't read Once and Future King but plan to.

 

[Gamilkar]

I was remembering this thread.

Thank you very much for the link.

 

[Extollager]

How about Joy Chant's Red Moon and Black Mountain and Evangeline Walton's Mabinogi quartet (The Island of the Mighty, The Children of Llyr, The Song of Rhiannon, and Prince of Annwn -- to cite publication order, the way in which some folks here might have read them first)?

Fifty years or so ago, those were major works for fantasy discussion clubs -- Mythopoeic Society branches and so on. They were probably regarded by some as instant classics.

Has anyone here read these titles by Lord Dunsany in the past 30 years -- ?
Don Rodriguez: Chronicles of Shadow Valley
The Charwoman's Shadow
The King of Elfland's Daughter

(I did read The Charwoman's Shadow again within the past few years. It was good -- not great, but good. I've never reread Don Rodriguez although I still, after over 50 years, remember the wicked innkeeper.)

All of these were issued in the Ballantine fantasy series with lovely wraparound covers. If you go looking for images online, you might find later cover designs that were not nearly as special.

 

[Randy M.]

I recall not being enthused about The Charwoman's Shadow. Maybe I'd feel differently now I'm considerably older. I do remember enjoying Red Moon and Black Mountain in the late '70s.

I read two from the Ballantine series within the last 15-20 years, The Three Imposters by Arthur Machen and Zothique by Clark Ashton Smith. The former has been reissued often since the Ballantine edition, and the latter seems to have had at least one small press edition (different editor, different story arrangement). So, not lost exactly, but at least for Smith not exactly great success.

 

[Matteo]

As for Donaldson, I read and enjoyed his books about the lonely girl who went through a mirror and ended up in another world. But then I started reading a different series of his books, and there was a rather ugly scene in the first book, so I stopped reading it. So he's definitely not my favourite author now.

You must be referring to his SF series (I forget the name). I thought that scene was uneccessarily graphic/descriptive. It could still have happened (and it sets up the character's motivation) without, we'll...actually describing it. The rest of the books are quite good and there's less of "that".

 

[Extollager]

How about these -- has anyone here read them in the last 30 years, or do you know anyone who has? I'm restricting myself to books that were regarded as having real merit -- never mind about Kothar Barbarian Swordsman and so on. And I'm not including works that (so far as I know) were always little known, like Maddux's rather good Green Kingdom; I mean works that were probably well known in the fantasy discussion clubs and fanzines and conventions, etc., more than 30 years ago -- but that maybe are no longer read, or are hardly read.

Austin Tappan Wright's Islandia?
Fletcher Pratt's The Well of the Unicorn?
John Myers Myers' Silverlock?

 

[Randy M.]

That Pratt and his The Blue Star have been on my TBR approximately 7/10 of my life. Silverlock somewhat less so. Islandia ... darned if I know where my copy is. On the positive side, I've had my hands on Lud-in-the-Mist many times and almost started reading it a couple of those.