He is a great modern or urban Fantasy Writer. He is Canadian, interweaves Natives American & Celtic mythos with modern life and some punk elements. His stories have taken place in Ireland, Ottawa and Pacific North West among others.
He is a Celtic Musician and works music into many stories.
Moonheart I think was his first published novel and my favorite.
Well if any other fans, I just wanted to start a conversation.
He is a fan of Middle-Earth but only intrudes into books as far as usually one character is also a fan.
I’ve read a number of his books, but I’d be hard-pressed to consider myself a fan. Couldn’t make it through the last book of his I tried which was “Spirits in the Wire”. Biggest problem was that none of the characters seemed to have a distinctive voice – they all sound, and think and analyze their actions in the same very clinical way.
I found Moonheart in the “new books” section at a bookstore when I was in high school. I loved the book and wrote Mr. deLint a letter asking for some information on Taliesin and other (pseudo)factual material in the book. We ended up exchanging letters for a couple of years, off and on (I was a budding writer back then, as well). I’ve always thought he was way cool for taking the time to write to me so often, but I found his novels harder and harder to read. It seemed to me that the more he wrote, the more he just settled into a formulaic cliched style. It was mostly his own style, but I never found anything as cool or as unique as Moonheart. The last book I picked up of his, from the library, I couldn’t even get thru the first chapter.
I liked one or two of his novels OK, mostly because I like when authors go to the trouble to update, rethink or reconfigure mythologies … basis of my fondness for Tim Powers and Roger Zelazny’s work, really , but de Lint’s basically a little to fey for me.
What do you think his best books were?
I liked anything to do with Tamson house and Yarrow was really enjoyable.
My wife doesn’t generally like Fantasy but she also really enjoyed MoonHeart and Yarrow.
I think I’ve read some of his stuff in F&SF, but for the life of me I can’t recall any specifics. Mention of **Zelazny ** caught my eye, though; I just finished re-reading the **Amber ** series, and if **DeLint ** writes with a similar sensibility, I’m interested.
I know I could do a random walk through Amazon, but I’m open to suggestions - what’s the “best” novel-length introduction to DeLint?
Lately, though, it seems that they aren’t coming out in regular-sized paperback editions at all; only outsized paperbacks. And I don’t buy those. So I don’t read him any more.
I wouldn’t say the STYLE is similar. What Zelazny and deLint have in common is that they both work with relatively little-known mythologies, both know their stuff, and both take an original approach to mythologies, re-inventing them in ways that still retain the power of the original mythology. I’d say Zelazny is a far superior prose sytlist and his plotting and characterization are also far better than deLint’s. But they can both be good reads, and both are way above the 999th iteration of “Prince Dragon Slayer and the Dwarves, Ogres and Such.”
Neither of them owes DIDDLY to Tolkein, for example. (I’m not knocking Tolkein, just saying they’re not Tolkein-wannabes).