Have you read Holes by Louis Sachar?
It’s a kid’s book, aimed roughly at age 12, won the Newberry Award. Very fine book.
Also very fine by the same author are the Wayside School books. The first one, Sideways Stories from Wayside School, has a concluding chapter that’s about as profound as anything you’ll find in a book written for grade schoolers.
Lots of humor and scary parts in both those books.
The Gormenghast books by Mervyn Peake.
The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton.
The Earthsea books by Ursula K. Le Guin.
Any of Charles Williams’s novels, possibly starting with The Place of the Lion.
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.
The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain.
Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis.
Borgel (or any of a whole slew of other novels) by Daniel Pinkwater.
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle.
Silverlock by John Myers Myers.
Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury.
The Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft.
The Face in the Frost by John Bellairs.
The White Deer by James Thurber.
Jabberwocky tonsils.
…have to be removed with a vorpal scalpel.
I’ve read nothing but Morressy since the first one arrived. I ended up buying 10-12 of his books, all the Kedrigern titles as well as his SF and one general fiction. So a big Thank You to asterion. I also wrote to NESFA asking about possible reprints of the chronicles in nice hardcover editions (response: not likely but thanks for asking).
One thing I’ve noticed is that even though the books were ridiculously cheap (a few were a penny plus shipping), every one of them was shipped with extra care, as if the sellers recognized their quality. I’m talking boards, mylar folders, Tyvek - the whole schmeer.
A special 40th Anniversary Edition is coming out from Conlan Press. Mr. Beagle is having severe financial problems (his mother’s medical expenses and some other things) so half of the proceeds are going directly to him. So if anyone’s thinking of picking up this book, that might be the way to go.
*Gossamer Axe *by Gael Baudino. I seem to be the only person who has read this book.
Thorne Smith, the author of Topper and The Night Life of the Gods, was really big in the 1930’s, but seems to be forgotten today.
Fitz-James O’Brien wrote some pretty good supernatural stories in the 19th Century and is almost forgotten today.
Check out Robert W. Chambers. He was a best-selling author in the first three decades of the 20th Century, but is remembered today only for his fantasy and horror. “The Yellow Sign,” a story in *The King in Yellow *influenced Lovecraft and is a damn good story. The King in Yellow is a great book, too, but not all of the stories are fantasy. However, “The Street of the First Shell” is a fantastic historical novellette about American and French art students living in Paris during the Franco-Prussian War.
J. Sheridan le Fanu, M.R. James, F. Marion Crawford and H. Russell Wakefield are writers from the 19th and 20th Centuries who wrote excellent horror stories. There is no gore, but there are plenty of chills.
I’d also check out William Hope Hodgson, author of The House on the Borderland.
I second both Conjure Wife and the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser series by Lieber. That man was one of the best prose stylists in science fiction. Also, try his novel The Silver Eggheads. It is technically science fiction, but is a wonderful satire of a lot of things.
I also second *The Worm Ourobos *by Eddison. The language is arcane, but the villains are wonderful. Lord Gro is worthy of Shakespeare and the king is truly nasty.
Whoops. I forgot to add Jorge Luis Borges. He is an Argentine writer who sometimes wrote fantasies. He should have won the Nobel Prize, IMO.
Well, I was having problems looking up this thread on the Search Engine. And I need to look it up fairly often, because I’m going down the list v e r y slowly. So I thought I’d post some random obscure words, so I can find it easily next time.
Hughart and DWJones were the ones I was going to mention.
Apparently, Hughart has 4 more books in his Master Li series, but, being a bit of an asshole, and getting into it with his publisher, has caused him to deny us all. These are set in China, which I find particularly enjoyable, as I’m kind of burned out on the LOTR-type of high western fantasy.
Diana Wynne Jones is best known (if you can call her well-known - I think she’s better known in the UK) for her YA stuff, but I find all of it to be extremely clever and engaging. She’s very good at world building, and has some very different interpretations of classic folklore.
Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series is quite good, though I found the first to be the best. I find Robin Hobb to be too dismal for me - excellently written books that leave you feeling like you want to kill yourself. I like Sean Russell’s Initiate Brother duology, though I detest everything else he’s written. Might be the Chinese theme again.
I found Elizabeth Moon’s trilogy The Deed of Paksenarrion thoroughly enjoyable. Most fantasy stories about holy warriors (or “paladins” for us gamers) are pretty straightforward (unimaginative) stories about righteous vengeance or cheesy whatever, but this one is rather unique. It’s about a sheepfarmer’s daughter who leaves the farm to join a mercenary army, and somewhere along the way she discovers a more spiritual side, leading her on a journey of sin, sacrifice, and redemption. Really great storytelling, and the combats are pretty unique as well – nothing along the lines of Drizzt turning his enemies into blood puree with a single swipe after charging up with 15 somersaults – it’s more formation-focused with militarty tactics and overarching strategy, which I found refreshing as well. It’s as much a character study as it is an adventure. Heartily recommend.
Footnote: The current anecdote is that while Elizabeth Moon isn’t a gamer, after hearing stories about the way people were playing Paladins in their gaming sessions, she was appalled at the way they thought holy warriors would behave. This series was born out of what she imagined a paladin would truly be. It’s an incredibly inspiring, and human, work.
Where do you get the information that Hughart has four more books in the series, gang green? It appears that there are only a total of three books in the series:
Let me introduce you to a new and VERY good writer, Ken Scholes. He’s been doing short stories for a while, and when he decided to write a novel, Tor liked it so much, they gave him a five-book contract for a series — which is damn near unheard of for a new writer.
Check his stuff out here. He includes links to several of his short stories and one novella.
The first novel in the series, “Lamentation,” has drawn rave reviews from people in the biz, including Orson Scott Card since it came out in March.
Here’s part of a review I wrote for our newspaper:
I had the opportunity to interview him for our newspaper in April, and would be happy to forward a copy of that interview to any Doper interested.
Skallagrigg, by William Horwood, is one that has been recommended to me by several people online, as the best book they’ve ever read. It’s apparently magical-realism with a quest-like structure. It was published in England but I’ve had no trouble finding it on Abebooks, etc. Virtually every mention of the book, when googled, is a rave.
Dammit, the links discussing that are now all broken.
To be fair, what I’d read was that he’d plotted and outlined another four books, but there was nothing about him actually writing them. And new info here pretty much puts the kibosh on them entirely.
A real shame. I love those three books.
Another rec for the Paksenarrion books. I’d forgotten about them. Very very good stuff.