# Some obscure Fantasy Novels I think everyone should read. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 12, 2001, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-obscure-fantasy-novels-i-think-everyone-should-read/65243 "2001-05-12T19:00:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2001, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-obscure-fantasy-novels-i-think-everyone-should-read/65243/21 "2001-05-14T15:14:12Z")
Would people tell me what they consider to be well known fantasy? I don’t think that most of the books listed so far are obscure. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2001, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-obscure-fantasy-novels-i-think-everyone-should-read/65243/22 "2001-05-14T16:06:07Z")
Well, the novels of Charles Williams have to considered obscure because virtually nobody I know has ever heard of him, let alone read any of his books. CW was one of the Inklings, an Oxford-based group of Christian writers that included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, and like them, he wrote fantasy novels dealing with the supernatural with a strong religious bent. Williams had been a member of the Golden Dawn, an occult society wich W.B. Yeats had also joined, before becoming a Christian, and he had some highly unorthodox views, much of which he incorporated into his novels. His best book is \* War In Heaven,\* which starts off as a murder mystery, then becomes a quest to find the Holy Grail, hidden away in England, before evil forces do. _All Hallows Eve_ and _Descent Into Hell_ are also terrific novels. There’s also a novel, _The Place of the Lion_, in which Plato’s ideal forms enter our world and wreak destruction, as the Idea of a butterfly sucks up all the butterflies in England into itself, and so on. Great stuff. Williams’s novels all treat the occult world as completely matter of fact and have been called “supernatural thrillers.” I also recommend: [list] [li]\* The House on the Borderland\* by W.H. Hodgson, a 1908 novel that heavily influenced H.P. Lovecraft and the Elder Gods mythos.[/li][li]_Tales of the Uncanny and the Supernatural_, by Algernon Blackwood–Eerily atmospheric horror short stories[/li][li]_She_ by H. Rider Haggard–Who can forget the Amhagger tribe and their immortal goddess, She Who Must Be Obeyed (also known as Horace Rumpole’s wife :D)?[/li][_]Five Children and It_, by E. Nesbit, an Edwardian children’s book in which five children dig up a cranky sand fairy which grants them a wish each, with hilarious consequences. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2001, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-obscure-fantasy-novels-i-think-everyone-should-read/65243/23 "2001-05-14T19:50:22Z")
I’ve plugged these before, and I’m plugging them again: P. C. Hodgell–_Godstalk_, _Dark of the Moon_, and _Seeker’s Mask_. Meisha Merlin editions of all three are available from Amazon (the first two as the omnibus _Dark of the Gods_). They’re complex, engaging, and darkly humorous. I’m about to order a second copy of each so that I can safely loan mine out. Barry Hughart–_Bridge of Birds_, _The Story of the Stone_, and _Eight Skilled Gentlemen_ (available from Amazon in another Meisha Merlin omnibus, _The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox_). These are just plain fun–the smartest man and the strongest man in a fantastic ancient China, teamed up to solve crimes…and to commit a few. ---
**Author:** ![absoul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc8723/32.png) [@absoul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/absoul)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2001, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-obscure-fantasy-novels-i-think-everyone-should-read/65243/24 "2001-05-14T23:09:47Z")
Well, having a preference for the darker side of fantasy… _Elric of Melnibone_ by Michael Moorcock and _The Thomas Covenant Chronicles_ by Stephen R. Donaldson I would also like to second “The Mysterious Stranger” by Mark Twain. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2001, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-obscure-fantasy-novels-i-think-everyone-should-read/65243/25 "2001-05-15T02:12:59Z")
I’ve heard of Charles Williams. I’ve read all seven of his novels and a couple other things as well. goboy, do you know about the Mythopoeic Society? They’re an organization interested in the Inklings. See the following URL: [http://www.mythsoc.org/](http://www.mythsoc.org/) No one has answered my question yet. Which fantasy novels do you not consider obscure? ---
**Author:** ![JosephFinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3bc359/32.png) [@JosephFinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JosephFinn)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2001, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-obscure-fantasy-novels-i-think-everyone-should-read/65243/26 "2001-05-15T02:45:39Z")
Roderick MacLeish’ “Prince Ombra.” Horribly underappreciated novel about the Hero of the Borrowed Heart. Great use of Campbell’s Thousand Faces theorem. ---
**Author:** ![catmandu42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3ab097/32.png) [@catmandu42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catmandu42)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2001, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-obscure-fantasy-novels-i-think-everyone-should-read/65243/27 "2001-05-15T03:49:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Wendell Wagner \* > \*\* > No one has answered my question yet. Which fantasy novels do you not consider obscure? \*\* Heh. Probably anything by Tolkien would fit THAT bill… As for my addition to the list, it’s **Wizard War** by Hugh Cook. Simply one of the best fantasy novels I’ve ever read. There was also a series that enchanted me as a kid that was called **The Destiny Dice** … but I can’t remember who wrote it, and all my searches for the books have come up dry. Anyone else ever heard of them? ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2001, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-obscure-fantasy-novels-i-think-everyone-should-read/65243/28 "2001-05-15T11:25:05Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by catmandu42 \* \*\* > [@](#): > > As for my addition to the list, it’s **Wizard War** by Hugh Cook. Simply one of the best fantasy novels I’ve ever read. \*\* You _do_ realize that Wizard War is book 1 of a [_10(!)_](http://www.colin-smythe.com/authors/hughck.htm) book series, don’t you? (If you’re British, you might. If you’re from the US, you probably don’t). Either way, good luck trying to find the series. Especially book ten, which is impossible. There were US editions of the second, third and fourth book in the series, but apparently they’re butchered beyond reason. \*\* > [@](#): > > There was also a series that enchanted me as a kid that was called **The Destiny Dice** … but I can’t remember who wrote it, and all my searches for the books have come up dry. Anyone else ever heard of them? \*\* David Bishoff. Again, Destiny Dice is book 1 of 3. Book 2 is The Wraith Board and book 3 is The Unicorn Gambit Footnote Fenris ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2001, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-obscure-fantasy-novels-i-think-everyone-should-read/65243/29 "2001-05-15T11:33:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by JosephFinn \* > \*\*Roderick MacLeish’ “Prince Ombra.” Horribly underappreciated novel about the Hero of the Borrowed Heart. Great use of Campbell’s Thousand Faces theorem. \*\* Utterly wonderful, incredible, _magical_ novel. Perfect dialogue, perfect pacing, perfect characterization. Two factoids: Prince Ombra (by Rodrick MacLeish) A) is _always_ misfiled under horror in used book stores (why?!) and B) has (in it’s original paperback version) one of the classic “worst covers ever”. It features a sillouette of a kid. The sillouette was printed on some sort of reflective/refractive/prismatic paper which had horizontal swirls of pale, bland colors that constantly shimmered. It looks like someone ate a bowl of rainbow sherbet and vomited on a mirror. Despite that, it’s still easily worth hunting down a copy. Fenris ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2001, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-obscure-fantasy-novels-i-think-everyone-should-read/65243/30 "2001-05-15T15:29:38Z")
Is that really what people mean by obscure fantasy - anything except Tolkien? What’s Campbell’s Thousand Faces theorem? I assume that this is a reference to Joseph Campbell’s _The Hero with a Thousand Faces_, but where’s a theorem in there? Is this just the Monomyth? ---
**Author:** ![catmandu42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3ab097/32.png) [@catmandu42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catmandu42)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2001, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-obscure-fantasy-novels-i-think-everyone-should-read/65243/31 "2001-05-16T06:16:08Z")
Thanks **Fenris**! I had no idea there were 10 books in the series! Now I have to find em! Also thanks for the author’s name. Now maybe I can find those books again. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2001, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-obscure-fantasy-novels-i-think-everyone-should-read/65243/32 "2001-05-16T15:13:10Z")
I am so glad that others jumped in on the Dunsany bandwagon before I arrived. And here I thought that Del Rey was simply republishing his works for me. 😉 As much as I adore _The King of Elfland’s Daughter_, I have to agree with Fenris’ estimation of _The Charwoman’s Shadow_. Its effect on my was, well, personal and profound. He was phenomenally prolific, but many of his works have not been republished. He wrote a rather obscure book of _extremely_ short stories called _The Food of Death and 51 Other Stories_ which are well worth investigating. As is _The Hashish Man_, another excellent collection of shorts. I also second and third the recommendations of MacDonald, Morris, and Williams. MR ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2001, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-obscure-fantasy-novels-i-think-everyone-should-read/65243/33 "2001-05-16T18:53:40Z")
Those of you who are interested in Dunsany should order the book _Time and the Gods_, published in the U.K. by Millennium for 6 pounds and 99 pence (about 10 dollars). It’s a collection of all of Dunsany’s fantasy short stories (and Dunsany was even better in his short stories than in his novels). It contains all the stories (over a hundred of them) published originally in his books _Time and the Gods_, _The Sword of Welleran_, _A Dreamer’s Tale_, _The Book of Wonder_, _The Last Book of Wonder_, and _The Gods of Pegana_. It’s well worth the additional cost of postage from the U.K. ---
**Author:** ![Dijon\_Warlock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a9a28c/32.png) [@Dijon\_Warlock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dijon_Warlock)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2001, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-obscure-fantasy-novels-i-think-everyone-should-read/65243/34 "2001-05-17T00:44:53Z")
[QUOTE] _Originally posted by goboy \* \*\* I also recommend: [list] [li]_ The House on the Borderland\* by W.H. Hodgson, a 1908 novel that heavily influenced H.P. Lovecraft and the Elder Gods mythos. \*\*[/li][/QUOTE] Ye all can read this [right here](http://www.litrix.com/hborder/hbord001.htm) if so inclined be ye. ---
**Author:** ![Freyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/freyr/32/5763_2.png) [@Freyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freyr)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2001, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-obscure-fantasy-novels-i-think-everyone-should-read/65243/35 "2001-05-17T01:25:10Z")
My selections: **Operation Chaos** by Poul Anderson (I think. It’s been a LONG time since I read it, and it was a borrowed copy). Also, **Silverlock**. I don’t know the author. I understand it’s also out of print. ☹ But it’s a great story, especially if you’re up on your myth and legends. ---
**Author:** ![detop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@detop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/detop)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2001, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-obscure-fantasy-novels-i-think-everyone-should-read/65243/36 "2001-05-17T07:08:52Z")
Since many of the titles listed above, I would personnaly classify as Horror, I will offer this one for your consideration, \*\*Arthur Machen’s[/b},_The Great God Pan_, another author that influenced Lovecraft immensely. Also, if you can find is short story, _The Archers_(IIRC, I’ve read it in French about 20 years ago and its title then was “Les Archers” and quite frankly i’m not sure if it was a litteral translation of the original title) or how the archers of Agincourt helped the British Army win the Battle of Mons in WWI. For those who do not know the _other_ story attached to it, when news of the victory at Mons reached Britain, it inspired Machen to write the story of how the Agincourt archers, under the leadership of St-Georges nonetheless (!), turned the tide at Mons. For him it was just a nice little patriotic story. Imagine is amazement when veterans of the battle called on him to tell him that, yes, they saw the archers there ! The poor man repeated constantly that it was a fictious story, but nobody wanted to believe him. I guess this is a UL whose origin is known ! Oh, another one (or two, or three), _Black Easter_ and its sequel _The Day After Judgment_, both by James Blish and Poul Anderson’s _The King of Ys_ serie. PS, for those who liked \* Tea with the Black Dragon\*, there is a sequel called _Twisting the Rope_. ---
**Author:** ![detop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@detop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/detop)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2001, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-obscure-fantasy-novels-i-think-everyone-should-read/65243/37 "2001-05-17T07:10:38Z")
Oops, sorry for the bolding. Repeat after me : preview is my friend, preview is my friend, preview is… ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2001, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-obscure-fantasy-novels-i-think-everyone-should-read/65243/38 "2001-05-17T12:12:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Freyr \* > \*\*My selections: > > **Operation Chaos** by Poul Anderson (I think. It’s been a LONG time since I read it, and it was a borrowed copy).\*\* Fantastic book, one of my favorites, and it’s a \ “sequel” to Heinlein’s Magic, Inc… A recent sequel by Anderson Operation Luna isn’t nearly as good though, with clunky pacing and hit-in-the-face-with-a-hammer pro-libertarian propaganda.(Which I can usually live with…but it didn’t work here) Fenris ---
**Author:** ![nickc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/47e85d/32.png) [@nickc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nickc)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2001, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-obscure-fantasy-novels-i-think-everyone-should-read/65243/39 "2001-05-17T12:20:28Z")
Try the ‘Book of the New Sun’ series by Gene Wolfe. The series is considerably less well known than most of the books listed here, and I will not hesitate to say it’s better than them as well. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2001, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-obscure-fantasy-novels-i-think-everyone-should-read/65243/40 "2001-05-17T12:24:53Z")
I normally can’t stand Sheri S. Tepper’s writing. In most cases, her writing style is, to me, like fingernails on a blackboard. However… Something went magically _right_ with her three book “Marianne” series. The three books are Marianne, The Magus and The Manticore, Marianne, The Madame, and the Momentary Gods, and Marianne, The Matchbox and the Malachite Mouse. Despite the “cutsie-poo” titles, they’re pretty thought provoking fantasy. In the first one, Marianne is magically banished to a pocket dimension with _weird_ rules by her evil brother and his girlfriend/mentor and has to escape. At the end of the first book, she changes time/history so that her evil brother has always been harmless. In the second book, she realizes that she’s f\*cked up badly: her brother was evil, but surviving that evil is what made her strong enough to deal with him and his girlfriend. And the girlfriend (the Madame) is back. And a Marianne who grew up with only happy-fluffy pink-bunny memories and no troubles at all can’t win a fight against her. The third book is a sort of Jumanji-esque story. Marianne is trapped in a (creepy) board game. Although these books were published in the late '80s, they’re impossible to find: apparently Ace didn’t print many of books 2 and 3, and all three have covers by someone named Kinuko Craft who’s apparently some sort of cult-figure (s/he has interesting art, but nothing stunning to me). On [http://www.bookfinder.com](http://www.bookfinder.com), they go for about $40-$75 each. But if you stumble across 'em in a used bookstore or something, they’re well worth getting. Fenris [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-obscure-fantasy-novels-i-think-everyone-should-read/65243.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-obscure-fantasy-novels-i-think-everyone-should-read/65243.md?page=3)