Fantasy Novels Reviewed

Last updated November, 1998

I have some pages devoted to some of the best active fantasy writers.

Tad Williams. Author of River of Blue Fire, Otherland, and the series The Dragon Bone Chair.

Mark Helprin. Author of Winters Tale, A Soldier of the Great War ...

Guy Gavriel Kay. Author of Tigana, A Song for Arbonne ...

Robert Van Gulik. Author of The Judge Dee Mystery novels...

Gene Wolfe. Author of The Book of the New Sun (four novels) and The Long Sun (also four novels)...

This leads to a site all about my favorite game: Ultima Online. I have spent far too much time on this game (and not enough time on my web site...).

The great works of Fantasy

Some of the best fantasy ever written (including the writing by Lord Dunsany and Morrison) is no longer in print. This is a sad state of affairs, but someday, all of the world's literature will be available for download (for a fee) via the next generation internet and this current situation will just be like a bad dream.

The following are a small sampling of the best fantasy novels.

• The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. If you haven't read the Lord of the Rings, don't think for a second that you understand fantasy. Although Tolkien didn't invent the genre of Fantasy, everything written since 1955 has been directly influenced by this book. One can quibble with aspects of his story but, this remains one of the most wonderful stories ever written, a testament to the power and vitality of the English language.
  
  
• The Worm Oroborus by E.R. Edison. Yes, I admit that the begining of this novel is very hard to get through, but once you manage past the first 12 pages, this book is made of magic. Should do wonders for your grasp of language and words.
  
  
• The Lord Of Light by Roger Zelazny. Some may say that this is "science fiction". To some degree all categories are inaccurate, reductions of a vision that is complex and uncompressable. See my essay on The Difference Between Science Fiction and Fantasy. Wherever you put it, this is the best work by one of the best American fantasy writers. You may find the strange way that the story is put together off-putting. You may find the sudden shifts of character from god-like to ordinary man a bad idea (as Le Guin did), but if you can read the last 10 pages and not have your eyes fill with tears, then your heart is made of stone.
  
  Nine Princes in Amber and The Guns of Avalon are also superb stories, in structure and plot they are far easier to handle than the Lord of Light. Also, Corwin of Amber is one of the great heroic characters in the world of fantasy.
  
  
• Islandia by Austin Tappan Wright. Wright was a lawyer and law professor who invented his own world, much like Eddison and Tolkien (there was something in the air during the first 20 years of the 20th century). Islandia is a sort of a fantasy but it is also a Utopia. As is usual for utopias, a young man from the real world visits and is surprised by what he finds. What makes Islandia special is the degree to which personal relationships are the heart of the book. The book is very much a love story but one in which the main character is unsuccessful. To readers now, the age of Islandia, set around 1900, must seem more than a little fantastic. Highly recommended.
  
  
• The short stories of Lord Dunsany. Dunsany was a real lord of Ireland who grew up amidst the ease and splendor of the Victorian-Edwardian age, when England ruled the world. During this time, Dunsany wrote short stories about gods and heroes of his own invention. These little stories shine like jewels, lit by fires of an age now long dead. Though Dunsany lived a long time, in some ways his world did come to end with World War I. He served in the Cold Stream Guards during the war and survived. But after the war, he wrote no more stories like those he had written earlier, in those happy, carefree days.
  
  
• Stormbringer by Michael Moorcock. Moorcock wrote so fast and so much during the 1960's it is amazing that any of his stories are worthwhile. However, many of his stories from this time are quite good, "The Jewel in the Skull" series also stands out. However, Elric is his prize creation, a true hero for the 1960's, mad, sad, and armed with a sword that both kills and keeps him alive. Once the 70's began, Moorcock slowed down the speed of writing, but instead of improving his work, he wrote dull stories. His recent attempts to write more "Elirc" stories are cruel shadows that mock the real Elric.
  
  
• The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe. Yet another "why is this series in this section?" book. As science fiction, it is perhaps too "ornate", as fantasy, it is a work of vast imagination.

Modern Books of merit

• The Dragonbone Chair, The Stone of Farewell, and To Green Angel Tower by Tad Williams. (AKA Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn). See my new section on Tad Williams.
  
  
• The Anvil of the Ice by Michael Scott Rohan. The first (and best) of three books all dealing with a smith who makes items of great power.

Lesser (but still important) books and authors

• Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series. Too bad some editor didn't have the power to make Jordan write clearly, and use 1/5 as many words. This series should have been ended several years and several thousand words ago, yet it still continues, with no end in sight. Jordan claims he is doing something very difficult by telling all the sides of his great epic story. I say that by including everything, he has chosen the easy way out, not the hard way. Knowing what not to write (it turns out) is just as important as knowing what to write. Before the computer and the word processor, the physical hardship imposed on the writer when trying to deal with a long manuscript prevented this sort of thing from happening. Writers had to know what to cut out or they could never edit their work. Sadly, Jordan is the wave of the future. Most titles are getting longer and longer. You can barely find a recent biography that is under 500 pages long.
  
  Heaven help us when publishing to web becomes common, writers like Jordan will never finish their stories. I admit to being somewhat mean here. When Jordan finishes his series, I will try to read it all and see if he spent his time wisely.
  
  
• Lyonesse by Jack Vance. Vance wrote one of the stories that inspired Garry Gygax (and friends) to create Dungeons and Dragons. The story was collected in book "The Dying Earth". Lyonesse is a better story (it is really a novel) and it is better told. Also, the female characters are not so poorly treated as they are in the Dying Earth stories. The sequel's (The Green Pearl, and Maduc) are not as good.