Recomended Books and Authors
Below are my favourite authors and/or my favourite books by them. Author's websites are included, when they have them.
My new favourite writer. I started with her Rai-Kirah series, the tale of Seyonne, a slave, and how he helps to alter the world he lives in, and save his own magical race of people, through his friendship with his former master, Aleksander. Then followed with every book by Carol Berg that i could get my hands on. The Song of the Beast is really enjoyable, a new way of looking at, and featuring, dragons, and is easily one of my favourites. As is the Lighthouse Duet.
Carol Berg is an amazing writer. Her characters have flaws and are very vivid and the plots aren't your average fantasy quest, or even, good verses evil, type thing. They're written in first person, which i prefer and none of her heroes are what you would expect. This is a great writer, but underrated. I couldn't find any of her books in UK bookstores, and had to get them online.
Lewis Carroll: Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass,
A childhood classic and still one of my favourites. The poetry is brilliant, i love the fact that children and adults both get something out of it, it's probably one of the first fantasy stories ever. It's certainly something that I have read time and again, and still enjoy.
Lynn Flewelling: the Tamir Triliogy
This is probably one of the dark series I have ever read. It's the tale of Tamir, the rightful queen of Skala, who is disguised by magic, and the skin of her murdered twin brother, to be a boy, so that her uncle would not kill her, as he killed all the females in his family who should have sat on his throne. Tamir grows up, believing she is a boy, haunted by the twin who was murdered so that she could live and tormented by her mother, who was driven mad by that murder. It's really dark and it's really sad. I recently finished the last book in the series, and i was crying. It's a great series, dark and melancholy, and the ending is simple and effective and lingers with you.
My only complaints are the lack of description and the over heavy (in my opinion) use of Tamir missing her boy's bits, when she is finally revealled as a girl, not a boy. Overall, though, it's really great and one of the few unique fantasy ideas i have come across.
Lynn has another series, the Nightrunners, but i think that is very poor in comparision. I wouldn't have read this series, if i had read that one first.
This series begins with the Bone Doll's Twin.
David Gemmell's Drenai and standalone novels.
David Gemmell was one of the first fantasy authors I ever read. And, although his Drenai books are set in the same world, most of them can be read individually of each other, which is why i have listed them in this section instead of the other one!
I started with Legend, which is still one of my all time favourite, because of the way that he potrays war and the brilliant characterisation. His other books in the Drenai series do tend to fall into a similar pattern, man, often with tortured past, becomes a reluctant hero, and there's a woman who wears tight clothes, that everyone fancies, drifting around with a bow, as well. But I still find these books enjoyable. So the characters aren't always that vivid or different, and the sensitive one, whom I usually love, ends up dead, they're still enjoyable because of that, because you know what to expect. I also like the very masculine feel to it and the way that he is still able to write a good female character and show her thoughts in a realistic, sensitive way. Unlike many other male writers, he shows that he really does understand women and I particularly liked the way that he handles rape from the female's perspective in Quest for Lost Heroes.
His more singular stand alone books, such as Knights of the Dark Renown, Dark Moon and Echoes of the Great Song, actually seem to be more varied and experimental with plot, although the characters are still fairly similiar! Knights of the Dark Renown are my favourite out of his stand alones. Morning Star, another stand alone, based on the legend of Robin Hood, is weaker for plot, out of all his stand alones, and not written nearly as well, but it has such an amazing concept concerning time-travel and destiny, that i can still recommend it.
David Gemmell sadly died the summer 2006. I think Britian lost a great writer.
Keren Gilfoyle: Shadow on the Skin
This is a mostly unknown fantasy book and i don't think she ever wrote anything else, but it is one of my favourite. A boy, Tobias, tries to escape his malicious, incestuous family, only to find that they aren't the only evil element in his life, as he had been, during an accident, bonded to a demonic litch-fire. I love this novel. I love the true tragic nature of the hero, how nothing really goes well for him at all, how he tries to escape evil, only to realize he has part of it inside him. I love the uniqueness of the magical element and how his controlling family that rules the land. It's just a good read, one of the best i have ever come across.
This is no longer available new, so you will need to try and find it in a second handbook store, or Abebooks.com.
Ellen Kushner: Swordspoint and Privilidge of the Sword
Swordspoint is probably my favourite out of the two, not just because the main characters, Alec and Richard, are gay, which does help, but because it's witty, its original and the characters are vivid. It's not fantasy, in the strictest sense, more a period tale in a nonexistent land, where men fight to the death for the honor. I think that's what helps makes it so good. It isn't a quest, it isn't about good verses evil, its just a story about a swordsman and his boyfriend. The sequel, Privilidge of the Sword, features Alec's niece, who goes to stay with Alec, the Mad Duke, and shows her coming to realise that life doesn't have to be all pretty dresses and balls, that a woman can have a real place in the world.
Mercedes Lackey: Last Herald Mage Series
All right, the plot isn't great, most of the characters aren't either, and i don't like anything else by her at all, but Vanyel, Tylendel/Stefan are just too cute. Every now and then, when i want to indulge in something cute and pointless, i will read this book. I love the hero, Vanyel is just lovely, i love his boyfriend and i do like the ending. It is rare, in fantasy, that there is an unhappy ending, this one is, at it's heart, but it is bitter-sweet, which helps to make it for me.
Starts with Magic's Pawn.
Louise Lawerence: Children of the Dust
Another book i read as a child, but one that still haunts me to this day. The effects of a nuclear bomb on three generations of children. The first, Sarah, when the bomb hits, the second, Ophelia, a girl born in a bunker, and the third, Simon, Ophelia's son, and his experience of the changed world outside, and the realisation that humans have now given way to a new race of people. It's moving, it's sad and it's just brilliant.
Patrick Rothfuss: The Kingkiller Chronicles
The best book I read in 2008. It's just great, the story of Kvothe, a very smart cookie, and his quest to learn more about who killed his parents. It's vivid, well written, and rather sad, and, so far, lacks quests or pointless violence, which often fills other fantasy novels.. The main bulk is in first person, which i prefer, as Kvothe tells his story to a visitor to the tavern which he now runs.
The first book in the series is the Name of the Wind. Well deserving of the awards that it won.