This is the best thread in ages. The lists here are so comprehensive and tight, I find myself with little to add.

I will reiterate that I love Lieber, Vance, Henlein, Lovecraft, King, Herbert, Howard and Asimov.

That said, I just generated a new short list of books to read! Thanks and uh, Cheers!

Badmike wrote:
         Yes, a Kane fan! I also am surprised at his lack of popularity...I run into fantasy afficianados all the time who have never even heard of him (?).  I think it hurts that all of his works are now out of print (except in very pricey specialty edition), he's dead (not writing any new works), and that his output was so sporadic (only three novels and two short story collections in his career, plus a few scattered short stories in the mid 80's).

I hadn't.  Just bought the 3 novels at Amazon, though (WAY cheaper individually than the Hardback compilation!).

I'm amused to see literary references in odd places, so I thought it was kind of cool to realize that obviously someone knew their Wagner when they named this guy: http://members.tripod.com/~tpww_wallpaper/kane.jpg  

Interesting the literary cross-currents here.  A surprising number of us have met or known the noteworthy fantasy authors of the 20th century.

Zelazny bears mentioning in any list of fantasy writers.  The first Amber series is great and the second is at least good.

I also loved Lord of Light and Creatures of Darkness and Light.

Mark  

MShipley88 wrote:Interesting the literary cross-currents here.  A surprising number of us have met or known the noteworthy fantasy authors of the 20th century.

Zelazny bears mentioning in any list of fantasy writers.  The first Amber series is great and the second is at least good.

I also loved Lord of Light and Creatures of Darkness and Light.

Mark  

         Lord of Light is a fabulous book. I need to reread it (it's been 20 years this summer I think since I discovered Zelazny and pretty much read his entire output).
   I have ordered the complete Kane short story collection in hardback, called The Midnight Sun.  Contains every Kane short story including the modern ones, the poetry, etc.  It runs from $20 to $40 on Ebay or Half.com so it's very affordable and the individual collections are hard to find, thisis a great overview of KEW's work.  Plus, his short stories were the best of his writing IMO.
  The novel collection  (Gods in Darkness) is quite ridiculously priced at $90+, it' s much cheaper and easier to just go find Bloodstone, Dark Crusade and Darkness Weaves individually in the paperback editions (with the great Frazetta covers, of course!).  
  If/when you order these and read them, post back here, I'd be interested to hear anyone's impressions of his work.

Has anyone mentioned Lord Dunsany yet?  At least two novels of his should be considered canon for any readers of fantasy: The King of Elfland's Daughter and The Charwoman's Shadow.  I found them both hard to start for some reason, but very much in the traditional fantasy vein with several interesting twists.

Mike B.

Onlondore wrote:Great lists of wonderful books and authors. I've read as much Elric, Kane, Gord, Fafhrd et. al. as I could get my hands on.

Two books that I don't see very often on lists like these are Dream Park and Bimbos of the Death Sun. Both books are about role play gaming, and IMO they are a lot of fun to read. Dream Park is science fiction/murder mystery/role playing, and succeeds on all three levels. (You can start with chapter four if you want to get to the game   )  Bimbos pokes a lot of fun at a game convention, and Sharon McCrumb is a very good author.

hey! talking of dream park - thats a great larry niven novel! many moons back, in fact not long after i read it, i wrote up a module for the group to play too! was an absolute blast. i do remember one of the group shot another with the rifle before they realised what it was.

Al

MShipley88 wrote:Oh...and I can't remember the author's name, but who else here has read Grunts?

This is a novel about fantasy world orcs who are transformed into American marines by a dragon horde's curse.

I consider it a hoot.

Mark  

Mark

grunts is written by Mary Gentle...

just in case anyone wanted to go look for it

Al

I'm shocked that nobody has mentioned "My Pet Goat". Its effect on a politician is much like a Charm spell; the victim will do whatever he's told, for years.

Kosh Vorlontay wrote:Intersesting....yet not surprising

I would have to say the best D&D series, next to Gord the Rogue, would have to be for me the Dark Elf series by RA Salvatore....ALL of them!

....

I know a lot of D&D fans turn up their noses at any of the Forgotten Realms series of books, and particularly anything Salvatore writes.  In all honesty, I've reads lots worse fantasy from far more established authors that stunk far, far more.  These are sort of the "McDonalds" of fantasy fiction, easily consumed and forgotten hours later, but filling for a short time.  Salvatore's best work was the Drizzt trilogy that presents his early life story before he came to the surface; everything else is pretty much same old same old generic fantasy stuff.  I don't remember the name or collection, but I think Salvatore's most intriguing short story was one where Drizzt is hired to find a goblin that has escaped it's "owners" who are using it for slave labor.  Upon finding the goblin, to his surprise the creature is intelligent and thoughtful, not like his kind (in other words, much like Drizzt himself) and has been incredibly mistreated by his "owners".  Despite his misgivings, Drizzt turns the goblin back over to his owners...later passing through the same area, he checks on the goblin only to find him tortured and hung by the vengeful owners...against which he can do nothing, since the goblin was their property, and of course all goblins are "evil".  A very simple tale, but done well, with unusual restraint for Salvatore I felt.
I suppose Cunningham's Elfshadow series is ok.  Greenwood's stuff is always way too over the top to be taken seriously. Azure Bonds was a pretty good tale (didn't like the rest of the trilogy, it's better as a stand alone). I haven't read many of the later Forgotten Realms novels so I don't know if the tales got better, worse or whatever.

Mike B.

I liked the first Gord novel...and I liked the collection of short stories that was called something like Knight Errant.

But the other ones...well...not my favorite work by Gygax.

Mark