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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Favourite classic fantasy novels
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Niminypiminy
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# 15489
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Posted
I'm teaching a course next year on which I want to set a classic twentieth-century fantasy novel. It can't be Lord of the Rings as it's too long. If it had a quest, or the supernatural or metamorphosis in it that would be ideal (it's to follow on from George MacDonald's Phantastes and some medieval romances). I just don't know very many fantasy novels -- but I'm sure there must be some knowledgeable fantasy fans here.
Which novels should I be looking at? And why?
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Ariel
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# 58
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Posted
If LOTR is too long, there's always The Hobbit.
What sort of level of readership are you aiming this at? Fantasy is a huge, broad genre that ranges from what are marketed as children's books like The Narnia Chronicles to the kind of contemporary post-apocalyptic fiction that Mark Chadbourn writes, which is dark, adult, utterly gripping stuff. Sometimes it overlaps with science fiction. The theme of quests is a perennial one across the entire spectrum, though.
If you want one of the well-known and well-loved classics you might try one of Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea books. Wizard of Earthsea, first in the series, would be the best to start with. It's been around for years but is still interesting, original, sparse and not too long.
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
Lord Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter is about midway between MacDonald and Tolkien. It certainly qualifies as a classic.
(Hope Mirrlees' Lud-in-the-Mist is contemporary with Dunsany, but is less influential.)
Poul Anderson's Broken Sword and Three Hearts and Three Lions are an interesting midway between the US Swords and Sorcery Tradition and Tolkienesque fantasy. Three Hearts and Three Lions is certainly questy if I remember correctly.
Moorcock's Stormbringer is I think a deconstruction of the US Sword and Sorcery tradition.
Ariel has already mentioned Le Guin's The Wizard of Earthsea.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Palimpsest
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# 16772
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Posted
Lud in the mist is a minor quest and it's fun to interpret it as a Lesbian novel.
Jack Vance "The Dying Earth" is well written and a nested series of short stories.
Ursula Le Guin's first book in the The Wizard of EarthSea series.
A recent Neil Gaiman "The Ocean at the end of the lane"
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Penny S
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# 14768
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Posted
Alan Garner's "The Owl Service". It plays with the Mabinogion, so would follow from the medieval, and is deep and dark in places, and poetic. The modern characters, as have been their ancestors down the years are possessed by the three main protagonists in the story of Llew Llaw Gyffes, Blodeuwedd, and Gronw Pebyr, and are doomed to repeat the tragedy.
Also his "Elidor" which is for a younger audience, but uses the medieval story of Burd Ellen, and has a quest for four treasures of the realm of Elidor, which is linked to our world.
[ 18. June 2014, 20:23: Message edited by: Penny S ]
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
Palimpsest: quote:
Ursula Le Guin's first book in the The Wizard of EarthSea series.
A Wizard of Earthsea has my vote. ![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif)
Boats and dragons and sorcery, O my!
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Ariel
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# 58
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Posted
Speaking of Neil Gaiman's books, Neverwhere is a particularly good one, set in London, where the hero finds himself in London Below as a reluctant hero on a quest he doesn't want to be on. I won't spoil it for you, but it really is a very good read and original with it.
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
Do you want it to be serious?
If no then Terry Pretchett springs to mind. Carpe Jugulum is a good one, (not that there's a ad book in the Discworld series.
On a more serious note there's Moorcock. I can't say I enjoyed Stormbringer, the book is too disturbing for that, but it is good.
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agingjb
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# 16555
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Posted
William Morris, E.R.Eddison, David Lindsay, Mervyn Peake, Stephen Donaldson, David Eddings, (I could go on, but won't for the moment) will all enchant some and repel others.
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Refraction Villanelles
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Athrawes
Ship's parrot
# 9594
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Posted
Another one for "The "Owl "Service". It was the first thing to spring to mind when I read the OP. Also, if for a younger audience, "Eight Days of Luke" by Diana Wynne Jones might be good. It follows Norse mythology in a modern setting.
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Explaining why is going to need a moment, since along the way we must take in the Ancient Greeks, the study of birds, witchcraft, 19thC Vaudeville and the history of baseball. Michael Quinion.
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Hedgehog
Ship's Shortstop
# 14125
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Posted
Michael Ende's The Neverending Story. It is one of my all-time favorites, not just as a fantasy novel but as a love-letter to the joy of reading. However, if you use it, it absolutely HAS to be a proper edition with the red and green ink.
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Ferdzy
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# 8702
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Posted
Don't forget Dianna Wynne Jones! i am partial to The Time of the Ghost, Archer's Goon, and The Ogre Downstairs, but she wrote lots of great stuff. Witch Week is kind of the anti-Harry Potter, and it's terrific.
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Niminypiminy
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# 15489
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Posted
Lots to beguile my summer reading! Oddly enough someone was talking to me today about Lud in the Mist. I definitely have to have a look at that one.
The course I'm teaching is called 'Romance' and it's a degree-level course for adults. So I think books aimed at younger children will be out. But I love A Wizard of Earthsea, so that's definitely one in the re-read pile; also The Owl Service which I remember being spooked by as a teenager. And that put me in mind of Fire and Hemlock, which I think is Diana Wynne Jones's best book. And I was also thinking about The Weirdstone of Brisingamen; and Prince Caspian which is full of romance-like elements, much more so than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
I've never read any Terry Pratchett -- what do people think? I suspect Mervyn Peake tips too much into gothic, and I would be treading on a colleague's toes there.
What pleasures await!
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Niminypiminy:
I've never read any Terry Pratchett -- what do people think?
There are people in the world who do not like Terry Pratchett. There are many things I just do not understand.
(Although I think the earlier novels are among the weakest - I'd say the first really brilliant one is Wyrd Sisters, though some people would say Mort.)
Having said that, it doesn't sound from your course description that Pratchett would really be what you're looking for. I don't think the kind of fantasy you're talking about is the kind he's sending up, or using to send up other things.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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jrw
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# 18045
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Posted
The Prydain Chronicles by LLoyd Alexander.
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
To add to all the excellent suggestions so far (especially Diana Wynne Jones) I would like to plug:
The Box of Delights by John Masefield
Somehow it is very English, and draws upon all sorts of folk material in compelling manner. DWJ and her family were fans, and there is an excellent TV version on DVD with the great Patrick Troughton as Cole Hawlings.
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South Coast Kevin
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# 16130
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Niminypiminy:
The course I'm teaching is called 'Romance' and it's a degree-level course for adults.
Unless I've completely misunderstood you, I wonder if Wizard's First Rule might hit the spot. It might be a bit childish for what you want - my memory isn't clear as I've not read it in a while - but the relationship between the two main characters is interesting and powerful, I thought. Has anyone else read it?
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
quote:
Originally posted by Niminypiminy:
The course I'm teaching is called 'Romance' and it's a degree-level course for adults.
Unless I've completely misunderstood you, I wonder if Wizard's First Rule might hit the spot. It might be a bit childish for what you want - my memory isn't clear as I've not read it in a while - but the relationship between the two main characters is interesting and powerful, I thought. Has anyone else read it?
Yes, I've read it - and I'm afraid I thought it was dreadful. On a level with the vacuous outpourings of David Eddings and the Shannanarah chap.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
I would be very tempted to add Stephen Lawhead to the list - specifically the first 3 of the Pendragon books. You could also have a Conan or two in there, as they're archetypal swords-and-sandals stuff.
For bang up-to-date, Joe Abercrombie is Lord Grimdark himself (Best Served Cold is a standalone), anything by Robin Hobb will be excellent, and for something a touch lighter, Naomi Novik (start with Temeraire).
(eta) I appear to have gone off at a tangent. Apologies. If you want 'romance', then go for Temeraire. It's about a man and a dragon, and there is romance, but not in That Way.
[ 18. June 2014, 23:32: Message edited by: Doc Tor ]
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Brenda Clough
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# 18061
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Posted
If we are putting aside all children's and YA works, then books directed specifically to the adult reader:
C.S. Lewis's space trilogy is really fantasy.
A grand one-book work might be Charles Williams' ALL HALLOW'S EVE, his best fantasy novel (IMO). A classic short work is THE TIME MACHINE, by H.G.Wells. And for scary you can't beat DR, JEKYLL & MR. HYDE.
If you want an author who is still alive:
I maintain that the best fantasy novel extant today is CURSE OF CHALION by Lois McMaster Bujold -- one fat volume.
For a more historical-fantasy cast, consider TOOTH & CLAW by Jo Walton -- a Trollope novel, only with dragons! Or THE MOON AND THE SUN, by Vonda McIntyre, in which King Louis XIV finds a mermaid. JONATHAN STRANGE & MR.NORRELL is Dickensian, with faery. How about BRIDGE OF BIRDS, by Barry Hughart? set in a fantasy China.
Gaiman's NEVERWHERE is set in modern London, and underneath. So is Tom Holt's EXPECTING SOMEONE TALLER, which is killingly funny (a guy finds the Ring of the Nibelungs by the side of the road). All the Harry Dresden novels are set in modern Chicago. And my own work tends to be set in the US east coast.
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Brenda Clough
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# 18061
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Posted
As you can see, you are totally spoiled for choice -- I can do this all day.
Perhaps you could be really really specific in your needs? No wizards, set in modern day southeast Asia...
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basso
Ship’s Crypt Keeper
# 4228
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Posted
I'll second Brenda Clough's mention of Lois McMaster Bujold, but I'd choose instead the second novel set in that world, Paladin of Souls. It's a quest, with an engaging heroine who never picks up a sword throughout the book. She meets gods, though, and comes out not intact but certainly changed.
One of the many things I like about these books is that they are stand-alone novels set in the same universe. No need to enlist for the whole series -- each is satisfactory on its own.
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
I read Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier a few years ago and liked it very much considering I'm not usually a fantasy reader. It is loosely based on "The Six Swans" fairy tale. A girl must sew six shirts from a nettle plant in order to save her brothers from a witch's enchantment (they were turned into swans.) She can't speak until the job is done. There's a love story as well as sibling devotion. Very sad in places. I think teen girls would love it.
[ 19. June 2014, 00:44: Message edited by: Twilight ]
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Nicolemr
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# 28
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Posted
Something by Guy Gavriel Kay. A Song for Arbonne. Set in a fantasy world similar to France and Germany at the time of the troubadors. Awesome book.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Haroun and the Sea of Stories.
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Palimpsest
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# 16772
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Posted
But wait, there's more;
Among Others by Jo Walton is an adolescent dealing with magic and a deranged mother as well as first love.
Swordspoint by Kushner is a fantasy about a gay romance in a feudal world with dueling.
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Whichever other Dianne Wynne Jones you use, you really should get them to read The Tough Guide to Fantasy Land.. Not only is it extremely funny, but it is a good starting point for looking at large swathes of the genre.
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Niminypiminy:
The course I'm teaching is called 'Romance' and it's a degree-level course for adults. So I think books aimed at younger children will be out. But I love A Wizard of Earthsea, so that's definitely one in the re-read pile; also The Owl Service which I remember being spooked by as a teenager.
OK, if it's degree-level for adults and the theme is romance, then my personal suggestion would be Dunsany's King of Elfland's Daughter as this would fit the bill perfectly. It's fantasy, written in rich, purple prose that you need to savour slowly, lots of beautiful, poetic imagery, the theme of a quest - Alveric sees the King of Elfland's daughter and persuades her to come away to Middle Earth and live with him as his wife. She never quite adjusts, and a small impish troll is sent to bring her back. What follows is Alveric's quest to find her again.
Dunsany wrote many good things, but this is one of his best. The Wizard of Earthsea is also good but less of a romance.
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
How has this thread had to many posts without a mention for Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials? It's a fine work, heavily influenced by The Chronicles of Narnia as well as Paradise Lost. It's got vivid imagery and a deeply philosophical/theological undercurrent which comes through to the surface in the final volume.
Best to give Stephen King's The Dark Tower series a miss, though. It had a great start, but tails off, including one volume which is not just influenced by, but entirely derived from Seven Samurai.
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
I cannot second Lawhead. To my mind, all one can say for him is that he's one step better than Christian Fiction.
Barry Hughart is brilliant if you can find his books. Perhaps not strictly suitable for the course as described, but otherwise brilliant.
Robin Hobb is good, but writes thick fantasy trilogies. Her latest, the Dragon Keepers, was a disappointment being a thick fantasy quartet with too much padding.
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is again brilliant, but Long.
The only Guy Gavriel Kay I've ever really got on with is Tigana.
And yes - Tough Guide to Fantasyland is a must read.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
If YA is not completely out of the question (I notice about half the suggestions are classed as YA) how about The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope - another reimagining of Tam Lin, set in Elizabethan England, featuring romance. You could even compare it with Diana Wynne Jones' Fire and Hemlock if you have time to read both - two very different books using the Tam Lin plot.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Siegfried
Ship's ferret
# 29
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Posted
Since you'll want it self-contained, you will be a bit limited. The first Earthsea novel would be good--it's original and a good read, but a tad short perhaps. If you want something longer, you could go "Sword of Shannara"--yes, the rest of the series drags on endlessly, but the first book really was quite good. "Lord Foul's Bane" may be problematic depending on the age you're teaching as it gets a bit rapey. And depressing.
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Siegfried
Life is just a bowl of cherries!
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I can't think how I forgot T H White. Yes, the Sword in the Stone is for the young, but the later three in the sequence are not. The Queen of Air and Darkness, The Illmade Knight, and The Candle in the Wind all deal with the Malory themes of incest, betrayal, and so on in the Arthurian cycle.
Alan Garner has some adult books, one of which, Boneland, addresses the unfinished sequence of Weirdstone and Gomrath. I have it sitting waiting to be read, so cannot comment on it.
I have a suspicion that the YA books deal more with deep stuff than the adult fantasy. Which I find more like the stuff Wynne Jones mocks in the Tough Guide. (I cannot imagine how she got away with that!)
Is there a book version of the film "Willow"?
You might find something in the work of Vera Chapman, who reworked Arthurian myth and romance; and Joy Chant. Again a bit YA. (Of "Red Moon and Black Mountain" a site comments both on her innovative use of skin colour in the peoples, and that in the climactic battle being about God, she made "The Last Battle" seem discreet.) Both women were connected somewhat with the Inklngs.
The Tertius novels by Robert Newman are also a bit YA.
I can't seem to think of anything much since Lewis "That Hideous Strength" and the Charles Williams' works.
There's Mary Stewart's Merlin sequence, and some additions to that world which are definitely in the tradition of medieval romance.
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
If you want Tolkein but not Middle Earth then you could try Farmer Giles of Ham. It is very short and humerous and might be added to a list with other fantasy writers.
Jengie
E.t.a. Rosemary Sutcliffe wrote a retelling of the Arthurian legend called a Sword at Sunset that is definitely for adults and not for children. It may be anti-fantasy in some ways in that it removes the magical from the legend.
[ 19. June 2014, 13:00: Message edited by: Jengie Jon ]
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Penny S: quote:
I have a suspicion that the YA books deal more with deep stuff than the adult fantasy.
Some do, certainly. I think all the YA books suggested so far have enough 'deep stuff' in them to keep degree-level students busy for a term. Sibling rivalry, human sacrifice, bereavement, coming of age, brainwashing, politics, drug culture... all in The Perilous Gard.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Alan Garner has some adult books, one of which, Boneland, addresses the unfinished sequence of Weirdstone and Gomrath. I have it sitting waiting to be read, so cannot comment on it.
It is in no way a children's or YA novel. It's complex, cryptic, disturbing, unsettling. Very different from the first two books, so much so as to feel unrelated - though it is. You won't get it all on the first reading. I read it twice and still don't know whether I liked it. It's not an easy read by any means.
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
John Brunner's 'Traveler in Black' is worth a look. As are the Hawkmoon and Corum sequences by Michael Moorcock. Also Gormenghast. Plus there's some bloke called George R. R. Martin who appears to have written the odd fantasy novel which appears to have come to the notice of the telly. Then there are the Norse Sagas, the Greek Myths, Malory und so weiter.
Wizard of Earthsea and the Owl Service were part of the curriculum for year 7 (ages 11-12) when I was year 7. I can heartily recommend both books but you may want something more challenging for your readers. One might add Susan Cooper's Dark Is Rising series - gorgeous, but perhaps not quite the thing for adults?
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Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
quote:
Rosemary Sutcliffe wrote a retelling of the Arthurian legend called a Sword at Sunset that is definitely for adults and not for children. It may be anti-fantasy in some ways in that it removes the magical from the legend.
Quite simply the best version of the Arthur story, ever. If you want myth and magic Malory, Tennyson, Stewart and Cornwell are all worth a look. But if you want to stand in the breach and hold the line against the coming darkness then Sutcliff is your go to person. Very topical if one happens to be a C of E clergyperson, one might add!
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Niminypiminy:
I've never read any Terry Pratchett -- what do people think? I suspect Mervyn Peake tips too much into gothic, and I would be treading on a colleague's toes there.
What pleasures await!
That's true about Peake, but it's a pity. Everyone should read the Gormenghast books, or at least the first two, at least once in their lives. I think Peake has the most visual prose style of anyone I've ever read.
Most of Pratchett's work has too much laugh-out-loud comedy in it to come under the heading of 'romance', I think. Some of the Guards books, though, have some moving stuff in them, and for my money Sam Vimes is Pratchett's most human creation.
I'll go with others and suggest Neil Gaiman. Neverwhere is great, but for your purposes Stardust might be even better - I think it's a total delight.
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
Many of these are excellent suggestions. I nominate
"Excalibur" by Sanders Anne Laubenthal and "The Last Unicorn" by Peter Beagle.
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TurquoiseTastic
Fish of a different color
# 8978
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Posted
There are lots of good suggestions here. But if you want a quest, and the supernatural, and a metamorphosis (kind of), and a connection to George Macdonald, and an awareness of the mediaeval world-view, then Brenda Clough's suggestion of Lewis's Cosmic Trilogy hits all those buttons. Especially Perelandra.
[ 19. June 2014, 15:33: Message edited by: TurquoiseTastic ]
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Alan Garner has some adult books, one of which, Boneland, addresses the unfinished sequence of Weirdstone and Gomrath. I have it sitting waiting to be read, so cannot comment on it.
It is in no way a children's or YA novel. It's complex, cryptic, disturbing, unsettling. Very different from the first two books, so much so as to feel unrelated - though it is. You won't get it all on the first reading. I read it twice and still don't know whether I liked it. It's not an easy read by any means.
I heard him talking about it on the radio, while he and the interviewer were out on Alderley Edge - it was interesting to hear why he has waited so long to write it. One reason was that he had come not to like Colin and Susan very much.
It sounds as though I might be filing it with Red Shift.
Have you read Strandloper? I have that waiting as well.
I didn't put Rosemary Sutcliffe and "Sword at Sunset" down with Mary Stewart, because I mentaly classify it as this side of the historical/fantasy divide. But it's a fuzzy boundary.
Judith Tarr has done some stuff which would fit. The one I recall is "A Wind in Cairo", and I haven't seen most of the books listed in Wikipedia. Haven't made it over here, I suppose. Some of it postulates that the Norman Conquest was in order to restore the rule of magic to England after 6 centuries of being held under the dead hand of Saxons and Christianity. Definitely the other side of the boundary, and Duh?
Josepha Sherman wrote a couple of books based on Russian folk tales, one of which was called "The Shining Falcon" and was based on the story of Fenist the Falcon, one of the Beauty and the Beast, Cupid and Psyche group of stories. Shortly after that appeared a male writer also started to write from that source, less effectively, I thought. The falcon book I read while flu-rid, twice in rapid succession, and then read bits out to a friend. She approaches the missing mass problem of shapeshifting, but then ignores it. If you look at her bibliography, you'll see what a broad and honourable record of writing she had. Star Trek! Buffy!
[ 19. June 2014, 16:06: Message edited by: Penny S ]
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Um. TO YOUR SCATTERED BODIES GO was by Philip Jose Farmer. He, BTW, is famous for a rather heavy sexual content, another factor to consider. If you want Zelazny, you cannot miss with LORD OF LIGHT, a one-volume tour-de-force.
Consider availability. Does the work have to be in print, so that the school bookstore can order it in, or will your pupils be happy wandering over to used book web sites to fish up the out-of-print? Do you allow or perhaps even prefer an electronic edition? Many of the works mentioned above will not be findable in paper form except in used book stores.
I would not pick up BONELAND unless I had already read WEIRDSTONE OF BRISINGAMEN and MOON OF GOMRATH. You have not a prayer of understanding it unless you have thoroughly mastered both works.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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TurquoiseTastic
Fish of a different color
# 8978
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Posted
I think Pratchett is a great idea as well. But I think he would be a contrast to the MacDonald and mediaevalism. He has a very twentieth-century humanist feel, somehow (that is probably a pretentious way of putting it). For the nihilist alternative, there's always The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Edited to add: if there's one book by Pratchett to go for, I'd probably make it Small Gods .
[ 19. June 2014, 16:05: Message edited by: TurquoiseTastic ]
Posts: 1092 | From: Hants., UK | Registered: Jan 2005
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I think I'd go for Lords and Ladies of Pratchett's, because of sending up the - shh, mustn't name them, er, what Kipling said, phariseeses - which would be more in keeping with a medieval romance (I'm assuming not soppy lovey-dovey drivel but the root meaning here).
Andre Norton did a version of Huon of Bordeaux, which I fell upon with relief, as I could never make anything of the references in Pook Hill, and Rewards and Fairies. I was deeply disappointed that it was not possible to find the source in the library in Bateman's. How's a child likely to know that stuff.
Poul Anderson did a sequence based on the medieval Brittany legend of Ys.
I am reminded by the Kipling Huon connection of Richard Parker, the Sword of Ganelon. I read it as a YA, it was presumably in the Folkestone school library because part of it was set in the villa on the cliff there. It played with the fall-out of the Roland and Oliver romance. And King Alfred as mystical heir of Arthur. Not sure where it lies on the fuzzy boundary.
[ 19. June 2014, 16:18: Message edited by: Penny S ]
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Snags
Utterly socially unrealistic
# 15351
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Posted
Possibly a bit left-field, but you could do worse than add Mary Gentle to the list, particular "Ash". "Grunts" is a hoot, but not really what you're looking for. It (Ash, not Grunts) has more of an SF 'feel' but sits within fantasy/alternative history territory.
Very, very left-field might stretch to "The Gargoyle" (Andrew Davidson) or even Zelazny's Amber series depending on quite how one is defining "romance" (I'm assuming more literary than popular understanding of schlock).
Edited for clarification (but not much)
[ 19. June 2014, 16:26: Message edited by: Snags ]
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Vain witterings :-: Vain pretentions :-: The Dog's Blog(locks)
Posts: 1399 | From: just north of That London | Registered: Dec 2009
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Fineline
Shipmate
# 12143
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Posted
I don't read a lot of fantasy, but The Book of Lost Things, by John Connelly, is pretty good
Posts: 2375 | From: England | Registered: Dec 2006
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Fineline
Shipmate
# 12143
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Posted
Actually, disregard that - it's 21st century, not 20th century. It's a good novel though, if you fancy reading it for yourself.
Posts: 2375 | From: England | Registered: Dec 2006
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Caissa
Shipmate
# 16710
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Posted
Thanks for the author correction, Brenda. I had a brain freeze.
Posts: 972 | From: Saint John, N.B. | Registered: Oct 2011
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