Anthony Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I gave up most of the scifi/fantasy reading over a
> decade ago, as it just became boring rehash after
> boring rehash.
>
> [...] What would you suggest as the "top
> of the list" in the genre these days?

My own personal list of favourites would have to include (sort-of in order of precedence):

(1) Ash: A Secret History by Mary Gentle (2001) [at over 1,100 pages, the longest fantasy novel published in a single volume - longer than LoTR - although published in several volumes in the States, I think; a brilliantly-realised alternative history set in medieval Burgundy and Carthage - with a female mercenary leader as the main character, to boot!]

(2) China Miéville's three novels set in and around the fantastic city of New Crobuzon; not a trilogy, but best read in sequence: Perdido Street Station (2000), The Scar (2002), and Iron Council (2004) [Miéville's the doyen of what's been described as the New Weird - fiction that subverts the normal genre boundaries that divide fantastic literature into 'science fiction', 'fantasy', 'horror' etc.]

(3) Haydn Middleton's Mordred Cycle trilogy: The King's Evil (1995), The Queen's Captive (1996), The Knight's Vengeance (1997)[an absolutely unique take on the traditional Arthurian legend; bizarre and extraordinary]

(4) Robert Irwin's The Arabian Nightmare (1983) [literate historical fantasy set in medieval Cairo; stories within stories]

Those are my top four recommendations. Some other books that I've really enjoyed, include (in no particular order):

(i) The Light Ages by Ian R. MacLeod (2003) [industrial urban fantasy]
(ii) anything by Graham Joyce
(iii) anything by Jonathan Carroll
(iv) Threshold by Caitlín R. Kiernan [horror by a very gifted writer]
(v) Imagica by Clive Barker
(vi) Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock [originally a stand-alone novel; haven't read any others in the subsequent series, but haven't enjoyed some of his other stuff so much]
(vii) The Fox Woman by Kij Johnson [stylish retelling of Japanese folktale]
(viii) God’s Fires by Patricia Anthony [alien encounter set in medieval Europe]
(ix) Gardens of the Moon (A Tale of the Malazan Book of the Fallen) by Steven Erikson [the first of an on-going series of fantasy novels]
(x) A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book One) by George R.R. Martin [have only read the first of this on-going series, but thought it was excellent]
(xi) The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers [just because it's completely mad]
(xii) Empire of Bones by Liz Williams [alien encounter set in futurististic India]
(xiii) The Separation by Christopher Priest [uncategorisable novel set during the Second World War; winner of the 2003 Arthur C. Clarke Award and the British Science Fiction Award]





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/19/2005 04:30PM by Damian Walter.