From: "Richard Fangnail" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: 7 Feb 2005 10:17:39 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Lines: 3 Message-ID: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.148.124.3 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" X-Trace: posting.google.com 1107800263 26562 127.0.0.1 (7 Feb 2005 18:17:43 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 18:17:43 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: G2/0.2 Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com; posting-host=209.148.124.3; posting-account=NFmSlg0AAABVkmkOAbo8qkGKne8Dk-2m Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!in2p3.fr!proxad.net!216.239.36.134.MISMATCH!postnews.google.com!c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168651 What are the best ones? It's funny I've read LOTR so many times but no other fantasy stories at all. Some like Dragonriders of Pern. ###### From: "Dan_Leach" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 18:29:38 -0000 Lines: 12 Message-ID: <36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> X-Trace: individual.net chVCYPuQu3WA5PxRIGBkGwfP8CsLo1wH4B+DjA8Wmuno+9Bdq4 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2527 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2527 X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Original Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168654 "Richard Fangnail" wrote in message news:1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com... > What are the best ones? It's funny I've read LOTR so many times but no > other fantasy stories at all. Some like Dragonriders of Pern. I dont read much and when i do its tolkien, but i did really enjoy earthsea by ursula le guin. Its adult fantasy like LOTR, it can be a bit slow at times but it is very cerebral. ###### From: "Rhiannon Sands" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 19:17:16 -0000 Lines: 40 Message-ID: <36ptpnF53co97U1@individual.net> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net> X-Trace: individual.net flcshav+CRt3cNFB6fvHTwDVtcbtBYI6v7UtdtIYkJ3y/euLrS X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1409 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1409 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168662 "Dan_Leach" wrote in message news:36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net... > > "Richard Fangnail" wrote in message > news:1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com... > > What are the best ones? It's funny I've read LOTR so many times but no > > other fantasy stories at all. Some like Dragonriders of Pern. > > > I dont read much and when i do its tolkien, but i did really enjoy earthsea > by ursula le guin. Its adult fantasy like LOTR, it can be a bit slow at > times but it is very cerebral. > > I quite like Juilet E Mckenna's stuff myself. Fantasy but with a good solid dose of cynicism. Horses do smell, fires are damned hard to start in the wilderness, when people are trying to skewer you with swords it's no time for a witty remark, people die horribly and sometimes casually and without meaning (and sometimes with a great deal of meaning and sacrifice) oh and wizardy is hard stuff and could roast you to death (and that's just when you get it right too). I think that her magic artifacts of long lost civilisation which have personalities of their own resonate quite strongly with Tolkien's rings, but manage to be quite different at the same time. The fact that possesing either one means that evildoers(tm) will try and kill you just as easily as power hungry allies will is a bit of a parallel too. But both Mckenna and Tolkien have one thing that they both have in common. They built their worlds first and then let the worlds shape the stories and characters. I think that's what makes Tolkien and McKenna's works so readable, the worlds are real even if they do have more dragons than us. -- Rhiannon_S Yes, I am a fluffly bunny, but so was the one in Monty Python! ###### From: stephen@nomail.com Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: 7 Feb 2005 19:44:41 GMT Organization: Michigan State University Lines: 16 Sender: stephen@nomail.com Message-ID: References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net> <36ptpnF53co97U1@individual.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: pacific.cse.msu.edu X-AUTHid: wagners5 User-Agent: tin/1.4.3-20000502 ("Marian") (UNIX) (SunOS/5.9 (sun4u)) Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.stueberl.de!logbridge.uoregon.edu!msunews!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168666 Rhiannon Sands wrote: : But both Mckenna and Tolkien have one thing that they both have in common. : They built their worlds first and then let the worlds shape the stories and : characters. I think that's what makes Tolkien and McKenna's works so : readable, the worlds are real even if they do have more dragons than us. With regards to "Lord of the Rings", Tolkien did not build his world first. Nearly everything in the story was made up for the story, and evolved as the story evolved. Aragorn started out as a hobbit. There was no broken line of kings or throne to reclaim when the character of "Strider" was created. Tolkien did spend years prior to writing LOTR working on the stories of the first age, and they provided a backdrop for LOTR, but he had to go back and modify those storied because of the many ideas and characters invented for LOTR. Stephen ###### From: "Peter Andersen" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Lines: 24 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2527 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2527 X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Original Message-ID: Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 21:07:56 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 129.142.34.161 X-Complaints-To: abuse@cirque.tv X-Trace: news.get2net.dk 1107806876 129.142.34.161 (Mon, 07 Feb 2005 21:07:56 CET) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 21:07:56 CET Organization: Cirque Internet Kunde Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.tele.dk!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!newsfeed1.e.nsc.no!uio.no!newsfeed1.uni2.dk!news.get2net.dk.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168669 "Richard Fangnail" skrev i en meddelelse news:1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com... > What are the best ones? It's funny I've read LOTR so many times but no > other fantasy stories at all. Some like Dragonriders of Pern. > Some fifteen years ago I read the Dragonlance cronicles and legends, and loved it. When I later read LOTR, is seemed to me they bore a certain similarity. A few months ago I decided to give cronicles a second read, for old times sake, but they now seem way more suited for kids. The storyline in legends, as I remember it, would probably be more entertaining (with timetravel, and the fate of the world being decided by the actios of a mad god-aspiring wizard). Don't expect to be 'Tolkienized'; the story is good, but with a lot less characterization. -- ____________________ Peter Andersen pls.reply@news.grp ____________________ ###### From: clJUNKv1@balcab.ch (CleV) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 20:47:39 GMT Organization: Cablecom Newsserver Lines: 24 Message-ID: <4207d18c.1683104@news.hispeed.ch> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 80-218-140-117.dclient.hispeed.ch X-Trace: news.hispeed.ch 1107809347 12880 80.218.140.117 (7 Feb 2005 20:49:07 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@hispeed.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 20:49:07 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.21/32.243 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.hispeed.ch!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168673 On 7 Feb 2005 10:17:39 -0800, "Richard Fangnail" wrote: >What are the best ones? It's funny I've read LOTR so many times but no >other fantasy stories at all. Some like Dragonriders of Pern. Depends if you want more of the same or other forms of fantasy. I would recommend: Tanith Lee: Tales of the Flat Earth, starting with Night's Master. Tanith Lee's work takes off where Beckford's Vathek ends, with demons and deserts and myth and magic ... John Crowley: Little, Big - IMO the best and only case of Real Magic (cf. Magical Realism). Alice in Wonderland crossed with American myth crossed with Shakespear crossed with tales of a vanished past ... Halfway through, a character's nickname becomes a revelation ... James Branch Cabell: Chronicles of Poictesme - roughly contemporaneous with Tolkien, and a tale (in many many books, most no longer in print) of the realm of Poictesme and its founder, Don Manuel. Myth is decked out in good humour and cleverness and humanity. Check out the first three (excellent) books, Figures of Earth, The Silver Stallion and Jurgen ... ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 14:58:51 -0600 Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 15:58:47 -0500 From: Robert Kolker User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net> In-Reply-To: <36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: Lines: 12 NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.128.242.168 X-Trace: sv3-UVl9AD8phb5dHrQXhEs40AdHEpSXcogoV48s0b0NteoUSizQtJIgPcLgOgyYo5XRFdRNvammIUxVGmD!S39cJRlwylJ6E4DtWgDSwC6LcS+JBfC7QInyt2+gOSMU2Y5SvoVItVymkVUyiSAqdFFne644P9KD!lLs= X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: dmca@comcast.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.23 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.comcast.com!news.comcast.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168677 Dan_Leach wrote: > I dont read much and when i do its tolkien, but i did really enjoy > earthsea by ursula le guin. Its adult fantasy like LOTR, it can be a > bit slow at times but it is very cerebral. Concur. Sometime I wonder what LOTR would have been like if La Guin had written it. Bob Kolker ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 14:59:48 -0600 Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 15:59:44 -0500 From: Robert Kolker User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net> <36ptpnF53co97U1@individual.net> In-Reply-To: <36ptpnF53co97U1@individual.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: Lines: 12 NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.128.242.168 X-Trace: sv3-Gqic/Wbsbreqaf1J37YcZV8QBTP8fbWfoxtsgH8AGwzJ8nynQfrXkIj8F/8xSRhiUs0NHf6BNTGQhjl!DEUhfMLF4Wbh3ehO1czgK3v4T1u8tHnGx4Wu0HJZZr0darfu/dmbapEouI3VGFL04032inABf38O!p9M= X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: dmca@comcast.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.23 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.stueberl.de!peer01.cox.net!cox.net!atl-c02.usenetserver.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.comcast.com!news.comcast.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168678 Rhiannon Sands wrote: > But both Mckenna and Tolkien have one thing that they both have in > common. > They built their worlds first and then let the worlds shape the stories and > characters. I think that's what makes Tolkien and McKenna's works so > readable, the worlds are real even if they do have more dragons than us. This was also true of the two planet world in La Guin's -The Dispossesed-. Bob Kolker ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 15:03:22 -0600 Message-ID: <4207D7BF.8070800@mfx.net> Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 16:03:59 -0500 From: pmhilton User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 19 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.5.183.157 X-Trace: sv3-VBz6utyjhAwAuym7K+7yywraeYKcULwV1oX6y+Jj7fwTV77zHS/MQdm2WALJdiGJy4et0ZjG5Xn7B4m!4hF4xd2cWI1h32z2K8EWUzJ9nGBPM3h3O/DfqBcN2DZRM1ls1P44ScXM X-Complaints-To: abuse@gwi.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: abuse@gwi.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.23 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.gwi.net!news.gwi.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168680 Richard Fangnail wrote: >What are the best ones? It's funny I've read LOTR so many times but no >other fantasy stories at all. Some like Dragonriders of Pern. > > You might try the Deryni series by Katherine Kurtz. Quasi-medieval, some magical powers a la Gandalf, well-done plot lines, character development not multi-layered as in Tolkien. Pete H -- Either everyone has rights or some have privileges. It's really that simple. Walt Kelly ###### From: Michele Fry Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 21:14:30 +0000 Organization: sass Lines: 45 Message-ID: References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net> <36ptpnF53co97U1@individual.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: sassoonery.demon.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 1107811246 1647 212.228.13.129 (7 Feb 2005 21:20:46 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 21:20:46 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Turnpike Integrated Version 4.02 S Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!nntpfeed.zonnet.nl!newsfeeder.concepts.nl!193.201.147.73.MISMATCH!border1.nntp.ams.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!pe2.news.blueyonder.co.uk!blueyonder!peer-uk.news.demon.net!kibo.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!sassoonery.demon.co.uk!michele Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168682 In article <36ptpnF53co97U1@individual.net>, Rhiannon Sands writes >I quite like Juilet E Mckenna's stuff myself. Fantasy but with a good solid >dose of cynicism. Horses do smell, fires are damned hard to start in the >wilderness, when people are trying to skewer you with swords it's no time >for a witty remark, people die horribly and sometimes casually and without >meaning (and sometimes with a great deal of meaning and sacrifice) oh and >wizardy is hard stuff and could roast you to death (and that's just when you >get it right too). > >I think that her magic artifacts of long lost civilisation which have >personalities of their own resonate quite strongly with Tolkien's rings, but >manage to be quite different at the same time. The fact that possesing >either one means that evildoers(tm) will try and kill you just as easily as >power hungry allies will is a bit of a parallel too. > >But both Mckenna and Tolkien have one thing that they both have in common. >They built their worlds first and then let the worlds shape the stories and >characters. I think that's what makes Tolkien and McKenna's works so >readable, the worlds are real even if they do have more dragons than us. Yay Rhiannon !! I'm one of Juliet McKenna's biggest fans (check out the Sig below !) Have you got your copy of "Turns And Chances", McKenna's novella set during the Lescari Civil Wars ? It's newly published and only available by mail order (if not, see the following page for more info. http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/juliet.e.mckenna/tandc.html ) What do you think of the Aldabreshin Compass series so far ?? As I was muttering elsewhere (the Balrog verse thread) I'm going to be writing a paper shortly - on the Tales of Einarinn... That's how big an impact McKenna's work has had on me... Michele == "Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill." - Barbara Tuchman == Now reading: The Assassin's Edge - Juliet E McKenna == Commit random acts of literacy! Read & Release at Bookcrossing: http://www.bookcrossing.com/friend/Sass-80 ###### From: "T.M. Sommers" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.1) Gecko/20030104 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 9 Message-ID: Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 22:32:58 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 64.9.102.145 X-Complaints-To: Abuse Role , We Care X-Trace: newshog.newsread.com 1107815578 64.9.102.145 (Mon, 07 Feb 2005 17:32:58 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 17:32:58 EST Organization: Cumberland Technologies International (pa.net) Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.stueberl.de!news.glorb.com!news-feed01.roc.ny.frontiernet.net!nntp.frontiernet.net!newsread.com!newsstand.newsread.com!POSTED.newshog.newsread.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168694 Richard Fangnail wrote: > What are the best ones? It's funny I've read LOTR so many times but no > other fantasy stories at all. Some like Dragonriders of Pern. Try John Myers Myers' _Silverlock_. -- Thomas M. Sommers -- tms@nj.net -- AB2SB ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 20:31:54 -0600 Message-ID: <420824A2.9070008@comcast.net> Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 18:32:02 -0800 From: Tod User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 (Windows/20041206) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien To: Richard Fangnail Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> In-Reply-To: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 19 NNTP-Posting-Host: 67.161.50.96 X-Trace: sv3-fNk2FvfK9tHIuvEw3BFbMI9kDkL3s7W+nsFfi3/qO6gPy/w+UapiGenro4bUsBu0GaVRU2HHC//Ke30!oeojfPaStyMFVGQ9f1blz78Ng8YoKCdCTn1A+NAcWXVnDwntu0FKHVL90DAuwRTDdvCd X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: dmca@comcast.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.23 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.comcast.com!news.comcast.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168707 Richard Fangnail wrote: > What are the best ones? It's funny I've read LOTR so many times but no > other fantasy stories at all. Some like Dragonriders of Pern. > Try "Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever" It's about some guy with a ring of great power. I'm just starting to read the series for the second time. Currently there are 7 books in the series and 3 books still to be written The movie deal is in the works Here is a fan website http://www.kevinswatch.com/ Author's website http://www.stephenrdonaldson.com/ ###### From: the softrat Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 18:44:06 -0800 Organization: None to Speak Of Message-ID: <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 2.0/32.652 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com Lines: 94 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!in2p3.fr!proxad.net!64.233.160.134.MISMATCH!postnews.google.com!news4.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!sn-xit-02!sn-xit-12!sn-xit-06!sn-post-02!sn-post-01!supernews.com!news.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168711 On 7 Feb 2005 10:17:39 -0800, "Richard Fangnail" wrote: >What are the best ones? It's funny I've read LOTR so many times but no >other fantasy stories at all. Some like Dragonriders of Pern. Well, these are mine, YMMV. Both before and after.... Anything by William Morris Lord Dunsany _The Worm Ourobouros_ by E. R. Eddison. The Merlin quadrilogy by Mary Stewart The retelling of the four branches of the Mabinogeon by Evangeline Walton The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever by Stephen Donaldson (The Second Chronicles suck!) The six books of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin The Elric of Melibone series by Michael Moorcock The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis (heavily Christian and written for children) _The Weirdstone of Brisingamen_, _The Moon of Gomrath_ (a sequel), and _The_Owl_Service_ by Alan Garner (flawed but good fantasy, nominally for children) Some like Lloyd Alexander's five volume Mabinogeon rip-off _The Chronicles of Prydain_. I didn't (the Americanisms and the Welsh myths don't play well together.) I am deliberately leaving out other sorts of imaginative fiction like science fiction and horror. Science fiction especially opens a huge category. As always, Y)our M)ileage M)ay V)ary. the softrat Another opinion: Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea Trilogy: "A Wizard of Easrthsea", "The Tombs of Atuan" and "The Farthest Shore", and, later, "Tehanu", "Tales from Earthsea", and "The Other Shore". Peter S. Beagle: "The Last Unicorn". Jack Vance: the Lyonesse trilogy and "The Last Castle". Michael Scott Rohan's "The Winter of the World" tetralogy. Tom Holt: "Expecting Someone Taller". Terry Pratchett's comical fantasy stories. Evangeline Walton's retelling of the Mabinogion: "The Island of the Mighty", "Prince of Annwn", "The Children of Llyr" and "The Birds of Rhiannon". L. Sprague de Camp's "The Unbeheaded King" (a trilogy, glorious fun) and "The Fallible Fiend", about an incompetent but very well-meaning demon. Gordon R. Dickson: "The Dragon and the George". (The sequels, however, are rather tired.) Roger Zelazny: "Jack of Shadows". Strangely enough, Clifford D. Simak, otherwise a science fiction writer, wrote a fantasy story in his old age. It is called "Where the Evil Dwells" and is quite entertaining. (I have the impression he somehow crossed fantasy with Rosemary Sutcliff's novels from Roman Britain.) And Fred Saberhagen, otherwise also an sf writer (best known for his Berserker books) wrote a trilogy about a future Earth where magic is stronger than hardscience: "The Broken Lands", "The Black Mountains" and "Changeling Earth". I personally would not bother with Stephen Donaldson, Terry Brooks, George R. R. Martin, Raymond E. Feist, Katherine Kerr, David Eddings, Catherine Kurtz or Piers Anthony. Ripoffs. Cheap imitations. Öjevind (Longswede) the softrat "Honi soit qui mal y pense." mailto:softrat@pobox.com -- "I woke up one morning and all of my stuff had been stolen...and replaced by exact duplicates." -- Steven Wright ###### From: the softrat Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 18:46:46 -0800 Organization: None to Speak Of Message-ID: References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <4207d18c.1683104@news.hispeed.ch> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 2.0/32.652 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com Lines: 18 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!news.glorb.com!newshub.sdsu.edu!tethys.csu.net!nntp.csufresno.edu!sn-xit-02!sn-xit-01!sn-post-01!supernews.com!news.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168712 On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 20:47:39 GMT, clJUNKv1@balcab.ch (CleV) wrote: > >James Branch Cabell: Chronicles of Poictesme - roughly contemporaneous >with Tolkien, and a tale (in many many books, most no longer in print) >of the realm of Poictesme and its founder, Don Manuel. Myth is decked >out in good humour and cleverness and humanity. Check out the first >three (excellent) books, Figures of Earth, The Silver Stallion and >Jurgen ... For you sex fans, Cabell was deemed obscene in the 1920's. A friend of my mother called it 'the dullest pornography ever written'. (I think that she missed the point.) the softrat "Honi soit qui mal y pense." mailto:softrat@pobox.com -- Mr Bullfrog says, "Time's fun, when you're having flies!" ###### Message-ID: <42083A96.C956DA47@yahoo-dot.ca> From: Odysseus X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 (Macintosh; U; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en,en-GB,fr-CA,fr,fr-FR,en-US MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <4207d18c.1683104@news.hispeed.ch> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Lines: 74 Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 04:04:43 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 198.166.231.142 X-Trace: edtnps84 1107835483 198.166.231.142 (Mon, 07 Feb 2005 21:04:43 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 21:04:43 MST Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.belwue.de!newsfeed.arcor.de!border2.nntp.ams.giganews.com!border1.nntp.ams.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!news2.euro.net!newshosting.com!nx02.iad01.newshosting.com!news-feed01.roc.ny.frontiernet.net!nntp.frontiernet.net!newsfeed2.telusplanet.net!newsfeed.telus.net!edtnps84.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168715 CleV wrote: > > On 7 Feb 2005 10:17:39 -0800, "Richard Fangnail" > wrote: > > >What are the best ones? It's funny I've read LOTR so many times but no > >other fantasy stories at all. Some like Dragonriders of Pern. > > Depends if you want more of the same or other forms of fantasy. I > would recommend: > > Tanith Lee: Tales of the Flat Earth, starting with Night's Master. > Tanith Lee's work takes off where Beckford's Vathek ends, with demons > and deserts and myth and magic ... > I haven't read many of her books, but I've enjoyed those I did; _Delusion's Master_ is one I recall particularly. > John Crowley: Little, Big - IMO the best and only case of Real Magic > (cf. Magical Realism). Alice in Wonderland crossed with American myth > crossed with Shakespear crossed with tales of a vanished past ... > Halfway through, a character's nickname becomes a revelation ... > I don't know him at all -- looks interesting. > James Branch Cabell: Chronicles of Poictesme - roughly contemporaneous > with Tolkien, and a tale (in many many books, most no longer in print) > of the realm of Poictesme and its founder, Don Manuel. Myth is decked > out in good humour and cleverness and humanity. Check out the first > three (excellent) books, Figures of Earth, The Silver Stallion and > Jurgen ... I didn't know there were more in the series -- I'll have to look for them! Those three are great, reminiscent of classics like _Gargantua & Pantagruel_, _Gulliver's Travels_, and _Candide_, with a touch of _The Story of Venus and Tannhäuser_. ;) I'll second Dan's nomination of LeGuin's _Earthsea_ series -- she's written some superb science-fiction as well. Now my turn -- Mervyn Peake: the trilogy of _Titus Groan_, _Gormenghast_, & _Titus Alone_, especially the first two. Bizarre but humanly engaging characters in a lavishly Gothic scenario, fine descriptive writing. I thought the TV adaptation of a few years ago did an excellent job with the material. For a taste of his style, in a setting very similar to Castle Gormenghast, look for the very creepy short-story "Boy in Darkness". I suppose he's another that's more a contemporary of Tolkien's than "after". Roger Zelazny: _Chronicles of Amber_. In a cleverly imagined fantasy world (that includes our own), a complicated 'soap-opera' plot proceeds at a great pace. Although my favourite work of his, as with Le Guin, would be classified as science-fiction, he's produced a few others in the fantasy category well worth reading. Tim Powers: 'realistic', tightly-plotted fantasies making brilliantly conceived combinations of historical people & events with myth & legend. My favourites are _The Anubis Gates_ (time-travel, Byron & Coleridge, ancient Egyptian sorcerors trying to revive the old gods), _The Drawing of the Dark_ (the siege of Vienna as a magical struggle between East & West, focusing on the beer-vat under which Finn McCool is buried, and featuring the Fisher King, Merlin & a reincarnated King Arthur), _The Stress of Her Regard_ (Byron (again), Shelley & Keats, in Italy, get involved with a race of succubi who put the idea of the Muse in a new light), and _Last Call_ (Bugsy Segal's Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, the Fisher King (again), and a poker-like game played for souls). These micro-summaries may sound silly, but no matter how incongruous they sound Powers makes the connections very 'plausible'. -- Odysseus ###### From: AC Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: 8 Feb 2005 04:43:32 GMT Organization: The Tao of Cow Lines: 11 Message-ID: References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> Reply-To: mightymartianca@hotmail.com X-Trace: individual.net RKGtSrUyO3JfryozRv45Hga6T2YfrgDsyljW2O1mSllytopbT5 User-Agent: slrn/0.9.8.0 (Linux) Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168716 On 7 Feb 2005 10:17:39 -0800, Richard Fangnail wrote: > What are the best ones? It's funny I've read LOTR so many times but no > other fantasy stories at all. Some like Dragonriders of Pern. I can't think of another fantasy series that I'd rate up there with LotR, but Robert Holdstock's Mythago Wood is one of my favorite fantasy books. -- Aaron Clausen mightymartianca@hotmail.com ###### From: AC Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: 8 Feb 2005 04:46:03 GMT Organization: The Tao of Cow Lines: 29 Message-ID: References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <420824A2.9070008@comcast.net> Reply-To: mightymartianca@hotmail.com X-Trace: individual.net zo+mEKxnv0BRq0wqO+7qTwg49twFOArCO7xAjA61LOZ7OeO1DO User-Agent: slrn/0.9.8.0 (Linux) Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168717 On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 18:32:02 -0800, Tod wrote: > Richard Fangnail wrote: >> What are the best ones? It's funny I've read LOTR so many times but no >> other fantasy stories at all. Some like Dragonriders of Pern. >> >> > Try "Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever" > It's about some guy with a ring of great power. > I'm just starting to read the series for the second time. > > Currently there are 7 books in the series and > 3 books still to be written > The movie deal is in the works > > Here is a fan website > http://www.kevinswatch.com/ > > Author's website > http://www.stephenrdonaldson.com/ The first trilogy was fairly decent, but the second wasn't nearly as good (haven't read the latest book yet). I wish Donaldson would have written some of the backstory, as the last time I reread the books, I could barely stomach Covenant. -- Aaron Clausen mightymartianca@hotmail.com ###### Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net> X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test70 (17 January 1999) From: sbjensen@midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard Jensen) Lines: 50 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.135.12.7 X-Trace: news.uchicago.edu 1107841878 128.135.12.7 (Mon, 07 Feb 2005 23:51:18 CST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 23:51:18 CST Organization: The University of Chicago X-SessionID: qrYNd-17334-25-3484@news.uchicago.edu X-Hash-Info: post-filter,v:1.4 X-Hash: 84a7be88 299b7bd1 e2a18db8 142cd3bf 849f6d91 Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 05:51:18 GMT Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!209.11.36.156.MISMATCH!nntp-server.pubsub.com!news.glorb.com!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.uchicago.edu!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168722 Quoth "Dan_Leach" in article <36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net>: > "Richard Fangnail" wrote: > > What are the best ones? > I dont read much and when i do its tolkien, but i did really enjoy > earthsea by ursula le guin. Its adult fantasy like LOTR, it can be a > bit slow at times but it is very cerebral. I'd second your recommendation of Earthsea (the original trilogy, anyway; I didn't care for the later sequel _Tehanu_, and I haven't read any of the more recent volumes). And I agree that they aren't the sort of books that talk down to kids, books that adults can enjoy and appreciate. But I would classify them quite firmly as having "young adults" as their primary audience: they're more "mature" than _The Hobbit_, but very distinctly less so than LotR. > > Some like Dragonriders of Pern. Some do. :) In fact, I liked the series tremendously when I was younger (mostly between the ages of 10 and 15, I think, though I was always a pretty advanced reader). My more recent forays into the books haven't been as enjoyable; I don't think there's as much deep meaning in McCaffrey's books as I've grown to look for. They're still enjoyable reads, and they describe a fascinating world. And speaking of their fascinating world, I've always been quite hesitant to call them "fantasy". Their setting is explicitly sci-fi, though that is very much a secondary theme until something like the ninth book in the series (in publication order). Personally, I often suggest _Dragonsbane_, by Barbara Hambly. A short summary of the plot might sound like run of the mill fantasy, but the focus of the story is firmly on the characters and their relationships, and that makes the whole story seem fresh. It's one of the least Tolkien-derived fantasy stories and worlds that I've seen, and I love Hambly's realization of dragons here. I highly recommend it. For the record, Hambly has in recent years written two more novels to follow this one. If they'd been out when I first read the book many years ago, I know I would have devoured them immediately. But as it is, I've avoided them like the plague: _Dragonsbane_ ends too well to spoil it with sequels. (I feel like Hambly's made similar mistakes by coming back to add new stories to other series that she's written, sequels whose plots felt "tacked on" to the world they're set in. I couldn't bear to see that happen to _Dragonsbane_.) Steuard Jensen ###### From: "Shanahan" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 22:01:21 -0800 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 21 Message-ID: References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-134.newsdawg.com X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1106 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.belwue.de!feed.news.tiscali.de!newsfeed.vmunix.org!newsfeed.stueberl.de!peer01.cox.net!cox.net!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!cyclone-sf.pbi.net!129.250.175.17!pln-w!spln!lex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!enews1 Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168775 Robert Kolker creatively typed: > Dan_Leach wrote: >> >> I dont read much and when i do its tolkien, but i did really >> enjoy earthsea by ursula le guin. Its adult fantasy like LOTR, it >> can be a bit slow at times but it is very cerebral. > > Concur. Sometime I wonder what LOTR would have been like if La > Guin had written it. I actually hung out with her once. We both went out for lunch with a bunch of social anthropologists (her father was a famous anthr.), after a small meeting/discussion. We muttered some disparaging remarks to each other about Marxian false consciousness and ivory towers. She was *cool*. Ciaran S. -- Let stories do their thing ###### From: leifmk@pvv.ntnu.no (Leif Magnar Kj|nn|y) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 10:09:20 +0000 (UTC) Organization: Norwegian University of Science and Technology Lines: 26 Message-ID: References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: proto.pvv.ntnu.no X-Trace: orkan.itea.ntnu.no 1107857360 28734 129.241.210.168 (8 Feb 2005 10:09:20 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@itea.ntnu.no NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 10:09:20 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test75 (Feb 13, 2001) Originator: leifmk@pvv.ntnu.no (Leif Magnar Kj|nn|y) Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!nntpfeed.zonnet.nl!newsfeeder.concepts.nl!193.201.147.73.MISMATCH!border1.nntp.ams.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!uio.no!ntnu.no!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168729 In article <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>, Richard Fangnail wrote: >What are the best ones? It's funny I've read LOTR so many times but no >other fantasy stories at all. Some like Dragonriders of Pern. There's a lot of it about and Sturgeon's Law definitely applies but there is some good stuff among all the dross. Too much of the dross consists of pale imitations of the superficial trappings of better books (including but not limited to Tolkien). Sometimes imitations of imitations. Ah well, anything that gets the kids reading can't be all bad, I suppose. One personal recent favorite of mine is Steven Erikson's "Malazan books of the fallen" series, which is ongoing (currently half-done at 5 out of a planned 10 big fat bricks). This is somewhat reminiscent of Tolkien in the implied (and gradually revealed) depth of the world-building (informed by the author's background in archaeology and anthropology, as opposed to linguistics). Completely unlike Tolkien in terms of writing style and so on, and possibly hard going for many readers (the author has this immensely complicated setup with three hundred thousand years of historical background and fairly original metaphysics, and does *not* believe in explaining any more than necessary at any given point). -- Leif Kjønnøy, cunctator maximus. http://www.pvv.org/~leifmk ###### From: Conrad Dunkerson Reply-To: conrad.dunkerson@worldnet.att.net User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 (Windows/20041206) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 9 Message-ID: Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 10:12:03 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 70.111.69.178 X-Complaints-To: abuse@verizon.net X-Trace: trndny08 1107857523 70.111.69.178 (Tue, 08 Feb 2005 05:12:03 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 05:12:03 EST Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.stueberl.de!peer01.cox.net!cox.net!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!cyclone1.gnilink.net!spamkiller2.gnilink.net!gnilink.net!trndny08.POSTED!ef6ee649!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168730 Steuard Jensen wrote: > For the record, Hambly has in recent years written two more novels to > follow this one. If they'd been out when I first read the book many > years ago, I know I would have devoured them immediately. But as it > is, I've avoided them like the plague: _Dragonsbane_ ends too well to > spoil it with sequels. I read the second one. Not terrible, but your instincts were correct. ###### From: Derek Broughton Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 10:27:53 -0400 Organization: PointerStop consulting Lines: 18 Message-ID: <9sumd2-krl.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <4207d18c.1683104@news.hispeed.ch> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit X-Trace: individual.net bTXrxlgnyqQvb3Zcj/d64wXs2MADvsYPFVKNyC25puPP3MwdWz X-Orig-Path: othello.pointerstop.ca!news User-Agent: KNode/0.8.2 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168741 the softrat wrote: > On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 20:47:39 GMT, clJUNKv1@balcab.ch (CleV) wrote: >> >>James Branch Cabell: Chronicles of Poictesme - roughly contemporaneous >>with Tolkien, and a tale (in many many books, most no longer in print) >>of the realm of Poictesme and its founder, Don Manuel. Myth is decked >>out in good humour and cleverness and humanity. Check out the first >>three (excellent) books, Figures of Earth, The Silver Stallion and >>Jurgen ... > > For you sex fans, Cabell was deemed obscene in the 1920's. A friend of > my mother called it 'the dullest pornography ever written'. (I think > that she missed the point.) She hadn't read Leonard Cohen's, Beautiful Losers... -- derek ###### From: Derek Broughton Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 10:44:50 -0400 Organization: PointerStop consulting Lines: 51 Message-ID: <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit X-Trace: individual.net M61uigYqXl76u71SJy1iDws3FShF50SI5zeyRiyQ7K2kjWSK88 X-Orig-Path: othello.pointerstop.ca!news User-Agent: KNode/0.8.2 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168738 the softrat wrote: > On 7 Feb 2005 10:17:39 -0800, "Richard Fangnail" > wrote: > >>What are the best ones? It's funny I've read LOTR so many times but no >>other fantasy stories at all. Some like Dragonriders of Pern. > ... > The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever by > Stephen Donaldson (The Second Chronicles suck!) Agreed. If you can live with the fact that virtually every character in the novels, besides Covenant himself, has a direct counterpart in LOTR. Covenant, otoh, is one of the most original characters ever to be seen in fantasy (or any other genre). He's impossible to like, but hard to put down. > The Elric of Melibone series by Michael Moorcock I also loved the Hawkmoon series. I have all of the early Moorcocks, and many of the later ones, but these are by far the best. > The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis (heavily Christian and > written for children) Still worth an adult read. > Some like Lloyd Alexander's five volume Mabinogeon rip-off > _The Chronicles of Prydain_. I didn't (the Americanisms and the > Welsh myths don't play well together.) There's a whole bunch of Mabinogion retellings (including Walton, as you noted, and Moorcock). The best thing most of them have going for them is that they're not either Arthurian legend or Tolkien ripoffs. Despite the quoting, I don't think softrat wrote this: > I personally would not bother with Stephen Donaldson, Terry Brooks, > George > R. R. Martin, Raymond E. Feist, Katherine Kerr, David Eddings, > Catherine > Kurtz or Piers Anthony. Ripoffs. Cheap imitations. hmmm. Donaldson was anything but a _cheap_ imitation. Brooks I gave up on halfway through the first book. It appears he almost did too. He very much regrets that it _was_ a cheap imitation, and apparently he's outgrown it. I keep meaning to check back on him. Kurtz got tiresome, but definitely not imitative of anything I know, and Piers Anthony (while not at all my cup of tea) is one of a kind. -- derek ###### From: Derek Broughton Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 10:46:20 -0400 Organization: PointerStop consulting Lines: 20 Message-ID: References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <420824A2.9070008@comcast.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit X-Trace: individual.net eFjjsj2lnTx2OqOjUorpTg3Hnaia3QAZewkPXNnGt+6SrMRdYv X-Orig-Path: othello.pointerstop.ca!news User-Agent: KNode/0.8.2 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168739 Tod wrote: > Richard Fangnail wrote: >> What are the best ones? It's funny I've read LOTR so many times but no >> other fantasy stories at all. Some like Dragonriders of Pern. >> >> > Try "Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever" > It's about some guy with a ring of great power. > I'm just starting to read the series for the second time. > > Currently there are 7 books in the series and > 3 books still to be written > The movie deal is in the works > One hopes not, it's done. Besides which, Donaldson writes far too slowly to expect him to come up with three more. -- derek ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 09:42:11 -0600 Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 10:42:07 -0500 From: Robert Kolker User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> In-Reply-To: <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: Lines: 11 NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.128.242.168 X-Trace: sv3-iTVv+8MgCGFqskwop99WTNKKVZc5Z8wYYMYOaOOchDjuQXY7bmHT6pSEJihd9A0OWLInz1Yp18t6Dno!jPymOBe/ozfB3pBgqnUwTiTMYWWepB0x9+S7I8EGnlQpY75rFk1dd9Rcue8Ox7DLJOTW77krU00t!hr4= X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: dmca@comcast.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.23 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!newsfeed.freenet.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.comcast.com!news.comcast.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168742 Derek Broughton wrote: > Agreed. If you can live with the fact that virtually every character in the > novels, besides Covenant himself, has a direct counterpart in > LOTR. Covenant, otoh, is one of the most original characters ever to > be seen in > fantasy (or any other genre). He's impossible to like, but hard to put > down. What about -The Wishbones of Sha Na Na- by Terry Southern? Boib Kolker ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 09:43:15 -0600 Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 10:43:11 -0500 From: Robert Kolker User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <420824A2.9070008@comcast.net> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: Lines: 10 NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.128.242.168 X-Trace: sv3-iL7cHn6I7LgzMN2NRKp6Ua03HWL2fQLDg25SExtHAyueGtKqFc5j7xr6p8w3raFeMO8/0TEYVzXCe4t!tqIM18kX28u09oAF6lISpYDIObSJ2MTMd7oraAOVmWJagSm3EFnv+XHMrWTmBTKXeddaIGW1E9h7!Azk= X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: dmca@comcast.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.23 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!nntp.infostrada.it!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.comcast.com!news.comcast.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168743 Derek Broughton wrote: > One hopes not, it's done. Besides which, Donaldson writes far too > slowly to > expect him to come up with three more. And the protagonist is not all that attractive a characters. Constantly whining about being a leper and all that. Bob Kolker ###### From: Derek Broughton Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 12:26:45 -0400 Organization: PointerStop consulting Lines: 14 Message-ID: <5r5nd2-g4h.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <420824A2.9070008@comcast.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit X-Trace: individual.net EYpZ4UagUibXe7G/jG/S0wZ7ymlqY5unEYCXWoH/U/ZpIcqjhw X-Orig-Path: othello.pointerstop.ca!news User-Agent: KNode/0.8.2 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168746 Robert Kolker wrote: > Derek Broughton wrote: >> >> One hopes not, it's done. Besides which, Donaldson writes far too slowly >> to expect him to come up with three more. > > And the protagonist is not all that attractive a characters. Constantly > whining about being a leper and all that. > You're generous - he's not _at all_ attractive :-) . Somehow, it works. Sort of like rubbernecking at car wrecks, or picking at scabs... -- derek ###### From: "Rhiannon Sands" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 19:38:36 -0000 Lines: 75 Message-ID: <36sjdpF55jpeaU1@individual.net> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net> <36ptpnF53co97U1@individual.net> X-Trace: individual.net VoyZtEhclHHSozatJB6gtQ7RD+u04eiwinthgUzOUsPbW6Thto X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1409 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1409 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168755 "Michele Fry" wrote in message news:ZWf8FPA2o9BCFwoZ@sassoonery.demon.co.uk... > In article <36ptpnF53co97U1@individual.net>, Rhiannon Sands > writes > > >I quite like Juilet E Mckenna's stuff myself. Fantasy but with a good solid > >dose of cynicism. Horses do smell, fires are damned hard to start in the > >wilderness, when people are trying to skewer you with swords it's no time > >for a witty remark, people die horribly and sometimes casually and without > >meaning (and sometimes with a great deal of meaning and sacrifice) oh and > >wizardy is hard stuff and could roast you to death (and that's just when you > >get it right too). > > > >I think that her magic artifacts of long lost civilisation which have > >personalities of their own resonate quite strongly with Tolkien's rings, but > >manage to be quite different at the same time. The fact that possesing > >either one means that evildoers(tm) will try and kill you just as easily as > >power hungry allies will is a bit of a parallel too. > > > >But both Mckenna and Tolkien have one thing that they both have in common. > >They built their worlds first and then let the worlds shape the stories and > >characters. I think that's what makes Tolkien and McKenna's works so > >readable, the worlds are real even if they do have more dragons than us. > > Yay Rhiannon !! I'm one of Juliet McKenna's biggest fans (check out the > Sig below !) Have you got your copy of "Turns And Chances", McKenna's > novella set during the Lescari Civil Wars ? It's newly published and > only available by mail order (if not, see the following page for more > info. http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/juliet.e.mckenna/tandc.html ) That is so bought when my next paycheck comes in! > What do you think of the Aldabreshin Compass series so far ?? I can't wait for Western Shore to come out, I think Aldabreshin seems to have less of multi-book arc that Tales did, and it's much more personal than Tales in that it sticks pretty much to Kheda's story. BUt it's a different type of series. Most of the cultures in Tales could have been lifted from European/scandiwegian history and so McKenna didn't have to focus so much on the fine detail. Compass is in a much more alien culture, and one that doesn't really have as direct a parallel to our world, so having it much more focused on kheda allows us a much closer and more personal view than if she'd gone for the broader view. I think it gives a much deeper sense of loss and greif when things happen the deaths and other losses in Compass are much more keenly felt than in Tales for example: (rot13 spoiler for Northern Storm)qri'f qrngu va abegurea fgbez uvg ubzr n ybg uneqre guna punenpgre'f qrngu'f va Gnyrf. Rira nsgre ur'q fnpevsvprq uvzfrys yvxr gung V unys rkcrpgrq uvz gb cbc hc. Vg jnf nf harkcrpgrq nf Boromirs at the end of Fellowship. I worry about where McKenna will go next though, but if she's writing Lescari stuff already I guess we're in for a deeper loook there. > As I was muttering elsewhere (the Balrog verse thread) I'm going to be > writing a paper shortly - on the Tales of Einarinn... That's how big an > impact McKenna's work has had on me... I'd love a chance to look at that, if it's be ok once it's written. I think McKenna is very underrated at the moment. -- Rhiannon_S Yes, I am a fluffly bunny, but so was the one in Monty Python! ###### From: Michele Fry Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 20:36:22 +0000 Organization: sass Lines: 76 Message-ID: <45AE+EAGLSCCFwmn@sassoonery.demon.co.uk> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net> <36ptpnF53co97U1@individual.net> <36sjdpF55jpeaU1@individual.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: sassoonery.demon.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 1107895602 3477 212.228.13.129 (8 Feb 2005 20:46:42 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 20:46:42 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Turnpike Integrated Version 4.02 S Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!proxad.net!proxad.net!194.159.246.34.MISMATCH!peer-uk.news.demon.net!kibo.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!sassoonery.demon.co.uk!michele Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168758 In article <36sjdpF55jpeaU1@individual.net>, Rhiannon Sands writes >That is so bought when my next paycheck comes in! It's worth it !! I read it just last night/this morning - I was totally gripped and wanted more, more, more !! >I can't wait for Western Shore to come out, I think Aldabreshin seems to >have less of multi-book arc that Tales did, and it's much more personal than >Tales in that it sticks pretty much to Kheda's story. BUt it's a different >type of series. Most of the cultures in Tales could have been lifted from >European/scandiwegian history and so McKenna didn't have to focus so much on >the fine detail. > >Compass is in a much more alien culture, and one that doesn't really have as >direct a parallel to our world, so having it much more focused on kheda >allows us a much closer and more personal view than if she'd gone for the >broader view. Oh it has a parallel - although more of an historical parallel even than the mediaeval European parallel of the ToE (Tales of Einarinn)... Although Western Shore nearly had a very direct parallel to our world until Dec. 26 ! It was to end (more or less) with a tsunami since they are fairly rare, but after the real life Asian Tsunami, the author felt she really could not leave that ending in (owing to the fact that the suspension of belief wouldn't happen if readers were flashing back to media images of Dec. 26) and she changed it... But yes, the series is far more focused on Kheda's trials and tribulations - the wizards are far more a set of secondary characters than they are in the ToE... >I think it gives a much deeper sense of loss and greif when >things happen the deaths and other losses in Compass are much more keenly >felt than in Tales for example: (rot13 spoiler for Northern Storm)qri'f >qrngu va abegurea fgbez uvg ubzr n ybg uneqre guna punenpgre'f qrngu'f va >Gnyrf. Rira nsgre ur'q fnpevsvprq uvzfrys yvxr gung V unys rkcrpgrq uvz gb >cbc hc. Vg jnf nf harkcrpgrq nf Boromirs at the end of Fellowship. Oh absolutely ! I know of one chap who rang his high-powered businessman friend (who was in the middle of an important meeting) to lament his loss in stricken terms ! I just yelled "How could you do that?" at the book... >I worry about where McKenna will go next though, but if she's writing >Lescari stuff already I guess we're in for a deeper loook there. Oh yes ! There's definitely more to come from there... And she's also got some unpublished short stories that fit between the 5 ToE novels that she's planning to get published - I expect you saw that one will be published by PS Publishing later this year, in its magazine ? >I'd love a chance to look at that, if it's be ok once it's written. I think >McKenna is very underrated at the moment. Yes - I don't mind sending it to you once it's done - I've not quite finished plastering "The Assassin's Edge" with my post it notes, but once I have, I'll be more or less ready to write the article on my next writing day off (next week)... As soon as I've typed it up and proofed/edited it, I'll email it to you... And I totally agree that McKenna's work is under-rated - which is another of my reasons for wanting to write about her work... Michele == "Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill." - Barbara Tuchman == Now reading: Turns and Chances - Juliet E McKenna The Assassin's Edge - Juliet E McKenna == Commit random acts of literacy! Read & Release at Bookcrossing: http://www.bookcrossing.com/friend/Sass-80 ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 14:42:13 -0600 Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 14:42:13 -0600 From: Larry Swain User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> In-Reply-To: <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: Lines: 28 NNTP-Posting-Host: 216.80.74.138 X-Trace: sv3-fU2r2Nuob/uulYqtPoVHqU9rVmNKRaUO3/1jtBZshN2+lzXwfruRLpRAhu1n5GfJVAveM28nOAiXa4m!dNb26iOG5Hlu+FOEK+B1hnzYlzVfRlwtxbuy4TgxLj2aMBIOjbrJYvyERGdOfFN4 X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.23 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.rcn.net!news.rcn.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168756 > Despite the quoting, I don't think softrat wrote this: > >> I personally would not bother with Stephen Donaldson, Terry Brooks, >>George >>R. R. Martin, Raymond E. Feist, Katherine Kerr, David Eddings, >>Catherine >>Kurtz or Piers Anthony. Ripoffs. Cheap imitations. > hmmm. Donaldson was anything but a _cheap_ imitation. Brooks I > gave up on > halfway through the first book. It appears he almost did too. He very > much regrets that it _was_ a cheap imitation, and apparently he's outgrown > it. I keep meaning to check back on him. Kurtz got tiresome, but > definitely not imitative of anything I know, and Piers Anthony (while not > at all my cup of tea) is one of a kind. I have to agree with you here Derek. Donaldson, while I dislike Covenant, is original in many ways. And Anthony, while cheap, and tiresome, isn't really much of ripoff of Tolkien. The rest I lump in the garbage pail. I like Guy Gavriel Kay. He's grown as a writer too and I haven't seen anyone mention him yet. ###### From: "Christopher Kreuzer" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Lines: 24 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1409 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1409 Message-ID: Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 23:38:25 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 82.43.125.102 X-Complaints-To: abuse@blueyonder.co.uk X-Trace: text.news.blueyonder.co.uk 1107905905 82.43.125.102 (Tue, 08 Feb 2005 23:38:25 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 23:38:25 GMT Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!news2.euro.net!216.196.110.149.MISMATCH!border2.nntp.ams.giganews.com!border1.nntp.ams.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!pe2.news.blueyonder.co.uk!blueyonder!pe1.news.blueyonder.co.uk!blueyonder!text.news.blueyonder.co.uk!53ab2750!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168767 Richard Fangnail wrote: > What are the best ones? It's funny I've read LOTR so many times but > no other fantasy stories at all. I've read David Gemmell's books (nice if you like that sort of stuff, but not really in the Tolkien mould), but the one fantasy series that I've always really liked but never been able to find anyone else who has read it, is the Omaran Saga of books by Adrian Cole. A Place Among the Fallen Throne of Fools The King of Light and Shadows The Gods in Anger Some of the concepts in these books really caught my imagination at the time I read them. The whole chain of being thing with a really weird creation story, varied landscapes and some interesting races and characters. Christopher --- Reply clue: Saruman welcomes you to Spamgard ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 21:44:11 -0600 Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 22:44:02 -0500 From: Robert Kolker User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: Lines: 15 NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.128.242.168 X-Trace: sv3-YpwEWWPTo/d3KtRCvmvrZICSaLNpe3cftxjfm2auGMSDt7xFMODz79rQRe1O9GTAgj6fXeOhkx4tw0/!HpDoToXzQpA5NGZ1WhEfQNv0K8Bk3FRDsdFGAMhMG4yAgjN2aSZ73Ue/Vez0a3FhxWiQKIQVlIM8!Hi8= X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: dmca@comcast.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.23 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!nntp.infostrada.it!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!feed.news.tiscali.de!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.fjserv.net!newshosting.com!nx01.iad01.newshosting.com!news.glorb.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.comcast.com!news.comcast.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168777 Shanahan wrote: > I actually hung out with her once. We both went out for lunch with a > bunch of social anthropologists (her father was a famous anthr.), > after a small meeting/discussion. We muttered some disparaging > remarks to each other about Marxian false consciousness and ivory > towers. She was *cool*. I have a bunch of La Guin "what ifs". What if she had writte -Atlas Shrugged- instead of Ayn Rand. That is not a totally off the wall speculation. She wrote the cannonical book on anarchism; -The Dispossessed-. Bob Kolker ###### From: the softrat Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 19:53:35 -0800 Organization: None to Speak Of Message-ID: References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 2.0/32.652 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com Lines: 18 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.stueberl.de!news.glorb.com!tdsnet-transit!newspeer.tds.net!sn-xit-02!sn-xit-01!sn-post-01!supernews.com!news.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168780 On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 10:44:50 -0400, Derek Broughton wrote: > >hmmm. Donaldson was anything but a _cheap_ imitation. Brooks I gave up on >halfway through the first book. It appears he almost did too. He very >much regrets that it _was_ a cheap imitation, and apparently he's outgrown >it. I keep meaning to check back on him. Kurtz got tiresome, but >definitely not imitative of anything I know, and Piers Anthony (while not >at all my cup of tea) is one of a kind. Actually, allegedly, Piers Anthony is a committee. the softrat "Honi soit qui mal y pense." mailto:softrat@pobox.com -- A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good. -- Steven Wright ###### From: hayesmstw@hotmail.com (Steve Hayes) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2005 05:10:58 GMT Organization: The South African Internet Exchange Lines: 17 Message-ID: <42099898.78676186@news.saix.net> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <420824A2.9070008@comcast.net> Reply-To: hayesstw@yahoo.com NNTP-Posting-Host: tpr-ip-nas-1-p225.telkom-ipnet.co.za X-Trace: ctb-nnrp2.saix.net 1107926108 29975 155.239.184.225 (9 Feb 2005 05:15:08 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@saix.net NNTP-Posting-Date: 9 Feb 2005 05:15:08 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.21/32.243 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!newshosting.com!nx01.iad01.newshosting.com!ctb-nntp1.saix.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168783 On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 10:43:11 -0500, Robert Kolker wrote: >Derek Broughton wrote: >> >> One hopes not, it's done. Besides which, Donaldson writes far too slowly to >> expect him to come up with three more. > >And the protagonist is not all that attractive a characters. Constantly >whining about being a leper and all that. And forever clenching himself and chewing ground glass. -- Steve Hayes Web: http://www.geocities.com/hayesstw/stevesig.htm http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/Methodius ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2005 00:12:43 -0600 From: "Pippen" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 23:12:30 -0700 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2527 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2527 X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Response Message-ID: Lines: 49 NNTP-Posting-Host: 67.161.157.8 X-Trace: sv3-67YFyraVqkD4v3Ghtn8xNk00vpaPq5n8m9HJ4urg8o4BrnAeg6QKYKUx61ryBKF+61RLg64VNzQBUya!aadFN9+mU7uS8ruRAWDbIl9GEI0s6CYzr/r/AvIgl4f2KEU8ZsOw8OXCdegoyCEpZJR/wZ02+xU= X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: dmca@comcast.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.23 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.comcast.com!news.comcast.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168784 "Larry Swain" wrote in message news:EoadnbQXp5q4uZTfRVn-hw@rcn.net... > >> >> Despite the quoting, I don't think softrat wrote this: >> >> >>> I personally would not bother with Stephen Donaldson, Terry Brooks, >>>George >>>R. R. Martin, Raymond E. Feist, Katherine Kerr, David Eddings, >>>Catherine >>>Kurtz or Piers Anthony. Ripoffs. Cheap imitations. >> >> >> hmmm. Donaldson was anything but a _cheap_ imitation. Brooks I gave up >> on >> halfway through the first book. It appears he almost did too. He very >> much regrets that it _was_ a cheap imitation, and apparently he's >> outgrown >> it. I keep meaning to check back on him. Kurtz got tiresome, but >> definitely not imitative of anything I know, and Piers Anthony (while not >> at all my cup of tea) is one of a kind. > > > I have to agree with you here Derek. Donaldson, while I dislike Covenant, > is original in many ways. And Anthony, while cheap, and tiresome, isn't > really much of ripoff of Tolkien. The rest I lump in the garbage pail. > > I like Guy Gavriel Kay. He's grown as a writer too and I haven't seen > anyone mention him yet. > I have read _Tigana_ and _A_Song_For_Arbonne_ by GGK. The second was better than the first but IMO not up to par with the work he did with CT in the _Silmarillion_. I read the books while waiting (and still waiting) for George Martin to complete _A_Feast_For_Crows_. It will be interesting to see if Martin can pull this series off. He has so many subplots that each 1000+ page book could be it's own series... I think the reason his next book is so far behind is that he is having trouble controlling the subplots (IMO). Who knows the way he is going I might have time to go back and re-read the previous three again. BTW, highly recommend the A Song of Ice and Fire series (A_Game_Of_Thrones, A_Clash_Of_Kings and A_Storm_Of_Swords). -p ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2005 06:11:11 -0600 Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2005 06:11:12 -0600 From: Larry Swain User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: Lines: 53 NNTP-Posting-Host: 216.80.74.55 X-Trace: sv3-etYZtaY16TRlyMuJM+J8iGQ9n+1W96jZ/ZKzLFKDipaYT7jGRVK0HjCcu+OLv1ALWQ/qC92cTHTn1XH!Rm+eriKOmSz4mfxiWfDtTHanBacF4oBUw71hJR03l7E+Onn4q3POpfVgDqRp7K8= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.23 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!news.glorb.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.rcn.net!news.rcn.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168788 Pippen wrote: > "Larry Swain" wrote in message > news:EoadnbQXp5q4uZTfRVn-hw@rcn.net... > >>>Despite the quoting, I don't think softrat wrote this: >>> >>> >>> >>>> I personally would not bother with Stephen Donaldson, Terry Brooks, >>>>George >>>>R. R. Martin, Raymond E. Feist, Katherine Kerr, David Eddings, >>>>Catherine >>>>Kurtz or Piers Anthony. Ripoffs. Cheap imitations. >>> >>> >>> hmmm. Donaldson was anything but a _cheap_ imitation. Brooks I >>> gave up on >>>halfway through the first book. It appears he almost did too. He very >>> much regrets that it _was_ a cheap imitation, and apparently he's >>> outgrown >>>it. I keep meaning to check back on him. Kurtz got tiresome, but >>>definitely not imitative of anything I know, and Piers Anthony (while not >>>at all my cup of tea) is one of a kind. >> >> >> I have to agree with you here Derek. Donaldson, while I dislike >> Covenant, is original in many ways. And Anthony, while cheap, and >> tiresome, isn't really much of ripoff of Tolkien. The rest I lump >> in the garbage pail. >> >> I like Guy Gavriel Kay. He's grown as a writer too and I haven't >> seen anyone mention him yet. >> > I have read _Tigana_ and _A_Song_For_Arbonne_ by GGK. The second was > better than the first but IMO not up to par with the work he did > with CT in the _Silmarillion_. I read the books while waiting (and > still waiting) for George Martin to complete _A_Feast_For_Crows_. > It will be interesting to see if Martin can pull this series off. He > has so many subplots that each 1000+ page book could be it's own > series... I think the reason his next book is so far behind is that > he is having trouble controlling the subplots (IMO). Who knows the > way he is going I might have time to go back and re-read the > previous three again. BTW, highly recommend the A Song of Ice and > Fire series (A_Game_Of_Thrones, A_Clash_Of_Kings and > A_Storm_Of_Swords). Well, I have to say that one thing I'm very happy about in this thread is that no one is touting Robert Jordan as good! ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2005 07:42:01 -0600 Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2005 08:42:00 -0500 From: Robert Kolker User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: Lines: 11 NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.128.242.168 X-Trace: sv3-kkefSogKHe8Dwi+j1o2gO65BQ5+eBoD29o/26iqnWZJXrFo6CQiq5bp3r8210I7NWASQYj8K/dQPRAq!WrwOV2aKJ4t9L8pLtajxUOGRrZvB+mQdSVhrbDwOYvjgFOqs94bUL98hRvhuxGscInCAAa9l1cWF!gZQ= X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: dmca@comcast.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.23 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!news.glorb.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.comcast.com!news.comcast.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168791 Larry Swain wrote: > Well, I have to say that one thing I'm very happy about in this > thread is that no one is touting Robert Jordan as good! Jordan! Robert Jordan! At the sound of that dreadful name, slowly I turned..... Bob Kolker ###### From: Derek Broughton Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2005 09:46:52 -0400 Organization: PointerStop consulting Lines: 14 Message-ID: References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit X-Trace: individual.net YHKaCjc1hjyN1WXoaFMsBAY1knopE6G9+QNGZ7KD1ECUuo9XK4 X-Orig-Path: othello.pointerstop.ca!news User-Agent: KNode/0.8.2 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168796 Larry Swain wrote: > I have to agree with you here Derek. Don't all right-thinking people? :-) > I like Guy Gavriel Kay. He's grown as a writer too and I haven't seen > anyone mention him yet. Oh, yes. The Fionavar tapestry was as good a LOTR rip-off as I've ever read, but all the later books are unique - and better. I love the way he builds fantasy worlds in our own history. -- derek ###### From: Derek Broughton Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2005 09:49:15 -0400 Organization: PointerStop consulting Lines: 10 Message-ID: References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit X-Trace: individual.net RWTCpgMUvEQinXVbqQOlsA30gyrNTKVBXK/VB2aDmP/8RUq8os X-Orig-Path: othello.pointerstop.ca!news User-Agent: KNode/0.8.2 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168797 Larry Swain wrote: > Well, I have to say that one thing I'm very happy about in this thread > is that no one is touting Robert Jordan as good! About 7 books back I would have ranked him as a pleasant time-waster. Now, is he ever going to get on with the story ? He just keeps churning out more pages and going nowhere. -- derek ###### From: Derek Broughton Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2005 09:51:40 -0400 Organization: PointerStop consulting Lines: 14 Message-ID: References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit X-Trace: individual.net KRkBcpcauCTD9bDQ3B5/agycFHs/QvIoAlurzPTn+q0sS8xPaV X-Orig-Path: othello.pointerstop.ca!news User-Agent: KNode/0.8.2 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168798 the softrat wrote: > On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 10:44:50 -0400, Derek Broughton > wrote: >> >>and Piers Anthony (while not >>at all my cup of tea) is one of a kind. > > Actually, allegedly, Piers Anthony is a committee. LOL. Shows how much I know :-) I have 5 or 6 of his (their) older books but haven't read anything else in 20 years. -- derek ###### From: AC Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: 9 Feb 2005 17:48:35 GMT Organization: The Tao of Cow Lines: 25 Message-ID: References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <420824A2.9070008@comcast.net> <5r5nd2-g4h.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> Reply-To: mightymartianca@hotmail.com X-Trace: individual.net NJdGJFwIN2RE8DAlF87Y7wORoUDegHeZFGueLTCY0jQZplIOIo User-Agent: slrn/0.9.8.0 (Linux) Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168809 On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 12:26:45 -0400, Derek Broughton wrote: > Robert Kolker wrote: > >> Derek Broughton wrote: >>> >>> One hopes not, it's done. Besides which, Donaldson writes far too slowly >>> to expect him to come up with three more. >> >> And the protagonist is not all that attractive a characters. Constantly >> whining about being a leper and all that. >> > You're generous - he's not _at all_ attractive :-) . Somehow, it works. > Sort of like rubbernecking at car wrecks, or picking at scabs... I really found Covenant tiresome after a while. Then the addition of Lynn (or whatever her name was from the second trilogy) only made it worse. She got to be so annoying that even Covenant seemed cool. I'd much prefer that Donaldson abandon universe-hopping protagonists and write something purely based within the universe of the Land, but that's probably not a direction he wants to go on. -- Aaron Clausen mightymartianca@hotmail.com ###### From: leifmk@pvv.ntnu.no (Leif Magnar Kj|nn|y) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 18:25:24 +0000 (UTC) Organization: Norwegian University of Science and Technology Lines: 18 Message-ID: References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: proto.pvv.ntnu.no X-Trace: orkan.itea.ntnu.no 1107973524 321 129.241.210.168 (9 Feb 2005 18:25:24 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@itea.ntnu.no NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 18:25:24 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test75 (Feb 13, 2001) Originator: leifmk@pvv.ntnu.no (Leif Magnar Kj|nn|y) Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!npeer.de.kpn-eurorings.net!news-FFM2.ecrc.net!news.net.uni-c.dk!uninett.no!ntnu.no!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168811 In article , Derek Broughton wrote: >Larry Swain wrote: > >> I like Guy Gavriel Kay. He's grown as a writer too and I haven't seen >> anyone mention him yet. > >Oh, yes. The Fionavar tapestry was as good a LOTR rip-off as I've ever >read, but all the later books are unique - and better. The Tolkien-esque elements, I thought, reminded me more of the Silmarillion (perhaps not surprisingly). Other than that it was more than just a rip- off of Tolkien, it seemed more like an exercise in "how many diverse fantasy cliches can one writer stuff into one trilogy without it bursting completely at the seams". -- Leif Kjønnøy, cunctator maximus. http://www.pvv.org/~leifmk ###### From: "Rhiannon Sands" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 19:47:04 -0000 Lines: 126 Message-ID: <36v89mF50k4aaU1@individual.net> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net> <36ptpnF53co97U1@individual.net> <36sjdpF55jpeaU1@individual.net> <45AE+EAGLSCCFwmn@sassoonery.demon.co.uk> X-Trace: individual.net QzqhOVMTzV1ZOR270FKbiAqKMTwdc/eAdBxFRrHwMZPbs7ssZ+ X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1409 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1409 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168813 "Michele Fry" wrote in message news:45AE+EAGLSCCFwmn@sassoonery.demon.co.uk... > In article <36sjdpF55jpeaU1@individual.net>, Rhiannon Sands > writes > > >That is so bought when my next paycheck comes in! > > It's worth it !! I read it just last night/this morning - I was totally > gripped and wanted more, more, more !! > > >I can't wait for Western Shore to come out, I think Aldabreshin seems to > >have less of multi-book arc that Tales did, and it's much more personal than > >Tales in that it sticks pretty much to Kheda's story. BUt it's a different > >type of series. Most of the cultures in Tales could have been lifted from > >European/scandiwegian history and so McKenna didn't have to focus so much on > >the fine detail. > > > >Compass is in a much more alien culture, and one that doesn't really have as > >direct a parallel to our world, so having it much more focused on kheda > >allows us a much closer and more personal view than if she'd gone for the > >broader view. > > Oh it has a parallel - although more of an historical parallel even than > the mediaeval European parallel of the ToE (Tales of Einarinn)... > Although Western Shore nearly had a very direct parallel to our world > until Dec. 26 ! It was to end (more or less) with a tsunami since they > are fairly rare, but after the real life Asian Tsunami, the author felt > she really could not leave that ending in (owing to the fact that the > suspension of belief wouldn't happen if readers were flashing back to > media images of Dec. 26) and she changed it... I understand what you're saying, but it's not quite what I mean (if that makes sense?). What I meant was the various cultures in Tales all have a related cultural hole in our minds to drop into. The old long lost empire fits (more or less with ancient rome), Hadrumal drops into the Worst Witch, Unseen University (I refuse to mention harry bloody potter and hogwarts), Whatley Academy, gap, the mountain men and forest people fit into the celtic/viking bit, Lescari is a bit war of the roses. All this means that Mckenna doesn't have to spend so much time filling in the detail. She acn get on with the plot. With Compass, the Archipelago doesn't have a specific (or even aproximate) cultural space to fill in, it has to be created in the mind of the reader from scratch. There is no real world (tm) mirror for it. Perhaps a little of ancient greece or sinbad, but even there the fit isn't that good. I like her soloution though. Making the plot about those details by making it about one deeply introspective person who constantly scrutenises even the most mundane things to guide his way. As Kheda explores so does the reader and because the plot is so personal to Kheda the details further the story instead of being massive gandalfesque (sorry prof but it's true) info dumps that slow the story down. > But yes, the series is far more focused on Kheda's trials and > tribulations - the wizards are far more a set of secondary characters > than they are in the ToE... Hmm, I think the wizards individually are as central to events in Compass even more than in Tales. As individuals, wizardry as an insituition is central to Tales but insignificant to Compass, so far at least. I'd love to see Hadrumal take full centre stage myself and cheerfully admit that Planir is my favourite character from Tales, but I'l concede this will probably never happen due to the shout of people crying "potter ripoff" that would probably happen. That's just me though. > >I think it gives a much deeper sense of loss and greif when > >things happen the deaths and other losses in Compass are much more keenly > >felt than in Tales for example: (rot13 spoiler for Northern Storm)qri'f > >qrngu va abegurea fgbez uvg ubzr n ybg uneqre guna punenpgre'f qrngu'f va > >Gnyrf. Rira nsgre ur'q fnpevsvprq uvzfrys yvxr gung V unys rkcrpgrq uvz gb > >cbc hc. Vg jnf nf harkcrpgrq nf Boromirs at the end of Fellowship. > > Oh absolutely ! I know of one chap who rang his high-powered businessman > friend (who was in the middle of an important meeting) to lament his > loss in stricken terms ! I just yelled "How could you do that?" at the > book... Certainly a numbing moment. I'd like more high powered business men to be bothered like that. But that's me again:o) > >I worry about where McKenna will go next though, but if she's writing > >Lescari stuff already I guess we're in for a deeper loook there. > > Oh yes ! There's definitely more to come from there... And she's also > got some unpublished short stories that fit between the 5 ToE novels > that she's planning to get published - I expect you saw that one will be > published by PS Publishing later this year, in its magazine ? I hadn't even heard of PS publishing until now, but google is my friend and I will wait with my breath bated! > >I'd love a chance to look at that, if it's be ok once it's written. I think > >McKenna is very underrated at the moment. > > Yes - I don't mind sending it to you once it's done - I've not quite > finished plastering "The Assassin's Edge" with my post it notes, but > once I have, I'll be more or less ready to write the article on my next > writing day off (next week)... As soon as I've typed it up and > proofed/edited it, I'll email it to you... And I totally agree that > McKenna's work is under-rated - which is another of my reasons for > wanting to write about her work... > I want to know why someone with as much talent as Mckenna is hidden away on the back shelves while robert jordans wheel of om gods it's neverending doodoo is promoted. If there was any justice she would be up next to the Prof, Pterry and good old HPL. YMMV -- Rhiannon_S Yes, I am a fluffly bunny, but so was the one in Monty Python! ###### From: "Rhiannon Sands" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 19:49:10 -0000 Lines: 19 Message-ID: <36v8diF56mb17U1@individual.net> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> X-Trace: individual.net fB39iVJYL5fvcAeUpJFHSgmmt8MHuZbZQllvDaj1JtQSdoF1Ez X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1409 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1409 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168814 "Larry Swain" wrote in message news:goSdnQHyC7pCYJTfRVn-pQ@rcn.net... > > > Well, I have to say that one thing I'm very happy about in this thread > is that no one is touting Robert Jordan as good! > Or Terry Goodkind (although it's a pity Terry Pratchett and Mark Chadbourn have been left out, Chadbourn and Tolkien work very well together you know) -- Rhiannon_S Yes, I am a fluffly bunny, but so was the one in Monty Python! ###### From: Michele Fry Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 21:01:08 +0000 Organization: sass Lines: 108 Message-ID: References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net> <36ptpnF53co97U1@individual.net> <36sjdpF55jpeaU1@individual.net> <45AE+EAGLSCCFwmn@sassoonery.demon.co.uk> <36v89mF50k4aaU1@individual.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: sassoonery.demon.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 1107982912 23208 212.228.13.129 (9 Feb 2005 21:01:52 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 21:01:52 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Turnpike Integrated Version 4.02 S Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!proxad.net!proxad.net!194.159.246.34.MISMATCH!peer-uk.news.demon.net!kibo.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!sassoonery.demon.co.uk!michele Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168819 In article <36v89mF50k4aaU1@individual.net>, Rhiannon Sands writes >I understand what you're saying, but it's not quite what I mean (if that >makes sense?). > >What I meant was the various cultures in Tales all have a related cultural >hole in our minds to drop into. The old long lost empire fits (more or less >with ancient rome), Hadrumal drops into the Worst Witch, Unseen University >(I refuse to mention harry bloody potter and hogwarts), Whatley Academy, >gap, the mountain men and forest people fit into the celtic/viking bit, >Lescari is a bit war of the roses. All this means that Mckenna doesn't have >to spend so much time filling in the detail. She acn get on with the plot. You're not a HP fan then ? Remind me not to send you either of my HP papers, then ! >With Compass, the Archipelago doesn't have a specific (or even aproximate) >cultural space to fill in, it has to be created in the mind of the reader >from scratch. There is no real world (tm) mirror for it. Perhaps a little >of ancient greece or sinbad, but even there the fit isn't that good. I'm not sure I agree with you. After all, what you've just said above, about the Tales is true for Westerners, most specifically for Europeans - but the Archipelago is also based on real-life historical cultures so it has a mirror for people somewhere - presumably for those in S E Asia or thereabouts who have a good knowledge of past cultures there, much as many of us have a good knowledge of past European cultures... >I like her soloution though. Making the plot about those details by making >it about one deeply introspective person who constantly scrutenises even the >most mundane things to guide his way. As Kheda explores so does the reader >and because the plot is so personal to Kheda the details further the story >instead of being massive gandalfesque (sorry prof but it's true) info dumps >that slow the story down. I'm glad that you like the way Kheda's scrutiny advances our knowledge. I must admit, when I started reading the first one I was quite astounded as I'd never come across a protagonist into whose head the author took the reader so intensely ! >Hmm, I think the wizards individually are as central to events in Compass >even more than in Tales. As individuals, wizardry as an insituition is >central to Tales but insignificant to Compass, so far at least. Oh they're central to events, but I think they're still very much secondary characters - so far at least... We barely get to see inside their heads (except Velindre in Southern Fire (SF), for whom I have a soft spot)... It's interesting that neither Northern Storm (NS) nor SF have the same kind of switching between narrative PoV as the ToE books do - I've just done a quick count, and SF has 3 chapters (out of 21) from Dev's PoV and all the rest are from Kheda's, including the ones where he has joined forces with Dev. Velindre gets 6 chapters (out of 22) before she is brought into Kheda's group. In the ToE, there's far more switching from one narrative PoV to another... Swordsman's Oath was most interesting in that respect... >I'd love to see Hadrumal take full centre stage myself and cheerfully admit >that Planir is my favourite character from Tales, but I'l concede this will >probably never happen due to the shout of people crying "potter ripoff" that >would probably happen. That's just me though. I think it won't happen simply because McKenna's not interested in writing stories that centre wholly on Hadrumal - as you say, it's been done far too many times before... >Certainly a numbing moment. I'd like more high powered business men to be >bothered like that. But that's me again:o) I must admit, I laughed when I heard the story, because I totally understood the feeling... >I hadn't even heard of PS publishing until now, but google is my friend and >I will wait with my breath bated! Well PS Publishing is the company that's done "Turns and Chances" and one of the in-between ToE short stories is appearing in it some time this year... >I want to know why someone with as much talent as Mckenna is hidden away on >the back shelves while robert jordans wheel of om gods it's neverending >doodoo is promoted. She's not hidden away on the shelves of my local stores. I help see to that by making sure the novels are tidily arranged (especially in Borders where they have a real tendency to shelve books higgledy- piggledy !) Since it's an Oxford store, and McKenna lives near Oxford, they should do better than that ! >If there was any justice she would be up next to the Prof, Pterry and good >old HPL. YMMV I've not read any HPL but I agree about being up there with Tolkien and Pratchett... Michele == "Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill." - Barbara Tuchman == Now reading: The Assassin's Edge - Juliet E McKenna == Commit random acts of literacy! Read & Release at Bookcrossing: http://www.bookcrossing.com/friend/Sass-80 ###### From: "Shanahan" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 22:52:54 -0800 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 22 Message-ID: References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-184.newsdawg.com X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1106 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!enews.sgi.com!arclight.uoregon.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!pln-e!spln!rex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!enews1 Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168842 Robert Kolker creatively typed: > Shanahan wrote: >> >> I actually hung out with her once. We both went out for lunch >> with a bunch of social anthropologists (her father was a famous >> anthr.), after a small meeting/discussion. We muttered some >> disparaging remarks to each other about Marxian false >> consciousness and ivory towers. She was *cool*. > > I have a bunch of La Guin "what ifs". What if she had writte -Atlas > Shrugged- instead of Ayn Rand. That is not a totally off the wall > speculation. She wrote the cannonical book on anarchism; -The > Dispossessed-. A favorite book of mine! Gawd, if she had written /Atlas Shrugged/, the d*mn thing might even have been readable! Ciaran S. -- Implicate yourself in every interpretation ###### From: Tord Kallqvist Romstad Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: 10 Feb 2005 20:01:38 +0100 Organization: University of Oslo, Norway Lines: 43 Sender: romstad@aload.uio.no Message-ID: References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: aload.uio.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: readme.uio.no 1108062098 13296 129.240.222.178 (10 Feb 2005 19:01:38 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@uio.no NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 19:01:38 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.1 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!newsfeed.stueberl.de!feed.news.tiscali.de!uio.no!nntp.uio.no!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168882 "Pippen" writes: > I have read _Tigana_ and _A_Song_For_Arbonne_ by GGK. The second was better > than the first I agree entirely. "Tigana" seemed like the most universally recommended of GGK's books, and it was therefore the book I chose to read first. I was so disappointed that I almost gave up on GGK, but fortunately I decided to give him a second chance and continued to read "A Song for Arbonne", which I rather liked, and more recently the "Sarantine Mosaic", which I found excellent. > but IMO not up to par with the work he did with CT in the > _Silmarillion_. Very difficult to compare, I think. The Silmarillion is a very different kind of book, and writing your own books is a very different kind of work compared to completing an unfinished masterpiece by another author. > I read the books while waiting (and still waiting) for George Martin > to complete _A_Feast_For_Crows_. Me too! :-) > It will be interesting to see if Martin can pull this series off. He has so > many subplots that each 1000+ page book could be it's own series... I think > the reason his next book is so far behind is that he is having trouble > controlling the subplots (IMO). Who knows the way he is going I might have > time to go back and re-read the previous three again. BTW, highly recommend > the A Song of Ice and Fire series (A_Game_Of_Thrones, A_Clash_Of_Kings and > A_Storm_Of_Swords). I share your high opinions about A Song of Ice and Fire, and like you I am beginning to gett a little bit worried about the future of the series. It's definitely a very ambitious work. Evidently not everybody agrees that Martin is good. If you look a few posts back in the thread, you will see him listed as an example of "ripoffs" and "cheap imitations". Ripoff of what, I wonder. -- Tord Romstad ###### From: "Rhiannon Sands" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 20:56:55 -0000 Lines: 122 Message-ID: <3720omF58qsj3U1@individual.net> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net> <36ptpnF53co97U1@individual.net> <36sjdpF55jpeaU1@individual.net> <45AE+EAGLSCCFwmn@sassoonery.demon.co.uk> <36v89mF50k4aaU1@individual.net> X-Trace: individual.net K2E0aemQnzZjHdLMpKoLpQ66Z2MSMdzMpEhDMK906yXzrTTqbn X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1409 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1409 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168889 "Michele Fry" wrote in message news:csEd7ZAUonCCFwTl@sassoonery.demon.co.uk... > In article <36v89mF50k4aaU1@individual.net>, Rhiannon Sands > writes > > >I understand what you're saying, but it's not quite what I mean (if that > >makes sense?). > > > >What I meant was the various cultures in Tales all have a related cultural > >hole in our minds to drop into. The old long lost empire fits (more or less > >with ancient rome), Hadrumal drops into the Worst Witch, Unseen University > >(I refuse to mention harry bloody potter and hogwarts), Whatley Academy, > >gap, the mountain men and forest people fit into the celtic/viking bit, > >Lescari is a bit war of the roses. All this means that Mckenna doesn't have > >to spend so much time filling in the detail. She acn get on with the plot. > > You're not a HP fan then ? Remind me not to send you either of my HP > papers, then ! Erm, no not really, but I will admit all I know of HP is the film that was on at xmyth which I found very cliched and the hype. It was sort of, ooh sounds odd must read it, all right I know must read it, bloomin well shut up, get the damn thing out of my earshot and the last straw was an entire hour stuck on Byres road in glasgow (europes largest car park) sitting behind a bus with Harry Potter logos covering it. I've never reacted terribly well to overhype like that. YMMV of course. > >With Compass, the Archipelago doesn't have a specific (or even aproximate) > >cultural space to fill in, it has to be created in the mind of the reader > >from scratch. There is no real world (tm) mirror for it. Perhaps a little > >of ancient greece or sinbad, but even there the fit isn't that good. > > I'm not sure I agree with you. After all, what you've just said above, > about the Tales is true for Westerners, most specifically for Europeans > - but the Archipelago is also based on real-life historical cultures so > it has a mirror for people somewhere - presumably for those in S E Asia > or thereabouts who have a good knowledge of past cultures there, much as > many of us have a good knowledge of past European cultures... I think that's kinda almost what I meant, although I'll admit I'm not the best read in SE Asian history, maybe I'll read more. The basic thrust of my point stands though, for the mass market, even the mass market in fantasy (if that isn't an oxymoron) there still isn't the cultural brain gap to drop it into. But I will try to find out more about SE asia so I can appreciate it more, although I think I found the Archipelago more Sinbad than anything else, but again that's probably just me. [edit before sending] actually after thinking about it the archipelago so far is split sort of sinbady to the north and indonesian to the south. Thank you for making me realise that, I think it's just given my perspective a whack and I've realised the archipelago must be a lot bigger than I previously thought. At the very least it must be the length on india if not longer. I wonder what the middle bit is like, we haven't seen much yet. [/edit] > >I'd love to see Hadrumal take full centre stage myself and cheerfully admit > >that Planir is my favourite character from Tales, but I'l concede this will > >probably never happen due to the shout of people crying "potter ripoff" that > >would probably happen. That's just me though. > > I think it won't happen simply because McKenna's not interested in > writing stories that centre wholly on Hadrumal - as you say, it's been > done far too many times before... Shame, but I see her point, I mean there can only be so many stories about wizards politicing and apprentices. I'd still like to see more hadrumal, but I guess that's what fanfiction.net is for... > >Certainly a numbing moment. I'd like more high powered business men to be > >bothered like that. But that's me again:o) > > I must admit, I laughed when I heard the story, because I totally > understood the feeling... > >I want to know why someone with as much talent as Mckenna is hidden away on > >the back shelves while robert jordans wheel of om gods it's neverending > >doodoo is promoted. > > She's not hidden away on the shelves of my local stores. I help see to > that by making sure the novels are tidily arranged (especially in > Borders where they have a real tendency to shelve books higgledy- > piggledy !) Since it's an Oxford store, and McKenna lives near Oxford, > they should do better than that ! You should see the ones in glasgow. It's not a pretty site (pun intended) > >If there was any justice she would be up next to the Prof, Pterry and good > >old HPL. YMMV > > I've not read any HPL but I agree about being up there with Tolkien and > Pratchett... Oooh, you must read old HPL, in daylight for preference though. It's very...very...erm...disturbingly good. He might have written in the 1920s but I'd still class HPL as the man who wrote the best modern fantasy horror stories. I really should add Mark Chadbourn to the list too, his Age of Misrule and New Dark Age books are good near future/alternate future fantasy. -- Rhiannon_S Yes, I am a fluffly bunny, but so was the one in Monty Python! ###### From: "Rhiannon Sands" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 21:31:39 -0000 Lines: 22 Message-ID: <3722psF55u9t6U1@individual.net> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> X-Trace: individual.net O4gGEkPtVMaimMIZQEu3EAHbaU7hcEyOZRlexPgZvWLuG318jN X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1409 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1409 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.belwue.de!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168891 "John Brock" wrote in message news:cugk4k$e3l$1@reader2.panix.com... > > Has anyone mentioned Steven King's massive Dark Tower series? I > haven't read it, except for the very beginning, which appeared in > Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine in 1978, and which I remember > as being quite compelling. (King can be a very compelling writer. Early King is readable (I loved The dragon's Eyes), later and current King suffers from scared editor syndrome. Someone really needs to tap him on the shoulder and go "stevie boy, cut that in half will you", as his books are just far too large and padded. -- Rhiannon_S Yes, I am a fluffly bunny, but so was the one in Monty Python! ###### From: jbrock@panix.com (John Brock) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 21:36:20 +0000 (UTC) Organization: Public Access Networks Corp. Lines: 30 Message-ID: References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: panix1.panix.com X-Trace: reader2.panix.com 1108071380 14453 166.84.1.1 (10 Feb 2005 21:36:20 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@panix.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 21:36:20 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test76 (Apr 2, 2001) Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!proxad.net!64.233.160.134.MISMATCH!postnews.google.com!news4.google.com!newsfeed2.dallas1.level3.net!news.level3.com!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!panix!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168890 In article <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>, Richard Fangnail wrote: >What are the best ones? It's funny I've read LOTR so many times but no >other fantasy stories at all. Some like Dragonriders of Pern. I used to read a great deal of fantasy, including many of the books mentioned in this thread, but alas, that was long ago. :-/ One book that I really liked and that stuck with me was The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle. It's a true classic; a sort of a gentle and self-aware meta-fantasy, where the characters don't actually know they are in a book, but might as well. There is supposedly a movie in development, featuring Christopher Lee, Mia Farrow, and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, but not much seems to be happening with it (see http://www.the-last-unicorn.net). Has anyone mentioned Steven King's massive Dark Tower series? I haven't read it, except for the very beginning, which appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine in 1978, and which I remember as being quite compelling. (King can be a very compelling writer. I once casually started browsing Firestarter from the middle of the book, and ended up finishing it from there in one sitting). Finally, why not go all the way back and check out Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur? I am slowly working my way through it, and it is quite an experience. -- John Brock jbrock@panix.com ###### From: the softrat Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 15:24:22 -0800 Organization: None to Speak Of Message-ID: References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net> <36ptpnF53co97U1@individual.net> <36sjdpF55jpeaU1@individual.net> <45AE+EAGLSCCFwmn@sassoonery.demon.co.uk> <36v89mF50k4aaU1@individual.net> <3720omF58qsj3U1@individual.net> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 2.0/32.652 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com Lines: 13 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.ip-plus.net!newsfeed.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.space.net!news.m-online.net!newsfeed.stueberl.de!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!sn-xit-03!sn-xit-08!sn-post-01!supernews.com!news.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168903 On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 20:56:55 -0000, "Rhiannon Sands" wrote: >Rhiannon_S >Yes, I am a fluffly bunny, but so was the one in Monty Python! I have *heard* about your kind! the softrat "Honi soit qui mal y pense." mailto:softrat@pobox.com -- One tentacle, one vote. ###### From: the softrat Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 15:24:23 -0800 Organization: None to Speak Of Message-ID: References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 2.0/32.652 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com Lines: 17 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.ip-plus.net!newsfeed.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.space.net!newsfeed.vmunix.org!newsfeed.stueberl.de!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!sn-xit-03!sn-xit-08!sn-post-01!supernews.com!news.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168904 On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 21:36:20 +0000 (UTC), jbrock@panix.com (John Brock) wrote: > >Finally, why not go all the way back and check out Sir Thomas >Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur? I am slowly working my way through >it, and it is quite an experience. Because Malory does not write in a zippy, modren style and he is so old-fangle. No explicit sex either. the softrat "Honi soit qui mal y pense." mailto:softrat@pobox.com -- One tentacle, one vote. ###### From: "Christopher Kreuzer" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Lines: 12 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1409 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1409 Message-ID: <5UTOd.11690$8B3.2989@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk> Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 01:29:37 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 82.43.125.102 X-Complaints-To: abuse@blueyonder.co.uk X-Trace: text.news.blueyonder.co.uk 1108085377 82.43.125.102 (Fri, 11 Feb 2005 01:29:37 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 01:29:37 GMT Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!news2.euro.net!216.196.110.149.MISMATCH!border2.nntp.ams.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!pe2.news.blueyonder.co.uk!blueyonder!pe1.news.blueyonder.co.uk!blueyonder!text.news.blueyonder.co.uk!53ab2750!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168917 Robert Kolker wrote: > Larry Swain wrote: > >> >> Well, I have to say that one thing I'm very happy about in this >> thread is that no one is touting Robert Jordan as good! > > Jordan! Robert Jordan! At the sound of that dreadful name, slowly I > turned..... Quoth the Raven nevermore. ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 19:52:20 -0600 From: nat_mann@yahoo.com (Natman) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 01:52:06 GMT Message-ID: <420c0f91.37549783@netnews.comcast.net> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.21/32.243 Lines: 12 NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.5.115.189 X-Trace: sv3-C9qzFw6yuGArGVPVLVCrITv95T5n69At+cQUraDsO42hpPoYHJoIA+Jiv+MjCKYQC/uzpRjykP8onok!/q488w+sDCOVsFKQwmcHj6sTHHvuJZfHHYYINq2bbrGHLLmJRjv0exWEl2Y1ko0+YE81s8y37yFU!SneLNg== X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: dmca@comcast.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.23 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.stueberl.de!peer01.cox.net!cox.net!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.comcast.com!news.comcast.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168919 On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 06:11:12 -0600, Larry Swain wrote: > > > > >Well, I have to say that one thing I'm very happy about in this thread >is that no one is touting Robert Jordan as good! > Didn't he write "The Neverending Story"? ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 20:32:05 -0600 Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 21:32:03 -0500 From: Robert Kolker User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> <420c0f91.37549783@netnews.comcast.net> In-Reply-To: <420c0f91.37549783@netnews.comcast.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: Lines: 25 NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.128.242.168 X-Trace: sv3-r0eZKa+BQ2tJDEcORI+GlgIRDpJkJ7dlNh9d0j00P0gZ9sk1SYxSFVmjCmrVryPIVFIhqtI+n85yBfO!zmoGvDbLyW1YBlE1Xt9SKCBQhxyfeNlZjMg2Owcb96RfdVwZpxMgsHiPgdtbAwwyfvsdg19uPZSE!BOU= X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: dmca@comcast.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.23 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!news.glorb.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.comcast.com!news.comcast.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168921 Natman wrote: > On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 06:11:12 -0600, Larry Swain > wrote: > >> > >> >> Well, I have to say that one thing I'm very happy about in this >> thread is that no one is touting Robert Jordan as good! >> > Didn't he write "The Neverending Story"? See http://tinyurl.com/6wlku Written by Michael Ende and others apparently in German. Bob Kolker ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 20:54:57 -0600 From: "Pippen" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 19:54:53 -0700 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2527 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2527 X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Original Message-ID: Lines: 66 NNTP-Posting-Host: 67.161.157.8 X-Trace: sv3-PwxWPVKyKbUUPHj/6amoHYMSUGLAlGwT9R+iT2RJIcszEJv1DZQ7HkyVQ203QLkiiyi0RELL64uALVp!aLf0utErS6K0vcHAvdLcy67uKO1xK5ayL4LBKZWSOWf4RCCbXbWf/yaWWU6teFDDIkedhkJ1xvE= X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: dmca@comcast.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.23 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!209.11.36.156.MISMATCH!nntp-server.pubsub.com!news.glorb.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.comcast.com!news.comcast.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168922 "Tord Kallqvist Romstad" wrote in message news:gqkll9wtf1p.fsf@aload.uio.no... > "Pippen" writes: > >> I have read _Tigana_ and _A_Song_For_Arbonne_ by GGK. The second was >> better >> than the first > > I agree entirely. "Tigana" seemed like the most universally > recommended of GGK's books, and it was therefore the book I chose to > read first. I was so disappointed that I almost gave up on GGK, but > fortunately I decided to give him a second chance and continued to > read "A Song for Arbonne", which I rather liked, and more recently the > "Sarantine Mosaic", which I found excellent. > >> but IMO not up to par with the work he did with CT in the >> _Silmarillion_. > > Very difficult to compare, I think. The Silmarillion is a very > different kind of book, and writing your own books is a very different > kind of work compared to completing an unfinished masterpiece by > another author. > >> I read the books while waiting (and still waiting) for George Martin >> to complete _A_Feast_For_Crows_. > > Me too! :-) > >> It will be interesting to see if Martin can pull this series off. He has >> so >> many subplots that each 1000+ page book could be it's own series... I >> think >> the reason his next book is so far behind is that he is having trouble >> controlling the subplots (IMO). Who knows the way he is going I might >> have >> time to go back and re-read the previous three again. BTW, highly >> recommend >> the A Song of Ice and Fire series (A_Game_Of_Thrones, A_Clash_Of_Kings >> and >> A_Storm_Of_Swords). > > I share your high opinions about A Song of Ice and Fire, and like you > I am beginning to gett a little bit worried about the future of the > series. It's definitely a very ambitious work. > > Evidently not everybody agrees that Martin is good. If you look a few > posts back in the thread, you will see him listed as an example of > "ripoffs" and "cheap imitations". Ripoff of what, I wonder. > > -- > Tord Romstad I'm not sure of what he is ripping off or imitating... Fantasy genre is somewhat new to me I was strictly sci-fi and history before the LOTR movies. I watched the first movie (FOTR) and then read my first Tolkien book. Now I have read the Sil, UT, TH and LOTR a few time each, some more. I have thought about taking on the task of the HOME but not sure if it will detract from the other stories... I digress, what I want to say is that being new to the fantasy genre I have not read enough to know if GRRM is imitating anyone or not. I know I enjoyed the books and in the end that's all that really matters to me. -p ###### From: Michele Fry Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 06:31:15 +0000 Organization: sass Lines: 83 Message-ID: <2OWY2UAzEFDCFw8Q@sassoonery.demon.co.uk> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net> <36ptpnF53co97U1@individual.net> <36sjdpF55jpeaU1@individual.net> <45AE+EAGLSCCFwmn@sassoonery.demon.co.uk> <36v89mF50k4aaU1@individual.net> <3720omF58qsj3U1@individual.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: sassoonery.demon.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 1108103897 5864 212.228.13.129 (11 Feb 2005 06:38:17 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 06:38:17 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Turnpike Integrated Version 4.02 S Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!in2p3.fr!proxad.net!proxad.net!194.117.148.138.MISMATCH!pe2.news.blueyonder.co.uk!blueyonder!peer-uk.news.demon.net!kibo.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!sassoonery.demon.co.uk!michele Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168931 In article <3720omF58qsj3U1@individual.net>, Rhiannon Sands writes >Erm, no not really, but I will admit all I know of HP is the film that was >on at xmyth which I found very cliched and the hype. It was sort of, ooh >sounds odd must read it, all right I know must read it, bloomin well shut >up, get the damn thing out of my earshot and the last straw was an entire >hour stuck on Byres road in glasgow (europes largest car park) sitting >behind a bus with Harry Potter logos covering it. I've never reacted >terribly well to overhype like that. YMMV of course. You really shouldn't judge the books on the basis of the first, treacly film adaption and the surrounding hype ! I would suggest you try reading "The Prisoner of Azkaban" the first of the less kiddie books - the first two are OK for setting up who Harry is and where he's coming from but "Prisoner" sees Harry facing darker threats. If you read the 3rd, 4th and 5th and don't give up part way through, you might want to go back to books 1 and 2 for the sake of completeness... But hey, one person's meat... ! >I think that's kinda almost what I meant, although I'll admit I'm not the >best read in SE Asian history, maybe I'll read more. The basic thrust of my >point stands though, for the mass market, even the mass market in fantasy >(if that isn't an oxymoron) there still isn't the cultural brain gap to drop >it into. But I will try to find out more about SE asia so I can appreciate >it more, although I think I found the Archipelago more Sinbad than anything >else, but again that's probably just me. > >[edit before sending] >actually after thinking about it the archipelago so far is split sort of >sinbady to the north and indonesian to the south. Thank you for making me >realise that, I think it's just given my perspective a whack and I've >realised the archipelago must be a lot bigger than I previously thought. At >the very least it must be the length on india if not longer. I wonder what >the middle bit is like, we haven't seen much yet. > >[/edit] Welcome ! Yes the Archipelago is a lot bigger than the sketchy bits of the maps in ToE indicate... Apparently the American edition of - Southern Fire I believe - will have a map with it which should make that much clearer (I'm thinking of buying the American edition just for the sake of the map !) >Shame, but I see her point, I mean there can only be so many stories about >wizards politicing and apprentices. I'd still like to see more hadrumal, >but I guess that's what fanfiction.net is for... Yes - the wizard politicking is OK as a sort of "action elsewhere" section - and don't get me wrong, I love seeing Kalion put down and seeing Planir trying to get him to see the bigger picture, and indeed Planir's deviousness is fascinating, but I don't think I could stand to read an entire book of it ! A novel going back to the early days of Hadrumal might be interesting though... >You should see the ones in glasgow. It's not a pretty site (pun intended) *grins* >Oooh, you must read old HPL, in daylight for preference though. It's >very...very...erm...disturbingly good. He might have written in the 1920s >but I'd still class HPL as the man who wrote the best modern fantasy horror >stories. I will eventually get around to HPL - but not just yet ! >I really should add Mark Chadbourn to the list too, his Age of Misrule and >New Dark Age books are good near future/alternate future fantasy. Hmm, someone else has recently recommended Chadbourn to me - I'll have to see what my local library holds... Michele == "Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill." - Barbara Tuchman == Now reading: The Wedding Gift - Juliet E McKenna == Commit random acts of literacy! Read & Release at Bookcrossing: http://www.bookcrossing.com/friend/Sass-80 ###### From: stevejdufour@yahoo.com Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: 10 Feb 2005 23:30:14 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Lines: 112 Message-ID: <1108107014.335590.312150@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 4.243.146.89 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: posting.google.com 1108107018 8146 127.0.0.1 (11 Feb 2005 07:30:18 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 07:30:18 +0000 (UTC) In-Reply-To: <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> User-Agent: G2/0.2 Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com; posting-host=4.243.146.89; posting-account=L03OUwwAAACItXUolr7C613GSk9eYRx0 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!news.glorb.com!postnews.google.com!f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168932 the softrat wrote: > On 7 Feb 2005 10:17:39 -0800, "Richard Fangnail" > wrote: > > >What are the best ones? It's funny I've read LOTR so many times but no > >other fantasy stories at all. Some like Dragonriders of Pern. > > Well, these are mine, YMMV. > > Both before and after.... > > Anything by > William Morris > Lord Dunsany The Worm Ourobouros_ by E. R. Eddison. That's my favorite. I'm not sure that's it's a novel. Here it is online if you want to check it out: http://www.sacred-texts.com/ring/two/ Great list softrat. Thanks. I see some others I need to read. > The Merlin quadrilogy by Mary Stewart > The retelling of the four branches of the > Mabinogeon by Evangeline Walton > > The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever by > Stephen Donaldson (The Second Chronicles suck!) > > The six books of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin > The Elric of Melibone series by Michael Moorcock > The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis (heavily Christian and > written for children) > _The Weirdstone of Brisingamen_, _The Moon of Gomrath_ (a sequel), > and _The_Owl_Service_ by Alan Garner (flawed but good fantasy, > nominally for children) > > Some like Lloyd Alexander's five volume Mabinogeon rip-off > _The Chronicles of Prydain_. I didn't (the Americanisms and the > Welsh myths don't play well together.) > > I am deliberately leaving out other sorts of imaginative fiction like > science fiction and horror. Science fiction especially opens a huge > category. > > As always, Y)our M)ileage M)ay V)ary. > > the softrat > > Another opinion: > > Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea Trilogy: "A Wizard of Easrthsea", "The > Tombs of > Atuan" and "The Farthest Shore", and, later, "Tehanu", "Tales from > Earthsea", and "The Other Shore". > > Peter S. Beagle: "The Last Unicorn". > Jack Vance: the Lyonesse trilogy and "The Last Castle". > Michael Scott Rohan's "The Winter of the World" tetralogy. > Tom Holt: "Expecting Someone Taller". > Terry Pratchett's comical fantasy stories. > Evangeline Walton's retelling of the Mabinogion: "The Island of the > Mighty", > "Prince of Annwn", "The Children of Llyr" and "The Birds of Rhiannon". > > L. Sprague de Camp's "The Unbeheaded King" (a trilogy, glorious fun) > and > "The Fallible Fiend", about an incompetent but very well-meaning > demon. > Gordon R. Dickson: "The Dragon and the George". (The sequels, however, > are > rather tired.) > Roger Zelazny: "Jack of Shadows". > > Strangely enough, Clifford D. Simak, otherwise a science fiction > writer, > wrote a fantasy story in his old age. It is called "Where the Evil > Dwells" > and is quite entertaining. (I have the impression he somehow crossed > fantasy > with Rosemary Sutcliff's novels from Roman Britain.) And Fred > Saberhagen, > otherwise also an sf writer (best known for his Berserker books) wrote > a > trilogy about a future Earth where magic is stronger than hardscience: > "The > Broken Lands", "The Black Mountains" and "Changeling Earth". > I personally would not bother with Stephen Donaldson, Terry Brooks, > George > R. R. Martin, Raymond E. Feist, Katherine Kerr, David Eddings, > Catherine > Kurtz or Piers Anthony. Ripoffs. Cheap imitations. > > Öjevind (Longswede) > > > the softrat > "Honi soit qui mal y pense." > mailto:softrat@pobox.com > -- > "I woke up one morning and all of my stuff had been stolen...and > replaced by exact duplicates." -- Steven Wright ###### From: AC Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 23:51:21 -0800 Organization: The Tao of Cow Lines: 25 Message-ID: <3736fvF59og6jU1@individual.net> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: individual.net xY4VVeYI+/yd7JRynVu4DwDCy1nWfgd7GXQD5CFOGdpIHYpL0h User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 (X11/20041206) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en In-Reply-To: Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168934 Pippen wrote: > I'm not sure of what he is ripping off or imitating... Fantasy genre > is somewhat new to me I was strictly sci-fi and history before the > LOTR movies. I watched the first movie (FOTR) and then read my first > Tolkien book. Now I have read the Sil, UT, TH and LOTR a few time > each, some more. I have thought about taking on the task of the HOME > but not sure if it will detract from the other stories... I digress, > what I want to say is that being new to the fantasy genre I have not > read enough to know if GRRM is imitating anyone or not. I know I > enjoyed the books and in the end that's all that really matters to > me. Not to scare you off, but HoME isn't so much a fantasy work as a rather scholarly attempt to trace the creation of a mythology. You do have to be willing to put up with a certain amount of repetiveness. I know the first time I read the earliest versions of Beren and Luthien, it was like "Huh?" Still, if you can't make it through, it's a pretty rewarding experience. I've read some of the HoME volumes a number of times, and I've read the entire series from beginning to end once, a large part of it while my vehicle's engine was being rebuilt and I was taking the city bus. -- Aaron Clausen mightymartianca@hotmail.com ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 06:36:31 -0600 Message-ID: <420ca6ca@clear.net.nz> From: Tux Wonder-Dog Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 01:39:17 +1300 References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> Organization: Gnu-Linux User-Agent: KNode/0.7.6 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8Bit X-Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 210-246-27-28.paradise.net.nz X-Original-Trace: 12 Feb 2005 01:36:28 +1300, 210-246-27-28.paradise.net.nz Lines: 164 NNTP-Posting-Host: 203.97.37.6 X-Trace: sv3-Dlq3zYd7famN2FD1Erry2OXZc9ixdjBCo/4lyZVyMX5lxer3keO2kqBkFEV+Q+4bzdRfju9Sat6prju!9P1tp0ps2dG/UrA2WS5bOmV7/Obl+3aXv8Zx8KQKqCj4/2VW/WpQBS4= X-Complaints-To: Complaints to abuse@clear.net.nz X-DMCA-Complaints-To: Complaints to abuse@clear.net.nz X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.23 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!news.glorb.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.clear.net.nz!news.clear.net.nz.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168948 the softrat wrote: > On 7 Feb 2005 10:17:39 -0800, "Richard Fangnail" > wrote: > >>What are the best ones? It's funny I've read LOTR so many times but no >>other fantasy stories at all. Some like Dragonriders of Pern. I can never see the word Dragon without substituting Drongo, as the result of reading Robert Jordan's WOT series. Malcom Fraser, Aussie Prime Minister after Goff Whitlam, was a Drongo. > > Well, these are mine, YMMV. > > Both before and after.... > > Anything by > William Morris Phantastes. > Lord Dunsany > _The Worm Ourobouros_ by E. R. Eddison. > The Merlin quadrilogy by Mary Stewart The Once and Future King by T.H. White. And The Book of Merlyn. > The retelling of the four branches of the > Mabinogeon by Evangeline Walton > > The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever by > Stephen Donaldson (The Second Chronicles suck!) > > The six books of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin > The Elric of Melibone series by Michael Moorcock The first Corum series. Parts of the second Corum series sparkle, but not as much as the first, and at times it seems contrived - I mean to a degree that the first one doesn't. I tried enjoying the Runestaff books, but - too contrived for my liking. The first book in the Eternal Champion multiverse, The Eternal Champion, is simplistic, but highly enjoyable. Recommended. > The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis (heavily Christian and > written for children) > _The Weirdstone of Brisingamen_, _The Moon of Gomrath_ (a sequel), > and _The_Owl_Service_ by Alan Garner (flawed but good fantasy, > nominally for children) The Songs of Earth and Power by Greg Bear. Everything by Fritz Leiber -the Lankhmar books are specifically Sword and Sorcery fantasy - except that Fritz Leiber is too intelligent to be taken in by the trappings of the genre. Wraeththu and Calenture by Storm Constantine - her Grigori books were a disappointment - the only one I recommend (re-)reading is Stalking Tender Prey. The Sacrifice by Kristine Kathryn Rusch - the rest of the series tend to be somewhat uneven, though Gift and Arianna shine in The Rival. The Hellbound Heart, Weaveworld, and Imagica by Clive Barker - I have not yet read Abarat, but it's bound to be as good as these I've mentioned The Mistress of Mistresses, A Fish Dinner in Memison and The Mezentian Gate by E.R. Eddison. Voyage to Arcturus by Lindsay, and everything else you can find of his - The Haunted Woman is the only one I've yet lighted on. Grendel by John Gardner - very highly recommended! Run, not walk, to your local bookshop, and proceed to threaten them with unless they order it for you pronto! Believe it or not, War in Heaven by Charles Williams, friend of C.S. Lewis, but not of J.R.R. Tolkien. (I haven't read much else of Charles Williams, but War in Heaven has a darker current mingling in it, which is totally alien to either Lewis or Tolkien. Worth a read.) > > Some like Lloyd Alexander's five volume Mabinogeon rip-off > _The Chronicles of Prydain_. I didn't (the Americanisms and the > Welsh myths don't play well together.) > > I am deliberately leaving out other sorts of imaginative fiction like > science fiction and horror. Science fiction especially opens a huge > category. > > As always, Y)our M)ileage M)ay V)ary. > > the softrat > > Another opinion: > > Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea Trilogy: "A Wizard of Easrthsea", "The > Tombs of > Atuan" and "The Farthest Shore", and, later, "Tehanu", "Tales from > Earthsea", and "The Other Shore". > > Peter S. Beagle: "The Last Unicorn". > Jack Vance: the Lyonesse trilogy and "The Last Castle". > Michael Scott Rohan's "The Winter of the World" tetralogy. > Tom Holt: "Expecting Someone Taller". > Terry Pratchett's comical fantasy stories. > Evangeline Walton's retelling of the Mabinogion: "The Island of the > Mighty", > "Prince of Annwn", "The Children of Llyr" and "The Birds of Rhiannon". > > L. Sprague de Camp's "The Unbeheaded King" (a trilogy, glorious fun) > and > "The Fallible Fiend", about an incompetent but very well-meaning > demon. > Gordon R. Dickson: "The Dragon and the George". (The sequels, however, > are > rather tired.) > Roger Zelazny: "Jack of Shadows". > > Strangely enough, Clifford D. Simak, otherwise a science fiction > writer, > wrote a fantasy story in his old age. It is called "Where the Evil > Dwells" > and is quite entertaining. (I have the impression he somehow crossed > fantasy > with Rosemary Sutcliff's novels from Roman Britain.) And Fred > Saberhagen, > otherwise also an sf writer (best known for his Berserker books) wrote > a > trilogy about a future Earth where magic is stronger than hardscience: > "The > Broken Lands", "The Black Mountains" and "Changeling Earth". > I personally would not bother with Stephen Donaldson, Terry Brooks, The only ones of Terry Brooks that I enjoyed were the ones where he stopped trying to rip-off Tolkien and became, simply, what he was, a non-practising Lawyer - for me, Magic Kingdon for Sale - Sold, and the subsequent ones, were in his genuine voice, and were thus well worth reading. I loathe his Shannara series on a number of grounds, not the least being that I've walked that self-same distance while hitch-hiking in NZ - it's roughly the distance from Taupo to Tauranga. A pocket kingdom. So when he recognizes that and makes it an explicit feature, it becomes believable - and readible. > George > R. R. Martin, Raymond E. Feist, Katherine Kerr, David Eddings, David Eddings had an unfortunately contrived feel to his entire set of series. > Catherine > Kurtz or Piers Anthony. Ripoffs. Cheap imitations. > > Öjevind (Longswede) > > > the softrat > "Honi soit qui mal y pense." > mailto:softrat@pobox.com > -- > "I woke up one morning and all of my stuff had been stolen...and > replaced by exact duplicates." -- Steven Wright -- "Good, late in to more rewarding well."  "Well, you tonight.  And I was lookintelligent woman of Ming home.  I trust you with a tender silence."  I get a word into my hands, a different and unbelike, probably - 'she fortunate fat woman', wrong word.  I think to me, I justupid. Let not emacs meta-X dissociate-press write your romantic dialogs...!!! ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 06:40:54 -0600 Message-ID: <420ca7d2@clear.net.nz> From: Tux Wonder-Dog Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 01:43:42 +1300 References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> Organization: Gnu-Linux User-Agent: KNode/0.7.6 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8Bit X-Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 210-246-27-28.paradise.net.nz X-Original-Trace: 12 Feb 2005 01:40:51 +1300, 210-246-27-28.paradise.net.nz Lines: 44 NNTP-Posting-Host: 203.97.37.6 X-Trace: sv3-thDJlDYkEba2FD05GPq993ZkuIRPPPz+ALLlkNFlx+FXvw7ykUMArf+NFgRA62tdKxK15H7gVk+2PTF!q77rDjuZGGyDDTcYlJdJ4QyywwjqDewW+y/LiZbYi7wx8DRms6acenk= X-Complaints-To: Complaints to abuse@clear.net.nz X-DMCA-Complaints-To: Complaints to abuse@clear.net.nz X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.23 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.freenet.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.clear.net.nz!news.clear.net.nz.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168949 Larry Swain wrote: > >> >> Despite the quoting, I don't think softrat wrote this: >> >> >>> I personally would not bother with Stephen Donaldson, Terry Brooks, >>>George >>>R. R. Martin, Raymond E. Feist, Katherine Kerr, David Eddings, >>>Catherine >>>Kurtz or Piers Anthony. Ripoffs. Cheap imitations. >> >> >> hmmm. Donaldson was anything but a _cheap_ imitation. Brooks I gave up >> on >> halfway through the first book. It appears he almost did too. He very >> much regrets that it _was_ a cheap imitation, and apparently he's >> outgrown >> it. I keep meaning to check back on him. Kurtz got tiresome, but >> definitely not imitative of anything I know, and Piers Anthony (while not >> at all my cup of tea) is one of a kind. > > > I have to agree with you here Derek. Donaldson, while I dislike > Covenant, is original in many ways. And Anthony, while cheap, and > tiresome, isn't really much of ripoff of Tolkien. The rest I lump in > the garbage pail. > > I like Guy Gavriel Kay. He's grown as a writer too and I haven't seen > anyone mention him yet. I liked his characters in The Summer Tree, The Wandering Fire and The Longest Road, but I didn't like some of his more absurd moments. One of which being the importation of The Lady of Shallot into one of them - I forget which. Ouch! The Lady of Shallot is cheap Victoriana and it grated. -- "Good, late in to more rewarding well."  "Well, you tonight.  And I was lookintelligent woman of Ming home.  I trust you with a tender silence."  I get a word into my hands, a different and unbelike, probably - 'she fortunate fat woman', wrong word.  I think to me, I justupid. Let not emacs meta-X dissociate-press write your romantic dialogs...!!! ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 06:49:35 -0600 Message-ID: <420ca9db@clear.net.nz> From: Tux Wonder-Dog Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 01:52:23 +1300 References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <4207d18c.1683104@news.hispeed.ch> Organization: Gnu-Linux User-Agent: KNode/0.7.6 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8Bit X-Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 210-246-27-28.paradise.net.nz X-Original-Trace: 12 Feb 2005 01:49:32 +1300, 210-246-27-28.paradise.net.nz Lines: 45 NNTP-Posting-Host: 203.97.37.6 X-Trace: sv3-b65Vv0KNBWv+rRUZevIWxx8r48B3VEPDLCdVH+eWxyBDodJ1uBYTTlSyaOC6SblDaN6a0/4DnfbPH/g!EWGur+bcwAhUhSpEay3wkcDApmJUfWVR8rY+iufB5mPD0iXzfsoZnA4= X-Complaints-To: Complaints to abuse@clear.net.nz X-DMCA-Complaints-To: Complaints to abuse@clear.net.nz X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.23 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.clear.net.nz!news.clear.net.nz.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168950 CleV wrote: > On 7 Feb 2005 10:17:39 -0800, "Richard Fangnail" > wrote: > >>What are the best ones? It's funny I've read LOTR so many times but no >>other fantasy stories at all. Some like Dragonriders of Pern. > > Depends if you want more of the same or other forms of fantasy. I > would recommend: > > Tanith Lee: Tales of the Flat Earth, starting with Night's Master. > Tanith Lee's work takes off where Beckford's Vathek ends, with demons > and deserts and myth and magic ... > > John Crowley: Little, Big - IMO the best and only case of Real Magic > (cf. Magical Realism). Alice in Wonderland crossed with American myth > crossed with Shakespear crossed with tales of a vanished past ... > Halfway through, a character's nickname becomes a revelation ... > > James Branch Cabell: Chronicles of Poictesme - roughly contemporaneous > with Tolkien, and a tale (in many many books, most no longer in print) > of the realm of Poictesme and its founder, Don Manuel. Myth is decked > out in good humour and cleverness and humanity. Check out the first > three (excellent) books, Figures of Earth, The Silver Stallion and > Jurgen ... How could I have forgotten James Branch Cabell!?! My BAD!!! "Mundus vult decipi" the world wishes to be deceived! They were some of James Blish's favorites, apparently, as well. Totally awesome - he got done for breaking some censorship laws and made us of the incident in Jurgen. Take a read - it's the only occasion in a fantasy book where you'll meet a bug complaining about someone's writing and explaining that he will interpret whatever he reads in whatever way he chooses, and the devil with any intelligibility of his argument! Wesley Parish -- "Good, late in to more rewarding well."  "Well, you tonight.  And I was lookintelligent woman of Ming home.  I trust you with a tender silence."  I get a word into my hands, a different and unbelike, probably - 'she fortunate fat woman', wrong word.  I think to me, I justupid. Let not emacs meta-X dissociate-press write your romantic dialogs...!!! ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 06:55:56 -0600 Message-ID: <420cab58@clear.net.nz> From: Tux Wonder-Dog Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 01:58:44 +1300 References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net> Organization: Gnu-Linux User-Agent: KNode/0.7.6 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8Bit X-Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 210-246-27-28.paradise.net.nz X-Original-Trace: 12 Feb 2005 01:55:53 +1300, 210-246-27-28.paradise.net.nz Lines: 64 NNTP-Posting-Host: 203.97.37.6 X-Trace: sv3-SGVlj4mUOMYF/W4apPv41ZmXATLw9bkg29EQnvDl6HQ4Vu4ZY8+gfhx2ZxppOgeyrrZlsSYMyRwwthy!OVm6ZgGnlDL7YGCGrrX615cta7DfG/yNs7DJVgcoHzfEkd+VsU+Lg/8= X-Complaints-To: Complaints to abuse@clear.net.nz X-DMCA-Complaints-To: Complaints to abuse@clear.net.nz X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.23 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!cyclone.bc.net!news.glorb.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.clear.net.nz!news.clear.net.nz.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168951 Steuard Jensen wrote: > Quoth "Dan_Leach" in article > <36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net>: >> "Richard Fangnail" wrote: >> > What are the best ones? > >> I dont read much and when i do its tolkien, but i did really enjoy >> earthsea by ursula le guin. Its adult fantasy like LOTR, it can be a >> bit slow at times but it is very cerebral. > > I'd second your recommendation of Earthsea (the original trilogy, > anyway; I didn't care for the later sequel _Tehanu_, and I haven't > read any of the more recent volumes). And I agree that they aren't > the sort of books that talk down to kids, books that adults can enjoy > and appreciate. But I would classify them quite firmly as having > "young adults" as their primary audience: they're more "mature" than > _The Hobbit_, but very distinctly less so than LotR. > >> > Some like Dragonriders of Pern. > > Some do. :) In fact, I liked the series tremendously when I was > younger (mostly between the ages of 10 and 15, I think, though I was > always a pretty advanced reader). My more recent forays into the > books haven't been as enjoyable; I don't think there's as much deep > meaning in McCaffrey's books as I've grown to look for. They're still > enjoyable reads, and they describe a fascinating world. > > And speaking of their fascinating world, I've always been quite > hesitant to call them "fantasy". Their setting is explicitly sci-fi, > though that is very much a secondary theme until something like the > ninth book in the series (in publication order). > > > Personally, I often suggest _Dragonsbane_, by Barbara Hambly. A short > summary of the plot might sound like run of the mill fantasy, but the > focus of the story is firmly on the characters and their > relationships, and that makes the whole story seem fresh. It's one of > the least Tolkien-derived fantasy stories and worlds that I've seen, > and I love Hambly's realization of dragons here. I highly recommend > it. > > For the record, Hambly has in recent years written two more novels to > follow this one. If they'd been out when I first read the book many > years ago, I know I would have devoured them immediately. But as it > is, I've avoided them like the plague: _Dragonsbane_ ends too well to > spoil it with sequels. (I feel like Hambly's made similar mistakes by > coming back to add new stories to other series that she's written, > sequels whose plots felt "tacked on" to the world they're set in. I > couldn't bear to see that happen to _Dragonsbane_.) > > Steuard Jensen The Darwath Trilogy - of which I've only read The Walls of Air - seems brilliant. It's also the only fantasy series that has absorbed Alien and the feeling of dark and horror that are embedded in Alien. And as such, it's the most Lovecraftian of the fantasy series I have ever read. Wesley Parish -- "Good, late in to more rewarding well."  "Well, you tonight.  And I was lookintelligent woman of Ming home.  I trust you with a tender silence."  I get a word into my hands, a different and unbelike, probably - 'she fortunate fat woman', wrong word.  I think to me, I justupid. Let not emacs meta-X dissociate-press write your romantic dialogs...!!! ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 10:24:03 -0600 From: nat_mann@yahoo.com (Natman) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 16:23:49 GMT Message-ID: <420cdbac.2383957@netnews.comcast.net> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> <420c0f91.37549783@netnews.comcast.net> X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.21/32.243 Lines: 31 NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.5.115.189 X-Trace: sv3-T7sDA8sZpOq8Ppqf2wrckaRDM3joJon83/nA3a34UJhXzR32dX1lWCycfNZnn6ypmmSRkC3K8WaGOqs!jhTBtHVBmDLFf0Pfy9/DjWm0Xff4BHztQZOtVOeQ+saELIXP7ieTBgXxeU32JiXlQIyNGqbxJcwa!M0T0 X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: dmca@comcast.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.23 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!news.glorb.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.comcast.com!news.comcast.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168958 On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 21:32:03 -0500, Robert Kolker wrote: >Natman wrote: > >> On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 06:11:12 -0600, Larry Swain >> wrote: >> >> >>> >> >>> >>>Well, I have to say that one thing I'm very happy about in this thread >>>is that no one is touting Robert Jordan as good! >>> >> >> Didn't he write "The Neverending Story"? > >See > >http://tinyurl.com/6wlku > >Written by Michael Ende and others apparently in German. > >Bob Kolker > > > Sorry, it appears my subtle attempt at humor was too subtle. I was poking fun at the interminable and repetitive nature of the "Wheel of Time" series. ###### Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8Bit References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net> <420cab58@clear.net.nz> X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test70 (17 January 1999) From: sbjensen@midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard Jensen) Lines: 50 Message-ID: <%v5Pd.26$T4.5567@news.uchicago.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.135.12.7 X-Trace: news.uchicago.edu 1108141179 128.135.12.7 (Fri, 11 Feb 2005 10:59:39 CST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 10:59:39 CST Organization: The University of Chicago X-SessionID: %v5Pd-21475-T4-5462@news.uchicago.edu X-Hash-Info: post-filter,v:1.4 X-Hash: 280e3546 5c28be39 5657a4a8 a77aeab2 0ddcb6fd Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 16:59:39 GMT Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!news.glorb.com!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.uchicago.edu!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168969 [Side note: when you reply to an earlier post, it's good netiquette to trim down the quoted material as much as possible so you only include the parts that you're directly responding to. A decent rule of thumb is to make sure you have at least as many lines of new text as of quoted text. For more hints on netiquette like this, take a look at the "Newsgroups and Netiquette" section of my Tolkien Meta-FAQ, at http://tolkien.slimy.com/.] Quoth Tux Wonder-Dog in article <420cab58@clear.net.nz>: > Steuard Jensen wrote: > > Personally, I often suggest _Dragonsbane_, by Barbara Hambly. [snip] > > (I feel like Hambly's made similar mistakes by coming back to add > > new stories to other series that she's written, sequels whose > > plots felt "tacked on" to the world they're set in. > The Darwath Trilogy - of which I've only read The Walls of Air - > seems brilliant. I enjoyed her Darwath trilogy, too, though starting with its second book seems like an odd choice (but I understand that sometimes you just can't get your hands on the first book in a series when you want it). It's a fun read, and it's built around some very interesting ideas. It still ranks far beneath _Dragonsbane_ on my personal scale, though. The Darwath trilogy is actually the prime example of the "mistake" I mentioned above, too. Years after the original trilogy was finished, Hambly came back and added at least two books set in that same world: _The Mother of Winter_ and _Icefalcon's Quest_. I haven't read the second of these, but the first just felt tacked on and "forced": just how many latent evil scourges can we expect one world to have, anyway? Darwath goes from a world haunted by an ancient legendary fear to a world with a great big bull's eye painted on it. To me, it felt like Hambly was just "cashing in" on the popularity of the earlier books. > it's the most Lovecraftian of the fantasy series I have ever read. Interesting. I've just read a bunch of Lovecraft for the first time in the last couple of months, so I'll need to go back to Darwath at some point and see how clear the echoes are there. There really is a a Lovecraftian feel to the premise, now that you mention it. Hmm. (For the record, I enjoyed much of the Lovecraft I read, but I have some of the same concerns about his mythos that I have about Hambly's Darwath extensions: just how many totally independent ancient lurking unknown horrors can one planet reasonably expect to hold, anyway?) Steuard Jensen ###### From: Andy Bussey Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 17:25:58 +0000 Lines: 34 Message-ID: <374851F51ihgtU1@individual.net> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> <3736fvF59og6jU1@individual.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: individual.net yMCHJPhDjxhCVG7ylRd30A0bWAE126vTq74HUWTpXEytZodoGo User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 (Windows/20041206) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en In-Reply-To: <3736fvF59og6jU1@individual.net> Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168974 AC wrote: > Not to scare you off, but HoME isn't so much a fantasy work as a > rather scholarly attempt to trace the creation of a mythology. You > do have to be willing to put up with a certain amount of > repetiveness. I know the first time I read the earliest versions of > Beren and Luthien, it was like "Huh?" > Still, if you can't make it through, it's a pretty rewarding > experience. I've read some of the HoME volumes a number of times, > and I've read the entire series from beginning to end once, a large > part of it while my vehicle's engine was being rebuilt and I was > taking the city bus. I agree with this. It took me a long time to work my way through it all often starting again with Lost Tales. Even if the whole series had been published when I had started I don't think it would have changed that. However I am glad I stuck it out. I think Tolkien achieves a certain kind of 'air' or 'tone' in his early writing (esp Lost Tales) that he never really comes out in the later published stuff. I lived for a time in Warwickshire and thinking about the Tales (and the Lays) on a summer evening could really make me think that there might still be elves in the world passing west to the havens. The compressed style of the Silmarillion (even the longer chapters) never quite achieves that for me to the same extent. Now when I read the Silmarillion I often think about some of the expanded material in HoME and it adds a life to the reading it didn't have before. I suspect that this is the kind of effect Tolkien was hoping for with the Silmarillion as it is a compressed version of older tales and poetry. Andy ###### From: "aelfwina" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 22:22:01 -0600 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Message-ID: <110odveg3ocucef@corp.supernews.com> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> <420c0f91.37549783@netnews.comcast.net> X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1106 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106 X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com Lines: 21 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!newsmi-eu.news.garr.it!newsmi-us.news.garr.it!NewsITBone-GARR!newsfeed.stanford.edu!sn-xit-03!sn-xit-08!sn-post-02!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168929 "Natman" wrote in message news:420c0f91.37549783@netnews.comcast.net... > On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 06:11:12 -0600, Larry Swain > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > >Well, I have to say that one thing I'm very happy about in this thread > >is that no one is touting Robert Jordan as good! > > > Didn't he write "The Neverending Story"? No. It just *feels* that way. 8-D And some people complained that JRRT was too wordy... Barbara ###### Reply-To: "Raven" From: "Raven" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien,alt.fan.tolkien References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Lines: 18 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Message-ID: Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 04:32:08 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 195.82.196.70 X-Complaints-To: abuse@get2.net X-Trace: news.get2net.dk 1108179105 195.82.196.70 (Sat, 12 Feb 2005 04:31:45 CET) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 04:31:45 CET Organization: get2net Internet Kunde Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!newsfeed.freenet.de!feed.news.tiscali.de!uio.no!newsfeed1.uni2.dk!news.get2net.dk.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:169006 "the softrat" skrev i en meddelelse news:q5rn011b8ksrm765chd0q8asgr0t7hs5jo@4ax.com... > Because Malory does not write in a zippy, modren style and he is so > old-fangle. > No explicit sex either. But quite a bit of implicit sex, though. Such as when IIRC Iseult is proven an adultress by means of a magic cup - an adultress cannot drink from it without spilling some. She is set up for roasting, but then it is pointed out that practically all women who are tested with that cup spill, and so if all women who are proven guilty of adultery by that dark magic are for the fire then it's going to be mighty short of women in the castle. Brân. ###### From: "Count Menelvagor" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien,alt.fan.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: 11 Feb 2005 22:56:05 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Lines: 29 Message-ID: <1108191365.964237.276130@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 64.63.221.60 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" X-Trace: posting.google.com 1108191370 12578 127.0.0.1 (12 Feb 2005 06:56:10 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 06:56:10 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: G2/0.2 Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com; posting-host=64.63.221.60; posting-account=uvDL7QwAAACz2MWOxUwJ6HLWiGRonps7 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.stueberl.de!news.glorb.com!postnews.google.com!g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:169014 Raven wrote: > "the softrat" skrev i en meddelelse > news:q5rn011b8ksrm765chd0q8asgr0t7hs5jo@4ax.com... > > > Because Malory does not write in a zippy, modren style and he is so > > old-fangle. > > > No explicit sex either. > > But quite a bit of implicit sex, though. Such as when IIRC Iseult is > proven an adultress by means of a magic cup - an adultress cannot drink from > it without spilling some. She is set up for roasting, but then it is > pointed out that practically all women who are tested with that cup spill, > and so if all women who are proven guilty of adultery by that dark magic are > for the fire then it's going to be mighty short of women in the castle. yah, and in an earlir version, yseult of the white hands laughs when the river splashes her thighs, saying that the water had been far more free with her than her putative husband, tristan. tirant lo blanc has globs of explicit tuff. there's also the mildly squicky fact that the heroine is only 14 ... ###### From: "Rhiannon Sands" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 14:49:05 -0000 Lines: 59 Message-ID: <376juvF59d9rgU1@individual.net> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net> <36ptpnF53co97U1@individual.net> <36sjdpF55jpeaU1@individual.net> <45AE+EAGLSCCFwmn@sassoonery.demon.co.uk> <36v89mF50k4aaU1@individual.net> <3720omF58qsj3U1@individual.net> <2OWY2UAzEFDCFw8Q@sassoonery.demon.co.uk> X-Trace: individual.net wV3lU90dRzWLvZbJjiFS2AX6SRgP41c+rNEWd3KoxxzczqnKxs X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1409 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1409 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:169027 "Michele Fry" wrote in message news:2OWY2UAzEFDCFw8Q@sassoonery.demon.co.uk... > In article <3720omF58qsj3U1@individual.net>, Rhiannon Sands > writes > Welcome ! Yes the Archipelago is a lot bigger than the sketchy bits of > the maps in ToE indicate... Apparently the American edition of - > Southern Fire I believe - will have a map with it which should make that > much clearer (I'm thinking of buying the American edition just for the > sake of the map !) Oooh Ditto. > > Yes - the wizard politicking is OK as a sort of "action elsewhere" > section - and don't get me wrong, I love seeing Kalion put down and > seeing Planir trying to get him to see the bigger picture, and indeed > Planir's deviousness is fascinating, but I don't think I could stand to > read an entire book of it ! A novel going back to the early days of > Hadrumal might be interesting though... Hmmm, yes, how does such a place and such a complicated instituion get started. Aye there be tales yet to tell... > > >Oooh, you must read old HPL, in daylight for preference though. It's > >very...very...erm...disturbingly good. He might have written in the 1920s > >but I'd still class HPL as the man who wrote the best modern fantasy horror > >stories. > > I will eventually get around to HPL - but not just yet ! ...tentacles... > >I really should add Mark Chadbourn to the list too, his Age of Misrule and > >New Dark Age books are good near future/alternate future fantasy. > > Hmm, someone else has recently recommended Chadbourn to me - I'll have > to see what my local library holds... Be careful which book, his age of misrule trilogy needs to be read in sequence and is very complicated you can't go straight to book two or three without reading the preceding[sp?] book. Too much happens in each section. But the new dark age books are fairly independant, Devil in Green is quite bloody and visceral, while Queen of Sinister is more psychological and, well, sinister. Having read Age of Misrule before will give those books more depth (particularly Queen), but isn't strictly nessecary. -- Rhiannon_S Yes, I am a fluffly bunny, but so was the one in Monty Python! ###### From: "Michelle J. Haines" User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 (X11/20041206) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> <3736fvF59og6jU1@individual.net> <374851F51ihgtU1@individual.net> In-Reply-To: <374851F51ihgtU1@individual.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 12 Message-ID: X-Complaints-To: abuse@usenetserver.com X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly. NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 11:11:16 EST Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 09:13:04 -0700 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.stueberl.de!news.glorb.com!atl-c03.usenetserver.com!pc03.usenetserver.com!fe25.usenetserver.com.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:169034 Andy Bussey wrote: > I think Tolkien achieves a certain kind of 'air' or 'tone' in his > early writing (esp Lost Tales) that he never really comes out in > the later published stuff. To which I have to say, Thank GOD! I still have not managed to get through the first book of Lost Tales. The language is...well... Michelle Flutist ###### From: "Rhiannon Sands" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 17:18:28 -0000 Lines: 34 Message-ID: <376sn3F5a0gr9U1@individual.net> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net> <36ptpnF53co97U1@individual.net> <36sjdpF55jpeaU1@individual.net> <45AE+EAGLSCCFwmn@sassoonery.demon.co.uk> <36v89mF50k4aaU1@individual.net> <3720omF58qsj3U1@individual.net> <2OWY2UAzEFDCFw8Q@sassoonery.demon.co.uk> <376juvF59d9rgU1@individual.net> X-Trace: individual.net 5z5nLjsga8mBl9Y9A45FFg0Y7qHPv5Lm4OdvdbOgaISgBQl1oL X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1409 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1409 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:169040 "Michele Fry" wrote in message news:a4qceSApsjDCFwbP@sassoonery.demon.co.uk... > In article <376juvF59d9rgU1@individual.net>, Rhiannon Sands > writes > > >Oooh Ditto. > > Apparently a map should eventually be available via the ToE website, There's a website? Can I have the URl, google did not co-operate with me. > > >...tentacles... > > Excuse me ? Sorry HPL in-joke. [chadbourn] > Well the only title on the shelves today was "Devil in Green" - however > I'll probably leave reading that until last (of the four books I > borrowed today), so I'll see if I can get the Age of Misrule books > first... Yeah, if you can read tthem in sequence it makes the story deeper:o) -- Rhiannon_S Yes, I am a fluffly bunny, but so was the one in Monty Python! ###### From: Michele Fry Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 17:21:45 +0000 Organization: sass Lines: 48 Message-ID: References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net> <36ptpnF53co97U1@individual.net> <36sjdpF55jpeaU1@individual.net> <45AE+EAGLSCCFwmn@sassoonery.demon.co.uk> <36v89mF50k4aaU1@individual.net> <3720omF58qsj3U1@individual.net> <2OWY2UAzEFDCFw8Q@sassoonery.demon.co.uk> <376juvF59d9rgU1@individual.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: sassoonery.demon.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 1108228985 21558 212.228.13.129 (12 Feb 2005 17:23:05 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 17:23:05 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Turnpike Integrated Version 4.02 S Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!proxad.net!proxad.net!194.117.148.138.MISMATCH!pe2.news.blueyonder.co.uk!blueyonder!peer-uk.news.demon.net!kibo.news.demon.net!mutlu.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!sassoonery.demon.co.uk!michele Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:169038 In article <376juvF59d9rgU1@individual.net>, Rhiannon Sands writes >Oooh Ditto. Apparently a map should eventually be available via the ToE website, but I don't know if I can wait until McKenna has sufficient time to spare from writing (and doing talks hither and yon) to do it and get it up there... ! >Hmmm, yes, how does such a place and such a complicated instituion get >started. Aye there be tales yet to tell... Well we get bits, of course, from Planir's various conversations, about how Trydek founded Hadrumal after people started to recover from the fall of the Tormalin Empire (after Demoiselle Guinalle's attempts to save the Kel Ar 'Ayen colonists)... But I agree that a full novel about those early times would make for fairly interesting reading... >...tentacles... Excuse me ? >Be careful which book, his age of misrule trilogy needs to be read in >sequence and is very complicated you can't go straight to book two or three >without reading the preceding[sp?] book. Too much happens in each section. > >But the new dark age books are fairly independant, Devil in Green is quite >bloody and visceral, while Queen of Sinister is more psychological and, >well, sinister. Having read Age of Misrule before will give those books >more depth (particularly Queen), but isn't strictly nessecary. Well the only title on the shelves today was "Devil in Green" - however I'll probably leave reading that until last (of the four books I borrowed today), so I'll see if I can get the Age of Misrule books first... Michele == "Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill." - Barbara Tuchman == Now reading: The Wedding Gift - Juliet E McKenna == Commit random acts of literacy! Read & Release at Bookcrossing: http://www.bookcrossing.com/friend/Sass-80 ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 11:24:54 -0600 Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 11:25:00 -0600 From: Larry Swain User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien,alt.fan.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <1108191365.964237.276130@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> In-Reply-To: <1108191365.964237.276130@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <3ZydnQSkseZ6ppPfRVn-uQ@rcn.net> Lines: 48 NNTP-Posting-Host: 216.80.74.131 X-Trace: sv3-9uRMba+y4Yf0dddK8f+oyguyer9TasfSu+EB9D3wlSRRXiLUC307t0WO7lYAgZ16TVnjEIvuyW40mqf!6hczVBBE2hgDTLEPnNxz1NTTPuVIOKVIMsMvbSJA8pq+9X0gPfcwQijmPQMrKZKF X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.23 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.rcn.net!news.rcn.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:169039 Count Menelvagor wrote: > Raven wrote: > >>"the softrat" skrev i en meddelelse >>news:q5rn011b8ksrm765chd0q8asgr0t7hs5jo@4ax.com... >> >> >>>Because Malory does not write in a zippy, modren style and he is so >>>old-fangle. >> >>>No explicit sex either. >> >> But quite a bit of implicit sex, though. Such as when IIRC Iseult > is > >>proven an adultress by means of a magic cup - an adultress cannot > drink from > >>it without spilling some. She is set up for roasting, but then it is >>pointed out that practically all women who are tested with that cup > spill, > >>and so if all women who are proven guilty of adultery by that dark > magic are > >>for the fire then it's going to be mighty short of women in the > castle. > yah, and in an earlir version, yseult of the white hands laughs when > the river splashes her thighs, saying that the water had been far more > free with her than her putative husband, tristan. > tirant lo blanc has globs of explicit tuff. there's also the mildly > squicky fact that the heroine is only 14 ... > Just did the Miller's Tale and Wife of Bath in class this week....now there's good explicit sex for ya...Malory as I recall has a lot of implicit sex...implicit in the sense that he doesn't say "and they had sex, people!" But implicit in letting your imagination work with how they worked so hard at night.... ###### From: the softrat Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 10:18:27 -0800 Organization: None to Speak Of Message-ID: References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> <3736fvF59og6jU1@individual.net> <374851F51ihgtU1@individual.net> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 2.0/32.652 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com Lines: 22 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!newshub.sdsu.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!sn-xit-02!sn-xit-01!sn-post-02!sn-post-01!supernews.com!news.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:169044 On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 09:13:04 -0700, "Michelle J. Haines" wrote: >Andy Bussey wrote: >> >> I think Tolkien achieves a certain kind of 'air' or 'tone' in his >> early writing (esp Lost Tales) that he never really comes out in >> the later published stuff. > >To which I have to say, Thank GOD! I still have not managed to get >through the first book of Lost Tales. The language is...well... > Wossa motta? A leetle too archaic for you? PS: I rather like that archaic English and I do understand it! the softrat "Honi soit qui mal y pense." mailto:softrat@pobox.com -- "It is generally inadvisable to eject directly over the area you just bombed" - U.S. Air Force flight training manual ###### From: Michele Fry Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 19:35:29 +0000 Organization: sass Lines: 42 Message-ID: References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <36pq9aF53tta3U1@individual.net> <36ptpnF53co97U1@individual.net> <36sjdpF55jpeaU1@individual.net> <45AE+EAGLSCCFwmn@sassoonery.demon.co.uk> <36v89mF50k4aaU1@individual.net> <3720omF58qsj3U1@individual.net> <2OWY2UAzEFDCFw8Q@sassoonery.demon.co.uk> <376juvF59d9rgU1@individual.net> <376sn3F5a0gr9U1@individual.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: sassoonery.demon.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 1108237460 14491 212.228.13.129 (12 Feb 2005 19:44:20 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 19:44:20 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Turnpike Integrated Version 4.02 S Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!news2.euro.net!216.196.110.149.MISMATCH!border2.nntp.ams.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!pe2.news.blueyonder.co.uk!blueyonder!peer-uk.news.demon.net!kibo.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!sassoonery.demon.co.uk!michele Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:169056 In article <376sn3F5a0gr9U1@individual.net>, Rhiannon Sands writes >There's a website? Can I have the URl, google did not co-operate with me. Yes indeed !! You'll find it at: http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/juliet.e.mckenna/ - it's got a gallery of international covers (some of which are quite startling, eg. the one for The Czech Republic !) - be warned though, that if you're on a dial up connection, this gallery will take a while to download. There are also some interesting articles that McKenna has written about being a writer and about writing (also an interesting article that may be of interest to people here - "Tolkien: Sinner or Saint ?" is nicely balanced argument of the pros and cons of Tolkien. You'll find it at: http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/juliet.e.mckenna/articletolkien.html ) >Sorry HPL in-joke. Ah... >Yeah, if you can read tthem in sequence it makes the story deeper:o) OK. I'll just have to pester the library into pulling the other titles in for me, from around the county or outside it if necessary... Michele == "Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill." - Barbara Tuchman == Now reading: The Wedding Gift - Juliet E McKenna Reading Harry Potter - ed. G L Anatol == Commit random acts of literacy! Read & Release at Bookcrossing: http://www.bookcrossing.com/friend/Sass-80 == Counter-Attack web site: http://www.sassoonery.demon.co.uk email : michele@sassoonery.demon.co.uk ###### From: Eric Root Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 21:57:52 -0500 Organization: Info Avenue Internet Services, LLC Lines: 42 Message-ID: <420EC230.7040100@swva.net> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <4207d18c.1683104@news.hispeed.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: 66.37.83.100 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news3.infoave.net 1108263474 410475 66.37.83.100 (13 Feb 2005 02:57:54 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@infoave.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 02:57:54 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20030208 Netscape/7.02 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!news.glorb.com!logbridge.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!news.infoave.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:169078 CleV wrote: > On 7 Feb 2005 10:17:39 -0800, "Richard Fangnail" > wrote: > >>What are the best ones? It's funny I've read LOTR so many times but no >>other fantasy stories at all. Some like Dragonriders of Pern. > Depends if you want more of the same or other forms of fantasy. I > would recommend: > Tanith Lee: Tales of the Flat Earth, starting with Night's Master. > Tanith Lee's work takes off where Beckford's Vathek ends, with demons > and deserts and myth and magic ... Yes, I loved those, especially Death's Master. > John Crowley: Little, Big - IMO the best and only case of Real Magic > (cf. Magical Realism). Alice in Wonderland crossed with American myth > crossed with Shakespear crossed with tales of a vanished past ... > Halfway through, a character's nickname becomes a revelation ... I still can't believe how good Little, Big is. It's beautiful like a ray of sunlight on autumn leaves or something. > James Branch Cabell: Chronicles of Poictesme - roughly > contemporaneous > with Tolkien, and a tale (in many many books, most no longer in print) > of the realm of Poictesme and its founder, Don Manuel. Myth is decked > out in good humour and cleverness and humanity. Check out the first > three (excellent) books, Figures of Earth, The Silver Stallion and > Jurgen ... And the Cream of the Jest, and what was the name of the one about Florian, that was sort of Jurgen but inside out or backwards or something? The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison. Most Dunsany. The Crock of Gold. ###### From: Eric Root Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 22:01:54 -0500 Organization: Info Avenue Internet Services, LLC Lines: 19 Message-ID: <420EC322.4020305@swva.net> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <420824A2.9070008@comcast.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 66.37.83.100 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news3.infoave.net 1108263714 410475 66.37.83.100 (13 Feb 2005 03:01:54 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@infoave.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 03:01:54 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20030208 Netscape/7.02 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!news.glorb.com!logbridge.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!news.infoave.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:169079 Robert Kolker wrote: > Derek Broughton wrote: > >> >> One hopes not, it's done. Besides which, Donaldson writes far too >> slowly to >> expect him to come up with three more. > And the protagonist is not all that attractive a > characters. Constantly whining about being a leper and all that. > Bob Kolker > I never saw a protagonist I wanted more to be able to reach into the book and strangle, while shouting "Die, die, die!" Nevertheless, parts of the books were good. ###### From: Eric Root Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 22:10:23 -0500 Organization: Info Avenue Internet Services, LLC Lines: 52 Message-ID: <420EC51F.3070408@swva.net> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: 66.37.83.100 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news3.infoave.net 1108264224 410475 66.37.83.100 (13 Feb 2005 03:10:24 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@infoave.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 03:10:24 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20030208 Netscape/7.02 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!cyclone.bc.net!canoe.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!news.infoave.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:169080 Pippen wrote: > "Larry Swain" wrote in message > news:EoadnbQXp5q4uZTfRVn-hw@rcn.net... > >>>Despite the quoting, I don't think softrat wrote this: >>> >>> >>> >>>> I personally would not bother with Stephen Donaldson, Terry Brooks, >>>>George >>>>R. R. Martin, Raymond E. Feist, Katherine Kerr, David Eddings, >>>>Catherine >>>>Kurtz or Piers Anthony. Ripoffs. Cheap imitations. >>> >>> >>> hmmm. Donaldson was anything but a _cheap_ imitation. Brooks I >>> gave up on >>>halfway through the first book. It appears he almost did too. He very >>> much regrets that it _was_ a cheap imitation, and apparently he's >>> outgrown >>>it. I keep meaning to check back on him. Kurtz got tiresome, but >>>definitely not imitative of anything I know, and Piers Anthony (while not >>>at all my cup of tea) is one of a kind. >> >> >> I have to agree with you here Derek. Donaldson, while I dislike >> Covenant, is original in many ways. And Anthony, while cheap, and >> tiresome, isn't really much of ripoff of Tolkien. The rest I lump >> in the garbage pail. >> >> I like Guy Gavriel Kay. He's grown as a writer too and I haven't >> seen anyone mention him yet. >> > I have read _Tigana_ and _A_Song_For_Arbonne_ by GGK. The second was > better than the first but IMO not up to par with the work he did > with CT in the _Silmarillion_. I read the books while waiting (and > still waiting) for George Martin to complete _A_Feast_For_Crows_. > It will be interesting to see if Martin can pull this series off. He > has so many subplots that each 1000+ page book could be it's own > series... I think the reason his next book is so far behind is that > he is having trouble controlling the subplots (IMO). Who knows the > way he is going I might have time to go back and re-read the > previous three again. BTW, highly recommend the A Song of Ice and > Fire series (A_Game_Of_Thrones, A_Clash_Of_Kings and > A_Storm_Of_Swords). > -p > I don't know how Martin's fantasy is, but I've always liked his SF. ###### From: Eric Root Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 22:13:38 -0500 Organization: Info Avenue Internet Services, LLC Lines: 23 Message-ID: <420EC5E2.8080004@swva.net> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: 66.37.83.100 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news3.infoave.net 1108264418 410475 66.37.83.100 (13 Feb 2005 03:13:38 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@infoave.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 03:13:38 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20030208 Netscape/7.02 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!news.glorb.com!hammer.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!news.infoave.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:169081 the softrat wrote: > On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 10:44:50 -0400, Derek Broughton > wrote: > >>hmmm. Donaldson was anything but a _cheap_ imitation. Brooks I gave up on >>halfway through the first book. It appears he almost did too. He very >>much regrets that it _was_ a cheap imitation, and apparently he's outgrown >>it. I keep meaning to check back on him. Kurtz got tiresome, but >>definitely not imitative of anything I know, and Piers Anthony (while not >>at all my cup of tea) is one of a kind. > Actually, allegedly, Piers Anthony is a committee. > So that's why his first name is a plural. > the softrat > "Honi soit qui mal y pense." mailto:softrat@pobox.com > -- > A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so > good. -- Steven Wright ###### From: Eric Root Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 22:20:13 -0500 Organization: Info Avenue Internet Services, LLC Lines: 101 Message-ID: <420EC76D.2000607@swva.net> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 66.37.83.100 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: news3.infoave.net 1108264814 412690 66.37.83.100 (13 Feb 2005 03:20:14 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@infoave.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 03:20:14 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20030208 Netscape/7.02 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!news.glorb.com!logbridge.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!news.infoave.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:169082 the softrat wrote: > On 7 Feb 2005 10:17:39 -0800, "Richard Fangnail" > wrote: > >>What are the best ones? It's funny I've read LOTR so many times but no >>other fantasy stories at all. Some like Dragonriders of Pern. > Well, these are mine, YMMV. > Both before and after.... > Anything by > William Morris > Lord Dunsany > _The Worm Ourobouros_ by E. R. Eddison. > Yep. > The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever by > Stephen Donaldson (The Second Chronicles suck!) > Yep. > The six books of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin > The Elric of Melibone series by Michael Moorcock I loved these as a kid. > The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis (heavily Christian and > written for children) > _The Weirdstone of Brisingamen_, _The Moon of Gomrath_ (a sequel), > and _The_Owl_Service_ by Alan Garner (flawed but good fantasy, > nominally for children) > Not well-known, but quite good. > Some like Lloyd Alexander's five volume Mabinogeon rip-off > _The Chronicles of Prydain_. I didn't (the Americanisms and the > Welsh myths don't play well together.) > I agree, only so-so. > I am deliberately leaving out other sorts of imaginative fiction like > science fiction and horror. Science fiction especially opens a huge > category. > As always, Y)our M)ileage M)ay V)ary. > the softrat > Another opinion: > (snip) > Tom Holt: "Expecting Someone Taller". Funny, like Pratchett. (snip) > L. Sprague de Camp's "The Unbeheaded King" (a trilogy, glorious fun) > and > "The Fallible Fiend", about an incompetent but very well-meaning > demon. And the Harold Shea books, as well as a number of others. > (snip) > Roger Zelazny: "Jack of Shadows". > (snip) And Fred > Saberhagen, > otherwise also an sf writer (best known for his Berserker books) wrote > a > trilogy about a future Earth where magic is stronger than hardscience: > "The > Broken Lands", "The Black Mountains" and "Changeling Earth". I really enjoyed these and think they deserve a reissue. > I personally would not bother with Stephen Donaldson, Terry Brooks, > George > R. R. Martin, Raymond E. Feist, Katherine Kerr, David Eddings, > Catherine > Kurtz or Piers Anthony. Ripoffs. Cheap imitations. Yep. > Öjevind (Longswede) > the softrat > "Honi soit qui mal y pense." mailto:softrat@pobox.com > -- > "I woke up one morning and all of my stuff had been stolen...and > replaced by exact duplicates." -- Steven Wright ###### From: Eric Root Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 22:34:37 -0500 Organization: Info Avenue Internet Services, LLC Lines: 86 Message-ID: <420ECACD.9080806@swva.net> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <420ca6ca@clear.net.nz> NNTP-Posting-Host: 66.37.83.100 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news3.infoave.net 1108265678 412342 66.37.83.100 (13 Feb 2005 03:34:38 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@infoave.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 03:34:38 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20030208 Netscape/7.02 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!news.glorb.com!hammer.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!news.infoave.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:169085 Tux Wonder-Dog wrote: > (snip) > Phantastes. > and also Lilith, by the same author (George MacDonald). > (snip) > The first Corum series. Parts of the second Corum series sparkle, > but not > as much as the first, and at times it seems contrived - I mean to a degree > that the first one doesn't. I tried enjoying the Runestaff books, but > - too contrived for my liking. The first book > in the Eternal Champion multiverse, The Eternal Champion, is simplistic, > but highly enjoyable. Recommended. > Moorcock eventually got old and contrived seeing after the first Elric books (snip) > The Songs of Earth and Power by Greg Bear. > Yes, although I really like his SF better. > Everything by Fritz Leiber -the Lankhmar books are specifically Sword and > Sorcery fantasy - except that Fritz Leiber is too intelligent to be taken > in by the trappings of the genre. > Agreed. > (snip) > The Hellbound Heart, Weaveworld, and Imagica by Clive Barker - I > have not > yet read Abarat, but it's bound to be as good as these I've mentioned > Weaveworld was good, I should give the others a try. > (snip) > Voyage to Arcturus by Lindsay, and everything else you can find of > his - The > Haunted Woman is the only one I've yet lighted on. > Hmmm, Arcturus is the only one I've read; I should look for The Haunted Woman. > (snip) > Believe it or not, War in Heaven by Charles Williams, friend of > C.S. Lewis, > but not of J.R.R. Tolkien. (I haven't read much else of Charles Williams, > but War in Heaven has a darker current mingling in it, which is totally > alien to either Lewis or Tolkien. Worth a read.) Well, it's "urban fantasy" or "magical realism," not "high fantasy." If you liked War in Heaven, you would probably like Many Dimensions and Descent into Hell. Many like The Greater Trumps but I like the previous three better. All Hallow's Eve is supposed to be very good but I have not managed to get my hands on a copy yet. There is a Yahoo Group called Coinherence-l that is all about CW. > (snip) > The only ones of Terry Brooks that I enjoyed were the ones where he > stopped > trying to rip-off Tolkien and became, simply, what he was, a non-practising > Lawyer - for me, Magic Kingdon for Sale - Sold, and the subsequent ones, > were in his genuine voice, and were thus well worth reading. I loathe his > Shannara series on a number of grounds, not the least being that I've > walked that self-same distance while hitch-hiking in NZ - it's roughly the > distance from Taupo to Tauranga. A pocket kingdom. So when he recognizes > that and makes it an explicit feature, it becomes believable - and > readible. Sword of Shannara was so bad I could never stand to give him a second chance. ###### From: Eric Root Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 22:36:26 -0500 Organization: Info Avenue Internet Services, LLC Lines: 7 Message-ID: <420ECB3A.7030201@swva.net> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 66.37.83.100 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news3.infoave.net 1108265786 412342 66.37.83.100 (13 Feb 2005 03:36:26 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@infoave.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 03:36:26 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20030208 Netscape/7.02 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.frii.net!newsfeed.frii.net!news.infoave.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:169086 Richard Fangnail wrote: > What are the best ones? It's funny I've read LOTR so many times but no > other fantasy stories at all. Some like Dragonriders of Pern. > I've always been fond of The Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath by H.P. Lovecraft. ###### From: clJUNKv1@balcab.ch (CleV) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 10:52:20 GMT Organization: Cablecom Newsserver Lines: 10 Message-ID: <420f3144.3669664@news.hispeed.ch> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <420ca6ca@clear.net.nz> <420ECACD.9080806@swva.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 80-218-140-117.dclient.hispeed.ch X-Trace: news.hispeed.ch 1108292031 15596 80.218.140.117 (13 Feb 2005 10:53:51 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@hispeed.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 10:53:51 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.21/32.243 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.hispeed.ch!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:169094 On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 22:34:37 -0500, Eric Root wrote: >Tux Wonder-Dog wrote: >> The Hellbound Heart, Weaveworld, and Imagica by Clive Barker - I have not >> yet read Abarat, but it's bound to be as good as these I've mentioned >Weaveworld was good, I should give the others a try. Only read a few Barkers, but Weaveworld was the best IMO. ###### From: Morgoth's Curse References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <4207D7BF.8070800@mfx.net> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 2.0/32.646 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 23 NNTP-Posting-Host: 4.158.219.241 X-Complaints-To: abuse@prodigy.net X-Trace: newssvr19.news.prodigy.com 1108297469 ST000 4.158.219.241 (Sun, 13 Feb 2005 07:24:29 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 07:24:29 EST Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com X-UserInfo1: FKPO@SRD[ZTMBR@[TROFO_@@USXB@DTMNHWB_EYLJZ]BGIELYFWUQBKZQLYJX\_ITFD_KFVLUN[DOM_A_NSYNWPFWNS[XV\I]PZ@BQ[@CDQDPCL^FKCBIPC@KLGEZEFNMDYMKHRL_YYYGDSSODXYN@[\BK[LVTWI@AXGQCOA_SAH@TPD^\AL\RLGRFWEARBM Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 12:24:29 GMT Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.stueberl.de!peer01.cox.net!cox.net!atl-c02.usenetserver.com!newscon02.news.prodigy.com!prodigy.net!newsmst01a.news.prodigy.com!prodigy.com!postmaster.news.prodigy.com!newssvr19.news.prodigy.com.POSTED!d7ceaebf!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:169104 On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 16:03:59 -0500, pmhilton wrote: >Richard Fangnail wrote: > >>What are the best ones? It's funny I've read LOTR so many times but no >>other fantasy stories at all. Some like Dragonriders of Pern. >> >> >> >You might try the Deryni series by Katherine Kurtz. Quasi-medieval, some >magical powers a la Gandalf, well-done plot lines, character development >not multi-layered as in Tolkien. > >Pete H Allow me to respectfully and thoughtfully disagree. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeecccccccccchhhhhhhhhhhhh! Katherine Kurtz is not the worst writer ever, but that certainly seems to be her goal. :) Morgoth's Curse ###### From: Morgoth's Curse References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <4svmd2-2os.ln1@othello.pointerstop.ca> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 2.0/32.646 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 29 NNTP-Posting-Host: 4.158.219.241 X-Complaints-To: abuse@prodigy.net X-Trace: newssvr19.news.prodigy.com 1108297470 ST000 4.158.219.241 (Sun, 13 Feb 2005 07:24:30 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 07:24:30 EST Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com X-UserInfo1: FKPO@SRD[ZTMBR@[TROFO_@@USXB@DTMNHWB_EYLJZ]BGIELYFWUQBKZQLYJX\_ITFD_KFVLUN[DOM_A_NSYNWPFWNS[XV\I]PZ@BQ[@CDQDPCL^FKCBIPC@KLGEZEFNMDYMKHRL_YYYGDSSODXYN@[\BK[LVTWI@AXGQCOA_SAH@TPD^\AL\RLGRFWEARBM Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 12:24:30 GMT Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.belwue.de!feed.news.tiscali.de!newsfeed.vmunix.org!peer02.cox.net!cox.net!newscon06.news.prodigy.com!prodigy.net!newsmst01a.news.prodigy.com!prodigy.com!postmaster.news.prodigy.com!newssvr19.news.prodigy.com.POSTED!d7ceaebf!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:169106 On Tue, 8 Feb 2005 23:12:30 -0700, "Pippen" wrote: >I have read _Tigana_ and _A_Song_For_Arbonne_ by GGK. The second was better >than the first but IMO not up to par with the work he did with CT in the >_Silmarillion_. I read the books while waiting (and still waiting) for >George Martin to complete _A_Feast_For_Crows_. > >It will be interesting to see if Martin can pull this series off. He has so >many subplots that each 1000+ page book could be it's own series... I think >the reason his next book is so far behind is that he is having trouble >controlling the subplots (IMO). Who knows the way he is going I might have >time to go back and re-read the previous three again. BTW, highly recommend >the A Song of Ice and Fire series (A_Game_Of_Thrones, A_Clash_Of_Kings and >A_Storm_Of_Swords). I concur completely and I too wonder if Martin will ever finish that series. The publication date has already been postponed four times. (In fact, it was supposed to be published last summer.) I am not so sure it is a matter of controlling the subplots, however, especially since there are supposed to be seven volumes in the series. It is strictly speculation on my part, but I wonder if, like so many of us, George R.R. Martin was so profoundly affected by 9/11 that his heart is just not in it anymore. I have been meaning to write him and ask, but keep forgetting. :P In any case, here is his website: www.georgerrmartin.com Morgoth's Curse ###### From: Aaron Clausen Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 09:17:19 -0800 Lines: 21 Message-ID: <379gd1F5b6mlvU1@individual.net> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <420ca6ca@clear.net.nz> <420ECACD.9080806@swva.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: individual.net EJG/2ZINbWLuaiOX5MSxDAYDdQYT4UDmvipIS9e/R1dIXTwOL4 User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.6+ (X11/20050212) In-Reply-To: <420ECACD.9080806@swva.net> Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:169123 Eric Root wrote: > Tux Wonder-Dog wrote: >> The only ones of Terry Brooks that I enjoyed were the ones where he >> stopped trying to rip-off Tolkien and became, simply, what he was, >> a non-practising Lawyer - for me, Magic Kingdon for Sale - Sold, >> and the subsequent ones, were in his genuine voice, and were thus >> well worth reading. I loathe his Shannara series on a number of >> grounds, not the least being that I've walked that self-same >> distance while hitch-hiking in NZ - it's roughly the distance from >> Taupo to Tauranga. A pocket kingdom. So when he recognizes that >> and makes it an explicit feature, it becomes believable - and >> readible. > Sword of Shannara was so bad I could never stand to give him a > second chance. I got about two or three chapters in and decided that gnawing off my own arms would be time better spent. -- Aaron Clausen ###### From: NobodyMan Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Message-ID: References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <420824A2.9070008@comcast.net> <420EC322.4020305@swva.net> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.93/32.576 English (American) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 29 X-Complaints-To: abuse@usenetserver.com X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly. NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 21:13:54 EST Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 21:14:26 -0500 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news.glorb.com!atl-c03.usenetserver.com!pc04.usenetserver.com!fe55.usenetserver.com.POSTED!83ce148c!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:169139 On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 22:01:54 -0500, Eric Root wrote: >Robert Kolker wrote: >> Derek Broughton wrote: >> >>> >>> One hopes not, it's done. Besides which, Donaldson writes far too >>> slowly to >>> expect him to come up with three more. >> >> >> And the protagonist is not all that attractive a characters. Constantly >> whining about being a leper and all that. >> >> Bob Kolker >> > >I never saw a protagonist I wanted more to be able to reach into the >book and strangle, while shouting "Die, die, die!" Nevertheless, parts >of the books were good. I actually loved the first Thomas Covenant trilogy. You just have to realize that Donaldson is not Tolkein and their writing styles are drastically different. Donaldson is a notorious overwriter which makes the story go much slower. Thomas Covenant was an interesting character as long as your realize the impossible dilema he was thrown into - dreaming of health was a sure way for him to die in the "real" world. ###### From: Aaron Clausen Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 21:41:35 -0800 Lines: 15 Message-ID: <37as0fF5a84jtU1@individual.net> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <420824A2.9070008@comcast.net> <420EC322.4020305@swva.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: individual.net YSurc6+Yfc5sK/kUsc8XQQkYEn3DSHk2izjg1gEDIeiHtpJm06 User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.6+ (X11/20050212) In-Reply-To: Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:169143 NobodyMan wrote: > I actually loved the first Thomas Covenant trilogy. You just have to > realize that Donaldson is not Tolkein and their writing styles are > drastically different. Donaldson is a notorious overwriter which > makes the story go much slower. > Thomas Covenant was an interesting character as long as your realize > the impossible dilema he was thrown into - dreaming of health was a > sure way for him to die in the "real" world. I've read lots of other books by authors with considerably different styles than JRRT. I don't think it's the pacing of Donaldson's writing, it's just that he does such a marvelous job of making Covenant into a wretch that he becomes possibly the most unsympathetic protaganist I've ever been forced to spend six books with. ###### From: 103134.3516@compuserve.com (Jim Deutch) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 18:03:53 GMT Organization: Topiary of Cthulhu Lines: 39 Message-ID: <421237d4.104421349@news.compuserve.com> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: mid-tgn-ngj-vty1.as.wcom.net X-Trace: ngspool-d02.news.aol.com 1108490687 9667 216.192.82.1 (15 Feb 2005 18:04:47 GMT) X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@compuserve.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 18:04:47 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.21/32.243 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!news.glorb.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!ngpeer.news.aol.com!news.compuserve.com!news-master.compuserve.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:169218 On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 18:44:06 -0800, the softrat wrote: >On 7 Feb 2005 10:17:39 -0800, "Richard Fangnail" > wrote: > >>What are the best ones? It's funny I've read LOTR so many times but no >>other fantasy stories at all. Some like Dragonriders of Pern. > >Well, these are mine, YMMV. It does: it does... > _The Worm Ourobouros_ by E. R. Eddison. _Mistress of Mistresses_ was my favorite: time for a re-read, methinks! > The Merlin quadrilogy by Mary Stewart Agreement, though it's been a long, long time. Liked 'em a lot as a teen. > The six books of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin The first one is the best. The third is next. Only go past that if you like your fiction retconned PC. I'd like to add one more amazing book: _Winter's Tale_ by Mark Helprin. And because apparantly nobody has mentioned it, Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy: _The Golden Compass_ (aka _Northern Light_), _The Subtle Knife_, and the one whose title escapes my at the moment. Jim Deutch (JimboCat) -- Give a man some fire, and he's warm for the evening. Set a man on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life. ###### From: Michele Fry Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Best fantasy novels after Tolkien? Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 18:43:34 +0000 Organization: sass Lines: 22 Message-ID: <5PSkTAAWLkECFw1C@sassoonery.demon.co.uk> References: <1107800259.131338.95990@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <7l9g01h50h4hl9ofun57cajse42kobiqgt@4ax.com> <421237d4.104421349@news.compuserve.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: sassoonery.demon.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 1108493107 13114 212.228.13.129 (15 Feb 2005 18:45:07 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 18:45:07 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Turnpike Integrated Version 4.02 S Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.stueberl.de!fr.ip.ndsoftware.net!ciril.fr!news.completel.fr!u-picardie.fr!feed.ac-versailles.fr!proxad.net!proxad.net!194.159.246.34.MISMATCH!peer-uk.news.demon.net!kibo.news.demon.net!mutlu.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!sassoonery.demon.co.uk!michele Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:169220 In article <421237d4.104421349@news.compuserve.com>, Jim Deutch <103134.3516@compuserve.com> writes >And because apparantly nobody has mentioned it, Pullman's "His Dark >Materials" trilogy: _The Golden Compass_ (aka _Northern Light_), _The >Subtle Knife_, and the one whose title escapes my at the moment. "Amber Spyglass" was the third novel - but there's also a fourth book (a short story set 2 years after AS) called "Lyra's Oxford". Michele == "Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill." - Barbara Tuchman == Now reading: Reading Harry Potter - ed. G L Anatol The Discworld Companion - T Pratchett & S Briggs == Commit random acts of literacy! Read & Release at Bookcrossing: http://www.bookcrossing.com/friend/Sass-80