Fantasy Reading List

[Aqua Buddha]

If someone is trying to master the fantasy genre, what novels or stories would you consider to be required reading?

Let's make a list.

 

[Ophiucha]

Some of the classics of the genre,
"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum
"The Coming Race" by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" by Lewis Carroll
"The King of Elfland's Daughter" by Lord Dunsany
"The Worm Ouroboros" by Eric Rücker Eddison
"The Little House in the Fairy Wood" by Ethel Cook Eliot
"The Wind in the Willows" by Kenneth Grahame
"The Water-Babies" by Charles Kingsley
"The Chronicles of Narnia" by C.S. Lewis
"The Princess and the Goblin" by George MacDonald
"Lud-in-the-Mist" by Hope Mirrlees
"The Wood Beyond the World" and "The Well at World's End" by William Morris
"Titus Groan", "Gormenghast", and "Titus Alone" by Mervyn Peake
"The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkien
"Islandia" by Austin Tappan Wright *

And some of my personal favorites,
"The Books of Abarat" series by Clive Barker
"American Gods" by Neil Gaiman
"Good Omens" by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
"The Fionavar Tapestry" trilogy by Guy Gavriel Kay
"Earthsea" series by Ursula K. LeGuin
"Bas-Lag" series by China Miéville
"Abhorsen" series by Garth Nix
"Temeraire" series by Naomi Novik
"Harry Potter" series by J.K. Rowling
"Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn" series by Tad Williams

* Not really fantasy, but by far the best example of worldbuilding you can find.

 

[Donny Bruso]

Not to rain on the parade here, please continue throwing out books as you please. But I think the fantasy genre is too big and diverse for anyone(except maybe Ravana) to 'master'. It all hinges on the question of what fantasy is, and that's different for everyone. We all want something different out of our fantasy. Some people want steampunk, some people want traditional epic fantasy with elves and dwarves, and some of us are content with just humans running around butchering each other for our own selfish power-mad reasons.

The only titles I feel compelled throw out there are:
A Song of Ice and Fire series, by George R.R. Martin
The First Law trilogy, by Joe Abercrombie
Talion: Revenant by Michael Stackpole
Villains by Necessity by Eve Forward
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (much better than American Gods IMO)
Either pair of David Edding's Series, either Belgariad/Malloreon or Elenium/Tamuli

 

[Ophiucha]

Still, whether you are writing about elves romancing teenage girls or a mad man cutting open a dragon, there are books that are somewhat universally acknowledged as classics in the genre, and those books that are particularly well liked by many fantasy readers and writers. Obviously there are thousands of fantasy books out there, but I'd say no sensible list of them could be without Tolkien, LeGuin, Pratchett, etc., and I think most would agree.

 

[Ravana]

I think the fantasy genre is too big and diverse for anyone(except maybe Ravana) to 'master'

Thank you. But I can hardly claim that, either… any more than I am "master" of any field: I'm just too unfocused. I do breadth far more than depth.

Ophiucha's list is in my opinion a good starting point–but I suspect our tastes are somewhat broader than many other people's. If one were prepping for a doctoral exam in English fantasy literature, everything on the first of her two lists would unquestionably be on your required reading list. Lit departments tend to be rather conservative in outlook, however (not wanting to bestow the cherished "classic" label on anything overhastily), so they'd be less likely to put anything published within their own lifetimes on it. So while the works on the list almost certainly belong there, they may not suit everyone's tastes: apart from a couple I'm not sure of, all of them were written prior to 1960, most decades earlier than that, and except for Lewis and Tolkien, none could be described as being "modern" in style or diction (Peake's language could be, but his style is very much reminiscent of Dickens)–in many cases, the author deliberately employs archaisms, and to a far greater extent than Spenser ever dreamed of.

In fact, the first items I thought to add to the list are not newer, but rather older–considerably so, in fact:
- A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest, William Shakespeare
- The Faerie Queene, Edmund Spenser

Spenser's name has come up elsewhere… and I suspect the only reason Ophiucha didn't include it here was because she knew that most people "won't like it"–inasmuch as Spenser was a contemporary of Shakespeare, and in addition was writing in a formal poetic style (the stanza form he uses he invented himself, and is today called the "Spenserian stanza," in fact), and on occasion deliberately used language that was "archaic" even for his time; as a result, anyone not accustomed to reading 16th century English will find it "difficult." Well, screw that: put the effort in. (I do suggest a well-footnoted edition, so you don't have to constantly refer to a dictionary at the outset.) Once you've had a few chapters of practice, you'll barely notice the style–and the story itself is, well… "magical."

In addition, Aesop's Fables, Grimm's Fairy Tales, and a great deal of European mythology would make the list. Beowulf, probably. The Arthur legends (Mallory's Le Morte d'Arthur, or any number of more recent versions… he didn't make the stories up himself any more than the Grimm brothers did theirs. Which reminds me of two things I need to add to the following list.…)

For more recent works, I'll refer you to my response under "Should we bother with prologues" (response #22, page 3, where I bullet-point them for convenience) rather than reprint it here. (The ones I note as not being worth reading should, of course, not be considered for present purposes.…) Certainly the Howard, the Leiber and at least some of the Moorcock should occupy a place on any list of formative works in the field. I'd put Zelazny's Amber books on the list as "personal favorites," though I believe they could easily stand up under the more restrictive "classics/required reading" criteria as well… whatever you take those to be. And I would absolutely recommend the Cook and Brust books to anybody who enjoys fantasy, whether or not these eventually make it into a narrower canon.

-

Added to the above here, as they aren't involved in the discussion of prologues: T. H. White's The Once and Future King and Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy (The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, The Last Enchantment), both modern treatments of the Arthur legends but both worth reading in their own rights. Plus, I suppose, if you're obsessed with reading everything Arthurian, Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, which, however, I cannot recommend, in spite of the fact that it is unquestionably well-written… if anything, because it is well-written.…

 

[Ophiucha]

Yes, I omitted Shakespeare and Spenser because of how old they are. While I certainly love them, most people I've recommended Spenser to had a right fit trying to read it. But if you can take the language, I would definitely second your recommendation. I sort of made my first list up there "works that are for children, or are very similar to Tolkien". Except Islandia, I just wish more people would read Islandia. I will take any excuse to namedrop it.

And I will definitely second any and all books of myths and folklore. I have a fondness for the Norse sagas, Eddas, etc. myself, but this is likely because I'm half-British and a quarter Swedish and basically grew up on Saxons and Vikings.

 

[Mdnight Falling]

For me it depends on what kind of fantasy you're writing. Not all fantasy has elves and what not in it. For instance let's say you wanted to write about a world within our own world, which in itself if not sci-fi LOL there are many worlds within our own if you actually think about it. While bugs and whatnot are in our world, they see themselves as in a different world since they're so much smaller then everything else o.o I don't know if they know we're living things too we may just be big "things" to them LOL But yeah I'd suggest Richard Adams' Watership Down, which is the world according to a warren of rabbits. Very good read by the read even if you aren't writing something like that LOL.

For what we'd consider "real" fantasy, really, dig into the classics the Lord of the Rings, or even shakespeare... Really Shakespear wrote some fantasy read a Mid Summer Night's Dream LOL, or even more modern things like R.A. Salvatore or his War of the Spider Queen six book series which is written by 6 authors who are becoming known now, good read there too...

Depending on what you want to write about... Read books with those things in it it's informative and it's fun >^.^<

 

[Ophiucha]

Yes, we could make a separate list for each subgenre of fantasy. Would take a bit of effort, though, and the influence is still inevitably coming from the same place. I mean, a lot of fairy tales seem to take place on an ambiguously Earthen place. Some are even more directly "this takes place in Germany/France/England", so I mean, it's hard to really say there WERE subgenres until very recently. Although it is worth recommending the Gothic horror era, for its influence on urban fantasy. Guy Endore, Bram Stoker, etc.

And I really can't support a rec for R.A. Salvatore. He's just... not good. I don't really care if someone likes his works, but I would not put them on any "must read" fantasy list, and certainly not any list that's trying to create some sort of understanding of the genre.

 

[Philip Overby]

I can't really create a fantasy list either, like Donny said. People's likes and dislikes are too divergent in fantasy for there to be some kind of "completist list." I think if you write fantasy you should read Tolkien for sure. If you haven't read Tolkien, that's sort of like being a mechanic and never reading a book about how to fix cars. Maybe you can fix cars pretty good without doing it, but you'd probably do it better if you just tried reading the manual. Most of the stuff I like is about as far from Tolkien's style as possible also, so he's not really my jump-off point to read others like him. Most others like him, quite frankly, suck.

So any books that are recommended to me, I quit listening to other people's opinions unless they are pretty close to my own. Saves me money and heart-break. So if someone likes Martin or Abercrombie and tells me to read "The Dirty Pirates of Butt Mountain" then I'll probably give it a try. If someone likes Tolkien rip-off books or Eragon and tells me to read "The Most Awesome Book Ever Written that Will Haunt Your Dreams Forever" then I'll probably pass. That's the wonder of Amazon's "Listmania!"

So my "personal" must-read list (which most people may not even like) is this:

A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin
Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steve Erikson
Most anything by China Mieville (with the little accent mark I can't find on my keyboard)
First Law series by Joe Abercrombie
Scott R.R. Bakker's stuff (what is the deal with R.R. anyway?)
Robert E. Howard
Fritz Lieber
Terry Pratchett's Discworld series
Tolkien

Anyway, those are my only "must-reads." Sure there are lots of other classics, but I can give or take most of them.

 

[Donny Bruso]

And I really can't support a rec for R.A. Salvatore. He's just... not good. I don't really care if someone likes his works, but I would not put them on any "must read" fantasy list, and certainly not any list that's trying to create some sort of understanding of the genre.

I wouldn't say he's not good, so much as his writing is simply nothing special. Especially the Drizzt series, however many there are of them now. I lost count after like 6 different trilogies... Those are just stupidly repetitive. I totally agree that he doesn't come up on any 'must read' lists, unless you're writing fantasy in the forgotten realms. However in that case you've clearly already brokered a deal with WoTC, so it may be a moot point.

 

[At Dusk I Reign]

Lord of the Rings, by Tolkien, Mythago Wood by Holdstock , Lord Foul's Bane by Donaldson and Death Is A Lonely Business by Bradbury. What else is required?

 

[Ophiucha]

Lord Foul's Bane by Donaldson

A Thomas Covenant fan? Amazing! <3
Everyone I've mentioned them to either hates the books or hasn't heard of them.

 

[At Dusk I Reign]

A Thomas Covenant fan? Amazing! <3

We are few, apparently, but like Bannor we suffice.

 

[Digital_Fey]

Let's see...avoiding most of the obvious/previously mentioned series, I think this pretty much sums up the books which have influenced me most as a fantasy reader. Doubtless I'll remember another twenty or so as soon as I log off

Equal Rites - Terry Pratchett
Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
Tithe - Holly Black
The Last Wish - Andrzej Sapkowski
Ombria in Shadow - Patricia McKillip
The Chronicles of Prydain - Lloyd Alexander
The Princess and the Goblins - George McDonald

 

[At Dusk I Reign]

Waylander and Legend by David Gemmell and Magician by Raymond E. Feist are three others I'd throw into the mix. None are startlingly original in what they do, but they fall under the category of 'A Good Tale Well Told', and for anyone starting out on the long winding road of reading a much-maligned sphere of literature that's good enough.

 

[Dr.Dorkness]

Well, it depends on what you want to read/learn from the book. Of course I agree with previous posts. (For the ones I've read, others I need to write down to read myself.) But I would certainly read the work of Markus Heitz. especialy The Dwarves Series, these books give a refreshing look on the dwarven race. but his other works are also refreshing IMO.

 

[Behelit]

I want to sticky this thread, but I'd like it if the OP could organize each posters suggestions into the original post or create a master list that combines a couple of the highest recommended from each post. That way anyone that refers to this thread has a quick-view list to refer to as opposed to having to read through individual posts in order to create their own.

Thank you for all of your contributions, keep them coming if any more come to mind.

 

[At Dusk I Reign]

...keep them coming if any more come to mind.

Just thought of another classic: Little, Big by John Crowley. I haven't read it since I was ten (or thereabouts, I forget exactly when it was published but it must've been the beginning of the 80s). It's been stuck in my brain since then, though, so Crowley must have done something right. I'm going to hunt for a copy tomorrow.

 

[DianthasProphecy]

I have a few I'd love to add

First, I must say I completely agree that The Abhorsen Chronicles by Garth Nix should be read by all...It's my favorite.
I like the Divine or Partholon series by PC Cast as well
Other than that, most of my favorites have already been mentioned, those two are just the top of my list. (And my overflowing book shelf....)

Oh, and I almost forgot, The Unsuspecting Mage series by Brian S. Pratt. I stumbled across it when the first book was a Free Fridays book on my Nook. It is wonderful as well!

 

[Ophiucha]

I like the Divine or Partholon series by PC Cast as well

I must admit great hesitance at that suggestion, after having read House of Night by PC Cast and her daughter. Perhaps it was her daughter who made that book unreadable, though. What are they about?