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Best Novels No One Has Heard Of

Reaver

Staff
Moderator
Is there truth to this? I'm not familiar with the background on the Eternal Champion series.

Eternal Champion is too close to the crappy Mortal Kombat ripoff, Eternal Champions, circa 1993.



Ugh..I still can't believe that I actually bought this game.

*EDIT* I'm automatically biased against this series of books due to the traumatic experience of playing the video game.
 
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Hi,

I've heard it both ways guys, and I don't think either one is either right or wrong. Moorcocks Champion Eternal series is actually a super series (for want of a better word), and there's probably fifty or sixty books and I don't know how many variations of the eternal champion in it. So Elric of Melniborne, Dorian Hawkmoon, Corum of the Silver Hand, Jerry Cornelius and so forth are all manifestations of the eternal champion. But there is also within the super series a six book series which features the eternal champion, the only one of all the champions who actually has memories / knowledge of all the other incarnations of himself. I read that there's now a Doctor Who tie in in the form of a Captain Cornelius.

Cheers, Greg.
 

Reaver

Staff
Moderator
Sorry, but I believe you are at fault on this one. The series by Michael Moorcock is called the Eternal Champion series. The first book in the series is titled The Eternal Champion.

Apologies. I stand corrected and will fix this error in my previous post.
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
While Moorcock may have done the actual writing in three to ten days each, it also looks like he had at least the same amount of prep time put in beforehand - worldbuilding, such as it is, outlining, making up lots of lists.

This rushed writing does account for the 'superficial over the top' feel of the 'Elric' books, though.

Worth noting: in 1st Edition AD&D, the original 'Deities and Demigods' described the various gods of Elrics universe.
 

BWFoster78

Myth Weaver
I have a blog post on this topic today, where I list 6 novels (not all fantasy):

(YA/Fantasy) The Zombie Driven Life, Hocus Focus
(Fantasy) Confessions of a D-List Supervillain, Equilibrium
(Political Satyre) Loose Cannons and Other Weapons of Mass Political Desctruction
(Science Fiction) Defenders of the Covenant

Link: Up Around the Corner: Underdog Books that You Probably Won't Find on the Bookstore Shelf

Just finished Confessions of a D-List Supervillain. AWESOME!

I highly recommend it. An entertaining read that kept me engaged from start to finish.
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
Not truly a novel (uniform short story collection) and something you'd *really* have to do some digging to find, but

Gary Myers 'House of the Worm' - a collection of short stories set in Lovecrafts 'Dreamlands'. Some of the things he's mentioned more or less in passing in these tales have been a source of inspiration for me.
 

Jamber

Sage
The Anvil of the World by Kage Baker is superb — witty, humane, funny, inventive and sexy.

Juliet Marillier is another writer to watch. Lovely prose and really nice sense of character in anything she writes.
 

Nebuchadnezzar

Troubadour
Love the nod earlier to Andre Norton -- a great writer with the Witch World series but wrote dozens (maybe hundreds) of stand-alone novels in her lifetime. My favorites were her YA books: Octagon Magic, Fur Magic, Red Hart Magic, etc.

She also wrote the first (to my knowledge) novel featuring a role-playing game coming to life: Quag Keep. The game was D&D, the setting was Greyhawk, and the year was 1978.

Another great and as far as I can tell mostly forgotten author is Alan Garner: The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, The Moon of Gomrath, The Owl Service, etc.
 

Darkblade

Troubadour
It took me an hour to get through this thread so forgive me if these books have already been brought up.

Spice and Wolf series by Isuna Hasekura: Rather well known by people familiar with anime and manga but overlooked by those who don't because the translations are often shelved besides the manga adaptations in book stores and also because it's covers are infamously bad. Behind the naked anime wolf girl on the covers lies an on-going story of a merchant who befriends a pagan goddess and their journey across Medieval Germany. Noted for it's realistic handling of medieval economics, it's clever use of the Goddess's limited powers to exploit said economics and it's very realistic handling of the heavily avoided violence, something far too rare in genre fiction.

Anything by Nancy Kilpatrick: Seriously, she is more than the "Anne Rice of the North". I hate that title for her, for one thing her understanding of monsters and what they would be doing now and in the future is matched by no one that I have ever read.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
Anything by Nancy Kilpatrick: Seriously, she is more than the "Anne Rice of the North". I hate that title for her, for one thing her understanding of monsters and what they would be doing now and in the future is matched by no one that I have ever read.

I've almost purchased books by her a few times, but was put off by the idea that she might be an Anne Rice or even a Laurell K. Hamilton. Which book should I start with?
 

Darkblade

Troubadour
Her short stories are her best so if you can find one of her anthologies (Danse Macabe and the Evolve anthologies that she edited but didn't write for are also good) but if you can't find them any of her stand alone novels are good. Her Power of the Blood series is a bit Anne Rice-ish so you may want to avoid it.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
I downloaded a short book called Eternal City from the Kobo store. I didn't like the prologue (no surprise there), but the first three chapters are very well done. She has a facility with establishing characters quickly that reminds me of Stephen King. If the rest of this book is as good as the first three chapters I'm sure I'll buy more.
 

WyrdMystic

Inkling
Not exactly unheard of but neither the kind people tend to go looking for - if you want something insane and funny, I would recommend Tom Holt or Robert Rankin.

If you want something to think about I'd say The Traveller by John Twelve Hawkes.
 
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