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Your favorite fantasy novel of all time?

La Volpe

Sage
I've only just started on Sanderson's books (having read the Mistborn trilogy, Alloy of Law, and the first two Reckoners novels), but I haven't been able to put a single one down. So I'll have to ditto what Brian and Chesterama said.

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin.

David Mitchell recently wrote a great piece about it for The Guardian:

David Mitchell on Earthsea – a rival to Tolkien and George RR Martin | Books | The Guardian
I read the article about a third in, and now I want to read that book. It sounds amazing. I'm going to go buy it as soon as I can manage.
 

Phin Scardaw

Troubadour
I read the article about a third in, and now I want to read that book. It sounds amazing. I'm going to go buy it as soon as I can manage.

I had someone buy me a used copy when I was 17 and on the road. He said "If you like Fantasy, you gotta read this!"

LeGuin is an amazing writer. I just finished reading a great essay she penned on writing, included in a collection entitled The Wave in the Mind. She compares the writer to a cowboy and the story to a horse:

"To go back to my horse metaphor, a good cowboy on a good horse rides with a loose rein and doesn't keep telling the horse what to do, because the horse knows. The cowboy knows where they're going, but the horse knows how to get them there."

Happily I got a chance to see her when she came to the Writer's Festival in Ottawa a few years ago. She was the first person to read the first draft of my novel, The Sylvan Song, and provide feedback. It's written as an homage to her.
 

La Volpe

Sage
Happily I got a chance to see her when she came to the Writer's Festival in Ottawa a few years ago. She was the first person to read the first draft of my novel, The Sylvan Song, and provide feedback. It's written as an homage to her.

Wow, she read your draft? That is seriously cool. Tip of my hat to you.
 
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