Don’t Bother Me

I’m torn between Tim Powers’ The Anubis Gates and Christopher Priest’s The Prestige.

I assume you are looking for post 17th-century-ish, non-SF. Assuming that, aside from Potter, LOTR, Narnia, and Earthsea: I’d include S. King’s Dark Tower series, maybe include Jonathon Strange & Mr. Norrell, and snub Gormenghast.

Fledgling by Octavia Butler

@ptallon I was thinking of going back to the Odyssey, Paradise Lost, etc. Then I thought that was just making trouble for myself. So yeah.

Well, Tolkein and Carroll would have to top it. Butler (Kindred, particularly) should be on there. I’m not personally familiar with Oz and Narnia, except via osmosis, so I can’t comment on those. I’d mention Pern, but it’s really SciFi. Maybe Miracleman, if you’re willing to include graphic novels.

Oh, and this one.

what constitutes fantasy, by definition? Is it when the entire world of the work is made-up, rather than using our own world with fantastical differences?

Lewis Carroll. Jeez, how did I miss that?

@papscott, I’m not willing to be persnickety about definitions. I’m going with I-know-it-when-I-see-it.

Oh, no, you can’t snub Gormenghast! That series was like one long acid trip for me. I loved that psycho cook. What was his name again?

Seriously though, I’d vote for Ursula Le Guin’s Wizard of Earthsea.

And on a completely unrelated side note — Hey, Lev, did you get & sign my copy of The Magicians yet? I had to interrupt my sister’s reading of it and she’s getting ancy to have it back.

I maintain and have always maintained that nobody can possibly finish the Gormenghast books (by Mervyn Peake) page for page. It is not possible.

Hi Michelle. Will send your book back today, honest.

Well, I admit, I listened to Gormenghast as an audiobook. And I slept through some portions of it. Maybe that’s why it seemed so odd to me.

Paradise Lost would be a brilliant one for the list. If you included it, I’d promise to make you a household name. (Well, in my household, at least. Which would involve, I suppose, teaching my dog your name. Which is probably not the sort of fame for which you yearn.)

“Daughter of the Empire” by Feist/Wurts, or even just “Magician” by Feist for the other side of the Riftwar Saga.

Unfortunately, neither Paradise Lost nor The Bible are novels. It all, however, goes back to Don Quixote.

The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H.P. Lovecraft.

Don’t front. Abso-fracking-lutely.

Actually, I’m going to forgo any lame suggestion of my own and go with byron12′s. I adore that book. Neil Gaiman spent an entire chapter of The Graveyard Book paying homage to it, that’s gotta count for something, right?

Something by Jules Vernes or possibly HG Wells.

If we’re including graphic novels, my vote’s for Sandman.

Oh yeah, Sandman trumps everything if you’re willing to go there.

Temeraire! Temeraire! Temeraire!

His Dark Materials and The Neverending Story.

Would Charles Williams be too idiosyncratic? I would want to put his All Hallow’s Eve on my list, but I can see the arguments against it, particularly if you want both Tolkien (a must, I think) and Lewis.

Tolkien, Carroll would be good as well, Pratchett (Small Gods! Although some of his stuff is better than others), the Belgariad from Eddings, the Harry Potter novels, the Majipoor series, Jordan’s Wheel of Time (I know some people have issues with him, I happen to enjoy the series!), Terry Brooks and Dream Park by Niven.

Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun, G.G. Kay’s Tigana (although you could justifiably claim Lions of Al-Rassan for the list), Barry Hughart’s Bridge of Birds…argh I know I’m forgetting something….

The choices, the choices. I have always loved The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe (damn, you beat me too it jessnevins), although I admit that is bordering on SF rather than Fantasy, but the ideas in it are truly amazing.

For modern Fantasy I really love the Malazan Book of the Dead series by Steve Eriksson, which are in my opinion the new bar for dark fantasy fiction.

God I love Dream Park. The year after I graduated college I literally spent my last $25 on one of the Dream Park sequels.

I’m not hearing Kelly Link, Fritz Leiber, TH White …

I’m actually rereading Once & Future King right now (hence my weyve tweet today), and while it’s really very good–quite impressive recreation of the world of medieval England–points off for the irritating & unnecessary anachronisms.

Two mainstream suggestions: Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony & Wilton Barnhardt’s Gospel.

“I’m not hearing Kelly Link, Fritz Leiber, TH White …”

No. You’re only asking for the top six.

Mine:
1. Lord of the Rings,
…………which of course is just one book
2. The Lion The witch and the Wardrobe
…………although to be the only Chronicle here is an
…………injustice to Dawn treader and Silver Chair
3. A Wizard of Earthsea,
…………but it only ranks here if counted as a saga
4. The Wizard of Oz
5. Dune
6. Alice in Wonderland

Harry Potter, LOTR, His Dark Materials, Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Narnia, same ones that have already been suggested. Oh, and I’m glad someone suggested The Neverending Story! But it wouldn’t be in my top six.

Gulliver’s Travels.

I’d say Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, but I’m irrationally fond of it.

So, I’m just going to add The Last Unicorn. Which is everything fantasy *can* be.

The Iron Dragon’s Daughter by Swanwick

Last Call by Powers

both are excellent. Top 6? Maybe of the last 30 years.

I agree that both LOTR and Narnia are probably obvious and compulsory. Beyond that, the only other one I feel passionately about is G.G. Kay’s Tigana, which IMO is a towering achievement, far outstripping his other work and almost everything else I’ve read in the genre.

I’d second the Oz series, Neverending Story, Earthsea, Belgariad. I’m surprised that nobody has mentioned Elric (about which I’m lukewarm) or Shannara (which I enjoyed as a youngling).

And I strongly dissent on Jordan. Please, no! While I realize that Martin’s opus isn’t done yet, A Game of Thrones as its own is a pretty amazing work, if we want to include something from the “wall of bricks” school of modern fantasy.

Well besides the obvious choices such as LOTR, Narnia, Wheel of Time, I think that A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens could be considered a sort of fantasy. As far as dealing with the supernatural, I think it’s one of the most effective and powerful in it’s simplicity.

Maybe not, but I always find these lists to be more interesting when there’s something unexpected.

@lev grossman: Good idea. I suppose “Paradise Lost” “Gawain” “Beowulf” etc, were already then “nostalgic”, but fantasy somehow seems requires a response to the “disenchantment” of the world… hence, written in the modern era. Plus, you said “novel”.

“Oz” is a great mythos conveyed in okay prose. The movie makes it the YA novel dispensable.

“Alice” belongs to dream-narrative more than fantasy. Carroll’s wit is amusing but death to that tingle in the spine that good fantasy gives.

“Gulliver’s Travels” not so much fantasy as satire.

“The Stand”?

I think we can call some of those, like Wizard of Oz, Alice, or Peter Pan “hugely influential” – but I wouldn’t call them “greatest”. Also, you have just too many options from Homer to Grimm that are going to sidetrack this train.

I think, Lev, I would suggest a definition of Fantasy for this context: Any book written by the author to actually go in the Fantasy section of a bookstore.

That automatically leaves out Wells, Odyssey, Milton, etc. because they were before the concept of the genre and Tolkien/Lewis because they were founding it. That really means “best Fantasy books since the 1960s” or whenever the genre really started. What’s the point of including Tolkien on another list?

I don’t think anyone’s said already, so…

I’d put Lord Dunsany’s King of Elfland’s Daughter and Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber on there.

I must sound a voice for Terry Pratchett. Although he can’t resist going for a gag in his stories, the world he has created is as real and enduring as Middle Earth or Lyra’s England.

I love the His Dark Materials trilogy and would definitely put it up there.

Haven’t read a huge volume of other fantasy (although I am enjoying The Magicians) but Terry Pratchett’s discworld is my favourite place to visit.

I would go for Thud, Night Watch or Going Postal as outstanding examples of the series.

I disagree on Narnia. If any, The Magician’s Nephew or The Horse and His Boy should be the Narnia example. I read the series a number of times as a kid without getting the religious overtones (grew up in an atheist household), but as an adult, they don’t have the same pull they used to have; partly because I now understand the religion stuff, and partly because it just doesn’t feel as….well constructed as other worlds. It feels as though Lewis just carried on adding bits as and when he felt like it.

BTW: Thanks for all the reading suggestions guys! :o)

Well, I can’t say top six until he finishes his trilogy, but Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind is a masterpiece.

I will follow up with my list, plus inadequate justifications for same, when the piece actually runs (it’ll be in The Week of all places) …

ooh, my list, in no particular order
1) LOTR
2) Wizard of Earthsea
3) Chronicles of Amber
4) Gormenghast
5) Alice in Wonderland
6) Watership Down

runners-up:
Chronicles of Narnia
His Dark Materials
Mary Stewart’s The Hollow Hills (like it better than T.H.White)
Poul Anderson’s The Broken Sword
John Gardner’s Grendel

Would love to include Game of Thrones, but it’s a work in progress.

Top six? Tidiculous to limit yourself…But if you had to…

The Once and Future King, The Lord of the Rings, The Book of the New Sun, The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, The Earthsea Cycle, The Chronicles of Narnia.

Honorable mention:

Robert E. Howard’s Conan of Cimmeria, Volumes 1 and 2, Fritz Lieber’s The First and Second Books of Lankhmar.

Not sure if they qualify as fantasy or horror or sci-fi:

Frankenstein, Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales of H.P. Lovecraft, Dracula, Something Wicked This Way Comes.

More recently:

Pratchett’s Discworld series, Tim Powers’ The Stress of Her Regard, Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, Phillip Pullman’s Dark Materials series, Sergei Lukyaneko’s Night Watch series…’tho you pretty much won’t go wrong with other titles by the same authors.

Oh; and this is an incomplete list; no offense meant to others.

Forget false modesty and put The Magicians at #1.

LOTR, obviously. Too bad A Song of Fire and Ice is still in-progress. It ranks for me. Memory, Sorrow & Thorn is also an amazing series. As a kid I was enthralled by the Shanarra & Dragonlance books, but they haven’t stood the test of time for me. Wheel of Time I completely fell out of love with.

Concurring with several others – my top 6 include
1. LOTR
2. Dune (the first 4)
3. Belgariad/Mallorean series (although Elenium was pretty good too)
4. The Dark Is Rising series
5. The Hythrun Chronicles
6. Shadow Moon/Dawn/Star – by Claremont & Lucas.

In no particular order:

T.H. White, _Mistress Masham’s Repose_,
C. S. Lewis, _Till We Have Faces_ . . .
And, yeah, Alice.

I’m surprised this one hasn’t been mentioned yet: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

I also second the votes for The Neverending Story (international classic, first written in German), The Belgariad/Mallorean, and the Discworld books by Terry Pratchett

Slightly surpised there’s been no love for Clive Barker’s Weaveworld or Imagica.

Those were the books that started my particular fantastic voyage.

All time?

The Iliad and The Odyssey, Homer, (ca. 700 BC)
The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri (1321)
Le Morte d’Arthur, Thomas Malory (1485)
Utopia by Sir Thomas More (1516)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare (1596)
Paradise Lost, John Milton (1667)
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (1726)
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain (1889)

Nothing written in the 20th or 21st centuries can touch the lasting legacy and influence of books like these.

Lev, I think that political, social, and religious satire, allegory and morality tales are the heart of most good fantasy novels, and that includes epic poetry, ancient fairy tales, and all of it. So I think the Gulliver’s Travels and Alice in Wonderland category is not just valid; it is essential to this list.

[...] while back I mentioned that — for an unnamed publication, and for an unnamed sum — I’d agreed to name [...]

[...] next morning I chaired a Best Fantasy Books Ever panel. This is a subject we've visited before on this very blog. I made everybody list their top [...]