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Sci-Fi and Fantasy Fiction Over Time

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24 Mar 2013 17:07 #148520 by moss_icon

Sagrilarus wrote: If you want to read better than A Wizard of Earthsea read the next in the series -- The Tombs of Atuan which has a strong female lead and in my opinion is the best of the set. Of course LeGuin's real monster work is The Dispossessed.


Will pop both of these on my unmanageable "to read" list.

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24 Mar 2013 17:34 #148522 by DukeofChutney
My gaming club (the Leeds University Sci Fi and Fantasy society) has a library we inherited from an older sci fi society that formed in the 1940s. There are several thousand books in this library all stacked in large dusty boxes in a loft of the student union building. The new librarian and I were sorting some of the books last week. We found a box full of Dragonlance, Shadow Run, and Battletech books (about 40 books). I probably won't read any of them however. There's also some Perry Rhodan and all kinds of other crap. There is some good stuff (Philip K Dick, Auther C Clarke, Asimov etc).

When i was a kid i mostly read choose your own adventure, Goosebumps, Fighting Fantasy, or books my mum gave me; Lord of the Rings, The Weird Stone of Bresigerman, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe etc. Most of these books hold up pretty well. Goosebumps and Choose Your Own adventure are the only ones that reall suck.

As a teenager i mostly read what i read now; Philip K Dick, Alastair Reynolds, William Gibson, Ian M Banks, and lots of other Sci Fi.

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24 Mar 2013 18:33 #148524 by moss_icon

DukeofChutney wrote: The Weird Stone of Bresigerman


Did you read the new Garner book from last year that is in this series? Very good although somewhat confusing.

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24 Mar 2013 18:41 #148525 by Dr. Mabuse
The first fantasy novel I ever read was Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks. I was enthralled by the notion of this band of different characters like a dwarf, elves and a wizard etc. go off to find the aformentioned sword to kill the evil wizard with.

It was probably 20 years later I read the Lord of the Rings.

I revisit the Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser books and Elric books every few years.

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25 Mar 2013 00:56 #148536 by Chapel
Truthfully, I really am not sure. The only book/s I've ever re-read was Dune and one Heinlein. I have however read many golden age SciFi recently that I didn't hit back then, and some of that has at times aged not so well. But I love reading about what people though of the future even from the 50's.

I have a crazy memory, and I just remember most of what I read. So I never find the need to reread anything. Plus, my reading list is a mile long, I'm not sure when I'd find the time to re-read anything.

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25 Mar 2013 01:17 #148537 by Sevej
My literary experience with sci-fi & fantasy was pretty sad. As a kid I never had access to sci-fi & fantasy books because they were not available, and (pirated) games were pretty much the only source to those worlds.

The only thing I've ever read in Junior High School was LOTR, and a series of translated sci-fi book about kids who built flying disc, and then got to the cylindrical space colony in which you can ride air bikes from one end to the other. I don't even remember the title of the damn thing.

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25 Mar 2013 01:43 #148542 by Space Ghost
I think that Dragonlance holds up well for what it was intended to be - a novelization of D&D. I think that, as a world and on average, the Dragonlance books hold up better than the other D&D settings (e.g., Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Forgotten Realms, Spelljammer, etc.).

I am trying to go back and catch-up on several things that I have missed the first time around - a shitload of Le Guin, Watership Down, and Gormenghast.
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25 Mar 2013 04:42 #148552 by Gary Sax
Dragonlance is a shitty fantasy series by objective terms but by the standards of breaking out of D+D stereotypes it isn't that bad. Can you even IMAGINE being the DM and making a universe that unique and creative? I can't, but maybe it's because I'm a boring DM. And that's what those books are---putting a D+D campaign into a book as it happened.

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25 Mar 2013 07:12 #148554 by OldHippy
I feel like those Dragonlance books haven't aged well at all but then I think a little more and realize that they were just shit right from day 1, but I was a kid and didn't know any better. I did love them in High School though, and it seemed like everyone had read them. They were hugely influential. I'd like to say there were better than all the other D&D books to come out later on but truthfully I didn't read that many of them. I can't actually know that and honestly, I don't care to fine out. I loved their Dark Sword trilogy as a teen... that was another mistake.

I love Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain in public school, really young. I still remember some images from them surprisingly clearly and even though I can't vouch for their quality I feel like they were great.

I read a lot of Piers Anthony when I was a kid and I don't think I have the time for him anymore. I don't even want to test the theory although he had one collection of short stories I feel was better than most of his material, one about a guy being tortured until he's nothing but a brain really stuck with me.

Isaac Asimov is still great, I'll never turn my back on him. I read a lot of stuff my old man had hanging around. Ray Bradbury and I still like him quite a bit. Phillip Jose Farmer, I have no clue if Riverworld is great but I liked it at 15.

Oh, I loved the Sword Dancer series, I think it was Jennifer Robinson... they've stuck with me too but in a way where I specifically recall them being pretty cheesy and heavy handed. I could be wrong but that's how I remember it.

... this thread topic is a recipe for TL:DR... full stop

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25 Mar 2013 11:55 #148557 by Hatchling
I didn't read much as a kid until I encountered the Dragonlance series as a young teen and wouldn't put it down. After that were the Terry Brooks Shanara stuff and I loved those books too. D&D generally probably saved me from near illiteracy.

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25 Mar 2013 13:25 - 25 Mar 2013 13:27 #148568 by Columbob
Howard's Conan, Leiber's Lankhmar, and Asimov all hold up really well. My dad's in his 60s and he gobbled up the Complete Conan in a few days last summer when he stayed over at my place.

I too was a big fan of Terry Brooks (I read Sword before LOTR - actually cut my teeth learning english on his stuff and Fighting Fantasy/Lone Wolf gamebooks). I'm reading his recent Genesis of Shannara trilogy right now, and while he's not that great a wordsmith, the ideas are pretty cool.

As for Dragonlance, I read the comics adaptation of the Chronicles a couple years back...the story's kinda crap! As is the writing. I think what drew me to these as a kid was the D&D factor stimulating my imagination.
Last edit: 25 Mar 2013 13:27 by Columbob.

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25 Mar 2013 20:13 #148616 by Bullwinkle
The ending to the Sword of Shannara made me so angry that, twenty-five years later, I still hate Terry Brooks.
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25 Mar 2013 20:17 #148617 by ChristopherMD
I read probably over 100 Forgotten Realms novels. They were mostly crap then so I'm going to assume that still applies.

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25 Mar 2013 20:22 #148618 by repoman
Piers Anthony's Bio of A Space Tyrant is something that I remember liking very much. Anybody read this recently?

Or any Piers Anthony in general?

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25 Mar 2013 21:10 #148619 by Shellhead
I really liked the early books of the Xanth series and the Incarnations of Immortality series, both by Piers Anthony. Then I read his Firefly, which has absolutely nothing to do with the excellent but short-lived series on Fox. I'm sorry to report that, based on Firefly, Piers Anthony is very likely a pedophile, or has somehow managed to just barely restrain himself around his two daughters when they were young. Also, knowing that he had two daughters, there is a scene in the 7th book of the Incarnations series that has a big ick factor, too.

Most of the rest of the science-fiction and fantasy that I read when I was young holds up pretty well, because I made some lucky choices. Vance, Leiber, Zelazny, Moorcock, Lovecraft, Farmer, Ellison, Niven, Pournelle, Asimov, and Clarke. Some of the classic science-fiction writers were dry, but imaginative and knowledgeable. I also stumbled into the cyberpunk stuff early on, and the best of that lot holds up just great, especially Effinger, Gibson and Sterling.

Dragonlance was fun because I got the books and ran the early modules, but I never kidded myself that it was good writing.
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