|
This is not a list of great
books or must-reads. Some books at the top of other people’s lists
are not here, either because I tried to read them and couldn’t get
through them for one reason or another, or read them and felt no
desire to read them ever again. Others I just haven’t gotten around
to, and maybe never will.
This list is purely personal.
Some of these books are among the immortals; others will be
forgotten in a few decades. The only reason they are here is because
I enjoyed them and have read them at least twice, or would read them
again. If you have comments or suggestions, you can e-mail me at pabow@gto.net
Note: Most of them can be
read by anyone of any age. However, I have not attempted an
age-rating system, so read at your own risk. Links will take you to
the on-line bookstore Amazon.com.
Adams, Douglas
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; The Restaurant at the End of the
Universe; Life, the Universe, and Everything; So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish . Unique. A fine read, funny, weird, and touching.
Sometimes it even begins to make sense.
Aiken, Joan
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase,
Black Hearts in Battersea,
Night Birds on Nantucket,
The Whispering Mountain, and
the other books set in her alternate world of wild wolves,
indomitable orphans, and inventively vicious villains.
Beagle, Peter
The Last Unicorn.
Heartbreaking, beautiful, imbued with the sensibility of the
1960s. On most top-ten fantasy lists. The Innkeeper’s Song. A more
mature book. Strong, complex, sympathetic characters, richly
imagined world, a fearsome quest. Giant Bones. Short stories set
in the world of The Innkeeper’s Song.
Bellairs, John
The House With a Clock in its Walls, The Mansion in the Mist, and
the other books featuring Lewis Barnavelt. Wonderfully dark,
adventurous, gothic stories for children, with some editions
illustrated by Edward Gorey. The Face in the Frost.
Bellair’s one book for adults, and one of my top favourites. A
strange, enchanting, funny, scary book. The scene with the
magically transformed vegetables will stay with you forever.
Bradbury, Ray
One of the masters of
SF, he always brought an extra sense of wonder and possibility (of
both good and evil) to his stories. For example: The Illustrated Man, The Martian Chronicles, and
Something Wicked This Way Comes
(Truly scary.)
Brooks, Walter
Freddy the Detective, Freddy the Pilot, Freddy and the Bean Home News,
Freddy Goes to Florida, and all
the other Freddy books. They qualify as fantasy because of the
talking animals, but really they are just a darn good read.
Freddy—poet, journalist, detective, and pig—was my early
inspiration.
Bull, Emma
War for the Oaks. A
well-written, absorbing story of Faerie set in Minneapolis, in the
music scene of the 1980s. The music-magic connection is
intuitively right.
Carroll, Lewis
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and Through the Looking-Glass. No
commentary necessary.
Clark, Catherine
I was pleasantly
surprised to discover, as a child, that stories about magic could
be set in Canada. These are the ones I remember best: The Golden Pine Cone, The
One-Winged Dragon, The Sun Horse.
Cooper, Susan
Over Sea, Under Stone;
The Dark is Rising; Greenwitch; The Grey King; Silver on the Tree. (The Dark
is Rising series) Cosmic good-vs.-evil story set in the present
but with a feeling of depth, based on ancient Celtic and Arthurian
myth. Excellent writing, compelling atmosphere, and strong
characters, including effective villains.
Dean, Pamela
Tam Lin. A story that keeps
getting retold because it’s so good. This version set on an
American college campus. A bit over-written, but the details of
undergrad life are part of what makes this a fun read.
Eager, Edward
In the tradition of
E. Nesbit, but set mostly in 1920s small-town America, they are
light-hearted stories of kids, magic, and trouble. Some titles
are: Half Magic, Knight’s Castle, Magic by the Lake, The Time Garden.
Garner, Alan
One of the finest
British fantasy writers; his books are few but radiant (dark,
too). Elidor. Four modern children,
four beleaguered Otherworld cities, the four treasures of ancient
Britain. One of the most powerful and most heart-breaking ending
paragraphs I have ever read. The Owl Service is the legend
of Blodewedd of the Flowers, retold and set in a modern Welsh
village. Unforgettable.
Gregorian, Joyce
The Broken Citadel; Castledown; The Great Wheel. An American
girl (later young woman) finds her way into a world of magic,
princes, and fabulous beasts, holds her own through force of
character, and keeps getting yanked back home at the worst
possible moment. Includes a satisfying romance. The author (who
died at the age of 44) was an expert in oriental rugs, a musician,
and a breeder of Arabian horses. The horsemanship shows in the
books.
Grahame, Kenneth
The Wind in the Willows.
Foolish Toad, competent Rat, crusty Badger, lovable Mole, and the
infamous stoats. Revisited now, the lack of female characters is
irritating and the classism seems quaint, but the story is still
fresh, the characters endearing.
Holdstock, Robert
The Bone Forest; Mythago Wood; Lavondyss. A limitless world
opens inward from the margins of a fragment of ancient English
forest. Part scientific exploration, part Jungian quest, the hero
discovers legends (Odysseus, the Green Knight, Arthur, etc.) and
the even older legends behind them, back to the ice age and the
beginnings of human myth. There’s also a wonderful primitive
Guinevere.
Huff, Tanya
Blood Price, Blood Trail, Blood Lines, Blood Pact, [Blood Debt] Series about
Victory Nelson, half-blind ex-policewoman and private
investigator, and the vampires, demons, and werewolves she mixes
with. Canadian settings add to the entertainment value. I didn’t
read Blood Debt because I didn’t like the way the fourth book
ended. I have a moral (or possibly religious) problem with
vampires (soulless killers, damned beyond the possibility of
redemption) as protagonists. But that’s just me. Sing the Four Quarters,
Fifth Quarter, No Quarter, The Quartered Sea. Musicians
and magic—great combination.
Jackson, Shirley
The Haunting of Hill House.
Classic. No oozing walls, no exploding heads, not a drop of
blood—and absolutely terrifying. The Lottery and Other Stories.
Equally chilling, as well as thought-provoking.
James, Henry
The Turn of the Screw.
Ambiguous at first, but leaves you with a sense that you’ve
touched ultimate evil. Well written, too.
James, M. R.
Collected Ghost Stories. James
was an academic who is better remembered for his chilling tales.
There are moments in these stories of intense, icy horror brought
on by the most subtle and apparently mundane details.
Le Guin, Ursula
A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore. Forget
Harry Potter, the original Earthsea Trilogy is still among the
best accounts ever written of a wizard’s (or a man’s) education.
Tehanu. fourth in the series,
is very different in tone: definitely an adult book. The story
continues in The Other Wind and Tales
from Earthsea.
Lewis, C. S.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and the rest of the Narnia Chronicles. I read and
loved these books as a child, without noticing the Christian
symbolism. When I did notice, it deepened my enjoyment. Some
people have actually proposed cleaning out the Christian elements.
I have no room here to express how misguided I believe this is.
Lewis, Hilda
The Ship That Flew. A story of
time-travelling adventure.
Leiber, Fritz
Swords and Deviltry, Swords Against Death, Swords in the Mist, Swords Against Wizardry,
The Swords of Lankhmar,
Swords and Ice Magic. The
original six books of the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series are
somewhat misogynist in spots. They are also macabre, exciting,
hilarious, inventive, and stylishly written. I can forgive the
misogyny. I didn’t like the seventh, a later add-on.
Lovecraft, H. P.
The Dunwich Horror, and Other Stories. The original American gothic master. At worst his style is
almost unreadable. At the best, he has an unequalled ability to
create a sense of cosmic horror. You feel that he truly believes.
McKillip, Patricia
The Riddlemaster of Hed, Heir of Sea and Fire, Harpist in
the Wind. A very young story (the
author admits that) with perhaps too much angst and sensitivity,
but a beautiful read all the same. The first time I read book one,
I could hardly put it down until I was done.
Nesbit, E.
Old-fashioned in some
ways, but the children are still lively, believable characters,
and the touches of magic and strangeness still effective. Some are
The Enchanted Castle, Five Children and It, The Phoenix and the Carpet,
The Story of the Amulet,
The Treasure Seekers.
Norton, Andre
Star Born. Included because
it’s the first science fiction book I ever read. I liked the
interspecies friendship, and it’s still a good, adventuresome
read. Witch World. and the rest of
the Witch World Series. Norton started publishing sf in the 1950s.
She featured very strong female characters in an era when most sf
writers were men, and most female characters were decoration. The
early Witch World books bear re-reading, but avoid the later
collaborations.
O’Shea, Pat
The Hounds of the Morrigan.
Could have been edited down to two-thirds the length, but a
delight to read for the Irish dialogue.
Peake, Mervyn
Titus Groan, Gormenghast, Titus Alone. One of the handful heading any fantasy list, the
Gormenghast Trilogy is possibly unique and probably inimitable. At
times over the top, occasionally confusing. Mostly magnificent.
Pratchett, Terry
The Colour of Magic, The Light Fantastic, The Truth, Jingo, Wyrd Sisters, Mort, and all the rest of the
Discworld novels. I’m not sure how long he can keep this up, but
the recent Discworld books (e.g., Thief of Time ) are as strong
(and as funny) as the early ones.
Pullman, Philip
The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber
Spyglass. ( His Dark Materials
trilogy). Dark, frightening, maybe too dark for young kids;
vividly exciting and highly original. The daemons alone are worth
the price of the books. This recent trilogy will find a secure
place among fantasy classics, despite the anti-religious theme. (A
sort of contra-C.S. Lewis situation here.)
Severn, David
Dream Gold . A
haunting story about kids at an English school and the effect of
certain strange dreams on their waking lives.
Shelley, Mary
Frankenstein. . Written by a
teenaged girl, published nearly 190 years ago, one of the earliest
science fiction stories, still a good read.
Simak, Clifford
SF writer from the
Golden Age of the 1940s and ‘50s. Stories are often set in his
native Wisconsin and feature newspapermen (which he was)—ordinary,
decent guys enmeshed in cosmic conflict and extraordinary danger.
City. his best-known book, is a
deceptively laid-back, thoughtful look at the end of human
civilization. You’ll never guess who’ll succeed us. The Goblin Reservation was the
first Simak book I read. (A reservation for goblins—who could
resist?) Lots more good ones: They Walked Like Men, Shakespeare's Planet, Way Station, etc.
Unfortunately, like Andre Norton, he ran out of steam in his later
books.
Stewart, Mary
The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, The Last Enchantment.
Her take on the Arthurian legend, from
the viewpoint of Merlin. The Wicked Day, written later
from the viewpoint of Mordred, is also a good read but lacks the
charm of the earlier three.
Strugatsky, Arkady and
Boris
Roadside Picnic. Set in Canada,
perhaps for political reasons (the authors were Russian, the
Soviets still in power) but the story doesn’t feel Canadian. It
has that touch of the surreal that seems typically Russian.
Haunting, unforgettable, it’s about the world-changing, often
horrible effects of casual litter left behind by some
extraterrestrial tourists.
Tolkien, J.R.R.
The Hobbit, The Fellowship of the Rings, The Two Towers,
The Return of the King. I began
reading these when I was 12, before the first wave of fandom swept
North American campuses, and they've been part of my life ever
since. Despite its shortcomings, Tolkien’s work still holds a
powerful magic, perhaps because he created a convincingly seamless
world, something that most of his many imitators haven’t equalled,
perhaps because of the clarity of his vision of good and evil.
Besides, it’s a great story.
Trease, Geoffrey
His books are
historical fiction, not fantasy, but I include them because when I
read them as a teen, I was swept away to other worlds. Still
exciting, suspenseful, and notable for spirited heroines who carry
half the plot. A Crown of Violet is set in classical
Greece. Cue for Treason is set in
Shakespeare’s England. There are many more.
Walton, Evangeline
Prince of Annwyn, The Children of Llyr, The Song of
Rhiannon, Island of the Mighty. A
retelling of The Mabinogion, the great cycle
of Welsh myths.
White, T.H.
The Once and Future King. Magical, delightful, erudite, beautifully written. It ends
sadly, but that’s par for the Arthurian legend.
Wilde, Oscar
The Picture of Dorian Gray. Part moral fable, part fantasy, and a satisfying read.
Willis, Connie
Bellwether. Market research,
fads, stray sheep. Nobody writes so entertainingly about the inner
workings of academia as Willis. Doomsday Book. Not sure I’ll
reread this, it’s so scarifying (it’s about a time-travelling
historian accidentally landing in the era of the Black Death) but
so well done I probably will.
Wyndham, John
Science fiction with
sympathetic characters entangled in world-shattering events.
Wyndham had a clear eye for both tragedy and heroism. His prose
style is a pleasure. Some titles: The Chrysalids, The Day of the Triffids, The Kraken Wakes, The Midwich Cuckoos.
Wynne Jones, Diana
A YA writer with a
sometimes wild sense of humour and great story-telling skill.
Fire and Hemlock is another
retelling of Tam Lin, better than Pamela Dean’s. Read Howl’s Moving Castle, and
anything about Christopher Chant.
Wynne-Jones, Tim
Writer who lives in
Perth, Ontario. Has written YA books: The Burning Boy, The Maestro. But the two books
below are not for children. Fastyngange is a strange story
about an oubliette (deep stone pit in old English castle, built to
dispose of prisoners) that talks, and its effect on people who
listen. Its ultimate fate in downtown Toronto is appropriate and
satisfying. Odd’s End is a chilling story
about a strange presence in what was thought to be the perfect
house.
Zelazny, Roger
Nine Princes in Amber, The Guns of Avalon, Sign of the
Unicorn, The Hand of Oberon, The Courts of Chaos.
The Chronicles of Amber, the powerful
first series, with Prince Corwin as protagonist, has larger
characters and higher stakes than the second series, with his son
Merlin as protagonist. |
|