Thursday, May 13, 2010

Fantasy - Part 2

With newer works now made bold with Tolkein's success with critics and the mass audience, one just has to mention Ursula Le Guin's feminist works (Earthsea series) and Katherine Kurtz (I still haven't finished her biblio-discography (is that a word?? i.e. all the books she wrote))
Around the time I was born, you had Terry Goodkind and Terry Brooks, both wrote masterpieces in the epic fantasy genre.
More recently, you have satirical fantasy like Terry Pratchett, Tom Holt. Newer fantasy authors write grittier works, some spanning entire centuries like The Malazan books by Steven Erikson, George R.R. Martin. Some have hundreds of characters like Robert Jordan, some just have one, like Patrick Rothfuss in his debut first-person work of art The Name of the Wind.
The decade, the biggest growth has been in strong female leads in action-oriented roles, a genre called Urban Fantasy. Key authors to look out for are Patricia Briggs, Kim Harrison, Ilona Andrews, and of course, Kelley Armstrong.

Currently, some brilliant books are spanning the bridge between fantasy and fiction readers, like Jim Butcher, China Meiville, and Neil Gaiman. I dont really know what category they fit in, but any reader would love them!

Pin It!

3 comments:

  1. After GRR Martin, somehow all other SFF writers seem bland. I just wish he would finish the Song of Fire and Ice and not drag it like Jordan did with WOT.

    I read quite a few of Terry Goodkind's books but did not find them gripping / interesting.

    Had read the le Guin's Earth Sea trilogy sometime back. Left Hand of Darkness (which had been lying on my bookshelf for quite some time) just got finished recently. Decent read.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I haven't started GRR Martin yet, I hear he takes ages inbetween books, and I cant take that trauma.
    Is he as good as all that? Top of the list for you?
    Goodkind did a rip off from Ayn Rand in Pillars of the Earth, but aside from that, he writes well..maynot be a book to go back to, however.
    Earth Sea was a while ago for me too, not planning on re-reading.
    Any other recommendations? I would like a few books in Review pipeline, so please help me select !

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hmm, for me GRR Martin has been the BEST. I had covered it briefly when I was at ISB.

    http://isblife.blogspot.com/2004/09/recommended-reading.html

    Will think a bit about recommendations and mail you. However, some of my reading is in the domain of Sci-Fi rather than Fantasy.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for the comment! I will always reply to each comment, and if you leave a link, comment on your site as well.

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails

Popular Posts