Fantasy
As the daughter of a major speculative fiction fan, I grew up with all the classics – fantasy (which was always my favorite), science fiction and horror. My dad had them all, and then some. By the time I was a teenager and reading English effortlessly (before that I read in our native language) I began to buy books of my own. As I’ve already mentioned, my favorite genre is fantasy. It might not be all that easy to turn good fantasy into movies, but as books, nothing can beat it. Why is it my favorite? It’s hard to tell.
Sf helps you escape to another type of world as well, but something about the atmosphere of the books makes me prefer fantasy. Especially the kind where the author has used later eras rather than medieval times.
Don’t get me wrong, I love medieval times, but to be honest, I feel that the old Sword and Sorcery genre is getting, yes, that’s right, old.
Tolkien
I guess you never can escape his ring saga. Despite the sexism, despite the chauvinism. (Hey, don’t bite my head off. This is *my* site.) And though this is about the authors, and their books, not about any movies based on the stories, I have to say that the movie was absolutely amazing. I just loved Aragorn and the others. In the book one of my favorites was Faramir.
Actually, fantasy has older roots than that.
Lord Dunsany.
Yes, he really was a lord. I’ve read two books by him. Most of his work was made up by short stories, and I prefer novels. Out of the two, The King of Elfland’s Daughter and The Charwoman’s Shadow, I prefer the latter.
Out of more modern authors, I have many favorites. I won’t differentiate between authors writing for a ‘younger’ audience or the ones writing for a more ‘grownup’ audience.
Diana Wynne Jones
She’s brilliant. Her creations are always very intricate, but deceptively simple. I love Power of Three, Dogsbody, Deep Secret, Hexwood, The Merlin Conspiracy, A Tale of Time City, Archer’s Goon Fire and Hemlock, The Time of the Ghost, A Sudden Wild Magic, The Living Castle and all the rest of her books. It seems as if everything she writes is a masterpiece. If only I could write half as well…
Ursula LeGuin
She is a fantastic author, who is so great you can only read on in mute admiration. Her books about Earthsea – A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore, Tehanu, Tales from Earthsea and The Other Wind are incredibly exciting and beautiful, but sad and dark. The main characters are well developed and complicated, and so are the stories. Predictable they’re not. Quite the opposite. But you’re never disappointed, just surprised. The love between Ged and Tenar is extremely well depicted. When I read The Tombs of Atuan, as a child, I was totally blown away by their love story. There’s also quite a nice story about how I was introduced to the first three of these books, but I’ll get into that on one of my other sites.
Susan Cooper
Her books are so deliciously mysterious. Dark is Rising (and the entire series) actually scared me at times, but it’s a good scare. The books about the Boggart are funny, but still quite mysterious. I like them too, but they’re a lot more light-hearted than the others.
Penelope Lively
I like her books too. The stories are perhaps less compelling than for instance Susan Cooper’s, but they’re very well put together. I think my favorite is The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy, but many of the others are good too.
Geraldine Harris
Her Seven Citadels series is brilliant, in my opinion.They’re epic, sad, and very intricate. Right away, I fell in love with Kerish-lo-Taan, and I wished he’d make it safely through his adventures. I think he’s inspired me to write many of my own stories.
Rosemary Harris
I don’t know if she’s related to Geraldine Harris. There isn’t any information available about her, except that one of her books once won an award. Her books are about animals, which always delights me, if the animals are treated well, and these are. The three books in the series – The Moon in the Cloud, The Shadow on the Sun and The Bright and Morning Star are about what happened before everyone went aboard the Ark (Noah’s, at the time of the Flood), and what happened afterwards.
Lloyd Alexander
Here’s another writer who is good at portraying animals. He’s written numerous books. Two series are among my favorites. The Prydein Chronicles about Taran, who’s an assistant pig-keeper, but eventually becomes High King, and the one about Theo, in Westmark. Both boys who are the main characters are memorable, if a bit headstrong at times. I also like Time Cat and My Five Tigers, about the author’s own cats.
James Gurney
Don’t you wish there was such a place as Dinotopia? I know that if there was, I’d move there and never go anywhere else. Of course, I’d have to introduce some more mammals there and some modern birds. Life would be boring without dogs, cats, rabbits, cockatiels and others. I’ve only read the first book about Dinotopia, and I’d love to read the sequel. I have, however, seen the movie. It was quite ok, really. The illustrations in the book are adorable, and I love all the characters, especially my favorite, Bix.
Vivian Vande Velde
Her books are simple, but still very nice. She has a way of creating vivid, memorable characters on relatively few pages. Her heroines are tough, self-reliant girls, which I really like, and there’s something about her guys that makes me fall in love with them.
Paula Volsky
A new look at fantasy. I like her stories because they’re not the usual Sword and Sorcery. Alternate history is a very fascinating sub-genre of fantasy, and one that I hope I’ll be able to explore further in the future.
Garth Nix
He’s another writer who’s creating fantasy in a new way. Sabriel is a brilliant creation, at least if you ask me. So are Lirael and Abhorsen. The latter is a bit sad, but I still love it. Maybe he doesn’t know it, but Nix is very good at depicting romance in the midst of chaos. In any case, his world-building is excellent.
Charles DeLint
His books are mostly a little too scary for me, sort of dark fantasy really, but also very good. Most of them are low fantasy, which means the “fantasy” happens in our world, not in another separate world. Charles DeLint has created a fictive city called Newford, which is supposedly in California (though the Americans are convinced it’s in Canada). In this city you can find many likely and unlikely characters. One of the books is called Dreams Underfoot. Another one is The Blue Girl. He’s created a number of unforgettable characters who live in Newford.
Kristen Britain
When I read her book, Green Rider, I felt that this was something new. I like her character Karigan, because she’s another tough, unconventional heroine. This is a girl who can take care of herself. After reading the sequel, First Rider’s Call, I’m a bit confused about what’s going to happen to the main characters, but it’s just as good as the first one. Sadly, The High King’s Tomb wasn’t nearly as good as the other two, and now I’m considering not reading the next book in this series.
Delia Marshall Turner
Her book, Nameless Magery, struck me as being very different, without being too strange for me. I tend to be a bit conventional when it comes to fantasy, though I hate predictable stories. Though I would have picked another guy at the end. LOL.
Rebecca Lickiss
I love her book, Eccentric Circles. In a way, her story seems simple, but it winds along in a way that isn’t predictable at all. It’s romantic, and I love her treatment of the language.
The story is about a young woman who inherits a house from her great-grandmother. Through the doors of that house, she can find her way to a magic world in her backyard. She meets a very handsome young elf, but also runs into the danger that apparently killed her great-grandmother. Now Piper (yes, that’s her name) has to solve the mystery and save herself with the help of her great-grandmother’s ghost.
I’ve read another book by Lickiss – Never After. It’s good too, but not quite as fascinating as the first one. Like the books by Robin McKinley, this one takes a new look at old fairy tales.
C J Cherryh
When I read Fortress in the Eye of Time, I almost got a Tolkien feeling. Not really, but anyway, this was something really big. I got a feeling almost of awe. The world as seen through the eyes of Tristen is eerie, and strange, rather like I see the world myself. There’s a chill here, that is depressing in a good way.
Anne Bishop
I loved her book, The Invisible Ring. Most people tend to be so conventional when it comes to describing the male hero, but Anne Bishop isn’t. This world is entirely to my taste. I mean, sure, there’s evil, but where isn’t there evil? And men are reduced to totally different status than in most stories. Fascinating, but dark.
Kelly McCullough
I recently discovered this author. His book Web Mage was really cool and fun and felt like a completely new take on mythology. It comes across a little like science fantasy, which is a genre/subgenre I haven’t had much experience with yet. If you like fantasy, mythology and computers, I can really recommend this author. There are several more books in the series, and though I usually refuse to follow endless series, I have made an exception in this case. I just can’t resist them.
Diana Gabaldon
I read the first book in her Outlander series and really liked it. It’s a mix of fantasy, historic novel and a bit of romance. I love the main character’s love interest. Don’t get me wrong, the main character is good too. She’s a nurse, who’s just returned from the Second World War and has gone on vacation to Scotland with her husband. He’s interested in tracing his family history. Suddenly, his wife ends up visiting the past of his ancestor. She finds herself in 18th century Scotland. I won’t tell you more about the plot, but this was definitely a fascinating read.
Gregory Frost
Lately, I have become a little disappointed in some of the fantasy books I’ve read. Some weren’t very good at all, others just not quite as good as I’d expected. I’m glad to say that the two books in the Shadowbridge series by Gregory Frost, are far from disappointing. They’re completely unique and fascinating.
Shadowbridge is a world mainly consisting of ocean. There are some smaller or not so small islands, but most of the population live on the titular Shadowbridge. It’s a huge magical system of bridges that spreads all across the face of the world. The culture is different, but clearly based on our world’s, and there’s a mysterious connection, that I haven’t been able to figure out. Maybe it’s just me, but those sketchy references didn’t really explain anything. In any case, I’d love to read more from this world.
Gull Åkerblom
Now some Swedish fantasy. Gull Åkerbloms first book, Johannesnatten (‘St John’s Night’) was a nice surprise. Although there are a few good children’s authors in Sweden, most of the books written in Swedish aren’t to my taste. Maria Gripe is an exception and so is Gull Akerblom. This is in some ways, a traditional fantasy, but with a new twist. Though most fantasy stories seem to be based on the Celtic culture, this is far more Nordic, and while I don’t always like that, in this particular way, I love it.
Matilda is a lonely 13-year-old, who lives in an ordinary city, but longs for some magic adventure. She finds it in the form of an ad in the paper. Someone wants to turn her house over to the right person, with a teenage daughter. The new owners of the house must like cats.
As you can imagine, Matilda can’t wait to find out more, and she does. Far more than she bargained for. It seems the Ancient Norse gods are still alive and as intent on meddling in human affairs as ever. If there’s a translation, read it. There are three more books in the series, so far. Book 2, 3 and 4 aren’t as good as the first one, in my opinion, but maybe I’m being unfair. Certainly, they’re all very well written.
Maria Gripe
She has written a number of fantasy classics (and some other children’s books too). My favorites are Tordyveln flyger i skymningen (‘The Beetle Flies at Dusk’, and Agnes Cecilia. I also like Tappa inte Masken (‘Don’t drop your mask’) and Pappa Pellerin’s Dotter (‘Papa Pellerin’s Daughter’), which aren’t fantasy, though still quite fanciful in a way. Other fantasy books by Maria Gripe include I Klockornas Tid (‘In the Time of the Bells’) and Glasblåsarns Barn (‘The Glass Blower’s Children’), which has been turned into a movie.
The Beetle Flies at Dusk is a mysterious story about scarabs, and whispers from the past. It starts out with a couple of strange coincidences, goes on to include plants with messages, then moves on to a treasure hunt in the sleepy southern Swedish countryside.
Agnes Cecilia is a story about a lonely orphaned girl who, after moving into a new apartment gets mysterious messages from the past, gains an understanding about herself and her family, and eventually makes a good friend.
Gunila Ambjörnsson
She writes books about supernatural occurances. Among others, I have read Trädet och tiden (The Tree and Time) and Vilse i tiden (Lost in Time). Gunila Ambjörnsson uses strong female protagonists, which I like a lot. Also, her books often feature animals, especially cats.
Her first book (I assume it’s her first book) has been turned into a tv series, that’s available on DVD. It’s exciting, a little scary and just a bit too obvious in its political propaganda. Despite that, I loved this series (I’m afraid I haven’t read the book). It combines time travel with a rather too obvious history lesson and adds (as usual) a cat, a room full of clocks and a treasure hunt. I just have to mention a lady who lives in the castle, played by a famous Swedish actress. Her memorable interpretation of the role has stuck in the memories of generations of Swedish kids.
Tove Jansson
She isn’t Swedish, though she wrote in Swedish. She was from Finland and she wrote a number of unforgettable fantasy books about the Moomin Valley and all its fabulous inhabitants. My favorite characters are not the Moomin family. I prefer some of the others. Misabel, Fillyjonk, Hemul, Toffle, Thingumy and Bob, Whomper, Sorry-oo, Toft and the little children from the woods.
Irmelin Sandman Lilius
She is from Finland too and writes books that are a special type of fantasy. In a way you might call it alternate history.
The book I’ve read, Gullkrona gränd (don’t know the title in English), is part of a series of books set in Finland in the 19 century (I think). There’s a really unique atmosphere in the book, and the main characters are really unique too. Their personalities really get to you, and also their life situation. They are three sisters, who are quite poor, but have access to an exciting fantasy world, in stories they’re told. A friend of the oldest sister is a tough and sort of unusual girl, who is always there for her friends.
I’m looking forward to reading more books by this author. In fact, I’ve ordered a copy (a couple of years ago) but it’s still not available. Irmelin knew Tove Jansson when she was a kid. Irmelin Sandman Lilius has written several books with her sister, Heddi Böckman.
The following writer doesn’t write fantasy, though her books are quite fanciful and I like them anyway.
Edith Unnerstad
She is from Finland, just like Tove Jansson. Her books about the Pip-Larssons are really good. My favorite book is the last in the series, and deals with the two youngest (well, I don’t like the boy so much, but I do like Little O). The other family members are ok as well (except for Knutte, who is rather dreadful). An old Swedish tv series was made based on the first book. My favorite characters (in the tv series) are the dad and Mirre, who is a bit of a tomboy. I also quite like Mirre’s love interest Stickan, who is a boy who has had a rough time and ended up being taken into care.
This writer doesn’t write fantasy either, but I have to mention him anyway.
Jules Verne
He was, along with H G Wells, the creator of the entire science fiction genre. Jules Verne admired Edgar Allan Poe. He was also a friend of Alexander Dumas Jr. My favorite book by Jules Verne is A Journey to the Centre of the Earth. It might not be very good sci fi, but it’s a really good adventure story.
