Regarding sci-fi/fantasy recommendations:
Chronicles Of An Age Of Darkness. This series really doesn't get enough love. It manages to blend fantasy with strong elemts of sci-fi, but more importantly there's a streak of black humour that runs through the series like an oil slick. Hugh Cook manages in each of the books to mischeviously deconstruct fantasy tropes, take the piss out of religious/political institutions, and create protaganist characters who run from 'vaguely anti-heroic' to 'outright megalomanianc'. There's ten books in the series, and they're each hefty tomes, but they're well worth checking out.
The Thrawn Trilogy. Proof that the good stuff in the Star Wars EU can be very good indeed. Marketed as 'the sequel' to the original films, the Thrawn novels carry on the story of the original characters in a hugely succesful manner. There's a lot of thoughtful analysis of the events of the original films, some of the most beloved elements of the SW universe were introduced here, and it carries on the legacy of the original films in the best possible way. Probably the most beloved out of all EU books, and for good reason.
The Discworld series. The DW books are stupendously popular now, and there are three things in particular that make them well worth reading: 1) Terry Pratchett's knack for well-turned jokes and particularly sharp puns, 2) His often times hilarious, often quite serious decontruction of many of the tropes of fantassy, and 3) his often quite hilarious, often quite serious satire and commentary on
real life. Arguably no other author has used their fantasy world to not only thoroughly satire the conventions of the fantasy genre, but repeatedly used it to hold up a mirror to the real world, pointing out the comedy, absurdity and tragedy that is endemic in everyday real life. His earlier books lean more towards the surreal and the fantastical, while his later books have toned down this down for more pointed commentary, but they're all well worth reading. The man is a national treasure for a very good reason.
Mugen said:
hmmm Dune could be interesting....i played the game what feels like a BAZILLION years ago now.
God damnit, i love the Wheel Of Time. i think when Robert Jordan died, so did a little part of me. I think his son is doing a better job than i expected of wrapping things up, too. one more book to go...and in 2012 i hear.
i think of myself as a ''purist'' only because i find that Fantasy is the only genre that i truly lose myself in. sure, i liked the Motley Crue biography (''i thought i was a real drug addict. i popped pills in the morning, smoked weed all day, and shot cocaine into my arms till late at night. Then, then i met Ozzy Osbourne....) and i enjoy crime/noir novels too, but they don't even come close to something like the WoT.
Also, i study creative writing, and my only ambition in life is to write a high fantasy epic, with a scope of such magnitude that it will dethrone even the almighty Tolkien, and to a lesser extent, George RR Martin (the Tolkien of the modern age, in my opinion.
im only in my first year, but we all start somewhere, right?
EDIT - Logalog, and the shrews, my favs in Redwall
If you wish to achieve, or even surpass, the same scope of writing that the likes of Tolkien achieved, then you owe it to yourself to start reading as much material of all genres as you can possibly get your hands on.
Tolkien created his world from a variety of sources. Predominantly Anglo-Saxon and Norse mythology, but also with strong flavours of Christian theology, Roman mythology, and even Egyptian references thrown in here and there. The man was a Professor at Oxford, fluent in multiple languages, and part of a literary society with his friend C.S Lewis, so you'd better believe that he was an incredibly well-read man.
Fantasy has suffered somewhat
because many fantasy authors are only familiar with the works of the fantasy genre itself. Tolkien brought together a number of disparate ideas in order to create his unified world. Since the, ripping him off wholesale has become the norm. If you want to achieve the same legacy as Tolkien, you need to put in the same amount of effort into crafting your fantasy world as he did. And in order to do this, you will need to read as much fiction
outside of the fantasy genre as possible.
The best developments in the fantasy/sci-fi genres has occured when writers took ideas from other genres, and incorporated them into their work. Look at how Do Androids Dream.../Blade Runner so expertly incorporated elements of Hars Boiled fiction and Film Noir with Sci-Fi, helping create 'Cyberpunk' as we know it. Look at how A Song Of Ice And Fire managed to take historical sources, namely The War Of The Roses, and use that to create a genuinely intriguing Fantasy-Political tale. Look at how George Lucas took Joseph Campbell's ideas in Hero With A Thousand Faces, combined them with the motifs of Akira Kurosawa's films, and made Star Wars.
Read books of every genre you can find. Read 'Detective' novels, to learn how to properly structure a good mystery. Read 'Post-Modernist' books, so you can see how the form and rules of narrative can be played with. Read 'Gothic Horror', so you can discover how to create genuinely terrifying villains and genuinely unnerving situations. Read existentialist fiction, so you can see how to marry fictional prose with big, symbolic ideas. And don't just read fiction. Read every source of ideas that you can lay your hands on. Works of psychology, such as those by Freud and Jung. Books about mythology, like the aforementioned Joseph Campbell. Books about anthropology, books about history, books about science and maths.
Your fiction is only as strong as what you put into it. The more you read
outside of the fantasy/sci-fi genre, the more new, fresh ideas you'll be able to bring back into it. The world already has enough fantasy books about elves and dwarves. Read around, and find some new inspiration for what your fantasy world can contain. The more original you make it, the more you'll be able to stand out from the legions of Tolkien-copycats that now dominate so much of Fantasy fiction.
