[ SECRET POST #2882 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2882 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 061 secrets from Secret Submission Post #412.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Really? I can't remember the last time I read a plot like that, and I eat up fantasy novels like candy. If you want something really different, try some of these:

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer
The Chosen by Ricardo Pinto
Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay

Some other fantasy authors to check out

[cushlamochree]

Can this be a thread for non-conventional fantasy recs?

Some authors I've read and liked: John Crowley, Patricia McKillip, RA Lafferty, Mervyn Peake, Jack Vance, Peter S Beagle, James Blaylock, Avram Davidson, M John Harrison, Gene Wolfe, Jo Walton, Catherynne M. Valente, Hal Duncan, Elizabeth Bear, Tim Powers

I know I'm forgetting some other people I've liked as well

ETA: two more I remembered - Lucius Shepard and Charles De Lint

Re: Some other fantasy authors to check out

[(Anonymous)]

Seconding Shepard and De Lint; two of the very few fantasy writers I can stomach.

Re: Some other fantasy authors to check out

[cushlamochree]

Yeah, they're pretty decent, aren't they? I haven't liked much of De Lint's very recent stuff but I'll always love his style a whole lot.

Re: Some other fantasy authors to check out

[icecheetah]

Patricia McKillip is non conventional?

Maybe I should actually pay attention to the random books mum hands me to read every now and again...

Re: Some other fantasy authors to check out

[cushlamochree]

At least in the sense that she's not doing a bunch of save the world, epic quest, elves and dwarves stuff.

It's still very fantasy world with kings and cities and witches, but in a much more... almost fairy-tale, capital-R Romantic way. And quite well done IMO.

Re: Some other fantasy authors to check out

[xenomantid]

For those who don't mind searching for books that have fallen into out-of-print purgatory, Jane Gaskell's Atlan series is as weird as most fantasy novels get. Yes, the main character is a princess, but that is the series's one trope in common with cliched high fantasy. Gaskell mixes Theosophy and Aztec mythology and paints the results with a Gothic brush. The books are set in a fantastic prehistory that posits a very eldritch South America. They have just about everything: a plucky but constantly imperiled protagonist, a lost continent, a land war between the North and South over said lost continent, lizard-men and ape-men, occasional witchcraft, carnivorous riding birds, giant reptiles, abduction, incest, interspecies mating, an evil priest and his minions, a temple of doom, a tentacled creature or two, a V. C. Andrews-esque aura of wrongness, and more. The characters in these novels make references to "Ancient Atlan," which is the lost continent as it was before the current civilization came to dominate it. We are told that vestiges of Ancient Atlan remain in the continent and are just waiting to take possession of it again--and there is ample reason to believe that Atlan itself is self-aware, as in Algernon Blackwood's "The Willows."

Re: Some other fantasy authors to check out

[(Anonymous)]

Well, damn. I definitely have to get my hands on this! Thank you!

[grausam]

Perdido Street Station's ending totally disappointed me tbh. But it is certainly imaginative (aside from the sci fi themes)

[sabotabby]

Really? I loved it. Among the most brutal things I've ever read.

spoilers

[grausam]

dunno, I just thought it was a shame for the female protagonist, who I really liked. yes, it was meant to be tragic, but it felt unnecessary and depressing.

Her past character development fit the themes much better, but the author didn't make it Her story. And then she got a faith worse than death.

Didn't help that I felt indifferent about the rapist bird guy. I think the main protagonist was the city and the world, so if that redeemed him, ok.

[dreemyweird]

Patricia C. Wrede is very nice. I mean, her stories have dragons and stuff, but she subverts almost all the tropes - a bit like Pratchett (but humour is less central to her books).

CRESSIDA COWELL. It is my dream to see more people read her and fewer people thinking that the original Hiccup and Toothless were in any way like their film selves. I think the film did a horrible job of adapting the books, and I hate that it's so popular while the books are not.

[(Anonymous)]

+1 to Patricia C. Wrede. Her books are great.

[(Anonymous)]

Devon Monk has a Weird West series called "The Age of Steam," with werewolves, magic, and airships, that's pretty spiffy.

[(Anonymous)]

Martha Wells!

[darkmanifest]

Seconding. I fucking adore her books.

[(Anonymous)]

Same.

Yet more fantasy authors to check out

[(Anonymous)]

Ben Aaronovitch, Katherine Addison/Sarah Monette, Lloyd Alexander, Marie Brennan, Susan Cooper, Pamela Dean, Aliette de Bodard, Lynn Flewelling, Neil Gaiman, Jo Graham, Barbara Hambly, Karen Healey, Jim C. Hines, Ellen Kushner, Ursula K. Le Guin, Tanith Lee, R. A. MacAvoy, Robin McKinley, Hope Mirrlees, Naomi Novik, Nnedi Okorafor, Elizabeth Marie Pope, Melissa Scott, Caroline Stevermer, Maggie Stiefvater, Megan Whalen Turner, Genevieve Valentine, Jane Yolen

Re: Yet more fantasy authors to check out

[(Anonymous)]

You must be my secret twin... Love your list!!

Re: Yet more fantasy authors to check out

[th0rns_n_r0ses]

Oh I love Robin McKinley!

What's your favorite book of hers?

Re: Yet more fantasy authors to check out

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

I've gotta admit, it's been close to 15 years since I last read McKinley, so if I reread her books now I might very well find that my tastes have changed. But my faves were (are?) Beauty and The Outlaws of Sherwood.

Re: Yet more fantasy authors to check out

[(Anonymous)]

DA

My favorite has to be Rose Daughter, because I love redone fairy tales and it has everything I love about Beauty and the Beast and more. It's dreamlike and poetic and I reread it once a year!

I also like Sunshine a lot, though, it's about the only 'vampire novel' I actually love. :P

Re: Yet more fantasy authors to check out

[(Anonymous)]

Always so happy when someone mentions Susan Cooper. Nice list in general, but win for Susan Cooper mention!

[cbrachyrhynchos]

I think it was three years ago, the awards were swept by African and Afro-Caribbean settings. I think last year it was Alif the Unseen.

[(Anonymous)]

Brandon Sanderson is an author I think of as 'like typical fantasy, but BETTER'. Better ideas, better worldbuilding, better systems of magic.

I especially liked 'Rithmatist', which has one of the most unique central conceits/systems of magic I've ever read. The characters are good too!