[ SECRET POST #2120 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2120 ⌋

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

01.


__________________________________________________



02.


__________________________________________________



03.


__________________________________________________



04.


__________________________________________________



05.


__________________________________________________



06.


__________________________________________________



07.


__________________________________________________



08.


__________________________________________________



09.


__________________________________________________



10.


__________________________________________________



11.


__________________________________________________



12.


__________________________________________________



13.


__________________________________________________



14.


__________________________________________________



15.


__________________________________________________



16.


__________________________________________________













Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 069 secrets from Secret Submission Post #303.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - random image ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[celestiel]

Hey um, if anyone's looking for a high-fantasy book that turns a lot of typical tropes on their head, I recommend The Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick, just fyi!

Anyone else got recs?

[kathkin]

Ooh let's do high fantasy recs!

- The Dalemark Quartet by Diana Wynne Jones is woefully under-appreciated
- I just recently re-discovered The Cup of the World and sequels (The Widow and the King and the Fatal Child) by John Dickinson and damn that's some badass worldbuiling

Though neither of those are high fantasy in the sense that OP is describing but I think they count.

Re: Anyone else got recs?

[(Anonymous)]

Recommendations (mostly oriented around non-high fantasy): Neil Gaiman, but more than that, everyone that influenced Neil Gaiman. If you see that Neil Gaiman wrote the introduction to a novel, buy that novel immediately; consider that introduction as a guarantee of quality. I like Gaiman's work, although I have problems with it. But his taste is freaking impeccable - to name a few, I know that he's written a lot about RA Lafferty, Gene Wolfe, Mervyn Peake, GK Chesterton, and M John Harrison, all of whom I would say are exemplary authors. Do any of them do worldbuilding? Not in a traditional sense, but they're still great.

For some more concrete recommendations - I would recommend Lisa Goldstein, who writes imaginative contemporary fantasy. Charles De Lint. Patricia McKillip writes really good books with a kind of enchanted, magical atmosphere. John Crowley. Michael Bishop. Cat Valente. I don't know man, there's so much good fantasy out there if you go outside of high fantasy. It's this wildly inventive, fertile genre but unfortunately what gets most attention is fairly derivative stuff.

Re: Anyone else got recs?

[kathkin]

I don't know man, there's so much good fantasy out there if you go outside of high fantasy. It's this wildly inventive, fertile genre but unfortunately what gets most attention is fairly derivative stuff.

IKR. I just started working on a dissertation on fantasy literature (specifically on Greek myth in fantasy) and it's really fascinating. <3

Re: Anyone else got recs?

[greenvelvetcake]

The funny thing with Gaiman is that I like his urban fantasy ideas much more than his high fantasy stuff - really disliked Stardust.

Would Discworld count as high fantasy? Sure, why not, especially with some of the earlier books.

Also, Tamora Pierce.

Re: Anyone else got recs?

[(Anonymous)]

Stardust is one of the very limited cases where I preferred the movie to the book. The movie's a lot of fun. The book's... interesting.

Re: Anyone else got recs?

[othellia]

Don't worry; I'm the same way, anon.

Re: Anyone else got recs?

[(Anonymous)]

Yay for a Patricia McKillip mention! Her Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword are both amazing. I also really loved her Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy. And she writes awesome female characters, to boot.

Re: Anyone else got recs?

[juniperfan]

Robin McKinley wrote the Blue Sword and the Hero and the Crown. :D McKillip wrote the Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy, along with lots of others.

Re: Anyone else got recs?

[sienamystic]

Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword are Robin McKinley. Patricia McKillip is Riddle-Master of Hed.

Re: Anyone else got recs?

[(Anonymous)]

Chesterton wrote fantasy?!

(I remember some stuff that counts as speculative fiction-ish... Napoleon of Notting Hill if you need an example.)

Re: Anyone else got recs?

[(Anonymous)]

I would argue that pretty much every novel that Chesterton wrote was fantasy. With, maybe, the exceptions of Ball And The Cross and Flying Inn. Napoleon of Notting Hill is certainly fantasy, imo. I think that Man Who Was Thursday and Return Of Don Quixote are both fantasy as well, without question (for me, his two best novels by far - Return of Don Quixote is MAD underrated).

But, whether he wrote fantasy or not, he's still one of my favorite authors of all time...

Re: Anyone else got recs?

[(Anonymous)]

Brandon Sanderson's books have the best magic systems and some of the best worldbuilding of any fantasy author I've read. His prose skills aren't always the best, but the amount of thought that must have gone into the plots, the settings, the characters, etc. more than makes up for it IMO.

Scott Lynch's Gentleman Bastard sequence is really good, too. The setting is somewhat based on Renaissance Italy but different enough not to be obnoxious, and what stock fantasy tropes are present are done very well (decadent city of blood sport-->shark gladiators! disappeared ancient advanced race-->glow in the dark cities!). It's very much low fantasy plot- and structure-wise, though-- the main characters are a gang of con artists who get in way over their heads, and the author does not pull any punches.

Re: Anyone else got recs?

[(Anonymous)]

Is Lynch's GB series HIGH fantasy?

I'd love recs if they were actually, you know, HIGH FANTASY.

Re: Anyone else got recs?

[(Anonymous)]

Does The Black Jewels Trilogy by Anne Bishop count? I loved that.

Re: Anyone else got recs?

[(Anonymous)]

Megan Whalen Turner's "The Queen's Thief" series.

[(Anonymous)]

I've been trying to find a copy of the iron dragons daughter for ages! I should just give up and buy it online, but goddammit, I want to find it the old fashioned way, in a used book store. (so, um, anyone know if there's an ebook out? That way I can read it, but still justify my epic search for a physical copy.)

[tabaqui]

Go to Better World Books online. All used books, from used book stores, you're just buying them online since, you know, most of us can't actually travel all over looking for used book stores.