Victory Soap v. 2.0

Have you read the works of E.R. Eddison? They date from the 30's, and meet the standards for civility and creativity that seem so recently to have disappeared. Mistress of Mistresses and The Worm Ouroboros are the two best known, and I re-read them about as often as I re-visit Tolkien.

Yes, I have both books. Or at least I have The Worm Ouroboros -- I just bought it recently. I've owned Mistress of Mistresses for years or I used to but it was a small paperback and if I still have it it's buried in the box of small paperbacks. (One day I'm going to buy some of those dvd-cd shelves and put them up for the small paperbacks -- regular bookshelves are just too deep.)

I recommend the George R.R. Martin series (starting with A Game of Thrones); good writing, intricate storyline.

If you're looking for humour with a philosophical bent (or philosophy with a humourous bent), Terry Pratchett's Discworld series is good; it beats The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy twenty ways to Sunday.

If you decide to go for the Discworld books (and they are a hoot), only read the first eighty-seven or so. After that Pratchett starts to recycle his own punch lines a bit...

I haven't been able to get into Martin -- there's something about his stories that put me off, I can't quite figure out what. And I don't care much for Pratchett; I like my fantasy straight, not parodic. To tell you the truth, I've gotten jaded on the whole fantasy genre -- my taste in such runs in a very narrow vein and I've mined just about all I can of it. Also I find my ability to concentrate has worn away over the years, and I can't just devour books like I used to. But I still search for that novel with that special something that appeals to only me... I thought Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell had it, but I got bogged down in the middle and haven't been able to finish it. Possibly this is the signal that I have to start writing instead of reading. If only I could hold a thought in my head for more than two minutes.

You could try the Isavalta cycle, although it's best to read in the order 2, 1, 3.

Hm. Looks interesting.

Most of Martin's writing prior to A Game of Thrones, etc. has left me cool.

You might like Elizabeth Willey's fantasy trilogy - the first book (chronologically the last) is reminiscent of Zelazny's Amber series, but well-written for all that it's derivative.

Try Neil Gaiman's Stardust - it's a fairy story in the old sense of the term.

I've read Stardust. It kind of lost my interest halfway through. I've never been interested in the Amber series. I believe I picked up one of the books, then put it down. Perhaps this is why (a quote from one of the novels that I just found on the internet follows):

Eric loosened his blade in its scabbard.
"You want the throne," he said.
"Don't we all?" I told him.
"I guess so," he said with a sigh. "It's true, that uneasy-lies-the-head bit."

That sort of joking, referential "meta-fantasy" leaves me cold. Fantasy should not "break the fourth wall." If I want to be at all times aware that I am sitting in my apartment reading a book instead of actually enjoying the story, I would not read fantasy.

Now, one of the authors I do like, Fritz Leiber, often skirted the edges of this sort of thing in his Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series, but in his best stories he didn't.

I will pontificate more on this later. I've got soup sitting in the microwave.