Terence's comments (member since Jul 15, 2008)

Terence's comments from the Building a SciFi/Fantasy Library group.

This month I reread R. Scott Bakker's Prince of Nothing series so I could start The Judging Eye, which I'm half way through now, with all the characters fresh in my mind.

I also began rereading Edgar Pangborn's short-story collection Still I Persist in Wondering, and boy am I glad I did. A criminally forgotten author, I highly recommend his stuff.

Here's at least one unforgettable (if forgotten) fave:

Jack Vance, Galactic Effectuator. It's two novellas about Miro Hetzel, a private eye in Vance's Gaean Reach. Typical Vance so you know it's stylish, witty and acerbic.

I don't know if either of these are what you're thinking of but I've read two reinterpretations of the Medea story:

Christa Wolf's Medea and
John Gardner's Jason & Medeia

I'm not going to "dignify" the following list with the word BEST since even a cursory glance over the posts in this thread will show just how subjective that term is but these are all definitely on the list of "must haves" if stranded on a deserted island:

Fantasy series: Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen

Fantasy standalone: Micheal Moorcock's Gloriana

SF series: Iain Bank's Culture novels. Each one's a standalone but they all take place in the same universe.

SF standalone: C.J. Cherryh's Downbelow Station

Worst? Hmmmm...same problem definition-wise but some on my list:

Name of the Wind
any Dune novel written by Frank Herbert's son
Black Fire by Sonni Cooper. Easily the worst Star Trek novel ever. EVER!
Master of Five Magics
Terry Goodkind
David Eddings

Damiano's Lute by R.A. MacAvoy

He can't go too far wrong with Andre Norton.

My personal favorites are the Solar Queen series, starting with The Sargasso of Space. Her early Witch World novels are good too -- a mixture of SF and Fantasy.

So far this year, my biggest disappointment has been Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind. Overly long with uninteresting characters who I didn't particularly like.