Werner's comments

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

Note: Werner is no longer a member of this group.

A couple of Tanith Lee's books were already mentioned above; but another worthwhile one in this vein that hasn't been cited is her story collection Red as Blood. (I gave it four stars when I reviewed it.)

I've always thought of Alas, Babylon! (which I really like, too!) as a post-apocalyptic novel, rather than a dystopian one per se. Of course, I guess that a civilization which ends up blowing itself to pieces in a nuclear war is arguably pretty dystopic....

Raymond Feist's Riftwar Saga series features a group of brothers (sons of a king), who are important characters (and take family ties seriously), and who all fight on the same side.

Re Holly Lisle, I can recommend her stand-alone novel, Minerva Wakes. It's in the Goodreads database, so (if you want to) you can search for it by title and read the description and several reviews, including mine.

You're welcome, Jason! Let us know if you like it.

Kernos, in library parlance, YA stands for "Young Adult." We (librarians) usually think of that group as the tweens/younger teens demographic --but some of the books may appeal to older readers as well.

Jason, Susannah Clarke has a short story collection out, The Ladies of Grace Adieu. I haven't read it, but I understand it's set in the same alternate early 19th-century English milieu as the novel (which I also really liked!).

LaTrica, "The Golden Key" is indeed one of the first stories in Tales Before Tolkien; I finished it a couple of days ago. Interestingly, though, the 2005 Ballantine Del Rey paperback edition that I have has no story by Austin Wright. (That's a shame, since "The Story of Alwina" must be a good one!)

A couple of days ago, I started Tales Before Tolkien (edited by Douglas A. Anderson), a collection of 19th and early 20th century fantasy tales by authors who preceded and influenced Tolkien. Some of the writers represented are George MacDonald, Ludwig Tieck, William Morris, Lord Dunsany, James Branch Cabell, Arthur Machen --pretty much a role call of the genre's early big names, as well as some writers not so well known, or not known primarily for fantasy.

I'm almost finished with The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twelfth Annual Collection, the 1994 volume in the annual series edited by Gardiner Dozois. For the most part, I don't read "Year's Best" collections; but I happened to get this one very cheap at a yard sale. And yes, I'm definitely enjoying it; I don't get into every story, but in the main, they're very well chosen. It's easy to see why this series commands so much respect from both SF fans and critics alike.

Kernos, good question! (The first answer that comes to mind is that I don't have that problem, because if it's set in our world, it isn't fantasy; but of course that's circular reasoning, and I do know what you mean. :-)) For practical purposes, I classify a book with magic as fantasy if it's set at least partly in another world, like Feist's Faerie Tale, though much of it may be set in this world. Also, I classify something with magic as fantasy if it's set in an invented remote past, like the Lord of the Rings saga or Howard's Conan stories, or an invented remote future, like Brooks' Shannara series. Even if these are technically set on "Earth," it's not an Earth that resembles the actual one that we know. (And even though "urban fantasy" like de Lint's Newford books are set in this world, I defer to the popular "fantasy" classification in those cases.) Otherwise, I put the supernatural stories set in this world, like Rowling's, in the genre of "supernatural fiction" (a more accurate term that I like better than "horror.")

Rowling has been mentioned a few times in this thread. I didn't mention her in my original post, because I define fantasy as something set in a different world than ours, so it excludes supernatural fiction set in this world (I know, I'm ridiculously nitty-picky! :-)) But I was enthralled by the Harry Potter series, and I'm sure that most fans of dark fantasy would also enjoy it. (True, it's set in England --but mostly in parts of England where us "Muggles" can't go! :-))

There are probably quite a few other group members here who are more familiar with Lee's work than I am; I've read all but one story in her Red as Blood collection (which is on my currently-reading shelf), as well as her "Into Gold" in the excellent Modern Classics of Fantasy anthology, but so far that's all. That said, though, I would say that her skills as a prose stylist are equal to those of any of the ladies mentioned above that I've read, and she's good at evoking an emotional response to her stories. Like Wrede, she often re-imagines traditional folk/fairy tales; but she tends more often towards dark fantasy than Wrede does. Quite frequently, she sets her tales in actual historical times and places, like the fringe of the waning Roman Empire in "Into Gold," but evokes them essentially as fantasy worlds; and she often uses ideas and deities (usually somewhat re-interpreted) from a variety of religions as literary conceits, without literally endorsing any of them.

In another recent discussion, here on Goodreads somewhere, I recall someone defining "high" and "low" fantasy in terms of the amount of magical content they each have --a lot of it, playing a central role in the plot, in the former case, and less or more muted magic, taking more of a back seat in the plot, in the latter. For me, that's as good a definition as any!

Tolkien, Terry Brooks, Raymond Feist, and Stephen Lawhead all come to mind as writers of high fantasy who pay a good deal of attention to delineating individual characters. But with the type of epic fantasy associated with these writers (which is what some people mean by high fantasy), the role of individuals is caught up as part of a bigger picture of world-shaping destiny; whereas in other types of fantasy that have less of a grand scale, it isn't.

For whatever it's worth, I like both types of fantasy (and all the other types as well :-)). But then, I'm not a genre purist; I tend to read speculative fiction more than descriptive, but really I can enjoy any kind of fiction that has an absorbing story, engaging characters, and a meaningful message, and delivers these with an effective literary style.

A few days ago a question was raised, on the thread devoted to favorite sci-fi written by a woman, as to why we don't similarly recognize the contribution of female writers to fantasy. So, I thought I'd start a parallel thread devoted to that genre.

Who's your favorite female author of fantasy? Mine has to be Patricia C. Wrede (pronounced "Reedy"). I love her Enchanted Forest Chronicles series; and I also highly recommend The Book of Enchantments (which showcases her mastery of the short story) and Caught in Crystal.

Kristine, Carolyn's right in noting that the specific SF focus was requested in the original post. But there are a lot of brilliant female writers of fantasy too --if you're interested in those, why not start a similar discussion thread with that focus? My guess is that it would generate as many posts as this one has! :-)

For me, the distinction is that, for whatever phenomena it treats, science fiction posits explanations derived from the natural realm, whereas fantasy is open to explanations from outside the natural. (Of course, that's not an iron-clad distinction; Renaissance intellectuals, for instance, often thought of electricity and magnetism as examples of what they called "natural magic," as opposed to the satanic variety.) That's not quite the same as the distinction between plausibility and implausibility --though in many people's minds, the two distinctions are related.

I have separate fantasy and science fiction shelves for my "read" books here on Goodreads (they're both big shelves!) and I wouldn't object to having them separated on this group's "read" shelf, either, if anybody wanted to take time to do that. Usually I don't have trouble distinguishing between them, according to my own definitions --there might be are a few that have elements of both, but if it employs magic at all, I put it in the fantasy category. But since I like both genres, I don't have any problem at all with being in a group that focuses on both!

On the other hand, despite their basic difference (naturally-explainable premises vs. magical ones), the two genres are both speculative, "what-if?" kinds of fiction that share a willingness to step outside the everyday bounds of descriptive fiction. A lot of readers (like me), who are drawn to that quality, like both genres for the same reason, and enjoy being in a group that unites both interests. (And, of course, some individual discussion threads may focus on one or the other.) There are probably Goodreads groups that focus specifically on each of the two genres, and meet the needs of readers who want a specific focus; but speaking for myself, I see the inclusiveness of this group as a positive rather than a negative.