Literary Love
Feb. 3rd, 2010 01:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyspriteI've been doing a lot of reading lately, thanks to slow days at work, and so I've also been coming to a lot of realizations.
Today's realization is that, while there are a lot of books and authors that almost everybody is familiar with, there are also, sadly, a lot of extraordinarily good books and authors that, for some reason, almost nobody is familiar with.
Well, not sadly, so much, because that gives those of us familiar with their work a chance to rhapsodize about it, and those not familiar with it the chance to read it for the first time and fall in love.
But for example - most people that I know have at least heard of Tolkien, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. And to a slightly lesser extent, most people have heard of Lois Bujold and the Vorkosigan Saga, George R. R. Martin and the Song of Ice and Fire series, Laurel K. Hamilton, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, Terry Pratchett, Orson Scott Card - even if people haven't read their books, you know they exist. And odds are you've read at least *something* by most of them.
At the other end of the spectrum are the novels I pick up just on a whim - the cover art is pretty, the title is intriguing, or the first sentence on the first page just captures my imagination so thoroughly that I can't leave the bookstore without it. And when I finish reading them and start enthusing about them to my friends, I realize that I am one of the only people I know who has ever read it. And this is a tragedy and a shame.
"The Wild Roads," by Gabriel King, is one of these books. I admit I bought it because I'm a fan of the talking animals urban fantasy genre and have been since I first picked up "Watership Down," but I didn't expect it to knock me on my backside as thoroughly as it did. Talking animal fantasy is usually.... well, a light read at best. I mean, talking animals. How deep or dark can you get?
But this book, and its sequel, are amazing. Dark and gritty and fascinating, and the author has a gift for language, stringing out words like rich, thick caramel as they drip from the page onto your mind, and the level of realism is astonishing, and y'all need to read this now.
Also, you all need to read "Grunts," by Mary Gentle. Admittedly, a few more people have heard of this book, mostly because I push it into their hands while bouncing up and down and shouting 'oh my god read this now for real it rocks!' It's kind of the opposite of "The Wild Roads." While that book is rich and dark and slow and magical and immersive, "Grunts" is absurd and freaky and ridiculous and bizarre and disturbing and hilarious and full of quotes like "Pass me another elf, Sergeant, this one's split." And yet in the middle of all the wacky absurdity, there's an actual story, and a good one.
And the Borderlands series, edited by Terri Windling. It is a sad, sad thing that, among urban fantasy lovers, this series is not at the tippy-top of everyone's list. It started out as a shared-world anthology by some of the most amazing fantasy authors out there, and has just kept growing, both with short story collections and full-length novels, and it keeps being good.
"Bordertown" helped shape my definition of urban fantasy, and I have yet to find anything that lived up to the images and the worlds it created. The grit and the glitter, the hope and the pain, the escapism and the realism and the rock and roll and the depth of the connections between the characters - it's a world I could imagine living in, and am always happy to vanish back into. And there's not a single vampire or shoe-and-handbag fetishist in the whole place.
So. Those are my favorite books-that-more-people-should-have-heard-of. What are yours?
Today's realization is that, while there are a lot of books and authors that almost everybody is familiar with, there are also, sadly, a lot of extraordinarily good books and authors that, for some reason, almost nobody is familiar with.
Well, not sadly, so much, because that gives those of us familiar with their work a chance to rhapsodize about it, and those not familiar with it the chance to read it for the first time and fall in love.
But for example - most people that I know have at least heard of Tolkien, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. And to a slightly lesser extent, most people have heard of Lois Bujold and the Vorkosigan Saga, George R. R. Martin and the Song of Ice and Fire series, Laurel K. Hamilton, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, Terry Pratchett, Orson Scott Card - even if people haven't read their books, you know they exist. And odds are you've read at least *something* by most of them.
At the other end of the spectrum are the novels I pick up just on a whim - the cover art is pretty, the title is intriguing, or the first sentence on the first page just captures my imagination so thoroughly that I can't leave the bookstore without it. And when I finish reading them and start enthusing about them to my friends, I realize that I am one of the only people I know who has ever read it. And this is a tragedy and a shame.
"The Wild Roads," by Gabriel King, is one of these books. I admit I bought it because I'm a fan of the talking animals urban fantasy genre and have been since I first picked up "Watership Down," but I didn't expect it to knock me on my backside as thoroughly as it did. Talking animal fantasy is usually.... well, a light read at best. I mean, talking animals. How deep or dark can you get?
But this book, and its sequel, are amazing. Dark and gritty and fascinating, and the author has a gift for language, stringing out words like rich, thick caramel as they drip from the page onto your mind, and the level of realism is astonishing, and y'all need to read this now.
Also, you all need to read "Grunts," by Mary Gentle. Admittedly, a few more people have heard of this book, mostly because I push it into their hands while bouncing up and down and shouting 'oh my god read this now for real it rocks!' It's kind of the opposite of "The Wild Roads." While that book is rich and dark and slow and magical and immersive, "Grunts" is absurd and freaky and ridiculous and bizarre and disturbing and hilarious and full of quotes like "Pass me another elf, Sergeant, this one's split." And yet in the middle of all the wacky absurdity, there's an actual story, and a good one.
And the Borderlands series, edited by Terri Windling. It is a sad, sad thing that, among urban fantasy lovers, this series is not at the tippy-top of everyone's list. It started out as a shared-world anthology by some of the most amazing fantasy authors out there, and has just kept growing, both with short story collections and full-length novels, and it keeps being good.
"Bordertown" helped shape my definition of urban fantasy, and I have yet to find anything that lived up to the images and the worlds it created. The grit and the glitter, the hope and the pain, the escapism and the realism and the rock and roll and the depth of the connections between the characters - it's a world I could imagine living in, and am always happy to vanish back into. And there's not a single vampire or shoe-and-handbag fetishist in the whole place.
So. Those are my favorite books-that-more-people-should-have-heard-of. What are yours?
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no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 06:30 pm (UTC)Charles deLint
Thanks for the recommendation for Wild Roads, I will look it up. I love Mary Gentle, but haven't caught Grunt yet, I'll put it on my wish list
no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 06:32 pm (UTC)http://www.boingboing.net/2009/07/07/bordertownborderland.html
Holly and Ellen are great writers, and I can't think of anyone I'd trust more with the series.
In terms of shared world anthologies, I can only think of one I like better than the Borderlands -- and that's Liavek. Liavek had this amazing combination of great worldbuilding, great editors (who were also heavily involved with the Borderlands) and great writers that just knocked me on my ass. Stands up -so- well to rereading, too.
Other random works. Well, in terms of YA, I haven't heard anyone else talking about _The Folk Keeper_ or _The Stones are Hatching_, but both are very good. I think _The Folk Keeper_ actually won a Mythopeic award, too; it's got a hint of regency romance combined with fairyland fantasy that really impressed me (and a number of my fellow Mythopoeic comittee members, it seems). _The Stones are Hatching_ feels -very- Dark is Rising to me; the whole "modern kid becomes involved in epic fantasy in Britain" aspect -- and is overall very well done.
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Date: 2010-02-03 06:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 06:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 07:06 pm (UTC)Favorite real-world literature more people should read, to the extent I actively push it on people: Isak Dinesen's Ehrengard.
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Date: 2010-02-03 07:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 07:22 pm (UTC)That said, I find that I'm enjoying a number of pulp/fantasy/horror/etc. anthologies; books with titles like Thrilling Tales! and Great Tales of Horror and the Supernatural. Many of these short stories are submitted by bigger names in the industry, though some are written by folks who seem to be known (and highly praised) by the compilers, but whom I have never so much as heard of. The sheer awesomeness of a handful of these stories has encouraged me to stick to anthologies, as the occasional diamonds in the rough - quite often, the stories written by the unknowns - tend to be pretty fantastic, indeed.
Also, Cherie Priest's Boneshaker was marvelous.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 07:26 pm (UTC)The other book which I cheerlead is Mr Undesirable (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mr-Undesirable-Scott-Carpenter/dp/1414038534/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265224436&sr=8-1). It's a story of Lenny Kapowski, an 'underachieving loser living above my parent's garage, drinking every night, thinking about suicide, and compulsively jerking off to cheap porn.' His words. Stuck in a rut and still smarting from being thoroughly abused by the rich people from the right side of the tracks, his life is turned around when a lottery ticket pays off and he's suddenly got more money than he knows what to do with. So he decides to do the worst thing he can think of. He decides to become their neighbour. Very funny and a joyful read, although highly crude in places.
PJW
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Date: 2010-02-04 11:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 07:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 07:43 pm (UTC)"Stations of the Tide" by Michael Swanwick
Just about anything by Guy Gavriel Kay
"Butcher Bird" by Richard Kadrey
"Last Call" and "Declare" by Tim Powers
"Chasm City" by Alastair Reynolds
The "Melusine" series by Sarah Monette
"The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl" by Tim Pratt
...for starters...
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Date: 2010-02-03 07:50 pm (UTC)Doubleplus this (the sequels less so).
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Date: 2010-02-10 02:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 08:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 10:57 pm (UTC)Ford in general is one of those "wish he was more famous" authors. He did delightfully witty stuff, and never the same sort of thing twice. (Well, he did write two Star Trek novels. But they were very different from each other, and from every other ST novel ever written. They are famous for making Paramount change the rules on what was allowable in a ST novel, so nothing that unique would ever make it through again.)
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Date: 2010-02-04 07:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-06 12:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 11:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-04 01:37 am (UTC)New author Margaret Ronald. "Spiral Hunt" came out last year. I went to the reading at last year's Boskone. The sequel "Wild Hunt" just came out. Sort of an urban fantasy meets Spenser for Hire. Female private eye, in a universe where magic works, set in the Greater Boston area. The first book was a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to reading the second. Warning: contains puns.
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Date: 2010-02-04 04:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-04 04:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-06 12:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-10 02:42 am (UTC)