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/lit/ - Literature

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3960101 No.3960101 [Reply] [Original]

What's the best book in the fantasy genre?

>> No.3960109

the odyssey

>> No.3960108

I'm not gonna say The Book of the New Sun because /lit/ always says it's science fiction so I say Perdido Street Station.

>> No.3960112

>genre fiction
Go back to >>>/tv/

>> No.3960111

The Hobbit.

I'd say The Lord of the Rings, but I'm a big manchild who can't handle all that lore. Which is strange because all I did in Morrowind was read the tax notices and history books.

>> No.3960113

The Communist Manifesto

>> No.3960118

Titus Groan

>> No.3960121

>>3960112
Being in a genre doesn't necessarily make a book genre fiction. Genre fiction is by-the-numbers stuff that has no distinguishing features other than its genre's.

>> No.3960135

>>3960118

Gormenghast > Titus Groan

>> No.3960139

Why is /lit/ always too stubborn to give the correct responses?
Is it because they're mainstream?

Not even going to post any examples, because you know what they all are.

>> No.3960151
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3960151

>>3960139
Wheel of Time, In the Name of the Wind, the list could go on

>> No.3960161

Anything Terry Prachett

>> No.3960183
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3960183

>>3960108

it's not science fiction?

>> No.3960187

>>3960139
>Song of Solomon
>James and The Giant Peach
>Cities of the Red Night
>M/F
>At Swim-Two-Birds

>> No.3960189

fellowship of the ring

>> No.3960200

It's Lord of the Rings. I know it's the most famous fantasy book, but it's also at least as good as anything else in the genre, and far better than most of it. One of the few things in the genre that is unambiguously, clearly great - not just good, or entertaining, or interesting, or beautiful, but great. And also probably the most influential fantasy book ever written (even if a lot of the things that it's influenced have been mediocre or bad).

I think there's some other answers that you could argue for - I would mention Wolfe, Lafferty, Crowley, Dunsany - but at the end of the day, for me, it all comes back to Tolkien.

>> No.3960225

>>3960200
I remember listening to an RPG podcast where one of the guys said that The Lord of the Rings was the last original fantasy book, and everyone else has just written sequels.
He was being tongue-in-cheek and obviously there's a lot of folklore before LotR (including some that Tolkien unfairly gets credit for), but he made a good point.

Though frankly most "anti"-LotR fantasy fiction is awful. It tries so hard to be different that it's no longer enjoyable. But sometimes it works. Even if you're not into role-playing games, I recommend that fantasy fans should read the Exalted sourcebooks. It was an RPG written to avoid the usual Tolkien/Western fantasy stuff (elves and magic missiles) but it's still definitely a fantasy setting, just with its own style.

>> No.3960230
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3960230

I think fantasy is more subjective than other genre's. I think it relies more on hitting the readers subconscious desires than on things like suspense, so it's more difficult to compare books with other readers.

>> No.3960241

What's the point of fantasy?

Classic sci-fi generally explored philosophical or contemporary issues. Stories might have been about robots and spaceships on the surface, but really they were about what it means to be human, or how the Cold War might pan out.

Is fantasy supposed to be similar? There were a few parallels in The Lord of the Rings to World War II, but I wasn't really feeling it.

>> No.3960252

>>3960225
>I remember listening to an RPG podcast where one of the guys said that The Lord of the Rings was the last original fantasy book, and everyone else has just written sequels.

The thing is, that's not true at all, and the only reason anyone can say it is because fantasy is the weirdest fucking genre, where almost everyone who reads it essentially just agrees to ignore anything that's not a very specific, generic, multi-volume style of fantasy - and if you're just talking about that style of fantasy, yes, everything else is just writing sequels to LotR, because that style of fantasy literally comes out of an explicit attempt to recreate the publishing success of LotR (see: Lester Del Rey and The Sword of Shannara).

But the thing is that it's not the only kind of fantasy out there, and saying something like that, or choosing to look at that style of fantasy as the only kind of fantasy as so many do, is just a totally inaccurate look at reality. It's a picture of fantasy that completely ignores Gene Wolfe, Jack Vance, John Crowley, James Blaylock, Patricia McKillip, Mervyn Peake, and scores of other people - it can't account for them. It completely ignores pulp fantasy and swords-and-sorcery, which pretty much comes from a totally different lineage than Tolkien - it ignores Robert Howard and Fritz Leiber and that means that it subsequently has to ignore Michael Moorcock and M John Harrison. And there's more besides, that's just off the top of my head.

To give credence to that historical worldview, you have to ignore all these examples of people writing fantasy - often great fantasy - which patently doesn't fall into the "Tolkien, then everyone else writes Tolkienate fantasy" narrative. It fucking boggles the mind that people would be able to do that, but somehow that's the view of fantasy that prevails with most people. It's baffling.

>> No.3960263

>>3960241
Read The Hero with a Thousand Faces

>>3960225
Tolkien was far from original, he has been accused of plagiarising other authors as well as heavily borrowing from the Edda's and Beowulf.

>> No.3960266

>>3960263
>Tolkien was far from original, he has been accused of plagiarising other authors as well as heavily borrowing from the Edda's and Beowulf.

lol @ you. he was referencing from the eddas and beowulf, using them as the model to create a new, original work. saying that tolkien was unoriginal for using them is like saying Ezra Pound was unoriginal for drawing from the vast array of sources that he used to create his poetry.

>> No.3960278

>>3960151
Both of those are shit.

>> No.3960279

>>3960161
I'd recommend starting with Guards! Guards!

>> No.3960283
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3960283

>>3960113

>> No.3960284

>>3960252
That's fair enough.

It's not a stance I fully agree with, but there is a lot of "let's do The Lord of the Rings but in 200 pages" fantasy out there--including swords and sorcery stuff, which I often feel is missing the point of what made The Lord of the Rings interesting.

However, it's not all like that. There are a lot of good fantasy books because fantasy is a genre where you can pretty much do whatever the fuck you like. But the big problem I have with a lot of fantasy is that if it's not trying to copy The Lord of the Rings, it's trying too hard _not_ to be The Lord of the Rings. You're allowed the best of both worlds--you can have tall elves AND aliens. Go nuts, it's what makes fantasy so fun to read.

>> No.3960285

>>3960266
referencing/borrowing - what's the difference? it's no more original than the books that are accused of being sequels.

>> No.3960287

>>3960263
>Read The Hero with a Thousand Faces

I did a few years ago. It was a pretty interesting read, but I don't see what you're getting at.

Though I do think fantasy stories can have real-world connotations. Aesop's Fables are a good example.

>> No.3960288

>>3960285
As long as you're willing to damn Virgil, Dante, Pound, Eliot, and legions upon legions of others along with Dante, we're all good.

>> No.3960291

>>3960288
Along with Tolkien rather.

>> No.3960294

>>3960263
>Tolkien was far from original, he has been accused of plagiarising other authors as well as heavily borrowing from the Edda's and Beowulf.

He totally stole the whole "Ring" idea from Richard Wagner. What a hack!

>> No.3960297

>>3960294
Especially after Richard Wagner invented it totally from scratch without using any source material ever

The concept of rings, copyright Richard Wagner, DO NOT STEAL

>> No.3960299

>>3960285
He referenced them inasmuch to have a basic framework to create a non Greeco-Roman epic. He created the Lord of the Rings to be the modern day equivalent to what could have been an epic from the British Isles' dark ages/classical era. Unfortunately, the Picts were too busy being killed by the Romans, Saxons, Angles, Danes, and (much later) Normans to make an literary epic. Had they the time to do so, I don't believe Lord of the Rings would exist.

>> No.3960303

>>3960299
What about the Mabinogion?

>> No.3960305

>>3960299
Should say the natives got killed off by the Romans and Saxons (and Angles), who in turn were being killed off by Danes and Normans. Britain's history is bloody as hell.

>> No.3960307

>>3960303
>Mabinogion
That's Welsh, not British.

>> No.3960311

>>3960305
And people have the gall to hate those wacky Indians, Pakistanis, and Poles.

>>3960307
What if I told you Wales is part of Britain? Would that blow your mind?

>> No.3960312

>>3960288
>>3960294
I'm not trying to damn Tolkien, I'm trying to defend the authors that wrote similar stories. Why should he be held up to stand above others when he was no great source of ingenuity?

>> No.3960315

>>3960312
Because his books were better.

>> No.3960316

>>3960311
It's part of the the UK, yes. The Welsh have a distinctly separate pre-Iron Age history from the original inhabitants of England.

>> No.3960318

>>3960108

I just picked Perdido Street Station the other day based on some guys recommendation. He wrote a review for Lord of the Rings on Goodreads and linked his website where he lists his favorite fantasy books. Like books that came out the same time as Lord of the Rings and dealt with similar things. He was a self described connoisseur of fantasy.

Im really excited to start it.

>> No.3960320
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3960320

Anyone read this? Heard good things.

>> No.3960322

>>3960312
To be fair when you say he borrowed from Beowulf he did also revolutionize how the world understands Beowulf. Tolkien accidentally created a hugely popular genre.

>> No.3960332

>>3960322
As I understand it, Tolkien pretty much single-handedly made Beowulf a part of the canon.

>> No.3960339

>>3960322
The Hobbit was published in 1937. The first Conan the Barbarian story was published in 1932. He is not responsible for the creation of the genre.

>> No.3960343

>>3960316
It's part of (Great) Britain, an island made up of England, Scotland, and Wales.

If >>3960305 meant England and not Britain, that's fair enough. But most forces that took over England also tried to conquer Scotland and Wales. We've had some hard times over the years.

>> No.3960350

Tolkien's Edda influence is more of a tribute to the Edda than plagiarism.

>> No.3960358

>>3960339
And modern fairy stories date back centuries before that. Myths, millennia.

Nobody says that Tolkien invented fantasy, but he did start the specific genre of high fantasy that most people think of today.

>> No.3960367

Star Trek invented science fiction.

>> No.3960366

>>3960358
He didn't mean to do it, either. I wonder what would be different had he not.

>> No.3960371

>>3960339
>1932

And Dunsany published Gods of Pegana in 1905, and William Morris published Well at World's End in 1896... I don't know why you choose Conan to make your point. Those kinds of pulp magazine tales were just adventure stores with an alluring coat of paint. I'm not sure they should even be considered fantasy.

>> No.3960379
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3960379

What does /lit/ think of this fat Slav?

>> No.3960385

>>3960379
take your mulleted racism back to >>>/pol/

>> No.3960386

>>3960385
Don't you dare start this shit. I'm only joking.

>> No.3960400

>>3960385
He's fat and he's a Slav.
Take your righteousness back to the classroom.

>>3960379
Solid escapism.

>> No.3960406

>>3960112
>being an elitist without having the good taste to justify being one
>>>/mu/
fucking newfag.
Also the answer is Gormenghast

>> No.3960425
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3960425

>>3960315
as if!

Now, for starters you could read the "Neverending Story" (inb4 children's book/the movie sucks) and then you should be good to go.

>> No.3960433

>>3960332
It had been considered a great philological source by scholar long before Tolkien, but ol'J.R. is the guy who got the scholars into appreciating Beowulf as a literary work and not only an interesting document.

>> No.3960438
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3960438

>>3960230
>genre's

>> No.3960443

>>3960438
What's wrong with that? Greengrocer's do it all the time.

>> No.3960448

>>3960385
/lit/ SOCIAL JUSTICE! He was just joking, you sperg. I suggest you leave 4chan if you can't handle stuff like this without crying.

>> No.3960623

>>3960241
It's called fun, you snobby pseudointellectual faget

>> No.3960634
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3960634

Steppenwolfe

>> No.3960704

>>3960386
>implying we'll allow you to make racist jokes on /lit/

>> No.3960711

Robin Hobbes