Fantasy Literature Poll - Group K

[Ocicat]

Raise your hand if you're surprised that Tolkien won the last poll.  Anyone?  No?  Didn't think so.  The second place prize was hotly contested though!  The City & the City took an early and surprising lead (not because it's not awesome, just because new books don't tend to do well in these polls).  Book of the New Sun came up right behind that, then On a Pale Horse made a big gallop forward.  Finally, Thomas Covenant pushed forward past both of them, tying The City & the City for second.  Both books will be put in the second place runoff along with The Jungle Book, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIHM, The Crystal Cave, and maybe more from this or future polls.

So what do we have this week?  Well, one of the biggest and most popular series of fantasy ever published, more D&D spinoff novels, the master of horror doing dark fantasy,  one of the first fantasy series to follow in JRR Tolkien's footsteps, a retelling of Robin Hood set in 11th century Wales, children questing in Avalon, the magical world beyond Westland, and the Faerie world beyond Wall.  It's the penultimate poll of the first round!

Isn't penultimate a great word?

[Fenrix]

I predict a Gaiman win. With a cross dressing pirate (brilliantly depicted by Deniro) helping to push him over the finish line.

[Ocicat]

I predict a Gaiman win. With a cross dressing pirate (brilliantly depicted by Deniro) helping to push him over the finish line.

Gaiman hasn't lost yet, so it's a pretty safe bet.

But I'll note that the cross dressing pirate wasn't really in the book.  Though plenty of great stuff missing from the movie was.

[DKT]

Just out of curiousity: I'm guessing somebody's read Lawhead's Hood? And really liked it?

I like the Robin Hood mythos and would be interested in checking it out (heh. In the distant future, from the looks of my TBR piles). That said, I thought Byzantium was pretty fun but never made it past Taliesin in his Pendragon/Arthurian stuff.

So, if someone out there loved Hood, I'd like to hear more

[Ocicat]

I've read Hood and the rest of the trilogy, and they're fantastic.  And yes, Taliesin sucked.  My first exposure to Lawhead was Byzantium as well, and I loved it.  Hood is a little more fantasy, but still well grounded in reality.  There is an old witch woman who gives the occasional prophecy and likes to tell tales of the old Welsh heroes.  And there's a lot of larger than life action.

The plot itself is only sort of Robin Hood.  It's supposed to be the events that gave rise to the legend, not a retelling of the legend itself.  Most the major characters are there in one form or another, but the events are quite different.  There's this whole "King Raven" scam the outlaws have going, which is fun but doesn't feel much like Robin Hood. 

The feeling of place and history is excellent though, it certainly wins as a piece of historical fiction.  It works as an adventure yarn too, but where it really shines is the political intrigues.  The villains get a lot of face time, with lots of deals and betrayals going on.

[DKT]

Excellent - seems like we had a similar reaction to his other stuff. I'll mentally add Hood to my TBR/On-the-lookout-for pile.

Did the Arthur stuff get any better? Or did you stop at Taliesin, too? I guess he wrote that book much earlier in his career than Byzantium, but eck. I was bored through so much of it. I thought Byzantium was great fun, though.

[kibitzer]

Ha! Have not read even one of these.

O hang on -- I think I did read the Terry Goodkind one. It just underlined for me how samey and formulaic fantasy can be.

[DKT]

I read the first Goodkind when I was in high school and enjoyed it. I tried reading another two or so and...not so much 

[Ocicat]

Did the Arthur stuff get any better? Or did you stop at Taliesin, too? I guess he wrote that book much earlier in his career than Byzantium, but eck. I was bored through so much of it. I thought Byzantium was great fun, though.

I stopped 2/3rds of the way through Taliesin.  I was horribly bored, and just about to put it down, so I went online and read some spoilers.  The direction the story was going didn't make me want to finish the book or read the rest of the Arthur series.  Which is a shame because I like Arthurian fiction, have a fondness for the myth of Taliesin, and knew that Cornwall could be a great author (I'd already read Hood as well as Byzantium).  But ya, Taliesin was his early work.

[Swamp]

Dragonlance and Wheel of Time (up to around book 5) were my main introduction to "adult" fantasy or high fantasy books.  I've branched out since then, but these still have a tender spot in my heart.

[Ocicat]

Currently a three way tie for second place...