{"id":13245,"date":"2015-03-05T20:24:19","date_gmt":"2015-03-06T01:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/?p=13245"},"modified":"2015-03-06T08:30:59","modified_gmt":"2015-03-06T13:30:59","slug":"further-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/further-reading\/","title":{"rendered":"Further reading"},"content":{"rendered":"

Someone at Ricochet requested “Fantasy Reading Suggestions<\/a>.” The recommendations thus far have been disappointing. In the 103 comments I perused, Gene Wolfe, in my opinion the best living writer in English, is mentioned only once, his name misspelled. Others whom I consider essential have not been mentioned at all. For what it’s worth, here is some fantasy that has been overlooked so far there.<\/p>\n

Gene Wolfe: Soldier of the Mist<\/b><\/i>, at the very least, and The Sorcerer’s House<\/b><\/i>. Read Wolfe carefully; every word counts, and nothing is as simple as it may at first seem. (Incidentally, Josh W. is working his way through The Book of the New Sun<\/em><\/strong>, one chapter at a time. It should keep him busy for several years. The most recent installment is here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Diana Wynne Jones: Pretty much everything she ever wrote is worth reading, so I’ll just name a few favorites. Howl’s Moving Castle<\/b><\/i> (vastly better than the movie); Dogsbody<\/b><\/i>; The Homeward Bounders<\/b><\/i>; Fire and Hemlock<\/b><\/i>; The Tough Guide to Fantasyland<\/b><\/i>.<\/p>\n

John Bellairs: The Face in the Frost<\/b><\/i> and The Pedant and the Shuffly<\/b><\/i>. (Bellairs also wrote St. Fidgeta and Other Parodies<\/b><\/i>, which isn’t fantasy but is very funny, particularly if you are a Catholic who survived the silly years after Vatican II.)<\/p>\n

Lord Dunsany: Any collection of his short stories.<\/p>\n

J.R.R. Tolkien: He wrote more than just the novels Peter Jackson trashed. Farmer Giles of Ham<\/b><\/i>, Smith of Wootton Major<\/b><\/i> and Leaf by Niggle<\/b><\/i> are all worth tracking down.<\/p>\n

Tim Powers: I have yet to read a disappointing book by Powers. The Anubis Gates<\/b><\/i> is particularly recommended to English majors, and Declare<\/b><\/i> to those who wonder why the Soviet Union lasted as long as it did.<\/p>\n

C.S. Lewis: Till We Have Faces<\/b><\/i>. The only fiction by Lewis I’ve ever re-read.<\/p>\n

Charles Williams: Descent into Hell<\/b><\/i>. Williams was one of the other Inklings, and his influence is perceptible in Tim Powers’ writing.<\/p>\n

Flann O’Brien: The Third Policeman<\/b><\/i>. Is it about a bicycle?<\/p>\n

R.A. Lafferty: Anything and everything you can find. Much of his output is nominally science fiction, but it’s SF unlike any other and I don’t hesitate to call him a great fantasist.<\/p>\n

G.K. Chesterton: The Man Who Was Thursday<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

… and probably much else I’ll think of later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Someone at Ricochet requested “Fantasy Reading Suggestions.” The recommendations thus far have been disappointing. In the 103 comments I perused, Gene Wolfe, in my opinion the best living writer in English, is mentioned only once, his name misspelled. Others whom I consider essential have not been mentioned at all. For what it’s worth, here is … Continue reading “Further reading”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xam3-3rD","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13245"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13252,"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13245\/revisions\/13252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}