Where Angels Fear To Tread . . . Or, My Top Five Fantasy Novel List

Not quite a novel, but I love it anyway

Lists are inherently exclusive.  The five books below represent what I think of as emblematic of the fantasy genre.  They're also the first books of series (since I can't in good conscience recommend some of the series as a whole.  But the first book is often outstanding.)  This list also happens to include my top five favorite fantasy books.  The rubric I used to determine this list is simple: Did I enjoy the book, and did I read it again?  A book that is fun the first time, and continues to be satisfying on a second reading is an outstanding read.  In genre fiction that is especially important since by definition fantasy fiction is also escapist.  So, if it draws you back in, it has the emotional and intellectual rigor to hold up under multiple readings.

You'll notice some books that are obviously missing, and I'm sure you'll disagree with me over why they haven't been included.  Your opinion is valid; this list is at best a value judgement on my own part, and not meant to reflect poorly on your opinions.

However, I still think Game of Thrones is just boring.

So here's the list!

5. The Dragonbone Chair -- Tad Williams.

The Dragonbone Chair might be the first major fantasy work that I ever read.  It was during the brief span when I was introduced the the genre, along with the Farseer Trilogy and the Wheel of Time.  Tad Williams is still a major voice in the genre and represents an older perspective on the fantastic.  His world is reminiscent of Tolkien -- he admits that he wrote the book as a specific response to Lord of the Rings.  But the world is uniquely his own and he thoroughly expands on themes which would eventually become tropes.

4. The Name of the Wind -- Patrick Rothfuss.

This is one of the newer authors in the fantasy tradition and though Rothfuss responds to what have become tired tropes, nevertheless remains true to the fantasy tradition in ways that other authors have not.  The protagonist is an orphan, seems destined by fate to be a hero, and is also tragically flawed.  The prose is delicious -- literary in a way that the rest simply are not.  Though the world feels vast and well imagined, that depth is also an illusion and Rothfuss's writerly chops are strained in the sequel.  Nonetheless, this first book in the series is a delight to read.

3. Golden Compass -- Philip Pullman.

It's difficult to talk about this book without discussing the series as a whole, and for that reason I almost included His Dark Materials as a whole.  But the third book veers in a much more serious direction that is far more intellectual than Compass or the second book The Subtle Knife.  Both are delightful and far more intelligent than you might expect from young adult literature -- but that might be a misunderstanding of young adult literature in general.  Certainly, we should know from Rowling and the Harry Potter series that young adults literature can expand itself the vast realms of more adult fare.  Regardless, The Golden Compass is a warm adventure filled with fantastical elements which belie its young adult protagonist.

2. Eye of the World -- Robert Jordan.

This one was tough.  It vied for top billing and it almost got it, since I happen to be rereading it right now.  As far as journey epics go, this is perhaps the foremost in the field.  Fantasy novels tend to follow the formula that Tolkien laid out: Heroes who go for walks.  But that shouldn't surprise us too much since the first fantasy novel -- The Odyssey -- has journey in its title.  Eye of the World is really about a long walk, but it's done so masterfully that it never becomes onerous the way other walking-epics do (I'm looking at you, George).  And Robert Jordan does something else that none of the other epics can boast: a fully developed cosmology.

While The Mary Sue and other feminist blogs are busy caterwauling about the lack of female perspectives in fantasy, it seems like most authors are responding by checking off a list: feisty female protagonist?  Check.  Does she have a tattoo or wear skimpy clothes so we know she's feisty?  Check.  Jordan integrates strong female characters as part of the world itself.  There's a reason for it that feels natural and integral to the plot.  And while many have (rightfully) pointed out that he writes his female characters perspectives poorly, they cannot discount their flawless integration into the world.

Finally, the sense of history in his books is unparalleled by any other author.  Save your breath fans of Steven Erikson.  He ain't got nothing on Jordan.

1. Assassin's Apprentice -- Robin Hobb.

Ultimately, Assassin's Apprentice got top billing because of its unfailing ability to make me care about every single character.  What's more, the entire series is absolutely, hands-down worth reading.  And so is the sequel series The Tawny Man trilogy.  If it came down to it, a top ten list of my favorite fantasy books would be sixty percent Robin Hobb.  The Farseer trilogy is Shakespearean in scope, and her characters are by far the richest and most real of any series.  Fans of fantasy series like to compare magic systems (think any book by Brandon Sanderson), or worldbuilding (Jordan, Erikson, George R. R. Martin) but when it comes down to it, people respond viscerally to the emotional connections they make with the characters.  Nobody makes those connections better than Hobb.  Beautiful, heart-rending, tragic and heroic.  Go read this book.



So that's my list.  What do you think?  What would you have included, or excluded?  More importantly, what are your favorite books in the fantasy genre and why?  Let me know in the comments below.

Wheel of Time

 

The Wheel of Time series is done.  Now, I know there are no ends in the Wheel of Time, this is just an end, but out here in the world where these works are read and loved, the series has reached a conclusion.  I have to say, this is a bitter-sweet moment.  Fourteen years ago I discovered Robert Jordan's immense body of work.  And when I say immense, I mean truly epic (in the literal sense of that word).  Every book is bigger than the Bible; a hardback in your book bag could stop a car.  I've seen them used to prop open blast doors.  They are incredible.  And they are engaging and fun.

My first foray into writing came about through the Wheel of Time.  I wrote fan-fiction (yeah, I'll admit it) set during the time of the Trolloc Wars.  Set a couple hundred years before the main story set in the novels, but frequently mentioned, this gave myself and small cohort that wrote with me, ample opportunity to experiment without the constraints of playing entirely in someone else's sandbox.  I wrote hundreds of thousands of words there, perhaps more, and it taught me important lessons that I've carried into my writing today.  You could say that Robert Jordan was my literary instructor, the mentor I emulated with every written word.  As the years between books dragged on, however, I became disillusioned.  I decided that what I needed to do was put the books down and wait until they had all been published so that I could read the entire series in a single orgy of reading.  But then Robert Jordan died.

I remember feeling a great loss--the sense that something great had left the world and would be left unfinished.  I knew from Jordan's comments that he had written out the entire framework of the plot in his notebooks, so the story would survive, but I couldn't imagine that the Wheel of Time would ever be completed in a way that was truly satisfying to me, as a reader.  I was reminded of J.R.R. Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings, never truly completed in his lifetime, and I feared that the Wheel of Time (which the blurb on the first book blatantly declares is the successor to Tolkien's magisterial works) would suffer the same fate.

Then, when Tor and the Jordan estate (through his wife, Harriet) announced that they had found someone to complete the series I was annoyed.  In fact, I was miffed.  How could any author have both the chutzpah and the audacity to think he could finish another author's work?  Furthermore, the guy they picked I'd never even heard of--and at that time I was steeped in the genre.  I knew all the names, all the titles, and had probably read most of them, and this new guy was simply unknown to me.  Brandon Sanderson.  It turned out he got the gig because of a letter, a eulogy really, that he'd written.  I went to his website when I heard he'd be finishing the series and I read that letter.  You can read it here.  I had something of a flabbergasm.  His sincerity, humility and good grace gave me hope that he could not only handle the series, but make it something that would astound and delight me all over again.

I've continually said that when the last book was finished, I would re-read the series.  I never really gave it much thought; I somehow suspected that it would never end.  And now it's over.  Sanderson posted today on all his social media outlets that he'd completed the last word and sent it off to the publisher.  I've got to wonder what it means to the genre to have something this immense finally completed.  It represents two decades of the genre; fantasy has come a long way since then; it's gone meta with Patrick Rothfuss, and noir with Joe Abercrombie and still continues the epic tradition with Steven Erikson's ten-book cycle, Malazan Book of the Fallen.  But Jordan was always the cornerstone.  He was the modern foundation of our fantasy genre.  And for that contribution I will always be indebted to him.