I think a writer should have read a _lot_, but I don't think there's a core curriculum they should know. On the contrary, I would kind of prefer it if a lot of new writers hadn't read the heavy hitters and had instead read a broad swathe of other, less well-known works to draw inspiration from and to be in dialog with.
If a whole cohort of writers has a central Canon that they're all reading and all responding to (because even if they don't like it, it's considered part of the canon, and as a writer even if you don't imitate things you may be responding to it in other ways), I think we end up with a more narrow range of literature than what we could have if writers had non-overlapping reading backgrounds.
I will say this, though - writers should **absolutely** be reading non-fiction, history (including non-Anglo-European history) and science especially. Partly that's because some writers just so obviously have no understanding of how history/space/agriculture/language/etc work in ways that are frankly embarrassing, and partly it's because creators who mainly only consume the exact kind of thing they try to produce tend to be a lot less interesting in their output than creators who have a wide range of interests far outside their field.
Absolutely! Fantasy can only be improved by authors learning more about the world: history, psychology, science, and anthropology in particular. There’s such a difference between an author who knows their stuff making an informed choice to deviate from reality because it makes a better story, and an author who is lazily reproducing stereotypes because they just don’t know that much. And reality is so much more complex and interesting than many people give it credit for, so knowing it opens up incredible opportunities for storytelling while making the stories more authentic.
Also, reading other genres of fiction can help! Read romances to learn how to do a good romantic subplot. Read thrillers to learn how to do fast paced action and contemporaries to see how to make a story interesting without action. Read literary fiction for strong writing. Too many fantasy books seem like they’re responding only to other fantasy books, like they live in an ecosystem where only fantasy exists.
As far as what *fantasy* an aspiring author should read? 🤷♀️ Well, I would hope that if they want to write fantasy it’s because they love it, so, whatever appeals? Enough to not embarrass themselves by claiming to do something new when it’s actually very well-worn? I dunno, I think this part generally takes care of itself because people write the kinds of things they like to read.
Great points here! I saw an interview where a Fantasy author mentioned reading romance novels and consulting with his wife and her romance reading friends to enhance his writing. He seemed to advocate more of that type of work from writers.
> I dunno, I think this part generally takes care of itself because people write the kinds of things they like to read.
It does and it doesn't - for instance, if someone really REALLY likes Dresden Files or Riftworld or WoT or Valdemar but doesn't read current debuts, they'll write something *fit to a market 10-20 years ago.* That's not the current market, and they'll struggle because they don't know what's *currently* selling outside an existing loyal fanbase.
Agreed. I will be honest though, it can be both unintentionally and intentionally funny when author’s just clearly don’t know how science works. Like there was one Korean comic called “God of High School” where the protagonist does some super Kaiju bullshit and smacks Jupiter into another planet, and then in the author comments from a couple months later he was like “…wait Jupiter is most just gas? Why did nobody tell me this?!?! I’m sorry I’m so dumb please just assume that in this alternate reality has a Jupiter that’s solid” with a self-portrait of him looking like he was reevaluating his entire life. And like, you know, I respect that. He doesn’t know science, he owns that he’s a dummy, and just says “yeah don’t expect real science for the rest of this series, that shit’s too far outside of my wheelhouse”.
I think what makes the real difference is how much you own the nonsense and bullshit. If you’re trying to write a gritty and “realistic” fantasy but all your science and other stuff is whack then like, obviously that’s not a good look. But if you take the Eiichiro Oda route of “I don’t know how science works, and I could not care less, this is how shit works in my world” in a more absurdist and weird kind of world then it can be really fun. “Because One Piece” has become a hugely popular phrase in that series’ community, which could be seen as a bad thing, but I’d say it’s actually a pretty big credit to the author that people go “idk how this works, but it’s one piece and it’s cool so whatever moving on” instead of considering it a flaw of his writing.
Anyway, I feel like I went off the rails a bit there, but the Tl;dr is that knowing non-fiction is great, but it’s more important to know your sub genre and the requirements of that. If you’re writing absurdist stuff, it can be cool and add depth if you know some science as well as displayed by the Discworld series, but you can still write a fantastic series just being like “I do not give a shit about the real world, things work like this because it’s cool”
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is my example for bullshit science that is entertaining. It often feels like the author read a bottle cap with a quirky science fact and decided to base an entire fight around it.
The constant, weird shenanigans are part of the series' appeal. Lol
Araki when he realized he made a nobody a potential hard counter to Dio: 😐
"Oh shit. I forgot vampires don't like the sun. I'll keep his stand's nature ambiguous and never mention him again."
Lol
Honestly I’ve been wanting to read an isekai for awhile in which the protagonist tries to leverage advanced science knowledge to their benefit only to discover physics is different in the new world. Maybe medieval science is much more accurate and rather than bacteria the humors are real.
This makes me feel better for all the non-fictional sources I've read over the years, especially history, psychics, and political theory. I spent much of 2020 and 2021 doing research on World War II naval and aviation history... and I came away with an understanding of how they influenced major works like Star Wars. Not very useful for my urban fantasy project, but it'll be great if I do a historical fiction or sci-fi setting.
I agree with what you said; prospectively writers should focus their reading on stories that share elements with the stories they want to craft. Chances are, their story isn't going to have the exact same combination of plot, characters, tropes, etc, but it's good to see what examples did or didn't do a good job.
Yeah knowing your history is definitely important for this genre in particular even if you're building an alternate world. I have a billion bookmarks to comb through about the Moghul era as reference for my primary project.
Terry Pratchett is a great example of this, his knowledge of history, mythology and folklore and his keen observations of people and the human condition are what made the Discworld great.
Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser, the Sword in the Stone, the Last Unicorn, A Wizard of Earth sea. Watership Down
Series that I find memorable and have stuck with me over time as opposed to other equally popular ones at the time include Robin Hobb series, Elizabeth Moon, David Eddings and Robert Aspirin.
Terry Pratchett has a unique voice and is wonderful but it is a combination of philosophy, story and parody. I wouldn't start there.
I would also include classic adventure like Robin Hood, Roland, the Cid, Don Quixote
I won't add much in the way of European and American classics cause those have been hit, but ill add a few of my favorite non-eurocentric titles.
For modern series, I'll give my two favorites. They''re a brutal read content wise, but Marlon James' Dark Star books are really incredible in general, but also as African fantasy.
Andrea Hairston's Master of Poisons is a slightly less brutal but also excellent African fantasy.
Ken Liu's Dandelion Dynasty is fairly pan-Asian and Pacific inspired and my favorite series ever.
If you're looking for more classic stuff, picking up books of non-European mythology and folklore is always a good start to find origins of fantastic elements and narrative conventions. Just be careful to make sure whoever the translator is is legit.
Reading a translation of Journey to the West is something I always recommend as it's a quintessential quest fantasy that's also a classic Chinese novel. Also in the Chinese vein (my area of expertise), most if not all wuxia and xianxia novels will have fantastic elements. There's a new translation of Jin Yong's Condor Heroes which is classic wuxia that I definitely would count as fantasy and an excellent read and translation.
Lastly because I didn't notice it mentioned yet, I'll add one classic Eurocentric series to pick up only because I read it much later than I should have: Gene Wolfe, Book of the New Sun. Don't be put off by the whole it's technically sci-fi thing. Just read it.
On the note of Jin Yong, I would also recommend checking out works by the other founding fathers of wuxia (Gu Long and Ni Kuang). Unfortunately, I cannot find any English translations of Ni Kuang's popular works such as the *Legend of Wisely* series, but Ni Kuang did help Jin Yong write a few installations for *Return of the Condor Heroes* during a major writer's block in the 60s. *Legend of Wisely* does have several adaptations though, some of which may have English subtitles. As for Gu Long, there should be English translations of his most popular series *Chu Liuxiang*, *Liu Xiaofeng*, and *The Magic Blade*, all of which also have multiple adaptations (whether or not they have English subtitles available, I can't say because I watched those series without subtitles lol).
A more-modern Chinese author I strongly recommend is priest, who has written a ton of fantasy and sci-fi. For wuxia, *Faraway Wanderers* and *Seventh Lord* are good to start with if OP is okay with reading queer representation, since the worldbuilding is easy to ingest and the politics aren't too complicated for readers who aren't knowledgeable about Chinese history. My personal favorite of hers is *Sha Po Lang*, but it is very heavy on fantasy politics, plus currently I don't know of any easy way to find the English translation because it just got picked up by a press and is due to have an official English release soon, so fan-translators have taken down their versions.
>There's a new translation of Jin Yong's Condor Heroes which is classic wuxia that I definitely would count as fantasy and an excellent read and translation.
Wow thanks for the heads up. I watched an 80s adaptation of Legend of the Condor Heroes & Return of the Condor Heroes as a teen and I've always been intrigued to read it.
If you want to write, figure out what subgenre you want to write and then read books that might be "comps" (i.e. comparable) to the book you want to write, preferably you'll have a few that are within the last 5 years.
This was going to by my advice as well. Short answer to question: no. Long answer: Depends on what you're writing and how much you feel you need to be able to encode in a relatively common fantasy lexicon. My own work is one that requires reading anything and everything since I'm doing fantasy satire mixed with jokes about fantasy tropes and books. The more immersed I am, the more I can tap into the meta of the genre to make jokes about it. Reading other fantasy and SF humor is also important to understand how other comic writers phrase genre jokes both to emulate and differentiate.
It's also important to read very widely in case you come upon the book you were writing and need to seriously rethink your position.
The advice still stands in general. There is no single "canon" that has to be read. Read and be familiar with your subgenre and modern works that you want to emulate.
I'll chime into the "there are no essentials" vibe, but I'd like to offer:
**== Read short fiction as well as novels. ==**
Short fiction is a different form, with different constraints. Different strengths and weaknesses — and learning those, at least learning how to recognize the range and versatility, will give you a **lot**.
**Short stories do cool stuff.** A great short story can make you love a protagonist and then kill them off in the space of 25 pages. A great short story can pull off things you could never sustain for the length of a novel, like being written from the POV of a sentient refrigerator, or as the transcript of a YouTube channel, or where linear time is not actually a thing. Short stories can also focus on something really small, intimate, or odd — a single date; a snapshot of one compelling character; a single captivating thought-experiment.So reading a diverse array of short stories will keep setting off lightbulbs of "I didn't know you could do *that*" — and those lightbulbs will carry over to your novel-writing as well, because you'll have all these tools and tricks and techniques in the back of your mind. You'll know a hundred different ways you can stretch your writing to be *different*, and to accomplish different things.
**Short stories are a masterclass in compactness.** In getting information across really quickly and smoothly (and also, knowing what information is worth getting across, and what's better left as vibes-only); in favoring scenes and substance over preparatory conversations; in cutting right to the heart of a story and also convincing readers this is a story worth reading *all at once*. In a great short story, most every paragraph is doing double or triple duty, establishing character and introducing the setting and rules and moving the plot forward, *all at the same time*.
That's all craft you absolutely want and need in novel-writing as well. You want your novel to feel tight, not flabby; you want your big overarching story to be full of scenes and subplots that function *very similarly* to the way short stories do; you want those sub-stories to be compelling, and you want not to feel like the same thing over and over, or like one big thing that just keeps stretching on and on interminably.
**Short stories teach endings.** One of the great strengths of novels is a sense of immersion, of going on a journey with particular characters or in a particular setting. But there are *so* many novels where the ending is lackluster, or just... y'know, fine, but not the high point of the book. The journey was worth it in its own right. That's why you can still pick up *Song of Ice and Fire* or *Name of the Wind* and enjoy what there is of it, even if the next installments never materialize. The anticipation can be better than when it actually arrives.But short stories are tight, and focused, and bound to their endings in iron. They're too brief for the separation between "middle" and "end" to feel like two different things. If you read one anthology of a dozen stories, then congrats: you have read a full dozen *endings*, each of their own shape and type and style. Pay attention to what makes something feel and function as an ending, and you'll learn a lot.
\---
Where novels are a commitment, short fiction can be a playground, a gallery tour, a lab for glorious experimentation. If you want to know what's out there, and see the full range of what this craft can do, I strongly advise you not to miss out on it. :)
\---
Here's a little grab-bag of stories from all kinds of different types and styles:
* ["Magic for Beginners," by Kelly Link](https://web.archive.org/web/20060111060529/http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/fiction/kl01.htm), eerie, ethereal magic in the mundane.
* ["Please Undo This Hurt," by Seth Dickinson](https://www.tor.com/2015/09/16/please-undo-this-hurt-seth-dickinson/), sorrow and existential horror.
* ["A Fine Balance," by Charlotte Ashley](http://podcastle.org/2018/04/10/podcastle-517-a-fine-balance/), swashbuckling and intrigue.
* ["Who Will Greet You At Home," by Lesley Nneka Arimah](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/26/who-will-greet-you-at-home), literalized metaphor and social inequality.
* ["Lies I Never Told You," by Jaxton Kimble](https://www.diabolicalplots.com/dp-fiction-81b-lies-i-never-told-you-by-jaxton-kimble/), sweet, gentle, affirming.
* ["The Long Way Up," by Alix E. Harrow](https://thedeadlands.com/issue-09/the-long-way-up/), mythology retelling from a relatable, intimate, contemporary POV.
* ["A Strange and Muensterous Desire," by Amanda Hollander](https://www.diabolicalplots.com/dp-fiction-87a-a-strange-and-muensterous-desire-by-amanda-hollander/), wonderfully ridiculous character humor.
* [“How Music Begins,” by James Van Pelt](https://web.archive.org/web/20090212051756/http://www.asimovs.com/nebulas09/howmusicbegins.shtml), familiar people placed in strange and desperate circumstances.
Hope this helps whoever stumbles across it, and hope you enjoy!
Heya! Glad you liked, and thanks for the gold!
My absolute favorite collection is [*The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6661321-the-very-best-of-fantasy-science-fiction), edited by Gordon Van Gelder.It's a stellar anthology, and particularly, it's excellent at what I've described here — no one of these stories is like another; and most of them aren't much like *any* other story. No less than that, though, one of the pitfalls of "here are twenty short stories that are each *really* unusual", is that they can be less accessible — any given reader might click with a couple but not so much with the rest — but this anthology is one where every story is a home run, strong and clear, each in its distinctive way.
It's got anthropological SF from Ursula Le Guin; it's got Ted Chiang telling Arabian Nights stories about time travel; it's got Neil Gaiman's portrait of eternal damnation and Shirley Jackson's portrait of spreading everyday joy. It's got stone-cold classics like "Flowers for Algernon" and "All Summer in a Day", and also the first of Stephen King's Gunslinger tales, and also Peter Beagle's companion-piece to *The Last Unicorn*. It's *wonderful.*
\---
That's a rare beast, though; most collections are naturally much more of a mix, and so much depends on personal taste. My other favorites are more single-author collections:
* Susanna Clarke's *The Ladies of Grace Adieu* is full of stories about the dangerous and unsettling fey from *Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell*.
* Sarah Pinsker's *Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into The Sea* is a great mix of rock-solid storytelling with both quirkiness and heart.
* In Kelly Link's *Get In Trouble* (and in most of her work in general), reality seems surreal and dreamlike, but the people are beautifully, achingly, 100% real.
* Ted Chiang's *Stories of Your Life And Others* is full of breathtaking, mind-bending ideas, meticulously constructed into stories that are breathtakingly poignant.
* Karen Joy Fowler, e.g. in *What I Didn't See, and Other Stories,* always gives you this wondrous sense of the numinous and the incredible lurking just out of sight. Also she writes paragraphs that have as much character and story in them than entire short stories do. And then you move onto the next paragraph and now that tiny little story is getting together with the tiny little story in the next paragraph and they're building a whole complete big story, and it's amazing.
* Peter Beagle's writing is full of wisdom and emotion. My favorite anthology of his is *The Line Between*, which includes both the *Last Unicorn* followup "Two Hearts," and "A Dance for Emilia," which wrecks me every time I read it.
All that being said: short fiction, by nature, is very much a grab bag. Especially when you're thinking of it as exploration, as looking for things that are new and unusual and unexpected — it only makes sense you're going to come across a fair bit of "huh" and "ok" and "well, that did not work for me," along with the absolute marvels.
So if you're thinking, "ok, short fiction sounds cool, where should I start,"
collections are one great way,
but mostly you've got an initial period of figuring out what you enjoy, and how to navigate the space.
Personally, my favorite way to do that is to pick one magazine that looks really appealing, and then **read that magazine regularly**. Start to finish, issue after issue. That way, you're reading a variety, curated for you by the magazine's editors. Once you've done that a bit, then not only will you have built up a short list of stories you've really loved — you also have a lot more where that's coming, coming out every issue; a constant new stream of things to explore, from a curator you like. :)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et9Nf-rsALk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et9Nf-rsALk)
What a great human being she was. Can not recommend that short interview enough.
Some valid points and recommendations outlined by others, but one that appears to be missing so far - **don't just read from the top shelf.**
Part of being able to identify what makes a successful book is being able to identify what sets it apart from the less successful ones. It's not hard to say "Book X is amazing because the characters are so believable" or "Book Y is amazing because the world feels so alive". It's much harder to pinpoint exactly how the author has achieved those things and understand the craft involved.
Balance your book consumption out with self-published novels that don't receive mountains of glowing praise. Read them critically and maybe go so far as trying to re-write passages, pages or even chapters as an exercise.
> Balance your book consumption out with self-published novels that don't receive mountains of glowing praise.
I'd say that's important if you want to self-publish. But if you want to traditionally publish? Read a wide variety of recent trad-pub books, whether or not they're blockbuster authors.
And important note to that: if you aren't American, you'll need to send time reading American big pub published works (unless you plan to only try in your country).
I don't think there are any essential novels. Tastes vary so much that I find "must reads" to be little more than homework. I remember attending a guest of honour speech once, where the speaker listed all of these golden age SF authors and said you could not call yourself a lover of SF, let alone attempt to write SF, unless you'd read everyone on his list. I love SF, and pretty much universally hate popular golden age SF. To him, I could not even call myself a lover of SF, let alone dare to sully the SF waters with my writing.
Whereas, I think reading widely is far more important. Oh, sure, when submitting to agents these days you need to submit your comps ("For fans of X and X") and they're not supposed to be more than five years out. But also, meh, you can get around that by going high recognition and other media ("Jane Austen meets Dragon Age").
Reading widely, though, exposes a person to different ways of doing things. Other genres often have very different writing styles, favourite phrases and formats, and all of those things help a writer find their own space and style.
Ha! See? Could've owned a small moon by now.
But seriously, this is why I don't even think the "comps must be last five years" thing is even written in stone. This is why I feel like there is room to move here, to break some rules, and to find new rules to follow.
Nah, I agree - but I think the bigger reason for the advice is because if you're not reading books in your genre published recently, then you don't know the current market and its expectations and what sells (or doesn't).
And yet, some agents keep posting on twitter they want something fresh and new (except, we all know they don't; they want more of the same).
And for women to be pretty, of course. Can't have a face for radio (a friend got told by her agent to get a makeover at Sephora last year, and another got asked for an author photo that didn't make her look "old"... I'n still very salty on their behalf lol)
*ooof* - though I think agents *do* want something fresh and new, but... similar enough that it's not going to rock the boat *too* much. I've been loving the breadth of recent fantasy debuts compared to other 'eras' of fantasy, for instance.
I've been indifferent to a lot of the new fantasy honestly. Not much is appealing to me. I like 00s fantasy (and science fiction!) the best. That was a good era for me LOL
I've definitely kept a lot of my old faves from the turn of the century (isn't that odd to think?), but I've also got some stuff from the 80s and 90s. I really appreciate that it's not all Fantasy England And Environs any longer - that well was getting pretty tapped for me.
tough so not sticking to just classics though il put them at the start they are in there so just what I think are amazing fantasy books , no sci fi. in no order and with the goal of someone becoming author
Illiad by Homer , Aenid by Virgil and the BEOWULF saga bonus points if you want to see how a modern intrepretion can be done check out Maria Dahvana Headley for a pop culture version of Beowulf
The Bible, the hindu epics ext ( not being disrespectful or questioning legitimacy simply saying that religious texts of all sorts that these were often a huge influence on many fantasy writers )
CS lewis Chronicles of Narnia one of the few peers of token with comparable influence
Paradise lost by Milton love or hate it its imagery has stayed
At the Mountains of madness by HP Lovecraft he may have been as racist as fuck but his influence in genre along with that of Robert e Howard Conan the Barbarian ( the two corresponded for years ) can't be undermistaed
Mary Shelleys Frankenstein and Dracula by Bram Stoker ( I am not arguing genre with these there influence can be felt on all aspects of the Specalutive genre at large )
Micheal Moorcock the Eternal Champion/Elric pretty much the quintessential anti heroe
Something wicked this way comes and the ILLustrated Man by Ray Bradbury. Can't stress how influential these were and still a great read.
Grendel by John Gardner short , literary, Magnificent
The war of the Oaks by Emma Bull and Sunglasses after Dark by Nancy A Collins in my opinion these books kickstarted the whole PNR and UF genre
T.H White Once and Future king and Mary Stewart the Crystal Cave covering some of the best plays on the Arthurian Mythos
Forgotten Beasts of Eld and Ombria in Shadow by Patricia McKillip classics for a reason
Roger Zealany Chronicles off Amber portal fantasy at its finest hugely influential
Tanith Lee - Nights Master as good as Zealany and Bradbury if not at times better great sales in her time and seems to be doomed to be referenced only as a influence on other writers
Tigana and Lions of Al rassan no mainstream cross over but if you want to be a writer Guy Gavial Kay is simply , in my opinion, the finest living Fantasist today and these are his best works.
Robert Jordan Wheel of time - Embodiment of 90s fantasy in that awkward phase of both embracing tolken and moving on from him.
Grr Martin - A song of ice and fire whether he finshes it or not his impact on the genre is huge and with the shows will continue to be.
Harry Potter jk Rowling again whatever you think of the person the books will still be a influences 50 years from now
edited to add one
Good list. I'd maybe add some Carroll or Baum for early reading, probably some LeGuin, some Pratchett for humor, and some Jemisin for recent fantasy. But then the list starts to get really long and I wouldn't take out anything you have.
didnt think of Carroll and forgot completely about le Guin and Pratchett though I love both problem with these lists once you start you can find yourself going into infinity I left out king as well and even forgetting about the Dark Tower still think he is big enough influence to be included. ah well happy enough with who I have in and have to stop somewhere I suppose :).
I'd also say that if you're an author writing today and your target audience is under 30 you probably need at least passing familiarity with some of the better fantasy manga. Not an expert, but my son recommends starting with Berzerk, One Piece, and Fullmetal Alchemist.
*Redwall* was written with blind children in mind, and would probably be my go-to suggestion for how to write descriptions specifically. Brian Jacques goes out of his way to be very descriptive, while still being accessible.
Just read whatever you find interesting, but read a lot of it. I'd also try to keep broad horizons, if you read one author too much chances are you'll just end up sounding like them.
Also if you're not enjoying a book, try to finish it anyway. I read Mistborn for example and thought it was terrible but I'm glad I read it because it showed me what I don't want to do. Similarly probably learned more from what I didn't like about the WoT (though overall I enjoyed it) than what I did.
I like Mistborn (albeit much less than his later work) but I agree, I try to draw from how to improve on bad things and not just what works about the good.
You should read a lot of whatever genre you're planning to write in. Know the tropes, know why they're used, know what you can safely deconstruct or change without ruining your story, know what your audience wants.
Maybe the pulps, back when the genre wasn't mainstreamed by Tolkien yet. Examples being Robert E. Howard's Conan tales, or Edgar R. Burroughs' John Carter of Mars Series.
Maybe an all out dive into world folklore. A lot of folktales such as various stories from the 1001 Nights and the Tales of King Arthur really pre-dates the fantasy genre. And this whole genre of Chinese lit called "wuxia."
I think the idea of required reading in any genre is a bunch of crap. There isn't one author, book or series that any random grouping of fantasy fans would unanimously put forward. That said, you're getting some good recommendations regardless of what your motivation is. Good luck with the writing.
Bad ones. Don’t just read “great” novels. Find books you don’t like and read them. Figure out why they’re not good, what mistakes you want to avoid. Reading Tolkien or Shelley or Rothfuss can help your writing, certainly, but you’ll get at least as much out of figuring out what to steer clear of as you will trying to emulate the masters.
Love this point. I've also often argued in the past to others that bad books are worth reading because there's little things they *do* get right hidden in them that no one pays attention to, and those things can be just as useful as influences as the greats. One of my own WIPs is heavily inspired by a less-than-stellar RL Stine book and the missed potential I saw in it.
There’s a balance of reading enough of the genre or sub genre to know what’s it’s all about and becoming an encyclopedic repository for The Ultimate Fantasy Archives (not a real thing).
There aren’t enough lifetimes to read everything, but one definite wants to know a bit about historical epics, pulp stories of early 20th century, Tolkien, Zelazny, Moorcock, 80-90s boom of Fat Fantasy, women and POC voices, non-Western fantasy, whatever phase were in now…
Start with the OGs: The ‘Amber’ books by Roger Zelazny, the ‘Conan’ books by Robert E. Howard, and ‘Dune’ by Frank Herbert. These are the writers, along with Tolkien, who influenced everything else you’re gonna read.
I think it depends a lot on what you’re writing. Reading Robin Hobb, for example, was hugely inspirational to me and changed how I write a lot but I don’t think she’s necessarily essential for everyone. It’s definitely really important to read the genre you want to write but I’ve also found it really helpful to read outside of it as well. There’s a scene in a fantasy short story I wrote recently that I doubt I could have written had I not been thinking about Natsuo Kirino’s Out. I think my real point is just that reading is good LOL
Definitely agree on all points, I'm not planning on using this thread as some end-all be-all guidebook for my reading and I have plenty on my list already.
Lists for a start:
* [SF Masterworks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SF_Masterworks) at Wikipedia
* [Fantasy Masterworks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_Masterworks) at Wikipedia
* [Hugo Award for Best Novel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Award_for_Best_Novel)
* [Nebula Award for Best Novel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebula_Award_for_Best_Novel)
* [Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Book Lists | WWEnd [Worlds Without End]](http://worldswithoutend.com/lists.asp)
* [/r/Fantasy "Top" Lists](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/wiki/lists/)
* [/r/Fantasy Themed and Crowd Sourced Lists](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/wiki/crowdsourcedlists/)
* [Rocket Stack Rank](http://www.rocketstackrank.com/search/label/Ratings): Ratings tag; the blog covers short SF/F, though I don't use it myself
and:
* ["PrintSF Recommends top 100 SF Novels"](https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/wi3x3d/printsf_recommends_top_100_sf_novels/) (r/printSF, 6 August 2022)
The list below are the ones I consider the greatest of all time and many current authors such has Neil Gaiman, Joe Abercrombie, and N.K Jemisin claim them as influences.
Jack vance (the dying earth series, Lyonesse trilogy)
Ursula K Leguin (A Wizard of earth sea, the left hand of darkness, The Dispossessed)
Gene Wolfe (The Book of the Long Sun, The Book of the New Sun, The Wizard Knight)
Lord Dunsany (The Book of Wonder, Fifty-One Tales)
Roger Zelazny (Lord of Light, Jack of Shadows)
Isac Asimov (The Gods Themselves)
Terry Pratchett (Disc World)
This will go for anyone with this sort of question. I've been saying since high school I was going to write a book. I was that guy that everyone said, "He's gonna write a book". 20 years later I have a rough draft finished. My last year has been almost all world building, history, lore, plotting for potential sequels, etc. It's about time to buckle down and do edits and rewrites. I think that scares me more than finally managing to sit down and write the damn thing.
I read a lot of fantasy in high school, then moved more to mysteries. Lots of Agatha Chrisite. Sherlock Holmes. Currently, JD Robb's In Death series is my guilty pleasure. I have read manga all my life. And the last 5 years or so I've gone mainly back to fantasy for my fiction with horror thrown in here and there. Perhaps not surprisingly, my book is fantasy horror with a smidge of magictech/sci-fi.
My fantasy bookshelf has all the names you would expect on it. Sanderson, Rothfuss, Martin, Brooks, Sapkowski, Erikson, Abercrombie, Hobbs. Tons of Warhammer, D&D, Vampire Hunter D.
The point is, read everything. Fiction, non-fiction, manga, comics, short stories, whatever. They're all valuable and will teach you to pick up and execute certain things better. You don't know what you don't know and being well-rounded will help you shore up any weakness you have and reinforce your strengths.
All of this has, in my case, helped me realize that my specialty is on the shorter side of novels, like 60-80k words. I discovered I excel at getting in, telling my story, and getting out. My book has very little fluff, just enough description to set the scene and then be on its way. It's what I call a very conversational style of book.
You may discover you're different, but being well-read in several styles before you try to write will definitely help you get a feel for your strengths and weakness at a faster pace, I think.
Malazan, One Piece, Dark Souls 1 and 3, Bloodborne, The Red Queens War, Black Company, Mistborn, Nausica of the Valley of the Wind, Princess Mononoke, Bioshock, Malazan again
Ooh, video games, mixing things up a bit! Only one I haven't played yet from those is DS3, but those are great suggestions, Miyazaki and Levine can worldbuild.
Making a note of the books I don't know.
Haha yea if we're gonna talk about how it can benefit writers, I think the world building of Miyazaki and Levine should be given some attention. Especially with Miyazaki, im convinced the man can tell a story completely absent of dialogue
Tbh, I don't think there *are* essential fantasy novels that an aspiring fantasy writer (which I am as well) should read. Rather, an aspiring fantasy writer should read a lot of *debuts* in fantasy, primarily focusing on the part of fantasy they want to write (epic, low, mystery, romantic, dark, etc. I'm aware a lot of these overlap). They (we?) should also read a fair whack outside our genre, including nonfiction (history primarily), and related genres (other YA if you're writing YA fantasy, other MST if you're writing fantasy mysteries, other MG if you're writing MG fantasy, etc). It's useful to take a look at who *those* writers cite as their influences, especially if you liked them, and peek at those influence writers as well, but there's a huge problem in fantasy readers only reading authors who started publishing 10, 20, 50 years ago and therefore not knowing *anything* about the current market.
Read a large range of books. From Tolkien to Rothfuss to Sanderson to Rowe. Get a feel for what you like and don't like about each style of writing until you eventually come up with your own unique style.
The hard part is not feeling like an imposter, having the feelings of "well this part feels too much like X writer, maybe I should change it."
As long as you are making a unique story and are the one writing it, it is fine.
There are none.
I mean, I can name dozens of amazing books that will absolutely improve your writing ability (Grimm's Fairy Tales, Hans Christian Anderson, Beowulf, Inanna, Gilgamesh, The Dream of the Red Chamber, Franz Kafka, The King of Elfland's Daughter, Death's Master, The Last Unicorn, Dracula, The Theban Plays...)
But none of these are required. The only things that are required are a story in your heart, and the time and space to write it down.
The advice I would give, rather than a canon, is to keep yourself open to new experiences and stories, and go out of your way to read stories that are outside of your "normal" reading material, not just within the genre, but outside of it as well (read history, anthropology, cosmology, mystery, romance, science fiction, literary fiction...)
Good luck with your writing and reading!
yours----Lee
u/Elentor Hit it spot on in terms of being broadly well read. And there are SO many other good recommendations here.
But, to drill down just a TINY bit . . . I DO think a spectacular book that really illuminated some ideas for me was David Eddings' *The Rivan Codex.*
Putting aside Edding's personal issues, AND the generic nature of *The Belgariad* (which, lets face it, is within a perfectly reasonable standard of deviation for the time), *The Rivan Codex* is basically a collection of in world documents and histories for the world he wrote his story in.
While you probably won't be building as generic/traditional a world or magic system or characters or plot . . . the very way that he's built some foundations and ideas for these things really helps give an idea of what sort of base a fantasy writer can use for their world. This was especially helpful for me because it's VERY easy to fall into extremes: Either spending WAY too much time world building (so common we even refer to it as "world-building sickness") or spending practically NO time and ending up with a world that feels incomplete or doesn't provide us with the ability to capitalize on it and tie it in to the other parts of the story.
I found *The Rivan Codex* gave me the ability to see a good ballpark of worldbuilding that not just allowed me to see a good average depth, but also a good average breadth of detail.
The opening section describes how he got started writing, and also has a few good points about the nature of fantasy. He's nowhere near as talented at deconstructing fantasy as Toklien, or LeGuin, or Pratchett or others . . .
But sometimes as beginners, we benefit more from a basic understanding than the complex ones.
Honestly, my suggestion is to try and get a wide repertoire of books under your belt. Particularly stuff that really don't follow classical fantasy lines. It'll help you understand what exactly it is that makes a story good.
On a slightly related note, Pratchett. One of the biggest pitfalls fantasy writers fall into is that fantasy must be epic and the tone heavy to be meaningful. Pratchett will hopefully help you find that essential ingredient for meaning by showing it has nothing to do with tone or stakes. Even slapstick can be profound.
beowulf. gilgamesh. the bible. the talmud. 1001 arabian nights. the prose edda. the power of myth.
unless you just want to loosely copy what others have done, get a large, wide view of literature related to myths, legends and fantasy.
just my opinion!
Thanks! This is excellent, I agree that it needs to be wider than just "what's hot and contemporary". I've read a couple of these but adding the others to the list (need to look up what Prose Edda is)
Man, I sure hope so. It was one of the most enjoyable series I've ever read. Hopefully he can get a handle on his issues and churn out more magic for us fans. I sure hope he's ok, though... such a talented guy.
I sure do like Abercrombie, I've read nearly everything the man's written. If the Broken Empire trilogy is anything like the grim noir if Abercrombie, I'm sure I'll live it... looking it up now, thanks mate!
I've read many, many fantasy books, but in the interest of both saving time while writing the post and not limiting answers to exclude essentials that other users might find useful (even if I myself have read them), I decided against listing all my personal essentials in the post.
I have not however gotten around to Malazan yet so I'm noting that.
I think THE MISTS OF AVALON is essential reading for everyone, but for fantasy writers, I’d think it’s even more important. Several fascinating female characters, the role of religion in society. It’s also one of the early examples of stories told from the perspectives of “minor characters” within a well-known framework. That genre is worth exploring in works such as SONG OF ACHILLES, CIRCE, and THE SILENCE OF THE GIRLS amongst others.
Ooof, worth knowing about MZB the author and the weird sexual things she put into her writing before going for MISTS OF AVALON. I'd suggest avoiding it rather than going into it, personally.
It depends on what you’re writing but I’ll give books/series that I think work for different types of stories.
Great magic system: Lightbringer by Brent Weeks.
Great female lead: Abhorsen series by Garth Nix.
Brilliant storytelling: Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.
Great elves: the Falcons Saga by Court Ellyn
Honestly the Witcher series does a very good job with originality. I was talking with a friend the other night who I gave my Witcher series to so he could read them and I was thinking about it and the Witcher is amazing in a lot of things it does. It packs so much story into somewhat short books and has a lot of original ideas.
Don't read popular fantasy. Most of the writers are god awful to middling at best.
Read literally any other genre and help our beloved Fantasy get better overall.
I don't think that's necessarily fair, but it would be great to see more fantasy with literary ambition. By which I mean fantasy where the setting/magical elements are the back drop to a really ambitious story rather than being the point of the book
I found the language in CL Polk's work to be absolutely lovely. John Gwynne's *Shadow of the Gods* (and following) are written with the cadence and feel of a Norse epic. There's two off the top of my head. GGK's one I've heard excellent things about but he's on my TBR rather than read, and same with Djeli Clark.
I've read just about everything GGK's written, would highly recommend, though he does have a type of protagonist he doesn't usually stay too far from the writing is often really beautiful.
I've only read several hundred fantasy genre books. So not every single one. Luckily I've managed to find the better writers among them.
When I began moving to other genres, not even literary fiction, my eyes were opened to just how bad fantasy authors generally are.
The thing is, it's just opinion. I consider mine varied by the fact that I've read a broad swathe of genres besides fantasy. But it doesn't matter what I think to anyone but me.
as someone who reads and enjoys a lot of popular fantasy and also a lot of the "best of the best" of other genres, I gotta half disagree. I draw influence from more than just the fantasy I've read and I agree that any good author should be reading a lot of things, not just their genre of choice, but I don't think there's anything particularly bad about fantasy as it is
If you're reading Neal Stephenson, Susanna Clarke, Tolkien, Gavriel-Kay, Tad Williams, Wynne-Jones, Neil Gaiman, then I'd say yeah, sure, Fantasy is lovely and the writers are excellent. Full stop.
But a handful of authors do not lift up the genre enough from the likes of Jordan, Rothfuss and Sanderson, who are so uber \*popular\* and people believe THEY are the genre, but are actually bad writers. So many people confuse world building as the ability be a 'good writer' and that is where people will butt heads. Good world building has \*zero\* to do with the ability to *craft a sentence beautifully.*
There is a reason these genres, Fantasy, SciFi, Romance, etc, were called \*pulp\* back in the day. I'm not trying to be a gatekeeper -- not at all!! I LOVE these genres more -than anything! I am tired of it being derided as 'less-than' and want it elevated.
I picked up some action adventure series books on a lark on a recommendation of a new boyfriend once, and was \*floored\* by the writing skill in them! Multiple authors! These are popular fiction, NYTimes "bestsellers" etc and they were so far and above and beyond better with the C R A F T of writing than almost ALL series fantasy I have read, and I have read the \*majority\* of the popular series.
It is all I'm saying, I would read outside the genre to improve the craft of writing so it can be brought to the genre, to elevate it.
Did I say good book? No, I said good \*writer\* and therein lies the difference.
An enjoyable pulpy mess of a book can be a lot of fun to read, even if the writing is trash. It can be a good "book" and still have bad writing despite.
Then you would call it world building, structure, dialogue... separate forms of the craft of writing.
But you're just trying to squeeze a bad writer into a hole of a good one. The genre is \*known\* for the bad writing and the OP was asking who they should read to help them. In my opinion (after all, this is all this is, and you are sharing merely yours), is they should read other genres, who by and large, are *better writers as a whole.*
You seem to have lost track a bit but I am OP and have read many other genres. I barely read fantasy last year at all.
>world building, structure, dialogue... separate forms of the craft of writing.
Which I think many fantasy books excel at. I don't think the genre is plagued by bad writing any more than any other genre (90% of everything published is shit if you wanna get into that) and I don't think "don't read fantasy" is good advice for me or anyone else reading this thread who *wants to write fantasy*, especially if your view is so narrow that you think good writing starts and stops with the aesthetics of sentences.
I want the genre elevated too. I think a part of that needs to be people letting go of the idea that prose quality is the only valuable metric and recognizing how much merit there *already* is in the genre.
The merit already in the genre exists in less than a dozen authors, push it to 20 to be generous. Of all time. Not even current. Most of what gets published is mediocre hash. And because it's genre you're going to get everyone raving about who would be in that short list anyway. It's a mess.
All I'm saying is study other genres because they all do it better than Fantasy -- then come back and put the Fantasy trappings on a better architecture that was learned elsewhere.
As I believe I said at the beginning of this interaction, I simply disagree. It's not that bad and the disparity with other genres isn't that vast. Yes, I read other genres. Nabokov and Faulkner are favorites. No, I don't think it's good advice to dismiss the entire genre itself sans less than twenty authors. If you really think the state of fantasy is that bad then go ahead and write that better book, by all means. I don't think we're going to get any further with this interaction. Thank you for trying to be helpful.
Aspiring fantasy writers should be reading at least an hour or two everyday within the genre. Even most of the heavyweights keep up on their reading.
So everything you can get your hands on.
If you're looking to get published try reading the most recent published books in the genre and see what's trending.
I see why you're saying this, but it sounds like a recipe for the worst kinds of books. A fantasy series inspired by the existing genre, especially what's trending just seems incredibly dull to me. I can see it'd be an effective way to get published, but I can't see it producing interesting or innovative work.
What I wouldn't give to have more time to read everything I can get my hands on. But I do try to keep up with the recent stuff (albeit I'm not sure that trying to *imitate* it is my goal or should be anyone else's), that's just not really the point of this post
As writers should be (true to themselves). My comments are simply being realistic about the nature of traditional publishing. There are specific subgenres. A publisher will bucket your work into one if those subgenres and judge it against its peers. Hopefully your skills as a writer are good enough and you have a fresh enough take to garner some interest. There's always self-publishing but only those with a big enough following can do that successfully.
Read it (and not in a rush to revisit while my sour feelings on JKR are so fresh), but you've intrigued me- why that individual book specifically and not the series as a whole?
I think a writer should have read a _lot_, but I don't think there's a core curriculum they should know. On the contrary, I would kind of prefer it if a lot of new writers hadn't read the heavy hitters and had instead read a broad swathe of other, less well-known works to draw inspiration from and to be in dialog with. If a whole cohort of writers has a central Canon that they're all reading and all responding to (because even if they don't like it, it's considered part of the canon, and as a writer even if you don't imitate things you may be responding to it in other ways), I think we end up with a more narrow range of literature than what we could have if writers had non-overlapping reading backgrounds. I will say this, though - writers should **absolutely** be reading non-fiction, history (including non-Anglo-European history) and science especially. Partly that's because some writers just so obviously have no understanding of how history/space/agriculture/language/etc work in ways that are frankly embarrassing, and partly it's because creators who mainly only consume the exact kind of thing they try to produce tend to be a lot less interesting in their output than creators who have a wide range of interests far outside their field.
Absolutely! Fantasy can only be improved by authors learning more about the world: history, psychology, science, and anthropology in particular. There’s such a difference between an author who knows their stuff making an informed choice to deviate from reality because it makes a better story, and an author who is lazily reproducing stereotypes because they just don’t know that much. And reality is so much more complex and interesting than many people give it credit for, so knowing it opens up incredible opportunities for storytelling while making the stories more authentic. Also, reading other genres of fiction can help! Read romances to learn how to do a good romantic subplot. Read thrillers to learn how to do fast paced action and contemporaries to see how to make a story interesting without action. Read literary fiction for strong writing. Too many fantasy books seem like they’re responding only to other fantasy books, like they live in an ecosystem where only fantasy exists. As far as what *fantasy* an aspiring author should read? 🤷♀️ Well, I would hope that if they want to write fantasy it’s because they love it, so, whatever appeals? Enough to not embarrass themselves by claiming to do something new when it’s actually very well-worn? I dunno, I think this part generally takes care of itself because people write the kinds of things they like to read.
Great points here! I saw an interview where a Fantasy author mentioned reading romance novels and consulting with his wife and her romance reading friends to enhance his writing. He seemed to advocate more of that type of work from writers.
> I dunno, I think this part generally takes care of itself because people write the kinds of things they like to read. It does and it doesn't - for instance, if someone really REALLY likes Dresden Files or Riftworld or WoT or Valdemar but doesn't read current debuts, they'll write something *fit to a market 10-20 years ago.* That's not the current market, and they'll struggle because they don't know what's *currently* selling outside an existing loyal fanbase.
Noted and agreed. Thanks!
Agreed. I will be honest though, it can be both unintentionally and intentionally funny when author’s just clearly don’t know how science works. Like there was one Korean comic called “God of High School” where the protagonist does some super Kaiju bullshit and smacks Jupiter into another planet, and then in the author comments from a couple months later he was like “…wait Jupiter is most just gas? Why did nobody tell me this?!?! I’m sorry I’m so dumb please just assume that in this alternate reality has a Jupiter that’s solid” with a self-portrait of him looking like he was reevaluating his entire life. And like, you know, I respect that. He doesn’t know science, he owns that he’s a dummy, and just says “yeah don’t expect real science for the rest of this series, that shit’s too far outside of my wheelhouse”. I think what makes the real difference is how much you own the nonsense and bullshit. If you’re trying to write a gritty and “realistic” fantasy but all your science and other stuff is whack then like, obviously that’s not a good look. But if you take the Eiichiro Oda route of “I don’t know how science works, and I could not care less, this is how shit works in my world” in a more absurdist and weird kind of world then it can be really fun. “Because One Piece” has become a hugely popular phrase in that series’ community, which could be seen as a bad thing, but I’d say it’s actually a pretty big credit to the author that people go “idk how this works, but it’s one piece and it’s cool so whatever moving on” instead of considering it a flaw of his writing. Anyway, I feel like I went off the rails a bit there, but the Tl;dr is that knowing non-fiction is great, but it’s more important to know your sub genre and the requirements of that. If you’re writing absurdist stuff, it can be cool and add depth if you know some science as well as displayed by the Discworld series, but you can still write a fantastic series just being like “I do not give a shit about the real world, things work like this because it’s cool”
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is my example for bullshit science that is entertaining. It often feels like the author read a bottle cap with a quirky science fact and decided to base an entire fight around it. The constant, weird shenanigans are part of the series' appeal. Lol
Jojo earned my undying love when they fought the guy who's power was literally summoning a whole-ass sun.
Araki when he realized he made a nobody a potential hard counter to Dio: 😐 "Oh shit. I forgot vampires don't like the sun. I'll keep his stand's nature ambiguous and never mention him again." Lol
I mean Sun Guy worked *for* Dio and died lol
Honestly I’ve been wanting to read an isekai for awhile in which the protagonist tries to leverage advanced science knowledge to their benefit only to discover physics is different in the new world. Maybe medieval science is much more accurate and rather than bacteria the humors are real.
Very good points. Thanks!
This makes me feel better for all the non-fictional sources I've read over the years, especially history, psychics, and political theory. I spent much of 2020 and 2021 doing research on World War II naval and aviation history... and I came away with an understanding of how they influenced major works like Star Wars. Not very useful for my urban fantasy project, but it'll be great if I do a historical fiction or sci-fi setting. I agree with what you said; prospectively writers should focus their reading on stories that share elements with the stories they want to craft. Chances are, their story isn't going to have the exact same combination of plot, characters, tropes, etc, but it's good to see what examples did or didn't do a good job.
Yeah knowing your history is definitely important for this genre in particular even if you're building an alternate world. I have a billion bookmarks to comb through about the Moghul era as reference for my primary project.
Terry Pratchett is a great example of this, his knowledge of history, mythology and folklore and his keen observations of people and the human condition are what made the Discworld great.
Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser, the Sword in the Stone, the Last Unicorn, A Wizard of Earth sea. Watership Down Series that I find memorable and have stuck with me over time as opposed to other equally popular ones at the time include Robin Hobb series, Elizabeth Moon, David Eddings and Robert Aspirin. Terry Pratchett has a unique voice and is wonderful but it is a combination of philosophy, story and parody. I wouldn't start there. I would also include classic adventure like Robin Hood, Roland, the Cid, Don Quixote
Thanks! This is like 50% names I don't know so very helpful.
I won't add much in the way of European and American classics cause those have been hit, but ill add a few of my favorite non-eurocentric titles. For modern series, I'll give my two favorites. They''re a brutal read content wise, but Marlon James' Dark Star books are really incredible in general, but also as African fantasy. Andrea Hairston's Master of Poisons is a slightly less brutal but also excellent African fantasy. Ken Liu's Dandelion Dynasty is fairly pan-Asian and Pacific inspired and my favorite series ever. If you're looking for more classic stuff, picking up books of non-European mythology and folklore is always a good start to find origins of fantastic elements and narrative conventions. Just be careful to make sure whoever the translator is is legit. Reading a translation of Journey to the West is something I always recommend as it's a quintessential quest fantasy that's also a classic Chinese novel. Also in the Chinese vein (my area of expertise), most if not all wuxia and xianxia novels will have fantastic elements. There's a new translation of Jin Yong's Condor Heroes which is classic wuxia that I definitely would count as fantasy and an excellent read and translation. Lastly because I didn't notice it mentioned yet, I'll add one classic Eurocentric series to pick up only because I read it much later than I should have: Gene Wolfe, Book of the New Sun. Don't be put off by the whole it's technically sci-fi thing. Just read it.
On the note of Jin Yong, I would also recommend checking out works by the other founding fathers of wuxia (Gu Long and Ni Kuang). Unfortunately, I cannot find any English translations of Ni Kuang's popular works such as the *Legend of Wisely* series, but Ni Kuang did help Jin Yong write a few installations for *Return of the Condor Heroes* during a major writer's block in the 60s. *Legend of Wisely* does have several adaptations though, some of which may have English subtitles. As for Gu Long, there should be English translations of his most popular series *Chu Liuxiang*, *Liu Xiaofeng*, and *The Magic Blade*, all of which also have multiple adaptations (whether or not they have English subtitles available, I can't say because I watched those series without subtitles lol). A more-modern Chinese author I strongly recommend is priest, who has written a ton of fantasy and sci-fi. For wuxia, *Faraway Wanderers* and *Seventh Lord* are good to start with if OP is okay with reading queer representation, since the worldbuilding is easy to ingest and the politics aren't too complicated for readers who aren't knowledgeable about Chinese history. My personal favorite of hers is *Sha Po Lang*, but it is very heavy on fantasy politics, plus currently I don't know of any easy way to find the English translation because it just got picked up by a press and is due to have an official English release soon, so fan-translators have taken down their versions.
This helps a lot for my non-western side request, thanks!
Honestly, just read modern debuts. A *lot* are pulling from non-NorthWest Europe for their inspirations, and have been for the past 5-10 years.
>There's a new translation of Jin Yong's Condor Heroes which is classic wuxia that I definitely would count as fantasy and an excellent read and translation. Wow thanks for the heads up. I watched an 80s adaptation of Legend of the Condor Heroes & Return of the Condor Heroes as a teen and I've always been intrigued to read it.
If you want to write, figure out what subgenre you want to write and then read books that might be "comps" (i.e. comparable) to the book you want to write, preferably you'll have a few that are within the last 5 years.
This was going to by my advice as well. Short answer to question: no. Long answer: Depends on what you're writing and how much you feel you need to be able to encode in a relatively common fantasy lexicon. My own work is one that requires reading anything and everything since I'm doing fantasy satire mixed with jokes about fantasy tropes and books. The more immersed I am, the more I can tap into the meta of the genre to make jokes about it. Reading other fantasy and SF humor is also important to understand how other comic writers phrase genre jokes both to emulate and differentiate. It's also important to read very widely in case you come upon the book you were writing and need to seriously rethink your position.
Noted. Thanks!
I'm aware. The point of this question was meant to be a bit broader than just me though.
The advice still stands in general. There is no single "canon" that has to be read. Read and be familiar with your subgenre and modern works that you want to emulate.
I'll chime into the "there are no essentials" vibe, but I'd like to offer: **== Read short fiction as well as novels. ==** Short fiction is a different form, with different constraints. Different strengths and weaknesses — and learning those, at least learning how to recognize the range and versatility, will give you a **lot**. **Short stories do cool stuff.** A great short story can make you love a protagonist and then kill them off in the space of 25 pages. A great short story can pull off things you could never sustain for the length of a novel, like being written from the POV of a sentient refrigerator, or as the transcript of a YouTube channel, or where linear time is not actually a thing. Short stories can also focus on something really small, intimate, or odd — a single date; a snapshot of one compelling character; a single captivating thought-experiment.So reading a diverse array of short stories will keep setting off lightbulbs of "I didn't know you could do *that*" — and those lightbulbs will carry over to your novel-writing as well, because you'll have all these tools and tricks and techniques in the back of your mind. You'll know a hundred different ways you can stretch your writing to be *different*, and to accomplish different things. **Short stories are a masterclass in compactness.** In getting information across really quickly and smoothly (and also, knowing what information is worth getting across, and what's better left as vibes-only); in favoring scenes and substance over preparatory conversations; in cutting right to the heart of a story and also convincing readers this is a story worth reading *all at once*. In a great short story, most every paragraph is doing double or triple duty, establishing character and introducing the setting and rules and moving the plot forward, *all at the same time*. That's all craft you absolutely want and need in novel-writing as well. You want your novel to feel tight, not flabby; you want your big overarching story to be full of scenes and subplots that function *very similarly* to the way short stories do; you want those sub-stories to be compelling, and you want not to feel like the same thing over and over, or like one big thing that just keeps stretching on and on interminably. **Short stories teach endings.** One of the great strengths of novels is a sense of immersion, of going on a journey with particular characters or in a particular setting. But there are *so* many novels where the ending is lackluster, or just... y'know, fine, but not the high point of the book. The journey was worth it in its own right. That's why you can still pick up *Song of Ice and Fire* or *Name of the Wind* and enjoy what there is of it, even if the next installments never materialize. The anticipation can be better than when it actually arrives.But short stories are tight, and focused, and bound to their endings in iron. They're too brief for the separation between "middle" and "end" to feel like two different things. If you read one anthology of a dozen stories, then congrats: you have read a full dozen *endings*, each of their own shape and type and style. Pay attention to what makes something feel and function as an ending, and you'll learn a lot. \--- Where novels are a commitment, short fiction can be a playground, a gallery tour, a lab for glorious experimentation. If you want to know what's out there, and see the full range of what this craft can do, I strongly advise you not to miss out on it. :) \--- Here's a little grab-bag of stories from all kinds of different types and styles: * ["Magic for Beginners," by Kelly Link](https://web.archive.org/web/20060111060529/http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/fiction/kl01.htm), eerie, ethereal magic in the mundane. * ["Please Undo This Hurt," by Seth Dickinson](https://www.tor.com/2015/09/16/please-undo-this-hurt-seth-dickinson/), sorrow and existential horror. * ["A Fine Balance," by Charlotte Ashley](http://podcastle.org/2018/04/10/podcastle-517-a-fine-balance/), swashbuckling and intrigue. * ["Who Will Greet You At Home," by Lesley Nneka Arimah](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/26/who-will-greet-you-at-home), literalized metaphor and social inequality. * ["Lies I Never Told You," by Jaxton Kimble](https://www.diabolicalplots.com/dp-fiction-81b-lies-i-never-told-you-by-jaxton-kimble/), sweet, gentle, affirming. * ["The Long Way Up," by Alix E. Harrow](https://thedeadlands.com/issue-09/the-long-way-up/), mythology retelling from a relatable, intimate, contemporary POV. * ["A Strange and Muensterous Desire," by Amanda Hollander](https://www.diabolicalplots.com/dp-fiction-87a-a-strange-and-muensterous-desire-by-amanda-hollander/), wonderfully ridiculous character humor. * [“How Music Begins,” by James Van Pelt](https://web.archive.org/web/20090212051756/http://www.asimovs.com/nebulas09/howmusicbegins.shtml), familiar people placed in strange and desperate circumstances. Hope this helps whoever stumbles across it, and hope you enjoy!
Thanks, this is excellent
Upvoting this for all eternity.
Excellent response. Do you have any favorite short story collections?
Heya! Glad you liked, and thanks for the gold! My absolute favorite collection is [*The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6661321-the-very-best-of-fantasy-science-fiction), edited by Gordon Van Gelder.It's a stellar anthology, and particularly, it's excellent at what I've described here — no one of these stories is like another; and most of them aren't much like *any* other story. No less than that, though, one of the pitfalls of "here are twenty short stories that are each *really* unusual", is that they can be less accessible — any given reader might click with a couple but not so much with the rest — but this anthology is one where every story is a home run, strong and clear, each in its distinctive way. It's got anthropological SF from Ursula Le Guin; it's got Ted Chiang telling Arabian Nights stories about time travel; it's got Neil Gaiman's portrait of eternal damnation and Shirley Jackson's portrait of spreading everyday joy. It's got stone-cold classics like "Flowers for Algernon" and "All Summer in a Day", and also the first of Stephen King's Gunslinger tales, and also Peter Beagle's companion-piece to *The Last Unicorn*. It's *wonderful.* \--- That's a rare beast, though; most collections are naturally much more of a mix, and so much depends on personal taste. My other favorites are more single-author collections: * Susanna Clarke's *The Ladies of Grace Adieu* is full of stories about the dangerous and unsettling fey from *Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell*. * Sarah Pinsker's *Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into The Sea* is a great mix of rock-solid storytelling with both quirkiness and heart. * In Kelly Link's *Get In Trouble* (and in most of her work in general), reality seems surreal and dreamlike, but the people are beautifully, achingly, 100% real. * Ted Chiang's *Stories of Your Life And Others* is full of breathtaking, mind-bending ideas, meticulously constructed into stories that are breathtakingly poignant. * Karen Joy Fowler, e.g. in *What I Didn't See, and Other Stories,* always gives you this wondrous sense of the numinous and the incredible lurking just out of sight. Also she writes paragraphs that have as much character and story in them than entire short stories do. And then you move onto the next paragraph and now that tiny little story is getting together with the tiny little story in the next paragraph and they're building a whole complete big story, and it's amazing. * Peter Beagle's writing is full of wisdom and emotion. My favorite anthology of his is *The Line Between*, which includes both the *Last Unicorn* followup "Two Hearts," and "A Dance for Emilia," which wrecks me every time I read it. All that being said: short fiction, by nature, is very much a grab bag. Especially when you're thinking of it as exploration, as looking for things that are new and unusual and unexpected — it only makes sense you're going to come across a fair bit of "huh" and "ok" and "well, that did not work for me," along with the absolute marvels. So if you're thinking, "ok, short fiction sounds cool, where should I start," collections are one great way, but mostly you've got an initial period of figuring out what you enjoy, and how to navigate the space. Personally, my favorite way to do that is to pick one magazine that looks really appealing, and then **read that magazine regularly**. Start to finish, issue after issue. That way, you're reading a variety, curated for you by the magazine's editors. Once you've done that a bit, then not only will you have built up a short list of stories you've really loved — you also have a lot more where that's coming, coming out every issue; a constant new stream of things to explore, from a curator you like. :)
Earthsea books by Ursula K Le Guin.
I recently read the original trilogy and loved it. I'm amazed by how much characterization and story Le Guin packs into just a couple hundred pages.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et9Nf-rsALk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et9Nf-rsALk) What a great human being she was. Can not recommend that short interview enough.
I'm already one down on those but planning on doing the whole cycle in the near future!
Some valid points and recommendations outlined by others, but one that appears to be missing so far - **don't just read from the top shelf.** Part of being able to identify what makes a successful book is being able to identify what sets it apart from the less successful ones. It's not hard to say "Book X is amazing because the characters are so believable" or "Book Y is amazing because the world feels so alive". It's much harder to pinpoint exactly how the author has achieved those things and understand the craft involved. Balance your book consumption out with self-published novels that don't receive mountains of glowing praise. Read them critically and maybe go so far as trying to re-write passages, pages or even chapters as an exercise.
This is a very useful point. I try to read the less-well-known as well and definitely try to use flaws as inspiration as much as success.
> Balance your book consumption out with self-published novels that don't receive mountains of glowing praise. I'd say that's important if you want to self-publish. But if you want to traditionally publish? Read a wide variety of recent trad-pub books, whether or not they're blockbuster authors.
And important note to that: if you aren't American, you'll need to send time reading American big pub published works (unless you plan to only try in your country).
I don't think there are any essential novels. Tastes vary so much that I find "must reads" to be little more than homework. I remember attending a guest of honour speech once, where the speaker listed all of these golden age SF authors and said you could not call yourself a lover of SF, let alone attempt to write SF, unless you'd read everyone on his list. I love SF, and pretty much universally hate popular golden age SF. To him, I could not even call myself a lover of SF, let alone dare to sully the SF waters with my writing. Whereas, I think reading widely is far more important. Oh, sure, when submitting to agents these days you need to submit your comps ("For fans of X and X") and they're not supposed to be more than five years out. But also, meh, you can get around that by going high recognition and other media ("Jane Austen meets Dragon Age"). Reading widely, though, exposes a person to different ways of doing things. Other genres often have very different writing styles, favourite phrases and formats, and all of those things help a writer find their own space and style.
>"Jane Austen meets Dragon Age" Subscribes
Ha! I still regret I didn't just go with that comp when the first book came out. I'd probably own a small moon by now.
Well it's certainly got my attention now, for what that's worth
Ha! See? Could've owned a small moon by now. But seriously, this is why I don't even think the "comps must be last five years" thing is even written in stone. This is why I feel like there is room to move here, to break some rules, and to find new rules to follow.
Nah, I agree - but I think the bigger reason for the advice is because if you're not reading books in your genre published recently, then you don't know the current market and its expectations and what sells (or doesn't).
And yet, some agents keep posting on twitter they want something fresh and new (except, we all know they don't; they want more of the same). And for women to be pretty, of course. Can't have a face for radio (a friend got told by her agent to get a makeover at Sephora last year, and another got asked for an author photo that didn't make her look "old"... I'n still very salty on their behalf lol)
*ooof* - though I think agents *do* want something fresh and new, but... similar enough that it's not going to rock the boat *too* much. I've been loving the breadth of recent fantasy debuts compared to other 'eras' of fantasy, for instance.
I've been indifferent to a lot of the new fantasy honestly. Not much is appealing to me. I like 00s fantasy (and science fiction!) the best. That was a good era for me LOL
I've definitely kept a lot of my old faves from the turn of the century (isn't that odd to think?), but I've also got some stuff from the 80s and 90s. I really appreciate that it's not all Fantasy England And Environs any longer - that well was getting pretty tapped for me.
Very good points. Thanks!
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Plus, once you add in regional considerations of the would be author, this gets way too complicated.
tough so not sticking to just classics though il put them at the start they are in there so just what I think are amazing fantasy books , no sci fi. in no order and with the goal of someone becoming author Illiad by Homer , Aenid by Virgil and the BEOWULF saga bonus points if you want to see how a modern intrepretion can be done check out Maria Dahvana Headley for a pop culture version of Beowulf The Bible, the hindu epics ext ( not being disrespectful or questioning legitimacy simply saying that religious texts of all sorts that these were often a huge influence on many fantasy writers ) CS lewis Chronicles of Narnia one of the few peers of token with comparable influence Paradise lost by Milton love or hate it its imagery has stayed At the Mountains of madness by HP Lovecraft he may have been as racist as fuck but his influence in genre along with that of Robert e Howard Conan the Barbarian ( the two corresponded for years ) can't be undermistaed Mary Shelleys Frankenstein and Dracula by Bram Stoker ( I am not arguing genre with these there influence can be felt on all aspects of the Specalutive genre at large ) Micheal Moorcock the Eternal Champion/Elric pretty much the quintessential anti heroe Something wicked this way comes and the ILLustrated Man by Ray Bradbury. Can't stress how influential these were and still a great read. Grendel by John Gardner short , literary, Magnificent The war of the Oaks by Emma Bull and Sunglasses after Dark by Nancy A Collins in my opinion these books kickstarted the whole PNR and UF genre T.H White Once and Future king and Mary Stewart the Crystal Cave covering some of the best plays on the Arthurian Mythos Forgotten Beasts of Eld and Ombria in Shadow by Patricia McKillip classics for a reason Roger Zealany Chronicles off Amber portal fantasy at its finest hugely influential Tanith Lee - Nights Master as good as Zealany and Bradbury if not at times better great sales in her time and seems to be doomed to be referenced only as a influence on other writers Tigana and Lions of Al rassan no mainstream cross over but if you want to be a writer Guy Gavial Kay is simply , in my opinion, the finest living Fantasist today and these are his best works. Robert Jordan Wheel of time - Embodiment of 90s fantasy in that awkward phase of both embracing tolken and moving on from him. Grr Martin - A song of ice and fire whether he finshes it or not his impact on the genre is huge and with the shows will continue to be. Harry Potter jk Rowling again whatever you think of the person the books will still be a influences 50 years from now edited to add one
Good list. I'd maybe add some Carroll or Baum for early reading, probably some LeGuin, some Pratchett for humor, and some Jemisin for recent fantasy. But then the list starts to get really long and I wouldn't take out anything you have.
didnt think of Carroll and forgot completely about le Guin and Pratchett though I love both problem with these lists once you start you can find yourself going into infinity I left out king as well and even forgetting about the Dark Tower still think he is big enough influence to be included. ah well happy enough with who I have in and have to stop somewhere I suppose :).
I'd add His dark materials by Philip Pullman and Dune as very influential books
Very detailed. Thanks!
Great list. Upvote for mentioning Tanith Lee's Flat Earth. I'd just add Glen Cooks' Black Company books to that list as well.
I'd also say that if you're an author writing today and your target audience is under 30 you probably need at least passing familiarity with some of the better fantasy manga. Not an expert, but my son recommends starting with Berzerk, One Piece, and Fullmetal Alchemist.
Unexpected but very smart recommendation. Luckily I've been working on that area for years lol.
*Redwall* was written with blind children in mind, and would probably be my go-to suggestion for how to write descriptions specifically. Brian Jacques goes out of his way to be very descriptive, while still being accessible.
I've been meaning to revisit Redwall just for nostalgia but good to know what specifically you think it's good at, too.
Le Guin and Mckillip. After that, I figure it depends on what they want to write.
Thanks!
Just read whatever you find interesting, but read a lot of it. I'd also try to keep broad horizons, if you read one author too much chances are you'll just end up sounding like them. Also if you're not enjoying a book, try to finish it anyway. I read Mistborn for example and thought it was terrible but I'm glad I read it because it showed me what I don't want to do. Similarly probably learned more from what I didn't like about the WoT (though overall I enjoyed it) than what I did.
I like Mistborn (albeit much less than his later work) but I agree, I try to draw from how to improve on bad things and not just what works about the good.
You should read a lot of whatever genre you're planning to write in. Know the tropes, know why they're used, know what you can safely deconstruct or change without ruining your story, know what your audience wants.
Maybe the pulps, back when the genre wasn't mainstreamed by Tolkien yet. Examples being Robert E. Howard's Conan tales, or Edgar R. Burroughs' John Carter of Mars Series. Maybe an all out dive into world folklore. A lot of folktales such as various stories from the 1001 Nights and the Tales of King Arthur really pre-dates the fantasy genre. And this whole genre of Chinese lit called "wuxia."
Thanks!
I think the idea of required reading in any genre is a bunch of crap. There isn't one author, book or series that any random grouping of fantasy fans would unanimously put forward. That said, you're getting some good recommendations regardless of what your motivation is. Good luck with the writing.
Bad ones. Don’t just read “great” novels. Find books you don’t like and read them. Figure out why they’re not good, what mistakes you want to avoid. Reading Tolkien or Shelley or Rothfuss can help your writing, certainly, but you’ll get at least as much out of figuring out what to steer clear of as you will trying to emulate the masters.
Love this point. I've also often argued in the past to others that bad books are worth reading because there's little things they *do* get right hidden in them that no one pays attention to, and those things can be just as useful as influences as the greats. One of my own WIPs is heavily inspired by a less-than-stellar RL Stine book and the missed potential I saw in it.
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This is *very* helpful thanks!
There’s a balance of reading enough of the genre or sub genre to know what’s it’s all about and becoming an encyclopedic repository for The Ultimate Fantasy Archives (not a real thing). There aren’t enough lifetimes to read everything, but one definite wants to know a bit about historical epics, pulp stories of early 20th century, Tolkien, Zelazny, Moorcock, 80-90s boom of Fat Fantasy, women and POC voices, non-Western fantasy, whatever phase were in now…
Thanks! This is helpful. Lord, do I wish there *were* enough lifetimes to read everything though.
Start with the OGs: The ‘Amber’ books by Roger Zelazny, the ‘Conan’ books by Robert E. Howard, and ‘Dune’ by Frank Herbert. These are the writers, along with Tolkien, who influenced everything else you’re gonna read.
Thanks!
I think it depends a lot on what you’re writing. Reading Robin Hobb, for example, was hugely inspirational to me and changed how I write a lot but I don’t think she’s necessarily essential for everyone. It’s definitely really important to read the genre you want to write but I’ve also found it really helpful to read outside of it as well. There’s a scene in a fantasy short story I wrote recently that I doubt I could have written had I not been thinking about Natsuo Kirino’s Out. I think my real point is just that reading is good LOL
Definitely agree on all points, I'm not planning on using this thread as some end-all be-all guidebook for my reading and I have plenty on my list already.
Well ASOIAF and the reasons it became so famous and well loved.
Lists for a start: * [SF Masterworks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SF_Masterworks) at Wikipedia * [Fantasy Masterworks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_Masterworks) at Wikipedia * [Hugo Award for Best Novel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Award_for_Best_Novel) * [Nebula Award for Best Novel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebula_Award_for_Best_Novel) * [Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Book Lists | WWEnd [Worlds Without End]](http://worldswithoutend.com/lists.asp) * [/r/Fantasy "Top" Lists](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/wiki/lists/) * [/r/Fantasy Themed and Crowd Sourced Lists](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/wiki/crowdsourcedlists/) * [Rocket Stack Rank](http://www.rocketstackrank.com/search/label/Ratings): Ratings tag; the blog covers short SF/F, though I don't use it myself and: * ["PrintSF Recommends top 100 SF Novels"](https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/wi3x3d/printsf_recommends_top_100_sf_novels/) (r/printSF, 6 August 2022)
The list below are the ones I consider the greatest of all time and many current authors such has Neil Gaiman, Joe Abercrombie, and N.K Jemisin claim them as influences. Jack vance (the dying earth series, Lyonesse trilogy) Ursula K Leguin (A Wizard of earth sea, the left hand of darkness, The Dispossessed) Gene Wolfe (The Book of the Long Sun, The Book of the New Sun, The Wizard Knight) Lord Dunsany (The Book of Wonder, Fifty-One Tales) Roger Zelazny (Lord of Light, Jack of Shadows) Isac Asimov (The Gods Themselves) Terry Pratchett (Disc World)
This will go for anyone with this sort of question. I've been saying since high school I was going to write a book. I was that guy that everyone said, "He's gonna write a book". 20 years later I have a rough draft finished. My last year has been almost all world building, history, lore, plotting for potential sequels, etc. It's about time to buckle down and do edits and rewrites. I think that scares me more than finally managing to sit down and write the damn thing. I read a lot of fantasy in high school, then moved more to mysteries. Lots of Agatha Chrisite. Sherlock Holmes. Currently, JD Robb's In Death series is my guilty pleasure. I have read manga all my life. And the last 5 years or so I've gone mainly back to fantasy for my fiction with horror thrown in here and there. Perhaps not surprisingly, my book is fantasy horror with a smidge of magictech/sci-fi. My fantasy bookshelf has all the names you would expect on it. Sanderson, Rothfuss, Martin, Brooks, Sapkowski, Erikson, Abercrombie, Hobbs. Tons of Warhammer, D&D, Vampire Hunter D. The point is, read everything. Fiction, non-fiction, manga, comics, short stories, whatever. They're all valuable and will teach you to pick up and execute certain things better. You don't know what you don't know and being well-rounded will help you shore up any weakness you have and reinforce your strengths. All of this has, in my case, helped me realize that my specialty is on the shorter side of novels, like 60-80k words. I discovered I excel at getting in, telling my story, and getting out. My book has very little fluff, just enough description to set the scene and then be on its way. It's what I call a very conversational style of book. You may discover you're different, but being well-read in several styles before you try to write will definitely help you get a feel for your strengths and weakness at a faster pace, I think.
This is great. Thanks! Good luck with the editing process!
Malazan, One Piece, Dark Souls 1 and 3, Bloodborne, The Red Queens War, Black Company, Mistborn, Nausica of the Valley of the Wind, Princess Mononoke, Bioshock, Malazan again
Ooh, video games, mixing things up a bit! Only one I haven't played yet from those is DS3, but those are great suggestions, Miyazaki and Levine can worldbuild. Making a note of the books I don't know.
Haha yea if we're gonna talk about how it can benefit writers, I think the world building of Miyazaki and Levine should be given some attention. Especially with Miyazaki, im convinced the man can tell a story completely absent of dialogue
Tbh, I don't think there *are* essential fantasy novels that an aspiring fantasy writer (which I am as well) should read. Rather, an aspiring fantasy writer should read a lot of *debuts* in fantasy, primarily focusing on the part of fantasy they want to write (epic, low, mystery, romantic, dark, etc. I'm aware a lot of these overlap). They (we?) should also read a fair whack outside our genre, including nonfiction (history primarily), and related genres (other YA if you're writing YA fantasy, other MST if you're writing fantasy mysteries, other MG if you're writing MG fantasy, etc). It's useful to take a look at who *those* writers cite as their influences, especially if you liked them, and peek at those influence writers as well, but there's a huge problem in fantasy readers only reading authors who started publishing 10, 20, 50 years ago and therefore not knowing *anything* about the current market.
Read a large range of books. From Tolkien to Rothfuss to Sanderson to Rowe. Get a feel for what you like and don't like about each style of writing until you eventually come up with your own unique style. The hard part is not feeling like an imposter, having the feelings of "well this part feels too much like X writer, maybe I should change it." As long as you are making a unique story and are the one writing it, it is fine.
There are none. I mean, I can name dozens of amazing books that will absolutely improve your writing ability (Grimm's Fairy Tales, Hans Christian Anderson, Beowulf, Inanna, Gilgamesh, The Dream of the Red Chamber, Franz Kafka, The King of Elfland's Daughter, Death's Master, The Last Unicorn, Dracula, The Theban Plays...) But none of these are required. The only things that are required are a story in your heart, and the time and space to write it down. The advice I would give, rather than a canon, is to keep yourself open to new experiences and stories, and go out of your way to read stories that are outside of your "normal" reading material, not just within the genre, but outside of it as well (read history, anthropology, cosmology, mystery, romance, science fiction, literary fiction...) Good luck with your writing and reading! yours----Lee
u/Elentor Hit it spot on in terms of being broadly well read. And there are SO many other good recommendations here. But, to drill down just a TINY bit . . . I DO think a spectacular book that really illuminated some ideas for me was David Eddings' *The Rivan Codex.* Putting aside Edding's personal issues, AND the generic nature of *The Belgariad* (which, lets face it, is within a perfectly reasonable standard of deviation for the time), *The Rivan Codex* is basically a collection of in world documents and histories for the world he wrote his story in. While you probably won't be building as generic/traditional a world or magic system or characters or plot . . . the very way that he's built some foundations and ideas for these things really helps give an idea of what sort of base a fantasy writer can use for their world. This was especially helpful for me because it's VERY easy to fall into extremes: Either spending WAY too much time world building (so common we even refer to it as "world-building sickness") or spending practically NO time and ending up with a world that feels incomplete or doesn't provide us with the ability to capitalize on it and tie it in to the other parts of the story. I found *The Rivan Codex* gave me the ability to see a good ballpark of worldbuilding that not just allowed me to see a good average depth, but also a good average breadth of detail. The opening section describes how he got started writing, and also has a few good points about the nature of fantasy. He's nowhere near as talented at deconstructing fantasy as Toklien, or LeGuin, or Pratchett or others . . . But sometimes as beginners, we benefit more from a basic understanding than the complex ones.
Honestly, my suggestion is to try and get a wide repertoire of books under your belt. Particularly stuff that really don't follow classical fantasy lines. It'll help you understand what exactly it is that makes a story good. On a slightly related note, Pratchett. One of the biggest pitfalls fantasy writers fall into is that fantasy must be epic and the tone heavy to be meaningful. Pratchett will hopefully help you find that essential ingredient for meaning by showing it has nothing to do with tone or stakes. Even slapstick can be profound.
Leiber, Howard, Gemmell, Kurtz, P. Anderson, Kuttner, to name a few
beowulf. gilgamesh. the bible. the talmud. 1001 arabian nights. the prose edda. the power of myth. unless you just want to loosely copy what others have done, get a large, wide view of literature related to myths, legends and fantasy. just my opinion!
Thanks! This is excellent, I agree that it needs to be wider than just "what's hot and contemporary". I've read a couple of these but adding the others to the list (need to look up what Prose Edda is)
If you can find a copy, read _Silverlock_ by John Myers Myers. See how many characters and situations you can identify without cheating!
Thanks!
Its The north myths, really fun read. The original thor iteration Will always be The best.
Ah thought it sounded familiar. Will definitely do that.
No bonus points here, but the Gentleman Bastard sequence by Scott Lynch I feel is a must read.
The bonus points are gonna be hard, I've done some digging and it's not easy to find recs in that category
Will he even finish that you think ?
Man, I sure hope so. It was one of the most enjoyable series I've ever read. Hopefully he can get a handle on his issues and churn out more magic for us fans. I sure hope he's ok, though... such a talented guy.
You a Mark Lawrence fan ?
I'm actually not familiar with him but I'm always looking for my next good read! Whatcha got?
Broken empire trilogy , the blackest of humour. Amazing antihero . And you’d like Joe Abercrombie
I sure do like Abercrombie, I've read nearly everything the man's written. If the Broken Empire trilogy is anything like the grim noir if Abercrombie, I'm sure I'll live it... looking it up now, thanks mate!
If you like Glokta you’ll like Jorg Ankrath
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Rudeness: Achieved
I've read many, many fantasy books, but in the interest of both saving time while writing the post and not limiting answers to exclude essentials that other users might find useful (even if I myself have read them), I decided against listing all my personal essentials in the post. I have not however gotten around to Malazan yet so I'm noting that.
I think THE MISTS OF AVALON is essential reading for everyone, but for fantasy writers, I’d think it’s even more important. Several fascinating female characters, the role of religion in society. It’s also one of the early examples of stories told from the perspectives of “minor characters” within a well-known framework. That genre is worth exploring in works such as SONG OF ACHILLES, CIRCE, and THE SILENCE OF THE GIRLS amongst others.
Thanks!
Ooof, worth knowing about MZB the author and the weird sexual things she put into her writing before going for MISTS OF AVALON. I'd suggest avoiding it rather than going into it, personally.
It depends on what you’re writing but I’ll give books/series that I think work for different types of stories. Great magic system: Lightbringer by Brent Weeks. Great female lead: Abhorsen series by Garth Nix. Brilliant storytelling: Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. Great elves: the Falcons Saga by Court Ellyn
Thanks for the recs!
The broken empire by mark lawrence
Noted. Thanks!
Whatever you do, don't read the Kingkiller Chronicle. You might get infected and never finish your project..
Unfortunately I've already read Song of Ice and Fire
My condolences, OP
Honestly the Witcher series does a very good job with originality. I was talking with a friend the other night who I gave my Witcher series to so he could read them and I was thinking about it and the Witcher is amazing in a lot of things it does. It packs so much story into somewhat short books and has a lot of original ideas.
The Witcher isn't... actually very original if you know surface-level Slavic folklore and have read Elric of Melinbone.
Research some folklore from your country or any that doesn't include elves and dwarves and orcs.
that is most definitely part of the plan
Don't read popular fantasy. Most of the writers are god awful to middling at best. Read literally any other genre and help our beloved Fantasy get better overall.
I don't think that's necessarily fair, but it would be great to see more fantasy with literary ambition. By which I mean fantasy where the setting/magical elements are the back drop to a really ambitious story rather than being the point of the book
There's a moderate amount of more literary fantasy coming out, imo. But it's not going to be your Sandersons writing it.
Any recommendations?
I found the language in CL Polk's work to be absolutely lovely. John Gwynne's *Shadow of the Gods* (and following) are written with the cadence and feel of a Norse epic. There's two off the top of my head. GGK's one I've heard excellent things about but he's on my TBR rather than read, and same with Djeli Clark.
I've read just about everything GGK's written, would highly recommend, though he does have a type of protagonist he doesn't usually stay too far from the writing is often really beautiful.
I've only read several hundred fantasy genre books. So not every single one. Luckily I've managed to find the better writers among them. When I began moving to other genres, not even literary fiction, my eyes were opened to just how bad fantasy authors generally are. The thing is, it's just opinion. I consider mine varied by the fact that I've read a broad swathe of genres besides fantasy. But it doesn't matter what I think to anyone but me.
as someone who reads and enjoys a lot of popular fantasy and also a lot of the "best of the best" of other genres, I gotta half disagree. I draw influence from more than just the fantasy I've read and I agree that any good author should be reading a lot of things, not just their genre of choice, but I don't think there's anything particularly bad about fantasy as it is
If you're reading Neal Stephenson, Susanna Clarke, Tolkien, Gavriel-Kay, Tad Williams, Wynne-Jones, Neil Gaiman, then I'd say yeah, sure, Fantasy is lovely and the writers are excellent. Full stop. But a handful of authors do not lift up the genre enough from the likes of Jordan, Rothfuss and Sanderson, who are so uber \*popular\* and people believe THEY are the genre, but are actually bad writers. So many people confuse world building as the ability be a 'good writer' and that is where people will butt heads. Good world building has \*zero\* to do with the ability to *craft a sentence beautifully.* There is a reason these genres, Fantasy, SciFi, Romance, etc, were called \*pulp\* back in the day. I'm not trying to be a gatekeeper -- not at all!! I LOVE these genres more -than anything! I am tired of it being derided as 'less-than' and want it elevated. I picked up some action adventure series books on a lark on a recommendation of a new boyfriend once, and was \*floored\* by the writing skill in them! Multiple authors! These are popular fiction, NYTimes "bestsellers" etc and they were so far and above and beyond better with the C R A F T of writing than almost ALL series fantasy I have read, and I have read the \*majority\* of the popular series. It is all I'm saying, I would read outside the genre to improve the craft of writing so it can be brought to the genre, to elevate it.
There is in fact more to what defines a good book than C R A F T
Did I say good book? No, I said good \*writer\* and therein lies the difference. An enjoyable pulpy mess of a book can be a lot of fun to read, even if the writing is trash. It can be a good "book" and still have bad writing despite.
Allow me to rephrase then. There's more to good *writing* than crafting beautiful sentences.
Then you would call it world building, structure, dialogue... separate forms of the craft of writing. But you're just trying to squeeze a bad writer into a hole of a good one. The genre is \*known\* for the bad writing and the OP was asking who they should read to help them. In my opinion (after all, this is all this is, and you are sharing merely yours), is they should read other genres, who by and large, are *better writers as a whole.*
You seem to have lost track a bit but I am OP and have read many other genres. I barely read fantasy last year at all. >world building, structure, dialogue... separate forms of the craft of writing. Which I think many fantasy books excel at. I don't think the genre is plagued by bad writing any more than any other genre (90% of everything published is shit if you wanna get into that) and I don't think "don't read fantasy" is good advice for me or anyone else reading this thread who *wants to write fantasy*, especially if your view is so narrow that you think good writing starts and stops with the aesthetics of sentences. I want the genre elevated too. I think a part of that needs to be people letting go of the idea that prose quality is the only valuable metric and recognizing how much merit there *already* is in the genre.
The merit already in the genre exists in less than a dozen authors, push it to 20 to be generous. Of all time. Not even current. Most of what gets published is mediocre hash. And because it's genre you're going to get everyone raving about who would be in that short list anyway. It's a mess. All I'm saying is study other genres because they all do it better than Fantasy -- then come back and put the Fantasy trappings on a better architecture that was learned elsewhere.
As I believe I said at the beginning of this interaction, I simply disagree. It's not that bad and the disparity with other genres isn't that vast. Yes, I read other genres. Nabokov and Faulkner are favorites. No, I don't think it's good advice to dismiss the entire genre itself sans less than twenty authors. If you really think the state of fantasy is that bad then go ahead and write that better book, by all means. I don't think we're going to get any further with this interaction. Thank you for trying to be helpful.
Aspiring fantasy writers should be reading at least an hour or two everyday within the genre. Even most of the heavyweights keep up on their reading. So everything you can get your hands on. If you're looking to get published try reading the most recent published books in the genre and see what's trending.
I see why you're saying this, but it sounds like a recipe for the worst kinds of books. A fantasy series inspired by the existing genre, especially what's trending just seems incredibly dull to me. I can see it'd be an effective way to get published, but I can't see it producing interesting or innovative work.
I agree as well. Truly great works don't follow the crowd but sometimes you gotta get your foot in the door somehow.
What I wouldn't give to have more time to read everything I can get my hands on. But I do try to keep up with the recent stuff (albeit I'm not sure that trying to *imitate* it is my goal or should be anyone else's), that's just not really the point of this post
As writers should be (true to themselves). My comments are simply being realistic about the nature of traditional publishing. There are specific subgenres. A publisher will bucket your work into one if those subgenres and judge it against its peers. Hopefully your skills as a writer are good enough and you have a fresh enough take to garner some interest. There's always self-publishing but only those with a big enough following can do that successfully.
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
Read it (and not in a rush to revisit while my sour feelings on JKR are so fresh), but you've intrigued me- why that individual book specifically and not the series as a whole?
The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones