Quite frequently in our Thoughtful Thursday discussions, I will reference books that I loved, only to discover that we don’t have reviews for them. Such was the case with The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley, which many people had referenced. I was so embarrassed that we didn’t have a review for that book that I went and reread it so I could write a review.
We have an amazing staff of reviewers here trying to keep up with the ever increasing tide of new books while trying to back-fill reviews of older books as we have time. Here is where I would like to turn to you, our dear readers, for assistance. Are there older books we don’t have reviews for that constitute an egregious oversight on our part — either because they are so awesomely good that ever fantasy aficionado should read them, or that they are so horrendously bad that we need to warn people away as a public service?
Poke around the site and see what we’re missing, so we can expend our limited resources where they will do the most good. Try to focus on books that are at least five years old. We’ll do our best about taking your recommendations to heart when choosing what to read next when we get our stacks of ARCs under control.
Post your response and we’ll enter you in a drawing to win a copy of Mark Chadbourn’s The Devil in Green, the first book in his series The Dark Age. We have a few copies to give away, thanks to Pyr. Please sign your name to your comment because sometimes the Google Friend Connect seems to forget (if your name doesn’t show up automatically, try logging out and logging back in). Thanks!
My suggestions are Songs of Earth and Power by Greg Bear and
Vampire Junction by S.P. Somtow
This is one of the great things about being relatively new to the book blogging world (as well as being somewhat on the strapped-for-cash side). I am neither well-known enough to have publishers sending me advance copies of new books, nor rich enough to buy them as soon as they hit the shelves, so I’m spending my time reviewing books I have loved over the years, reading new-to-me books that have been released anywhere from 20 years ago to last month, depending on how lucky I am.
I can’t personally think of any older books that I’d like to see reviewed on this site, however. I could recommend Julia Gray’s “Dark Moon Cycle”, but as much as I enjoy them, I have to admit that they get a little tedious after a while and aren’t the best books I’ve ever read… Though, if you could find a copy of Katherine Blake’s “The Interior Life,” I’d definitely be interested in seeing your thoughts on that. That’s a book that, in my opinion, starts off interesting, gets better, and then just fizzles out at the end and becomes a total disappointment, and I what other people think of it. It’s quite old, though, and difficult to find copies of now.
Great idea and topic, Ruth! I’m anxious to see the responces. :thumb:
The first fantasy book I ever read was The Crystal Shard by R.A. Salvatore. I still remember how exciting it was to read that book and the sense of wonderment I had. I must have read that book ten times during the year I got it. I would be interested to see how a reviewer feels about that and other classic books of my childhood. Great idea!
Kurt Vonnegut. He’s classic black humorist, but he writes lots of scifi. My favorite is The Sirens of Titan and there’s also Cat’s Cradle. Both scifi, both hilarious and just great books.
PS. Not that you guys really need much help here. I mean, you need help in the way we all need help because no one’s perfect, but otherwise FL’s on the ball. :D
Thanks, Seak!
Basically everything (in my limited experience) I consider a fantasy classic I saw a review for…except perhaps for Stephen King’s The Talisman. That remains one of my favorite fantasy novels :)
-Allison
I don’t know if you have ever reviewed it but if not take a look at Whitechapel Gods by S.M. Peters.
I have not seen much about it on the web but it is a sort of steampunk/dystopian debut novel and I found it quite good.
Neville (International)
buddytho {at} gmail DOT com
Robert Silverberg – Kingdoms of the Wall
Our lucky winner is …. krygow!
Please contact Justin within 5 days after contest ends.
https://fantasyliterature.com/contact-fanlit/
Actually, we have some more copies to give away, thanks to Pyr. (Justin didn’t know this.) So winners are:
Krygow
SandyG
Ria
Allison
Joe57
Please contact Justin within 5 days.
https://fantasyliterature.com/contact-fanlit/