Adult fantasy literature

[Zixar]

WordWolf: We are *so* on the same page, pun intended!

Yes, Bob Asprin's Myth Adventures and Phule's Company series are both fantastic, (Bob's a really nice guy in person, too) and Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat books are on my desert island list.

And since we're blurring over into sci-fi, I have to put in a plug for E.E. "Doc" Smith's quintessential space opera, the Lensman series. Makes Star Wars look like Solaris... ;)-->

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[rascal]

I am with zix....my all time favorite books...The *Lensman* series...also by eedoc smith and almost as good , his *skylark* series....though it is nearly impossible to find them anymore.

Any early heinlien...*have space suit will travel* citizen of the galaxy* *starship trooper* *starbeast* *children of the stars* *space cadet* to mention a few of my favorites...I don`t recomend anything he wrote after the mid 60s though....he gets pretty wierd after that.

I think I`d carry to my island, believe it or not....my Harry Potter books as well..

[Zixar]

Rascal: The Science Fiction Book Club recently released The Complete Skylark containing all those Doc Smith novels... :D-->

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[rascal]

No kidding???? Oh man...on my christmas list for sure!

Wish they would put out heinliens stuff again...I got rid of my sci fi collection at the insistance of ministry leaders almost 20 years ago...a whole trunk full of irreplaceable classics...GAWD what was I thinking?....

[WordWolf]

"Hell's brazen hinges!"

I forgot about the Lensman series. Yes, that's a keeper.

In the "adventure in the early 20th century" category,

I like Leslie Charteris' "The Saint" series. The first is

"Meet the Tiger". I've never seen the movies or tv show, which

I think is for the best. In case you're not familiar with him,

"the Saint", Simon Templar, is a gentleman adventurer. He seeks

out adventure and brings criminals to justice in his own style-

which, of course, happens to be illegal. So, he is, in a sense,

a criminal who preys on criminals, and in another sense, a

benefactor of society. He predates Ian Fleming's "James Bond"

by a number of years, including this quote from

"the Saint in New York",

"My name is Templar-Simon Templar..."

He succeeds at being a modern swashbuckler, like the four-colour

heroes of yore.

The strangest thing I'll recommend is the Anita Blake:

Vampire Hunter series by Laurel K. Hamilton.

The first 3 books are: "Guilty Pleasures", "the Laughing Corpse"

and "Circus of the Damned". Anita Blake lives in St Louis, and

is the licenced vampire executioner for the state of Missouri.

She also does work with the local police's "Regional

Preturnatural Investigation Team" ("the Spook Squad"). It's

been a few years since "Clark vs Addison" (a landmark court

case) established vampires as citizens with legal rights. Now,

if one kills a human, you have to get a court order of

execution, THEN blow him away. Anita's profession gives her a

limited resistance to vampiric hypnosis. She's an animator, and

can raise the dead as zombies. With the right manager, this

means a comfortable living. She's raised corpses to dictate a

will when they died without one, and she's raised them to assist

in someone's therapy-they were able to get closure with someone

who died. Stuff like that. Anyway, she lives in a world a lot

like ours, except there are vampires, werewolves and faeries, if

you know where to look.

It's heavier fare than the other stuff I recommended, and I

don't recommend the whole series. At least one later book can be

skimmed once, then ignored. It's got some crime scenes and so

on, so if you need things to stay sanitary, skip the series.

[Zixar]

Rascal/WordWolf: You two might enjoy David Feintuch's "Seafort Saga" then. It has a good Heinleinesque feel to it. Currently at seven books, all available in paperback, the series consists of:

Midshipman's Hope

Challenger's Hope

Prisoner's Hope

Fisherman's Hope

Voices of Hope (ick. This one's hopeless...)

Patriarch's Hope

Children of Hope

Books 1-4 and 6-7 are real page-turners. Feintuch tried an experiment with Voices of Hope and the result was a confused mess.

Secret Signature of the Day==v

Banjo players may have other nasty habits, too...

[Aireyl]

You could always buy and read The Daathar Chronicles by Stacy Reynolds.

A frequent caller at the GC who sits in the corner reads and scribbles in her notebook. It's available at SynergEbooks.com

[WordWolf]

BTW,

I'm a Monty Python fan who was disappointed with "the Meaning of Life".

I recommend "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" as a "must-see", however....

...starting with the opening credits. :D-->

If you think that's funny, you can also try "the Life of Brian", which I

also liked. It's quite funny, but not as hysterical as "Holy Grail".

Plus, the very religious are often offended at it. (The same types who

boycott Harry Potter.)

[TheManOfa Thousand ScreenNames]

Once again, I recommend the "Incarnations of Immortality" by Piers Anthony. The story centers around the people who, through various means, are 'elected' to the different offices that 'run' the world.

The Incarnations are: Good, Evil, Nature, Time, Death, War and Fate. Would also serve as an alternate 'theology', should you so desire.

The lessons repeat until they are learned.

[TheManOfa Thousand ScreenNames]

Just saw the 'no sex' request. There isn't anything graphic in the books, but it is alluded to.

Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.

The lessons repeat until they are learned.

[TheSongRemainsTheSame]

"A Knights Tale"

&

Mel's "Holy Grail" plus/or "Life of Brian"

would be companion flicks a sunday afternoon while the grill is grilling

... just a thot...

[Porphyra Selenafeggos]

don't post much but this my genre-

-->good movie, better book:

*Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

*Dune

*The Hobbit

*The Lord of the Rings(Yes, you should read The Hobbit first)

Also, Tolkien has written LOTS of other shorter stories of which the best known are Smith of Wootton Major and Farmer Giles of Ham

-->Good movies, no book:

*Princess Bride (Yes, by all means, see this!)

*Blade Runner

*Edward Scissorhands

*Labrynth

*Legend

*Titan A.E. (Animated)

*Fifth Element

*Excaliber

*The Dark Crystal

(don't know if they would be considered true adult fantasy, but i enjoy movies set in the future, so I liked Logan's Run, the whole Mad Max series, Waterworld, & The Postman, -but then, my tastes lean toward the cheap and tawdry.)

And Zixar - "Rest well, & dream of large women"

I'll wear black until they make something darker.

[WordWolf]

My commentary on the "Incarnations of Immortality" series....

This is one of Piers Anthony's series.

One fairly consistent characteristic of his series is that they start out great,

but decrease in quality as the series progresses. Further, he often has trouble

maintaining the continuity of each series (he forgets stuff and doesn't keep a

database.)

This series was intended to be a 5-book series, which he extended to 7.

In order, the series was "On A Pale Horse"(Death), "Bearing An Hourglass"(Time),

"With A Tangled Skein"(Fate), "Wielding A Red Sword"(War) and "Being a Green

Mother" (Nature). He then added "For Love of Evil"(Evil) and "And Eternity"(Good).

I found the first four to be worth reading, although WARS was less so.

The 5th book, IMHO, was ruined by his plans to set up the next 2 books. In the

process, the writer contradicted the rules he established, primarily in the

first book, and explained right in the story.

In case you are wondering, among other things, the last 3 books, which seem to

form a unit APART from the first 4, claim that the Incarnation of Evil, the Father

of Lies (so-called even in this series), is really not a bad guy, just

misunderstood, and doing the best he can in a bad situation. (Never mind that the

office would supposedly go to the most evil person on the planet at the time of

the previous officeholder vacated it.) Book 6 should have been called

"Sympathy for the Devil", since it portrayed him in a sympathetic light all thru

the book.

Now, as for God Almighty, the last 2 books (including 7, which is supposed to be

His own book, where He is the main character) portray Him in a specific light.

He is portrayed as vain, careless, and totally uninvolved with humans, leaving us

purely at the mercy of the devil, who is really on our side.

A devout satanist could not have written a more blasphemous set of books, in my

opinion.

This was a marked departure, mind you, from the previous 4 books, where everyone

acted pretty much like they should be expected to act, and Fate herself sees that

there's a greater order in effect beyond her ability to even perceive events,

and realizes that God is directing things on a greater scale than she operates at,

just as her staff operates at a smaller scale than she concerns herself with.

I recommend "On A Pale Horse" to all readers, and consider it an excellent read.

I recommend "And Eternity" to those of you who want to see God portrayed as a

do-nothing, and have no problem reading a story where a man has conjugal relations

with a minor.

Those of you who DO read the first four books...

Don't blink. One character says that it is easier for a ROPE to pass thru the

eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into heaven.

(Where'd Anthony get ahold of that?)

BTW, Anthony's able to speak for himself on subjects. He includes Author's Notes

at the end of the books. In one, he complains that critics said book 3 took

place in the USA, whereas it took place in Ireland. He complained about the

carelessness of the critics. I skimmed the first 150 pages of the book after that,

looking for the name "Ireland" to appear. I was unable to find it.

Can't blame the critics for not knowing something that was NOT mentioned in the

book. (Those who read previous books might have known, but it's unfair to REQUIRE

one to have done so-the book should stand on its own merits in its own material.)

[Steve!]

Piers Anthony's Xanth series started out pretty well, too - if you like PUNS.

Then as it goes along, it gets tired.

[TheManOfa Thousand ScreenNames]

Well, Wordwolf, I'll agree there are inconsistencies in the series (of course, this doesn't happen in the bible). But much of this can be attributed to having each book stand alone. There was too much repetition. Had he consolidated it into two or three books, it probably would have flowed a lot better.

Reading the series makes an alternative viewpoint available, nothing more, nothing less.

As far as the critics not knowing where book 3 took place, I had no difficulty discerning where. The names of the towns would, for the most part, indicate it took place in Ireland.

All in all, I found the series to be enjoyable.

[rascal]

oh oh oh...how bout *Enemy mine* for a great, little known sci fi flick?

[Steve!]

Ahhh, Dennis Quaid and Garrett Morris. Good flick.

[WordWolf]

The first 3 books in any Piers Anthony series are

usually good.

The first few Xanth books-"A Spell For Chameleon",

"The Source of Magic", "Castle Roogna", "Night Mare"-

were great reads. "Ogre, Ogre"-it depends on who you ask.

After that, there was a slide downhill. It's not that

noticeable until you realize all the GOOD ideas from the

later books were MAILED IN by readers and COMPILED into a

story by Anthony. (Check the acknowledgements in the

Author's Notes.)

It's a "bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you" when Anthony

complains about all the reader mail he gets when it's the

reader mail that's the source of most of his good ideas.

Similarly, the "Apprentice Adept" TRILOGY-

"Split Infinity", "Blue Adept", "Juxtaposition"-was a

great read, but he just HAD to drag it on, didn't he?

What amazed me there is that there's about a dozen

adepts, each distinguished by color and magic style-

and Anthony was unable to keep track of them after Book 3.

Don't believe me?

The Green Adept.

Does the following feats of magic in the original 3....

teleports

turns invisible

makes a warner-marker with a fire

transforms someone into a fish

Each time he does magic, he makes a magical gesture.

Green is the Adept of somatic magic (gestures.)

Tie his hands up-he can't cast.

When Anthony resumed writing, he said Green was the Adept

of Fire magic. He also said a reader sent him the list of

who did what. (Stupid reader was wrong.)

Later, he tried to fudge it by saying "whose magical

gestures controlled fire". Well, that sure explains

the invisibility, the teleportation, and the fish,

doesn't it?...

Anthony's books also often seem to slide into some

allusions to deviant sex very slowly, almost like he's

trying to hide the references. Except, of course, for all

the references to the word "panties" in the later Xanth

books, and the one he stuck that word in the TITLE of.

(I refused to buy it or any later Anthony books.)

BTW, unless you say what country the action is in, they

only SUSPECT which country. Again, since you read Book 1,

you recognized the towns in book 3.

I mean, the USA has places like Athens, Glasgow, Edinburg,

Rome, and many other cities with similar names to other

places. If the writer leaves out the country, he should

NOT expect the reader to guess it-unless he left in

something obvious-like someone watching Prime Minister

Major's address on the BBC. (Which, nowadays, still doesn't

guarantee they're in the UK.)

I didn't mind the repitition between the books. I objected

to the CONTRADICTIONS. The "Wild Card" series was written

by a handful of writers, and THEY didn't contradict each

other, in the face of political events and much chaos.

Good editing on behalf of George R.R. Martin, good

coordination, or detailed writers? I don't know-all I know

is they succeeded as a group at something Anthony does not

as an individual.

I still really like a number of his EARLY books. I just

don't worship all his stuff, and the more I read his

Author's Notes, the less I like him.