On 12th of August 2009,
The New Yorker posted an
online-article about fantasy book recommendations for readers of books like "
Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, His Dark Materials, Twilight, Narnia, A Wrinkle in Time, The Dark Is Rising." Of course this list aroused interest and it didn't take long until you could read about it on several blogs. I don't want to bother you with a long list of links. I recommend to read the
article by Aidan over at
A Dribble of Ink. I mostly agree with him except
The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers because it did not work for me.
From the original list I read five books. I didn't read
The Scions of Shannara by
Terry Brooks and nothing by
Guy Gavriel Kay.
That lead me to questions: Am I a fantasy book lover? Am I experienced enough to comment this list? Is it hubris when I try to recommend other books?
As I told you before I'm a fan of Aidan's list but there are still books which I recommend which are not mentioned there. That means I didn't create my own list. I just present you some proposals. Anyhow there are still too many books I have not read so far.....
I start my recommendations with
The Last Rune series by
Mark Anthony. I don't want to repeat my last post. So please read
Bona Fide: Living in a Fantasy World? for more information. I think this series is proper next step for readers of Harry Potter and Narnia. It delivers two worlds and adult heroes.
I'm not a fan of Twilight.
But within this year I read a book which shows completely different vampires. I'm talking about
Fevre Dream [
US] [
UK] by George R. R. Martin which has been published first in 1982. I know that Twilight and Fevre Dream are like two sides of coin. That means it is a challenge for Twilight readers.
I liked to read the following two books after Harry Potter - yes I have read all Potter books.
The first one is
Un Lun Dun (2007) by China Miéville [
US] [
UK]. A book with exuberant imagination. You will meet an extraordinary house pet: Curdle, an empty milk carton. Discover the secret life of broken umbrellas and, and, and, ......
The second one is a bit older but still worth reading.
Discover a bizarre realm beneath London and follow Richard Mayhew into a world full of monsters, saints, murderers and angels in
Neverwhere (1996), by Neil Gaiman [
US] [
UK].
Now I want to direct your attention to a historical fantasy book. As I don't know Guy Gavriel Kay I would like to recommend:
Midnight Never Come (2008) by
Marie Brennan [
US] [
UK]. This is the first book of
The Onyx Court series. The books (so far Marie Brennan has signed a contract for four books) in this historical fantasy series are set in my favorite town, London, and cover different periods of English history. The title of the book is derived from
The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlow [
Free online read].
"Now hast thou but one hower to live
And then thou must be damned perpetually:
Stand stil you ever moving spheres of heaven
That time may cease, and midnight never come!"
For more information please read my
review.
My last recommendation is a real intense book and I know a lot of people will tell me that it is no fantasy from a technical point of view. And it is a big book (more than 900 pages).
But when you like an awesome story with a historical background then there is no way out to read
Terror (2007) [
US] [
UK] by Dan Simmons.
He tells the story of the last expedition of John Franklin, who tried to find the Northwest Passage in 1845 with the ships HMS Terror and HMS Erebus. Based on the know facts, Dan Simmons presents an expressive and quite impressive metaphor of the expedition. I felt the cold on nearly every page. Let's not forget the intense description of the feelings of the expedition members. Beside all the obvious fun, the reader gets to learn a lot about the customs and traditions of the Eskimos.
The appendix contains the list of crewmembers, a glossary and explanations of Eskimo terms. I recommend this book warmly to everyone who is interested in Arctic Zones, Explorers, and the depths of the human soul.
