100 greatest fantasy books: our own list

[wellinghall]

Please suggest:
- up to five great adult fantasy books (in the old meaning, ie as opposed to child fantasy, not X rated!)
- up to five great children's fantasy books.

Please take part, and ask your friends to as well; I'd like to make this as representative as possible.

Thank you!

Comments

[inzilbeth-liz.livejournal.com]

Well I'm not really a fantasy fan [with the massive exception of Tolkien and CS Lewis] but, seeing as I'm the first to comment, I'll kick the ball off by stating the obvious!

5 adult fantasy books - LOTR, The Hobbit, The Silmnarillion, Farmer Giles of Ham, Smith of Wootton Major.
And the children's ones, well the first five of the Narnia series will have to do it!

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

Quick question: are you treating book series as one entry, or each book as a separate entry? (I ask because some of the pasts lists have done it one way, some another, and some have mixed both.)

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I think I'm going to end up making two lists: one of series, one of individual books. So go for either, or both.

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

Cool. Thanks.

Here's my first stab at it. Of course, as soon as I hit "post comment," I'll think of four other titles I should've listed... Ah, well. :)

For adults, I'd say
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
Le Morte D'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory
Beowulf
Dracula by Bram Stoker

For children, I'd say
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling
The Time Quintet by Madeleine L'Engle
Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

To avoid the confusion present in the other lists, can I suggest you adopt a strict definition on book versus series?

How about something like:
A series of books counts as one entry. Books by the same author, in the same setting with at least some of the same characters count as a series, even if not direct sequels. Books by the same author in a related setting with mostly different characters or a distinctly different style count as a different series. (So count The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings together, but The Silmarillion separately).

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

These are series:
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, Stephen Donaldson
The Dying Earth, Jack Vance
A Song of Ice and Fire, George R.R. Martin
Elric of Melnibone series, Michael Moorcock
Von Bek series, Michael Moorock

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I have no idea which books are 'children's' or 'adult' and to be honest, I don't really understand or acknowledge the difference.

Do you want repetition of favorites, or is it one book one vote?

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I'd prefer one book, one vote. However, whatever guidelines we draw up, someone's going to end up working round them!

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

In which case, I'll wait until tomorrow. :-) I can't begin to narrow things down to just five books, but if I wait a while, I can merely suggest "five favourite books that no-one else has mentioned yet," which is a whole lot more manageable than trying to come up with "my all-time five most favouritest books ever."

(I don't hold with the whole "great" concept, you see, since any book that one person states like an objective fact to be great, another person states is awful. All I feel qualified to nominate is my own favourites.)

(Plus, I'm also confounded by the fact that many of my favourite fantasy novels are published as young adult books, which falls somewhere between your two categories.)

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Of those already mentioned, I read LOTR, Silmarillion, Evangeline Walton's Mabinogion, Dracula as a child, and Harry Potter and Howl as an adult.

Pish and pish tosh to these footling distinctions, say I.

[segh.livejournal.com]

1. Lud-in-the-Mist, Hope Mirlees
2. Mabinogion Tetralogy, Evangeline Walton
3. Fire and Hemlock, Diana Wynne Jones
4. Stardust, Neil Gaiman
5. Till we have Faces, C S Lewis

1. Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
2. The Silver Curlew, Eleanor Farjeon
3. Narnia, C S Lewis
4. The Princess and the Goblin, George Macdonald
5. The Moomin saga, Tove Jansson

Something of a debate arose between G and me as to whether Orlando counts as fantasy. I say he does, because cats don't generally talk, but G says he doesn't because he operates in the real world.
I am also in doubt as to whether Chesterton counts. Are the Flying Inn, the Napoleon of Notting Hill and the Man who was Thursday fantasy, satire or allegory? Adjudication required!

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I take it we're not talking about Orlando the Paladin of Charlemagne here then?

[inamac.livejournal.com]

Or Virginia Woolfe's Orlando (though that does count as fantasy...)

[segh.livejournal.com]

Orlando the Marmalade Cat.

[kargicq.livejournal.com]

I've replied in The Other Place, and will be fascinated to see the final lists...

[inamac.livejournal.com]

Picking the ones that have most influenced me:

Adult

Lord of the Rings (J R R Tolkien)
The Once and Future King (T H White)
Dracula (B Stoker)
Stealer of Souls/Storm bringer (M Moorcock) (not the whole 'Elric' saga - because where does one stop?)
Discworld series (or The Colour of Magic) (T Pratchett) (See above).

Children

Five Children and It (E Nesbit) (Actually I prefer The Magic Castle, but it's not as well known)
Wind in the Willows (K Grahame)
Narnia Series (or The Magician's Nephew) (C S Lewis)
Chrestomanci series (or Howl's Moving Castle) (D Wynne Jones)
Harry Potter series (or Prisoner of Azkaban) J K Rowling

(It's quite annoying that this has to be books because it eliminates Gaiman's Sandman from the adult, and Barrie's Peter Pan from children's. Rats!)

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I think that Peter Pan should be allowable. While it started off as a play, it was a novel very soon after. If you were naming the 'Top 100 Comedy SF Novels', I don't think you'd have any qualms about putting The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in there.

Similarly, I think The Sandman should be allowed too. So what that it's got piccies?

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

I hate having to choose the "best" or the "greatest" anything, let alone books, so you'll just get some of my favourite fantasy novels instead.

Adult:

Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell
Neil Gaiman, American Gods
Guy Gavriel Kay, The Lions of Al-Rassan
GRR Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire
JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

Children / YA:

Michael Ende, Die unendliche Geschichte (The Neverending Story)
Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time
Astrid Lindgren, Ronja the Robber's Daughter
Terry Pratchett, Nightwatch
T.H. White, The Once and Future King

[malva-hawthorn.livejournal.com]

Adult- Lotr, Silmarillion, The Left Hand of Darkness, Pratchett's Witch books and the Watch series, Julian May's Exiles and Milieu sagas.
Children's - The Dark is Rising sequence,The Hobbit, Wind in the Willows, Watership Down,The Once and Future King, the Earthsea books. (This makes 6, but I couldn't decide what to leave out - nor which grouping they should come under.)

[sally_maria]

To extend the scope of the list I'm going to take Tolkien and Lewis as read...

The Belgariad - David Eddings
The Fionavar Tapestry - Guy Gavriel Kay
The Old Kingdom series - Garth Nix
The Celtiad - Patricia Kennealy
The Princess Bride - William Goldman

Redwall series - Brian Jacques
Dalemark series - Diana Wynne Jones (plus pretty much everything else she wrote...)
Young Wizards series - Diane Duane
Dark is Rising series - Susan Cooper
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase series - Joan Aiken

My lists

[http://www.google.com/profiles/Troelsfo (from livejournal.com)]

Not necessarily in order . . .

Adult ‘fantasy’ (leaving out any discussion of what constitutes fantasy literature . . .)
1: Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings
2: Tolkien, J.R.R. The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales (or, perhaps more simply, the Legendarium)
3: Pratchett, Terry, The Discworld novels
4: Sturlason, Snurri, The Eddas
5: LeGuinn, Ursula, The Earthsea novels

Children's ‘fantasy’
1: Lindgren, Astrid; The Brothers Lionheart
2: Reuter, Bjarne, Shamran
3: Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit
4: Pullman, Philip, His Dark Materials
5: Pratchett, Terry, the Tiffany Aching books
6: Rowling, Joanne, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (but, emphatically, not the rest of the series!)

These in general share at least one feature: that they are all ‘fairy-stories’ according to the definition Tolkien gives in his essay on this (more or less — some of them may not fit the bill completely). Whether this is a useful definition also of ‘fantasy’, I shan't attempt to say ;)

Astrid Lindgren is a Swedish author (perhaps best known for her Pippi Longstocking) and Bjarne Reuter is a Danish author; both of them, however, deserve to be mentioned among Tolkien, Pullman and Pratchett, and both are, in my humble opinion, in general better children's authors than Rowling.

/Troels Forchhammer

[camillofan.livejournal.com]

Is the distinguishing feature of fantasy (as opposed to other sorts of speculative fiction) Magic? Obviously, this is not a genre I'm an expert in. But surely qualifying (for my children's list) would be Half Magic and Knight's Castle by Edward Eager (sequels, but only in the most technical sense-- the main characters in the second book are the offspring of the ones in the first, but their adventure is independent).

On the grown-up side, Terry Pratchett's Reaper Man is one of the best books I've read in any genre, ever (so that's a vote for Discworld on the series list).

[thecatsamuel.livejournal.com]

Ash by Mary Gentle is fantastic in all senses. It's not for the faint hearted and could have done with some firmer editing, but it asks very difficult questions about religion, gender, love and loyalty. But I am particularly fond of alternative medieval history with dreadful Latin puns and this is one of my all time favourite books. Ever.

Terry Pratchett is on my list for his ability to make the reader laugh AND think. Please don't make me choose, though Thud is a terrific satire on fundamentalism and religious/racial bigotry and I adore Guards, Guards when they arrest the dragon and read its rights. Very clever.

Would also have a Pratchett for a children's book choice, particularly Wee Free Men and for the same reasons - it engages with questions of morality with humour and grace, and is a thunking good read.

The Tombs of Atuan was my favourite book when I was younger because of the atmosphere and sense of place. I still like it as an adult though I can do without the later ones in the series.

The Hobbit. Duh.

Diana Wynne Jones - for thoughtful, engaging stories with believable characters the reader really minds about. If you are going to make me pick, I'll have Charmed Life. No - Power of Three.

I managed to read and like C S Lewis ass a child without spotting the holy message, and I'll add Narnia on those terms.

[gilda-elise.livejournal.com]

Adult Fantasy:

The Witch World Series by Andre Norton
Thomas Covenant series by Stephen R. Donaldson
Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

Children's Fantasy:
The Harry Potter series by J. R. Rowlings
Mio, My Son by Astrid Lindgren