Fantasizing

Neil Gaiman has got me very much in a fantasy-reading mode, having recently finished his books American Gods, Stardust, and Neverwhere. So I’ve been compiling a reading list, and raids on the local libraries and bookstores are imminent. Some of the works on the list include:

Neil Gaiman: Anansi Boys, the Sandman series. The Sandman books may take a while to get a hold of from the public library.

Susanna Clarke: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.

Guy Gavriel Kay: A Song for Arbonne. I’ve never read any Kay; this one seems like an ideal one given its setting based on medieval Provence.

China Miéville: Perdido Street Station. Urban fantasy a little in the vein of Neverwhere.

Naomi Novik: Throne of Jade. Think Patrick O’Brian with dragons. I just finished reading her first novel in the series, His Majesty’s Dragon, which was quite fun.

Tim Powers: Declare, The Anubis Gates.

Terry Pratchett: Reaper Man, Making Money. I don’t know how I missed reading Reaper Man. Making Money is about to be published in a couple of weeks.

Mervyn Peake: Gormenghast books. Classics, never read them.

Philip Pullman: His Dark Materials series. With the movie version of the first book in the trilogy coming out in December I’d better get a head start. Intriguingly, it is seen by some critics as being an anti-Narnia series.

This should keep me busy for a week or two.

If there’s a focus to this list it’s mythic fiction, and I probably couldn’t go too far wrong with the Endicott Studio folks’ recommendations, for instance this list here.