{"id":37071,"date":"2019-10-14T06:30:02","date_gmt":"2019-10-13T17:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=37071"},"modified":"2019-10-13T22:06:32","modified_gmt":"2019-10-13T09:06:32","slug":"a-book-list-off-the-top-of-my-head","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2019\/10\/14\/a-book-list-off-the-top-of-my-head\/","title":{"rendered":"A Book List — Off the Top Of My Head!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"On Saturday evening, exactly like a large proportion of the world, no doubt, I went to a party.<\/p>\n

At this party, I caught up with an old friend who asked me what some of my favourite Fantasy novels and series are. I did say that the answer to the question was buried in the deeps of my blog, under Recommended Reading<\/a> and What I’m Reading<\/a> and Epic Fantasy<\/a>…<\/p>\n

…But then I thought,\u00a0 how cruel, to make a friend trawl through what is now a very long list of posts, given I started blogging awa’ back in 2010, and books and writing and stories are very much a major theme of “…on Anything, Really.”<\/em>\u00a0 (Although to make that blog title true I’m always prepared to branch out, not quite at random, on a variety of topics. #JustSayin’ \ud83d\ude00 )<\/p>\n

\"\"

Awesome Authors: Books Galore!<\/p><\/div>\n

And then, of course, my friend said, clinking her wine glass to mine: “What about off the top of your head then — just a few books or series that you heart?”<\/em><\/p>\n

To which I replied, “Ah, the pressure…”<\/em><\/p>\n

But here’s a few of the authors and\/or titles I mentioned (in no other order than alphabetical by author surname):<\/p>\n

With the proviso that\u00a0The Lord of the Rings<\/em><\/strong> and the Narnia<\/strong>\u00a0and Earthsea<\/strong> series were excluded, as I knew for sure she’d already read them, together with Robert Jordan, JK Rowling, and Terry Pratchett.<\/p>\n

A Few Fantasy Favourites (Just Off The Top Of My Head & Several Wines To The Good \ud83d\ude09<\/span><\/h3>\n
Warning: This Is Not An Exclusive List<\/span><\/pre>\n
Marion Zimmer Bradley: The Mists of Avalon<\/em>, The Firebrand\"\"<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n
Orson Scott Card: Seventh Son<\/em>, Red Prophet <\/em>(the Alvin Maker <\/em>series)<\/span><\/p>\n
Steven Erikson: Gardens of the Moon<\/em>; Deadhouse Gates (<\/em>the first two of the Malazan Book of the Fallen<\/em>\u00a0series)<\/span><\/p>\n
Raymond E Feist & Janny Wurts: the Empire<\/em> trilogy, which begins with Daughter of the Empire<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n
Barbara Hambly: Dragonsbane<\/em>, the Windrose<\/em> series, the Starhawk & Sun Wolf<\/em> series<\/span><\/p>\n
\"\"Robin Hobb: The Liveship Traders<\/em> trilogy<\/span><\/p>\n
Guy Gavriel Kay: the Fionavar<\/em> trilogy; Tigana<\/em>, A Song for Arbonne<\/em>, The Lions of Al-Rassan<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n
Katherine Kerr: Daggerspell (the first in her multiple Deverry<\/em> series)<\/span><\/p>\n
Elizabeth Knox: Dreamhunter, Dreamquake<\/span><\/p>\n
George RR Martin: A Song of Ice and Fire<\/em> series (aka A Game Of Thrones<\/em>)<\/span><\/p>\n
\"\"Patricia McKillip: The Riddlemaster of Hed<\/em> trilogy, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld<\/em>, The Changeling Sea<\/em> (et al)<\/span><\/p>\n
Robin McKinley: Beauty<\/em>, The Blue Sword<\/em>, Sunshine<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n
Brandon Sanderson: The Stormlight Archive<\/em> (starts with The Way of Kings<\/em>)<\/span><\/p>\n
Mary Stewart: the Merlin<\/em> series, which begins with The Crystal Cave<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n
Maggie Stiefvater: The Scorpio Races<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n
\"\"Laini Taylor: Daughter of Smoke and Bone<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n
The focus, as you’ve no doubt detected, was on more adult reading rather than children’s stories (which is a topic in itself), and I know<\/em> there are a lot of favourites I missed, simply because “off the top of my head”, on a Saturday night, and at a party are not the stuff of “exhaustive”…<\/p>\n
So feel free to add to the list (and the reading fun) through the comments. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n
\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Saturday evening, exactly like a large proportion of the world, no doubt, I went to a party. At this party, I caught up with an old friend who asked me what some of my favourite Fantasy novels and series are. I did say that the answer to the question was buried in the deeps […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-writers","category-recommended-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37071"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37086,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37071\/revisions\/37086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}