Books with Old fashioned Heroes and Wonder (High Fantasy 'noblebright' etc)

[polishgenius]

Recommendation: try Thunderer by Felix Gilman. It doesn't fit too many of your specs re: true love, bands of heroes saving the world etc, and it's not high fantasy, but it's a book full of wonder and the joy of fantasy (and it's defo set in a weird city).

[Lyanna Stark]

(By the way, suggesting I only want to read about "white hero guys" may make me sound sexist or racist. Which isn't very fair when I was only asking a question about what is available, not stating an ultimatum for everyone to follow in what they read).

I apologise if it came across as you must be a sexist and a racist. That is abolsutely not the case. However, it is unfortunately often the case from people who wish for the old-skool, reactionary (and comfortable) stuff to come back.

To make up for it, I'll recommend the best SFF I've read in at least five years: The Curse of Chalion, by McMaster Bujold.

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

They aren't new, but the Belgariad books written by David Eddings fit your criteria perfectly. In fact I believe he purposefully set out to use as many common fantasy tropes he could think of when writing them, as his thing.

I liked them well enough when I was a kid.

[Joe Blackfyre]

I apologise if it came across as you must be a sexist and a racist. That is abolsutely not the case. However, it is unfortunately often the case from people who wish for the old-skool, reactionary (and comfortable) stuff to come back.

To make up for it, I'll recommend the best SFF I've read in at least five years: The Curse of Chalion, by McMaster Bujold.

Thanks again, I will check that out.

I like fictional works that try to find a middle-ground between two opposed approaches, which don't automatically assume the worst of one group. Stuff like X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills is so much effective than Preacher because the goal is not to attack, but to communicate. There is a way in for people who need to hear the message and the author isn't just screaming through a megaphone but offering a open hand. Otherwise, no minds get changed at all.

(Hmm, reading the above just made me rethink my opinion on the The Wheel of Time. It's still a bit problematic to me (just in the presentation of the damane) but there's acknowledgement from the main team that the Seanchan have a bad system and they need to work towards change. So maybe there is more hope there than I had seen at first glance.)

[Wilbur]

To make up for it, I'll recommend the best SFF I've read in at least five years: The Curse of Chalion, by McMaster Bujold.

That's a good call, the Chalion books.

[The Reckoner]

The Death Gate Cycle fits your criteria OP.

[Altherion]

I agree with Lyanna in that True Love is relatively common in modern fantasy literature. In fact, even classic Grimdark^TM stuff such as The Black Company has a love story running through most of its books. The problem is that few of the other constraints in the original post are satisfied. The world is usually Bad and most of the heroes and heroines are, though rarely outright Evil, intended to be Morally Complex. Most of urban fantasy falls into this category as well. However, there are quite a few books which more or less pay only lip service to the idea: the hero and/or heroine may be werewolves/witches/whatever, but all this means is that they have some powers which are useful, but do not change their fundamentally noble nature.

I would also agree regarding the Chalion books -- I thought of them independently, but I had to go do something else for a while and by the time I came back people already mentioned them (hooray for the preview function!). All three of them are worth reading:

The Curse of Chalion

Paladin of Souls
The Hallowed Hunt

I'm kind of puzzled now though. The Chalion books were the first thing that came to my mind... but what else is there that's like that? I can think of some Tolkien clones, but nothing of the same quality.

[Wilbur]

I agree with Lyanna in that True Love is relatively common in modern fantasy literature. In fact, even classic Grimdark^TM stuff such as The Black Company has a love story running through most of its books. The problem is that few of the other constraints in the original post are satisfied. The world is usually Bad and most of the heroes and heroines are, though rarely outright Evil, intended to be Morally Complex. Most of urban fantasy falls into this category as well. However, there are quite a few books which more or less pay only lip service to the idea: the hero and/or heroine may be werewolves/witches/whatever, but all this means is that they have some powers which are useful, but do not change their fundamentally noble nature.

I would also agree regarding the Chalion books -- I thought of them independently, but I had to go do something else for a while and by the time I came back people already mentioned them (hooray for the preview function!). All three of them are worth reading:

The Curse of Chalion

Paladin of Souls

The Hallowed Hunt

I'm kind of puzzled now though. The Chalion books were the first thing that came to my mind... but what else is there that's like that? I can think of some Tolkien clones, but nothing of the same quality.

Another group of interesting books that remind me of the Chalion works is a set of works by Dan Chernenko (a Harry Turtledove pseudonym) called The Scepter of Mercy Trilogy that include the following.

- The Bastard King

- The Chernagor Pirates

- The Scepter's Return

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/334263.Dan_Chernenko

I think that it is the setting, more than anything else, that reminds me of the Chalion books by Bujold.

[Seiche]

Jack Vance's Lyonesse Trilogy fits the bill.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyonesse_Trilogy

The three volumes included the following

• Lyonesse (1983) (also published as Suldrun's Garden)

The Green Pearl (1985)

Madouc (1989)

This was my thought as well. Another thought was Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle.

[Migey]

And True Love? Well, there's so little swept-off-your-feet romance in the world today in our fiction

There's an absolute ton of it out there. It's just that most of it is unbelievably, soul rendingly awful.

Anyway, re the discussion: Someone else said A Wheel of Time, which I think fits. I guess it's harder to find the whimsical stuff as fantasy evolves, though. I think some of the stuff that OP may have been thinking of was perhaps slightly more a result of fantasy's youth as something which, while it had the potential to be complex and genuinely interesting, was still somewhat entrenched in the idea of being children's stories. As fantasy has become more mainstream and the whole thing has evolved, it's become 'darker' because more people have realised that you can use the genre to tell some really fascinating, interesting, and in a sense realistic stories, so it's moved away from the wonder and whimsy of things like Narnia, WoT, etc.

Just to lend my voice to some of the other suggestions: Brandon Sanderson tries to be gritty and realistic sometimes, he really does, but he just isn't very good at it and while he doesn't have so much of the 'whimsy and wonder' stuff, what with his world usually following very strict and intricate rules (at least relating to magic), he does perhaps capture some of the tone you're looking for, where the good guys are pretty much good and the bad guys are pretty much just dicks and so on. Rather fitting, actually, for the guy who finished off WoT (surprisingly well, as it happens).

Someone else said David Eddings. Yeah, he works, but only as the lightest reading possible. He was my favourite author when I was about 10. His stuff is very basic, the sort of stuff I'd give to my future children to get them started on fantasy and learning the basic tropes and archetypes, but he does have a lot of what I think you're looking for in it.

Robin Hobb's original Assassin's Quest actually fits too. It's got it all, true love, nobility, heroism, good guys who are nice and good and bad guys who are not-nice and bad. You've probably read it because everyone and their dog around here seems to think the protagonist, Fitz, is the most amazing, interesting and complex main character in fantasy, ever. But if you havn't, it's not too bad (although the sequel trilogy which focuses on entirely different characters and an adjacent landmass, The Liveship Traders, is really fantastic and one of my favourite series. Not what you're looking for, though).

[Lyanna Stark]

There's an absolute ton of it out there. It's just that most of it is unbelievably, soul rendingly awful.

No?

Really, I think this is a very common dudebro complaint. OMG ewh, the romance cooties. Of course, there is a lot of shit romance, but apparently it is worse when shite romance like Twilight becomes famous than when shite Fantasy like Paolini , Eddings or WoT become famous.

Or you know, perhaps you are a romance connoisseur and I've got it all wrong.

Focusing on the shite romance is perhaps good fun but in the end, it's about as fair to have Twilight as the epitome of romance as it is for SFF by having Paolini as the main representative. There are also lots and lots of novels with romance as a plot element, which aren't straight up romances either. It's deeply unfair to claim all of these novels are soulrendingly awful or that romance or even the more idealistic idea of True Love mean inherently bad novels. I'd also have to wonder why you are hanging around on a GRRM board since he's both romantic in the literary sense and he incluces a lot of straight up romance, too.

[Jo498]

What about E.R. Eddison: The worm Ouroboros? It's a bit wordy and the heroes are rather Nietzschean supermen than catholic paladins but it's certainly "high" in tone and demeanour. (I only dipped into the Zimiamvia books which are slightly pretentious and a little short on action it seems)

And it's been almost 20 years since I read it and do not remember a lot (except that I apparently liked them well enough to read a couple or so), but Kurtz' Deryni books are rather traditional medieval+magic.

[Darth Richard II]

Gemmel.

[Steinman]

It doesn't fit all the criteria, but I'd think Julie Czerneda's A Turn of Light is somewhat what you are looking for. Good characters, a sense of wonder and quite much romance. It took me 50 pages to get into the writing, but once I did I fell in love with it.

[Lyanna Stark]

Another thought was Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle.

This is another excellent recommendation.

[Derfel Cadarn]

David Gemmel. Try his first book, Legend.

[SilentRoamer]

I will get some hate for it but the Rhapsody series by Elizabeth Hayden has a large romance plot and is overall pretty different to most stuff out there. I actually really like this series and surprised when I first posted here and it got so much hate.

DR and Derfel Cadarn nailed it here. As soon as I read your OP I immediately thought Gemmell. The Rigante series especially fits the criteria.

[peterbound]

No?

Really, I think this is a very common dudebro complaint. OMG ewh, the romance cooties. Of course, there is a lot of shit romance, but apparently it is worse when shite romance like Twilight becomes famous than when shite Fantasy like Paolini , Eddings or WoT become famous.

Or you know, perhaps you are a romance connoisseur and I've got it all wrong.

Focusing on the shite romance is perhaps good fun but in the end, it's about as fair to have Twilight as the epitome of romance as it is for SFF by having Paolini as the main representative. There are also lots and lots of novels with romance as a plot element, which aren't straight up romances either. It's deeply unfair to claim all of these novels are soulrendingly awful or that romance or even the more idealistic idea of True Love mean inherently bad novels. I'd also have to wonder why you are hanging around on a GRRM board since he's both romantic in the literary sense and he incluces a lot of straight up romance, too.

As a dudebro, I find this post offensive.

And in our last newsletter, I read that it's now ok to like romance, so you can't level that at us anymore.

[SilentRoamer]

Ewwww Lyanna has the cooties! She been reading romance!

As you have pointed out I think a big problem (more recently) is the slew of absolute romantic trash that is dominating the e-book markets. As much as us Dudebro's are like ewwwww you Ladygirls? are lapping this stuff up! I think the teenage girl reading culture has to answer for this but you know what? At least people are reading! :)

Anyhow not to get into a gender and stereotyping discussion online as we all know how those play out. Now you have offended Peterbound - shame on you!

[Free Northman Reborn]

David Gemmell

He does the romance, triumph of good over evil and didactic heroism stories better than anyone, while still retaining a gritty, somewhat pessimistic depiction of general humanity at the same time.

Best author I have ever read.