Fantasy and SF Recommendations: Obscure books and series

[Myshkin]

One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovion - Alexander Solzhenitsen (found this at a thrift store signed by the author with a note)

I'm baffled as to how anyone could possibly consider Solzhenitsyn obscure. He won a fucking Nobel Prize for god's sake. Also your signed book might be worth some money.

ETA: I thought I should add something to this thread, so...

I recently discovered this book called The Idiot by a guy named Fred Dostoevsky. Pretty decent.

Also a book I read when I was younger, something I never see mentioned, The Magic Mountain by a guy named Tom Mann. Kinda YA, but still good poolside reading.

I'll go through my bookshelves and see if I can't find some more obscure novels.

[SkynJay]

I'm baffled as to how anyone could possibly consider Solzhenitsyn obscure. He won a fucking Nobel Prize for god's sake. Also your signed book might be worth some money.

It's why I gave up on this thread. Some decent finds, but people seemed to think that best sellers from four years back should count, or early works by famous authors, etc.

Lets be honest, no one reads past the first page of these three threads when truly looking for recommendations.

[Inkdaub]

William Browning Spencer - Urban fantasy single novels...no series.

Tamara Siler Jones - Fantasy series, begin with Ghosts in the Snow.

Jeff Long is the least 'obscure' of my recs but I haven't seen him mentioned on the site. All single novels except Deeper, which is a sequel to his best work, The Descent.

[Miguel Tonnies]

Anybody remembers Sterling Lanier's Hiero books?

[taurunum dire cat]

Bill,the galaxy hero by Harry Harryson

Its great!!1

[imladolen]

My obscure recommendation is Curt Benjamin (author of the Seven Brothers series). I would say he is obscure because there isn't much out there on the internet about his stuff. I wouldn't say it was excellent fantasy or anything, but I did find it interesting to read some fantasy that wasn't set in a quasi-medieval Europe setting (and the fact the guy is presumably a westerner makes it all the more interesting he wrote in a very Asiatic setting).

Riverworld by phillip jose farmer which comprises four books: To Your Scattered Bodies Go, The Fabulous Riverboat, The Dark Design, and The Magic Labrynth. Anyone else read these?

I enjoyed those, but preferred Dayworld to be honest.

Since it has no real web presence and hardly gets mentiond in discussions, and no one I know IRL has heard of it/read it except my uncle who reads tons of boks, I'll toss in The Deed of Paksenarrion atrilgy, I think probably only availabe online as a single volume, but probably at libraries (possibly in YA, though I never understood why it was, at least at mine) , sinle volumes: Sheepfarmer's Daughter, Divided Allegiance, and Oath of Gold. I've read t at least twice.

There is a pair of prequel novels, but I haven't read them. I also discoveredjust now that a sequel was released in 2010, and another this year I can't wait to read the new ones. After a re-read of course!

I've read all the Paks related books. Love them! (Although these two new ones do not compare to the original trilogy or to the prequel books).

It really is crazy what books you find there. I recently got the Thomas Covenant first trilogy HB all first edition, for less than 2 dollars.

Also, more books.

Orson Scott Card is well known, but one of his under the radar books was Enchantment. It's a rethinking of the classic sleeping beauty tale, with a present day/ fantasy setting.

The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco (before they knew the name of the Wind, there was the rose...)

Nice find with the Donaldson stuff. Won't touch Orson Scott Card anymore (got tired of his homophobia), and um, isn't The Name of the Rose an historical fiction novel?

I've been hesitant to respond, but looking through the comments and seeing mostly non-obscure authors/books being listed, perhaps some of these books will fit the criteria a bit better. I'll list works, that while they might be praised by some, are mostly out-of-print or PoD:

Steve Erickson, Arc d'X; Zeroville

Brian Evenson, Altmann's Tongue

Ferenc Karinthy, Metropole

Michael Cisco, The Traitor; The Narrator

Salvador Plascencia, The People of Paper

Stepan Chapman, The Troika

Charles Finney, The Unholy City

Thomas Ligotti, The Nightmare Factory; Teatro Grottesco; Songs of a Dead Dreamer

Edward Whittemore, Quin's Shanghai Circus; the Jerusalem Quartet novels

I hope those are obscure enough for those wanting more than just 2007 midlisters being mentioned here ;)

Yeah, if you ever need an obscure book recommendation, just ask the Squirrel Freak B) Larry has read every single book ever published by now I think, so he knows them all!

[Tammy]

Riverworld by phillip jose farmer which comprises four books: To Your Scattered Bodies Go, The Fabulous Riverboat, The Dark Design, and The Magic Labrynth. Anyone else read these?

I tried to read his World of Tiers because, I think, Zelazny recommended him in one of his books. (If it wasn't Zelazny it was some other fantasy writer I liked at the time.) I got halfway through the first book of his when I gave up and donated it to the local library. I've never tried anything else of his.

How about Eddison's "Worm Ouroboros"? Dense, yes, but beautifully crafted.

[Jah'rakal]

The Riddlemaster triology by Patricia A McKilipp.

A short satisfying fantasy triology, no unnecesary words here!

The Bible unknown author.

Great magic using protagonists in Moses and Jesus.

The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King.

King's best fantasybook, a very clever twist when the main character start to look through the eyes of the dragon!

[Serious Callers Only]

I liked the Daniel Keys Moran continuing time series.

[Guinevere Seaworth]

Not exactly obscure, but not well known on this forum:

Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart. It is freaking brilliant!

Nobody's Son by Sean Stewart.

[Dumas]

Obligatory plug for Lord Dunsany's The Gods of Pegana if that counts as obscure. Very influential, but it's not mentioned much these days. Otherwise, his The Blessing of Pan is also good, mostly because it raises the question of whether Christianity is worth preserving in the face of a resurgence of paganism unlike some novels that just assume it is.

Arthur Machen is also worth checking out; The Great God Pan is most famous, but there's a lot of other stuff whose titles I've forgotten.

And cap with The King in Yellow by Chambers. Again, he has a few other short stories that are worth reading, but I don't have them with me.

[Dmatix]

The Winter of the World books by Michael Scott Rohan. Never seen a mention of it anywhere really. I really enjoyed this series.It's the only one I can recall that has a smith as the hero. It's really hard to find, since it's mostly out of print.

[Woofdog2]

Post #5 on this page has been a gold mine for me. Discovering Stableford alone was worth the price of admission (figure of speech). http://www.sffworld....ead.php?t=30019 Not everything has been to my taste, but the win/lose ratio on what I have read off it has probably been around 75%. Stableford did 4 fatntasies for the black library which are very loosely set in the warhammer universe that I thought were very well done, much better than most of the publisher's stuff.

Would The Dragon Never Sleeps by Glen Cook count? I hardly ever see it mentioned. Or Passage at Arms for that matter. Both great books.

They seem obscure, but Cook in general is. I would also include The Tower of Fear by him on this list. Setting seems loosely based on Carthage after the 2nd punic war, if I caught the references correctly.

Someone who probably doesn't qualify as obscure for anyone over 35~, but for people a bit younger may be unknown, is John Varley. Steel Beach, The golden globe, and titan/wizard/demon were very good. On the other hand, this is sci-fi, but there has been some sci-fi mentioned previously in this thread.

[Trinuviel]

Meredith Ann Pierce's Darkangel trilogy

[SwordoftheMorning]

While I agree some of the listings here aren't even close to obscure, take a deep breath and relax. I read all e pages in this thread in like 10 minutes, no one has committed an unforgivable crime.

Someone listed Doomfarers of Coromonde, I loved that series. The other book in it was Starfollowers of Coromonde, both together are a real good read. Brian Daley wrote one other novel before his untimely death, i can't recall the title atm.

My recommendation is the Dark Border series by Paul Edwin Zimmer, who also died young and was the brother of Marion Zimmer Bradley. The first 2 books, The Lost. Prince and King Chondos's Ride are especially excellent. The last two drop off in quality sadly.

[Calibandar]

Re; Dark Border. Someone recommended these many years ago here on the board and that led me to purchase secondhand copies. I have the first two books, unread on the shelf, but I keep seeing them names in threads such as these, lost classics. Must really give them a chance soon.

Another pick: Hiero's journey-Sterling Lanier.

[nickg]

Post #5 on this page has been a gold mine for me.  Discovering Stableford alone was worth the price of admission (figure of speech).  http://www.sffworld....ead.php?t=30019  Not everything has been to my taste, but the win/lose ratio on what I have read off it has probably been around 75%.  Stableford did 4 fatntasies for the black library which are very loosely set in the warhammer universe that I thought were very well done, much better than most of the publisher's stuff.

They seem obscure, but Cook in general is.  I would also include The Tower of Fear by him on this list.  Setting seems loosely based on Carthage after the 2nd punic war, if I caught the references correctly.

Someone who probably doesn't qualify as obscure for anyone over 35~, but for people a bit younger may be unknown, is John Varley.  Steel Beach, The golden globe, and titan/wizard/demon were very good.  On the other hand, this is sci-fi, but there has been some sci-fi mentioned previously in this thread.

The Tower of Fear is awesome and it seems like no one has heard of it. I found my used copy for a dollar a few years ago, and it looked brand new. I have a hard time calling Cook obscure, mainly because of The Black Company, but alot of his stuff is really good and seriously under read.

[nickg]

Post #5 on this page has been a gold mine for me.  Discovering Stableford alone was worth the price of admission (figure of speech).  http://www.sffworld....ead.php?t=30019  Not everything has been to my taste, but the win/lose ratio on what I have read off it has probably been around 75%.  Stableford did 4 fatntasies for the black library which are very loosely set in the warhammer universe that I thought were very well done, much better than most of the publisher's stuff.

They seem obscure, but Cook in general is.  I would also include The Tower of Fear by him on this list.  Setting seems loosely based on Carthage after the 2nd punic war, if I caught the references correctly.

Someone who probably doesn't qualify as obscure for anyone over 35~, but for people a bit younger may be unknown, is John Varley.  Steel Beach, The golden globe, and titan/wizard/demon were very good.  On the other hand, this is sci-fi, but there has been some sci-fi mentioned previously in this thread.

The Tower of Fear is awesome and it seems like no one has heard of it. I found my used copy for a dollar a few years ago, and it looked brand new. I have a hard time calling Cook obscure, mainly because of The Black Company, but alot of his stuff is really good and seriously under read.

[Grack21]

The Tower of Fear is awesome and it seems like no one has heard of it. I found my used copy for a dollar a few years ago, and it looked brand new. I have a hard time calling Cook obscure, mainly because of The Black Company, but alot of his stuff is really good and seriously under read.

Tower of Fear is actually my favorite Cook novel, and should be required reading in schools, because its AWESOME.

[nickg]

Tower of Fear is actually my favorite Cook novel, and should be required reading in schools, because its AWESOME.

The Dragon Never Sleeps probably edges it as my personal favorite but it is definitely awesome. Would actually be nice if they re printed Tower of Fear like they have done with alot of his older stuff.Edited because me not so smart...