What are your Choices for the Most Literate Works of Fantasy

[Darth Richard II]

Well done, sir.

[GAROVORKIN]

Jurgen A Comedy of Justice by James Branch Cabell. A fantasy satire  written 1919 Banned in Boston and New York and once a celebrated book. Cable wrote 50 fantasy novels in all 17 of which are set in the local of Jurgen which the fictional medieval French  province of Poictesme.  Cabell is very witty and funny , a master of Ironic humor .

His most famous quote " The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds and Pessimist fears that this is true "

 

[GAROVORKIN]

On 2/3/2018 at 11:36 AM, End of Disc One said:

Mistborn: The Final Empire

Ive heard allot of good things about Sanderson.

[SkynJay]

On 10/25/2017 at 1:16 PM, Myshkin said:

 

And....just realized i responded to a necroed thread.

[Myshkin]

1 hour ago, SkynJay said:

 

And....just realized i responded to a necroed thread.

And you had to quote me why? I got all excited when I saw the little notification thing, only to click on it and be disappointed. Thanks a lot. Jerk.

[Darth Richard II]

38 minutes ago, Myshkin said:

And you had to quote me why? I got all excited when I saw the little notification thing, only to click on it and be disappointed. Thanks a lot. Jerk.

Cause you remind him of the babe.

[GAROVORKIN]

The King of Elflands Daughter  and the Charwoman's Shadow  both by Lord Dunsany

[The Coconut God]

Nabokov's Ada or Ardor and Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita are the best that come to mind, although it could be argued the fantasy elements lean more towards SF in the former and supernatural in the latter. One Hundred Years of Solitude can also be added to the list.

Do yourselves a favor and steer away from Mieville, though. He's not literary, he's just pretentious. Fancy words covering up a cheesy, unfocused plot and cliched, poorly developed characters, or at least that's the impression I got from Perdido Street Station.

[A wilding]

4 hours ago, The Coconut God said:

Do yourselves a favor and steer away from Mieville, though. He's not literary, he's just pretentious. Fancy words covering up a cheesy, unfocused plot and cliched, poorly developed characters, or at least that's the impression I got from Perdido Street Station.

 

Also not a fan of Perdido Street Station. and would agree with most of your criticism of it, but try Mieville's The City and the City before giving up on him. If any of his books deserve to be considered "literate" it does. Not for nothing has it been compared with 1984 and with Kafka.

Minor The City and the City spoiler:

Spoiler

Though of course you could argue as to whether it counts as being fantasy.

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

8 hours ago, The Coconut God said:

 

Do yourselves a favor and steer away from Mieville, though. He's not literary, he's just pretentious. Fancy words covering up a cheesy, unfocused plot and cliched, poorly developed characters, or at least that's the impression I got from Perdido Street Station.

PSS is the weakest of the Bas-Lag books, but the Scar is pretty fucking amazing and doesn't suffer from the problems you describe in PSS.  The fancy words are mostly limited to the italicized sections that break the novel down into four or five parts, and the characters are much more developed and memorable.   Iron Council is also excellent but not quite on the same level as the preceding volume.  

I've revisited some old favorites this winter in audiobook form while at work and The Scar was the real standout.

 

 

[The Coconut God]

Honestly, Perdido was so disappointing and aggravating I doubt Mieville will get another chance from me. There are too many other authors who might deserve it more.

If you want to know why I dislike this book so much, flip to chapter 19 and read the first few pages (a single phrase or paragraph wouldn't do). It's emblematic of the problem with his writing.

Spoiler

Instead of showing us the mental process that leads to the construction of the crisis engine, Mieville treats us to a vague, externalized montage of Grimnebulin doing "sciency stuff", like fumbling with punch card machines, scribbling diagrams, replacing the books on his desk with thematically appropriate ones, poring over textbooks, making mental models, thinking of publication, etc.

This is the literary equivalent of empty calories. We don't get to actually think while reading these pages. There's no thought process to follow, no circumstances that would make us actively recognize Grimnebulin's intelligence, no attempt at defining the crisis engine and what it can do. Indeed, when you stop to think how little is actually being said throughout this segment, it becomes downright ridiculous.

The same approach is taken one chapter later, when the invention is almost finished and Grimnebulin tries to explain it to Yagharek. Mieville fumbles with a lot of words, but the moment things start to get harder to define, it all boils down to "It's fucking complicated crisis math, old son" and "Don't worry, Yag. You'll get what you're after".

Even though the crisis engine is a magical MacGuffin without any scientific basis, since Mieville chose to focus his story on it, he should have created an in-world explanation. At the very least, he should have included some character development if he really wanted us to be impressed with Grimnebulin's discovery. But he took the lazy way out, and somehow he's still pretentious about me. That's what bugs me.

This is also apparent with many other aspects of Perdido; there's a lot of potential everywhere, but Mieville doesn't invest in it. The setting and the politics fall in the background, even though they started out strong. The characters start out as deep and flawed, haunted by trauma and desperation, a thirst for freedom and justice, love, a passion for art, deep scientific curiosity... but they never feel driven by these emotions, they always blindly follow the plot, so the more you see them, the more artificial they become... On the flip side, some characters are aliens with very creative physiques, but once you get inside their heads, their thought process is very human, even for those who claim otherwise.

For the sake of other readers, I hope Mieville managed to overcome this major shortcoming, but it's so fundamental that I have sincere doubts.

[alguien]

Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirlees