An academic I’m on a panel with in a few weeks (talking about Medievalism) just asked for suggestions of fantasy novels for undergraduate teaching of genre. I had some suggestions, as did a number of other people. The most suggested novel was The Witcher, which is, technically science fiction, not fantasy. I was told this by a group of upset Polish fans when I described it as fantasy in a talk I gave them. Some lessons are taught through error: when I looked more closely, the fans were quite right and I was wrong. The style of the novels and many of the themes are fantasy, but the built world is a future planet-linked-to-Earth-in-strange-ways.
The Witcher could be taught as a fantasy novel, but I suspect the teacher would have to explain that the world building uses humans from our world plus strange SFnal crossovers. We agreed (the fans and I) that it could be mistaken for fantasy because it has quite a few traits that are more fantastical and science fictional. So I was wrong, but forgiven because it was an understandable error from someone who didn’t know the world very well.
All this got me wondering: what novel would you suggest?
If you were giving a 20-year-old just one fantasy novel (and not a long one, so no Gene Wolfe and no Lord of the Rings, and certainly no Game of Thrones) to get them thinking and fascinated, what novel would you give them? And if you were to give them five they needed to read to really get the hang of fantasy novels, what five would you choose? They don’t need to be well-known novels. They need to be perfect to lure the student into learning.
This is an excuse to find out about really good novels that miss being seen. I plan to read all those you suggest that I have not already read, of course.