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.
Okay. In no particular order:
The Goblin Emperor by Katharine Addison
The City We Became by N,K, Jemisin
The Ebony Gate by Julia Vee and Ken Bebelle
The Fifth Gate by N.K, Jemisin
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Two are fantasies set in contemporary cities; two are set in richly imagined fantasy worlds, and one is a time-travel novel that grapples with now, then, and the ramifications of the American slave system.
On the assumption that they might be familiar with Peter Pan and Sherlock Holmes (and therefore appreciate a story that riffs on them) I recommend Pat Murphy’s new book The Adventures of Mary Darling. Various kinds of magic and a new look at old stories.
Andrea Hairston’s Redwood and Wildfire is also excellent. The fantasy elements are rooted in African American and indigenous cultures, so it’s building on a different world from the most recommended fantasy books. Her most recent book Archangels of Funk is more science fiction, though it has some fantasy elements and is rooted in the characters first introduced in Redwood and is also a wonderful read for the time and place we’re living in now.
I left out Laurie Marks’s Elemental Logic series, because it’s four books, but it is one of my all-time favorites and the magic system is pretty incredible.