Young Writers Society

Right well who your favourite. My favourite in Ian Irvine the writer of The View form The Mirror Quarteppt a magic series of books

David Gemmell. He's a writer of heroic fantasy.

Awesome characters, great themes. The books make you think as well as cheer and whoop at the heroics. He makes actual deep, well-developed characters who aren't just superhero fighters but have actual conflicts that make them seem so real. I love his books.

Er, do you really want me to make a list? Because my list spans several dozen pages and includes lots of exclamation marks and incoherent gibbering about how amazing Author X is.

Please. I need some recommended authors to read. Go ahead

Robert Jordan, without doubt. His 'Wheel of Time' series is *amazing*. I love the way he develops the characters so well, giving them all their own stories while not straying from the main storyline.

Hehe, I've actually noticed my writing has started resembling his style. I guess that's what comes from reading (and re-reading) up to book six...

Okay, pulling out my list... fantasy you say...

Robin McKinley - Blue Sword, short but a very good read; Deerskin: it's like a trainwreck, you want to stop reading, but you can't, very good. 'I like McKinley, but most of her work is fairly lightweight. This isn't. Based on the uncensored version of Perrault's classic fairytale 'Donkeyskin'. (quoting a friend).

Jacqueline Carey - Banewrecker is amazing... 'nough said.

Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere is my favorite of his.

Mercedes Lackey - I have not ever not liked something she wrote.

Lloyd Alexander - Prydain Chronicles: The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, Taran Wanderer, The High King. You will probably find this in the young adult section, but they are worth a read, I have loved them since I picked them up. Loosely based on the Welsh Mabinogin. Also check out Gypsy Rizka, it's young adult and more for the females but its very good.


T.H White - The Once and Future King: about Merlin, was what the show Camelot was based on. Also White authored The Sword and the Stone, and The Book of Merlyn.

T.A Barron - The Lost Years of Merlin Series, my favorite fantasy series of all time. About a young Merlin.

Clive Barker - Abarat; Days of Magic, Nights of War...

Peter S. Beagle - The Last Unicorn

Kristen Britain - Green Rider; the sequel wasn't that good though

Michael Moorcock - The Dreamtheif's Daughter, et al... Historical fantasy; very, very good.

Anne McCaffrey - move over Dragons of Pern, Black Horses for the King is far better. Historical fantasy...

Bernard Cornwell - The Warlord Chronicles: The Winter King, Enemy of God, Excalibur. This man is a genius... historical fantasy of Arthurian legend, told from the viewpoint of a Christian monk who was once in Arthur's army.

Ursula K LeGuin - Earthsea novels, short but good. A thinking man's (or woman's) books.

Raymond Feist - Talon of the Silver Hawk was a birthday present, very good, I own two other of his books but haven't cracked them open.

William Goldman - The Princess Bride (yes...what spawned the movie)

Robin Hobb - not my favorite but good nonetheless... The Farships Trilogy was my favorite.

Tanya Huff - Wizard of the Grove (2 books combined in one) and the Quarters Series

Guy Gavriel Kay - The Fionavar Tapestry (The Summer Tree, The Wandering Fire, The Darkest Road: a take on Arthurian legend), Tigana, he also is the author of some very good alternate history (Lions of Al-Rassan, The Sarantine Mosaic.)

Katherine Kurtz - St. Patrick's Gargoyle, better than her Deryni Cronicles, about a gargoyle (gasp!) of St. Patrick's (double gasp!) in Dublin.

Ellen Kushner - Thomas the Rhymer: based on the Scottish ballad.

Stephen Lawhead - The Pendragon Cycle: Taliesen, and Pendragon were my favorites. He also has a series called the Celtic Crusades about the crusades

Patricia McKillip - The Forgotten Beasts of Eld

William Morris - Well at the World's End, out of print but worth it.

Mervyn Peake - The Gormenghast Trilogy; the third was written after he fell ill, so totally different tone.

Mickey Zucker Reichert - The Legend of Nightfall

Sherwood Smith - Crown Duel

Andre Norton and Rosemary Edgehill - The Shadow of Albion

Michael Ende - The Neverending Story (classic)

Gilliam, Greenberg, Kramer et al. - Grails: Quests of the Dawn

Isabel Glass - Daughter of Exile

Rebecca Lickliss - Never After is a very fast read, and humorous;nothing deep here. Remember that old tale of 'a beautiful sleeping princess awakes with the kiss from her beloved, well there's been a transcription error.'

Peter Haining et al. - Knights of Madness is a collection of humorous, often absurb fantasy stories by some of the best authors in fantasy, and then some others.

JRR Tolkien - Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo; we all know about Lord of the Rings, and the Hobbit, but this is some quality stuff.

and then there is Prachett... but I'll stop here.

Yeah, I read a lot can't you tell ...

I loved reading The Neverending Story, always forgot the authors name though.

Here's my list.

Peter James -- Brilliant stories such as Possession, Twilight, Dreamer and others.

Diana Wynne Jones -- The Chronicles of Chrestomanci and others.

Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell -- Edge Chronicles

Anne McCaffrey -- The Dragons of Pern and others.

R.A. Salvatore: Drizzt Books
J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter
Tolkien: LOTR
Eoin Colfer or something like that: Artemis Fowl

Thats all i can realy think of

Definately agree with these ones:

- Ursula LeGuin. Just amazing style of writing, though I haven't read the books in a while.

- Terry Pratchett. Mixes fantasy with comedy, which is great. Plus, there are loads of them

- Eoin Colfer. More for younger readers, but great all the same.

And whoever it is who wrote 'The Divide'. I can't remember who that is...

But obviously Robert Jordan is top of the list

Anthony Horowitz

I just love the Alex rider series i have read them all loads of times and they still don't get boring.
i guess he's just brilliant writer.

Okay, here's part one of Smaur's long and incoherently rambling list of favourite fantasy writers. Yes, that's right — part one. For the sake of length (ha ha, yeah right) I'm going to omit Tolkien and Rowling and Colfer and all those other relatively well-known fantasy writers (and by "well-known" I mean "well-known outside of the fantasy genre", because all of the listed writers are varying degrees of famous).


- Charles de Lint - more or less invented the urban fantasy genre. Everything by him is varying shades of breathtaking. The ideas, the writing, the characters — he's one of those writers you desperately wish you could live up to. If you're going to try something of his, read Memory & Dream. (Or, if you prefer short story anthologies, Waifs and Strays, which is a collection of YA fantasy stories.)

- Neil Gaiman - very very distinctive writing — a blend of bizarre and creepy and amusing and scary. He's also done everything — movie screenplays (Princess Mononoke, Mirrormask), comic books (Sandman), children's fiction, adult fiction, YA fantasy. His best work is probably American Gods, although Neverwhere is pretty high up there. (And Mirrormask and Coraline, but that's for people who aren't afraid of reading children's literature.)

- Robin McKinley - you can't delve too deep into the fantasy genre without not knowing who McKinley is, because, well, everyone knows who she is. (Yes, everyone. ) She writes, wonders of all wonders, good female characters. Not ones who are purposely written to be "strong", and therefore wear pants and wield swords and are supposed to be 'feisty' and basically end up sucking — in other words, most of her female characters aren't dramatically over-the-top in their attempt to smash the fantasy genre over the head with feminism; they're written to be good characters.

Which is all the more interesting because most of her stories are retellings of classic fairytales or legends (Robin Hood, Beauty and the Beast, etc.). So you have Spindle's End and Sunshine and stories like that, where instead of being over-the-top, the female characters are down-to-earth. And in a genre which tends to suck in its portrayal of women (*cough*Terry Brooks*cough*), it's kind of nice to have that. And on top of that, her stories are well-written. In some cases, she'll retell the story in order to explore each of the original characters and their relationships better (Rose Daughter); at other times, she reinterprets the story, so that hidden storylines and new characters are introduced (Sunshine); and sometimes, she'll simply retell the entire story, so it doesn't necessarily end the same way as the original (Outlaws of Sherwood).

- Patricia McKillip - Breathtakingly beautiful prose. Patricia McKillip is beyond talented — she's in some strange and frightening divine category of her own. Her stories are a varying mixture of gorgeous storytelling, amazing characters, and fascinating plot. If you're not sucked in by the sheer prettiness of her writing, chances are that some other amazing element of her stories will shock you into loving her. And, as if that's not good enough, she's written scores and scores and scores of novels & short stories, so it takes a little while to run short.

- Ellen Kushner - um, read Swordspoint. In terms of court intrigue and duelling, this book is genius. Character, dialogue, storytelling — it's still genius. Be warned, if you're the kind of person who can't handle homosexual relationships, you should stay away, because she's got these in plenty. Speaking of which ...

- Jacqueline Carey - intrigue, drama, fighting, all packed into one lovely trilogy. Or several, depending on which ones you're reading. The Kushiel trilogy (there's some formal name for it; something like Kushiel's Scion or, um, something) is insanely good. Although if you don't like sex or violence, you should stay clear away from this, because it has more or less everything — gratuitous torture, sex, S&M, and of course, tons of fighting. The main character is a courtesan, so — yeah. If you're not comfortable reading this kind of material, you should probably stay way clear of Carey, although you're missing out on some crazy awesome fiction.

- Marion Zimmer Bradley - I'm re-reading Mists of Avalon, probably one of her better-knowns works, and — dude. The scope and depth of this makes it more or less impossible for me to subjectively read any other Arthur retellings, because this one's so freaking brilliant. It more or less examines the Arthur legend through the eyes of the women of the story — Igraine, Morgan le Fay (Morgaine, in the story), Guinevere (Gwenhwyfar), etc. It's super duper feminist (she more or less whallops you over the head with the female characters), but so deeply plotted and carefully structured that it's worth it. (Plus of course, I don't really mind her brand of feminism, but it depends on your tastes.) I think one of the things that really struck me the first time I read it was the characters and their complexity. Specifically, their motivations. Ultimately, each of these characters are pitiable because something somewhere in their life screwed up (for some, it's more than others) and they're trying to rectify it, or deal with it, or something, in their own messed up ways. And while you can't help despise certain characters, there are specific times for each character where you can't help but deeply sympathize with them.

- Terry Pratchett - So very very funny (specifically, the Discworld series, which everyone should read for its sheer hilarity). And, speaking of Terry Pratchett, everyone needs to go read Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Predictions of Agnes Nutter, by the amazing duo of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. If you've read either of the two (or both) but never this — well, multiply the awesomeness by two. Hilarious and quotable and ... hilarious. (And Terry Gilliam is going to make a movie of it, eventually — his initial cast included Johnny Depp and some other vaguely important people, although that didn't actually pan out.) And because I'm rather unconvincing when it comes to, um, convincing people, I'll direct you all to an excerpt of chapter one, so you can gape open-mouthed at the marvellous amazingness.

... stay tuned. There's more.

I love you smaur, in a wholly platonic way.

Oh deary deary dear. This is much too hard, I recognise the majority of the writers here, Ive read perhaps all of them. I cant bring out my list, it seriously goes on and on and I'll never stop rambling.

I'll say real quickly: Janny Wurts- the breadth and scope of Wars of Light and Shadow, is just awesome. It is a sweeping, majestic series that'll make you laugh, cry, bite your nails in fear and anticipation. It is unbelievably fantastic. If you have not read her works, or this series then you are missing out on one of the greats.

David Eddings and Raymond. E. Feist are both favourites of mine. Ive read all their books. Trudi Canavan is worht a look, her Black Magician Trilogy is a wonderful fantasy. Sarah Zettel's Sorcerer's Treason and the succesive books are deep, exciting books that truly must be read.

Okay, now I must be quiet.

I loved The Divide by Elizabeth Kay. Oh yeah, Terry Pratchett and Ursula LeGuin too.

Raymond Feist -- Magician, The Daughter of the Empire and others.

Terry Brooks -- The Demon Series.

Joan Aiken -- The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Go Saddle the Sea and The Erl King's Daughter (children's book but I loved it)

I completely forgot Tolkien translated Sir Gawain! I loved that when we read it in our Medieval Omnibus last year. The rhyme scheme was cool.

My list isn't nearly as impressive as many of you, but here goes:

JRR Tolkien. The Hobbit rocks my socks.

JK Rowling. Good ol' Harry Potter.

Gail Carson Levine. She makes me laugh.

... I'm out of ideas. Hehe.