Thinking of the blog post I wrote yesterday, it's not surprising that I've become a bit disenchanted with High Fantasy as a genre. J. R. R. Tolkien is probably my favorite single writer ever, and remains so, and I have a fond nostalgia for C. S. Lewis and Lloyd Alexander as well. Ray Feist is another one that I like quite a bit.
But once you go beyond that, you get to writers like R. A. Salvatore, Terry Brooks, David Eddings, Ursula LeGuin, Stephen R. Donaldson, Terry Goodkind, Robert Jordan—all writers that inspire in me reactions somewhere between polite disinterest to active hatred. Not a fan of most of their stuff.
So the last few years, I've wandered a bit away from High Fantasy, and am only cooly curious about what's going on in the field.
Because I have a friend who continually raves about them, I'll try out some Brust and Erikson eventually too. Maybe when George R. R. Martin finally finishes his work, I'll have a look at that.
Otherwise, I'm finding myself more and more turning back to older, sword & sorcery style authors and enjoying the vibe of that much more vibrant, pulpy kind of writing quite a bit. I've also enjoyed some Glen Cook, but I don't know exactly what kind of fantasy I'd call his work.
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