Hypothetical College Fantasy Course Reading List

A place for anything *not* Donaldson.

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Roland of Gilead
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Hypothetical College Fantasy Course Reading List

Post by Roland of Gilead »

These are not necessarily your favorite books, but rather a cross-section of what would give the student reader a nice cross-section of what can be done in the genre of fantasy.

Fellowship of the Ring - Tolkien
A Game of Thrones - Martin
Lord Foul's Bane - Donaldson
The Dark Tower, The Gunslinger - King
Dragons of Spring Dawning - Weis and Hickman
A Wizard of Earthsea - LeGuin
On Stranger Tides - Powers
Perdido Street Station - Mieville
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - Rowling
Watership Down - Adams
The Worm Ouroboros - E. R. Eddison
Conan Stories - Howard
Shatterday collection - Ellison
Elric novel - Moorcock
American Gods - Gaiman
A Princess of Mars - Burroughs
The Last Unicorn - Peter S. Beagle
Nine Princes in Amber - Zelazny

Assume the readers would pursue the other books in the trilogies and series if they were interested.
"I am, in short, a man on the edge of everything." - Dark Tower II, The Drawing of the Three
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Brinn
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Post by Brinn »

I actually took a course in fantasy literature at UMass Amherst. The reading list looked like this...

Lord of the Rings
Earthsea Trilogy
The Dark is Rising
The Once and Future King

No Donaldson much to my chagrin.
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. John Stuart Mill
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Blue_Spawn
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Post by Blue_Spawn »

Redwall -- Brian Jacques *definetly one of the best, if not THE best, Animal Fantasy ever written*
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dANdeLION
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Post by dANdeLION »

C.S. Lewis' Narnia series should be mentioned, too.
Dandelion don't tell no lies
Dandelion will make you wise
Tell me if she laughs or cries
Blow away dandelion

I'm afraid there's no denying
I'm just a dandelion
a fate I don't deserve.

High priest of THOOOTP

:hobbes: *

* This post carries Jay's seal of approval
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I'm Murrin
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Post by I'm Murrin »

I'd suggest Deadhouse Gates by Erikson (second in a series, but better as an example than Gardens).
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Ermingard
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Post by Ermingard »

A friend of mine gave a university course in Fantasy and SF litterature her students got to read:
Novels:
Barbara Hambly "Dragonsbane"
Philp K. Dick "Man in a high castle"
Charles de Lint "Jack of Kinrowan"
Neil Stevenson "Diamond Age"
Elisabeth Moon "Remnat population"
Ursula le Guin "The Lathe of heaven".

A whole bunch of short stories:
Joan D. Vinge "Tin Soldier "
Joanna Russ "When it changed"
Tanith Lee "Beauty"
James Tiptree jr "The women men don't see"
Adam Troy Castro "Jesus used a papercup"
Michael Cassutt "Perpetual light"
JD Ballard "Report on an unidentified spacestation"
Ray Bradbury "The foghorn"

AND some academic litterature on the subject...
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The Leper Fairy
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Post by The Leper Fairy »

The Ender's Game series would be good, though they are SF more than fantasy.
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Blue_Spawn
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Post by Blue_Spawn »

I think Ender's Game is more Drama than Sci-Fi, actually :)
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The Leper Fairy
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Post by The Leper Fairy »

Haha, you do have a point there :lol:
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Myste
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Post by Myste »

For a course in adult "High Fantasy"thru the ages
Beowulf
Mabinogion quartet by Evangeline Walton
Original Bros. Grimm
The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany.
The Worm Ouroborus by ER Eddison
LOTR
Narnia - not really adult, but good to do it in context with LOTR
Chrons of TC
The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
Earthsea
Riddle-master of Hed trilogy by Patricia McKillip
Song of Ice & Fire series by George RR Martin

For a course in classic "children's" fantasy
Alice in Wonderland/Alice Through the Looking-glass - Lewis Carroll
Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie
Narnia - CS Lewis
The Prydain Chronicles - Lloyd Alexander
A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet - Madeleine L'Engle
The Dark is Rising - Susan Cooper
Harry Potter - Rowling
His Dark Materials trilogy - Philip Pullman

If anyone could recommend anything between Peter Pan and Narnia (what, 60 years or something?) go for it--I'm drawing an utter blank.
Halfway down the stairs Is the stair where I sit. There isn't any other stair quite like it. I'm not at the bottom, I'm not at the top; So this is the stair where I always stop.
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FizbansTalking_Hat
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Post by FizbansTalking_Hat »

I think Ender's Game is more of an ethical and sociology style book, takes a look at society, and it satirizes it in many ways. Cheers.
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