I’m 61 and this brought back so many memories of my own! I worked in bookselling until 1987 when I became a librarian. I just got a lot of these on Kindle because my physical collection has outgrown my house!
I was born in 95, but I enjoy finding and reading old fantasy books from the 30's to 90's. They have a certain charm and polish to them that a lot of modern fantasy series lack. Reading the Belgariad earlier this year helped lift me out of a depression.
I’ve officially run out of complimentary adjectives, Steve. All of your videos are amazing and this one is no exception. I was the inverse of you, I started as a fantasy reader and then moved into SF (and thanks to your knowledge and erudite presentation I continue to learn at the feet of the master). I can wholeheartedly second your recommendations in this video. They are all great books and I will bang the drum for Stephen Donaldson & Thomas Covenant all day long. It’s a shame that those books aren’t as widely read these days. Thank you, Steve. Cheers!
My feeling is that books should revert to the cover designs they had when at their commercial zenith - this would at least pique the interest of readers...but sadly, the cliche 'don't judge a book by its cover' has more than a grain of truth in it. Most readers are conservative and want things that look the same as the material they've enjoyed. I'm the opposite of this, myself. I'd reissue the Donaldsons with those jackets, as the current ones are bland and uninviting.
I love that Hawkwind shirt! I recall considering myself exclusively an SF fan outside of REH until I found Elric and Hawkmoon and Corum, and I found I had abundant reader affection to share with that kind of fantasy. Great talk on Fantasy from that formative time.
Many, many thanks again Jack. I think Moorcock has more of the edgy feel of SF, inherited from Bester and meshed with Howard in MM's work- sadly, Anthony Skene's 'Zenith' stories, huge influence on MM are only available from Savoy in a now massively pricey hardcover (like a fool I sold my copy years ago).
It was David eddings sparhawk and David Gemmells Drenai series really that set me onto reading fantasy, found them in my schools library in the early 90's and I was hooked.
"Closer to Gandalf than Elric", you say. That's because you are like a wise sage, sharing your knowledge. This video brought back memories of growing up in the 1980's when i noticed that fantasy novels started to get a larger following and dominate bookshelves. I was daunted by the length of the Thomas Covenant novels to attempt to read them. Damiano is in a triptych. I still have my Bantam Spectra paperback copy of A Trio for Lute, which contains Damiano, Damiano's Lute and Raphael. It has great artwork on the cover. The artwork is what grabbed my attention when i purchased it as a fifteen year old. I must re-read it. I recall in the 1980's R.A. Macavoy was a prolific writer, whose work was widely available. I don't think her work is in print anymore. I just opened my copy of A Trio for Lute, and R.A. Macavoy states that the character Damiano was based on musician Pierre Bensusan. Curiously, there is a quote in the novel from a poem by Ezra Pound, who had fascist leanings. Another Bantam Spectra paperback I recall reading in the 1980's was a fantasy based on Celtic myths , Riders of the Sidhe, by Kenneth C Flint, which i recall i really enjoyed. Unfortunately i no longer have my copy. It was part of a trilogy, but i could not find the other novels in bookshops. I voraciously read Raymond Feist's Riftwar series, on their release in the 1980's. It was the artwork on the covers that lured me. I reread them in the late 1990's and i did not the books as compelling than when i was an adolescent. I found the dialogue a bit trite and the prose not very compelling. I preferred the books he wrote with Jenny Wirt. I recall that the prose was more compelling, the characters were better described and well rounded and captivating plots.
I used to sell the MacAvoy trilogy back in the day- she never really caught fire in the UK, I think the setting was basically too original for most Fantasy readers, though I thought it was a good gambit. I did a bookshop event with Feist in 1988 and about six people turned up -despite him being very popular, he seemed to attract a readership who weren't that rabid- a few weeks before I'd hosted Moorcock for the first time and sold 120 books. This was the first of three events I did with MM, all well attended.
Eddings and Gemmell were my goto's as a teenager. Absolutely loved those Eddings books. Never got Tolkien, could not be doing with the wackiness and humour of Pratchet. Weirdly I did enjoy rhe Xanth books. Loved Gormenghast. Currently on a reread of Titus Groan and loving it. Great vid. Thanks for the memories! Cheers.
I almost included Gemmel, but I have none in my collection, despite his grittier take. Anthony will feature on the channel later this month. Pratchett was too nerdy for me. Peake- brilliant!
In the 70's, I was heavily into fantasy--but I can measure my disillusion in the genre by the books still on my shelf... I read Tolkien many times by 1979, Evangeline Walton, TH White, Earthsea, Anne McCaffery, Leiber, Andre Norton, and so on were staples in my paperback collection. Piers Anthony was a favorite--read the first 4 or 5 Xanth books before I tired of it (still hung on to his SF works for a few years later). I read Terry Brooks when he came out--made it about halfway through the second book, no more. I read Strata and the Colour of Magic when they came out, never made it to the second Discworld book. I made it through Thomas Covenant's 2 trilogies--later on I forced my way through the third series. Other than Holdstock, Glen Cook, and a few others, I didn't get back to fantasy until I read Ice and Fire from Martin, The First Law from Abercrombie, and now I'm slogging through the endless pages of Wheel of Time. I might quit that before too long-I'm on the 5th book, so I might be committed. The crossovers from Zelazny, Harry Harrison, P.J.Farmer, Bulmer, Wolfe, Niven and so on are still great, but there are too many derivative fantasy books upon whom I will not waste my time. I'd much rather break open another Bernard Cornwell or Joseph Conrad book.
Have and have read some of the four . I must say i prefer Donaldson Mordant's Need . Along with his short story collections( a bit of a clenser after TC) .I also read lots of Tanth Lee and Cherryh . Almost fell down too deep into the Piers Anthony Xanth et al rabbit hole ( i will so no more ) . Now fantasy have become so " cookie cutter like " ( 🤔 what the hell do i mean ?) .I feel a sense of tiredness , trying to read, and they go on and on . ( My bias informed opinion ) Thanks for the video awaiting more . Mayhaps some of the less know or remembered .
Ah yes, the 80s... I started working in late 83 and would go to London each month to spend a chunk of my wages on books and LPs (mostly LPs, I have to say). I'd start, usually, on Oxford Street, dropping in at HMV & Virgin (and Simon's and Our Price, too), then make my way to Charing Cross Road. So many book shops back then! It really was something of a boom time. And, of course, being pre-internet, pre-Amazon, it was exciting to discover books I didn't know existed. Good times!
Marvellous video. I still have all those books on bookshelf even though they are now 30-40 years ago. This is a problem with so-called "fantasy book tubers" on UA-cam, it is like all these great books don’t exist. If it wasn’t published in the last 10 years they don’t want to know. On the Terry Pratchett thing, you would be lynched by the Facebook groups, I joined them as I liked his early works but I had to leave, they are fanatics, it is like, Terry wouldn’t like this, Terry would agree with this, I was like, I just like his books (early ones), he wasn’t writing a bible that I followed and lived my life around, but some of them on there do.
Well, there is the fundamental problem that many people for some reason automatically assume that 'New' is better than old, as it constant improvement is a given-which we know it isn't, of course. I'm sure many TP fans would be unhappy with my comments, but I'm not alone in my experiences. Glad you liked the video, thank you!
I've been a fan of David Eddings since the mid '80's starting with that Corgi edition of Pawn of Prophecy - which, even though it *is* in a bit of a state, I still have on my shelf. I think his work still holds up well even today.
I'm not really a fantasy reader at all. I get fed up with quests, swords and elves. I did read LotR when it was almost compulsory to read it. I loved parts of it. I was completely freaked out by the Dark Riders and thought the return to the Shire at the end really captured what soldiers must have felt returning to Britain, but I was never convinced by the battle scenes, and the endless bit featuring Treebeard, I would have gladly given the hobbits a chain saw! I did try to read some Donaldson but hated his style of writing. I remember a drinking game among fans where you had to take a shot of something every time the word "clench" came up. Few remained sober for the first 20 pages. I read bits of Pratchett, but I'm not good with humour books. I tend to get what the author is doing in the beginning and get bored with the style quite quickly. Not just TP but most humourists. I even find P G Wodehouse repetitive.
Another fabulous video. Your statement on nostalgia in particular resonated with me. I've been sitting on a copy of the first half of Magician for about a year now, and I think this will finally prompt me to read it. Given your Silverberg appreciation, I was slightly surprised to not see Lord Valentine's Castle make the cut here, but I guess as Science Fantasy it's a bit of an outlier (also nowhere near the same class of sales I'm sure).
I regard Valentine as Fantasy, since it has magic in it. In the UK the sales were nowhere as near as high as for the books mentioned in this vid. Better written than all of them, though!
❤❤❤ Thomas Covenant, I had a lovely set of those in my teens, sold em for pennies. I have now replaced them, and mordants need which I think I preferred. Eddings, had those books in my teens, and the following series. Sold em for beans. 😢 Pratchett, had the first 4 dw books back then, just pb, still have em! Faded now. Feist, had those too, flogged em for beer money. Have replaced 1 and 3 now, still missing Silverthorn. The collab with Janny Wurts, set on the other side of the rift, was good, better arguably. V nostalgic video!
Very enjoyable Steve. Totally with you on Pratchett as a person, sure we've talked about him. It's made me want to try the Donaldson's again. Aren't those original jackets lovely compared to the awful ones today🙂
Yes, we did discuss TP briefly, lots of people in our line of work had a poor impression of him in encounters, shame really. Yes, you can't beat those Fontanas, gorgeous. Busy with editing the mountain of footage I shot in Italy hence radio silence. Be in touch soon, though, mate!
Some great book there... that's the first time I've seen those particular Belgariad covers. Did you ever get into the Chronicles of Amber? They were among my favorites back in the 80's.
He wrote all kinds of fun stuff. Amber (i liked first set better than newer set), Doorways in the Sand (silly but fun story with a college student), At least one bar story with magical animals, and Psychoshop half Zelazny/half alfred bester wild and fun.
A very intriguing dissertation on the Sword & Sorcery/High Fantasy phenom, Stephen. Really opened my eyes about a sub-genre I never warmed up to, but wanted to understand. Thanks much for your insights on the matter. Cheers.
What a great summery especially those who are new to SF. I liked your thoughts on nostalgia - I recently bought some Phantom comics which I collected 20 years ago to buy and start a new collection for nostalgia. From that single book shop visit I saw my first vintage SF novels and the striking cover artwork and was hooked. x3 book hauls later and now discovering all that is vintage SF and a 'new nostalgia' to learn about and discover for myself. My first novel ever and just finished is a excellent example of the first edition -Exiles to Glory : Pournelle, Jerry
I buy books now that I wouldn't have touched 35 years ago- but the memories of stocking and selling them are so powerful, so to celebrate the richness of SF culture then, I find I have built a big 'nostalgia collection' that one day, I'll shelve separately from my core collection- what a video that will make!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal look forward to seeing that video too! Inspired by your channel will upload my first video soon! First ever SF haul with no knowledge to what I have discovered.
Utterly marvelous. I graduated from uni in this period, and found myself with time to read rather than STUDY. In Australia we inherited the UK's publishing trends at the time. Eddings/Hubbard/Zindell, et al.
I read all of these when they were first released and I still re-read them all now and again. Wonderful video ^_^ Many people seem to be unaware that David Eddings wrote his books in partnership with his wife Leigh. Even in the later books which adhered to the formula I feel that they still managed to maintain a freshness and some delightful touches of irony and humour to the end.
@outlawbookselleroriginal I always wondered when that came out if it had more to do with stretching authors' copywrites or some tax status thing. Lynn Pratchett shows up as a credited author on some of Pratchett's last books. I am not sure if I have seen it on a few others.
A great memory Lane tour, for sure. I remember the fantasy explosion at bookstores when they were suddenly one of the standing table displays. . . for. . . a LONG time. 1977, and the animated Hobbit movie had been released, and produced a number of tie ins in a way that hadn't been seen like that before. And the same display would have the newly-released hardcover of "The Sword of Shannara." I understand why you mentioned the ones you did, and left some others out, but the other big Tolkien cash in release from that year you didn't mention at all, & I wonder if the "Circle of Light" books sold in the UK the way they did here. They were a staple of the fantasy section of book stores for over 10 years (even if very few people ever read them, every bookstore kept them on the shelves.) And this was the time period that Earthsea got its re-release, and iconic covers. And don't forget how Piers Anthony pioneered the tongue-in-cheek somewhat anachronistic fantasy for-profit Starting in 1977 with the first Xanth novel "A Spell for Chameleon" which sold really well for at *least* 25 years. It was really a pivotal time for fantasy books. This was also during the re-release and increased attention on Conan and Tarzan and John Carter. The SF section of most bookstores seemed to double overnight: how could it not with all of the fantasy cash-in and Star wars cash in?
The 'Circle of Light' books were non-starters in the UK- I don't think they were even published over here, but we did have quite a number of specialist import shops in major cities then, so a few would have been sold here. As for Anthony, watch this space...
This is a fundamental skill the bookseller and writer needs to function. Narrative of any kind is time-based and the cultural devil is in the chronological detail. Context is everything. Some would say 'he has no life' but my life is Culture.
Forgive the multiple comments as I respond to different sectjons of this great vid. I made several attempts on Discworld but rarely cracked a smile. His Good Omens collaboration is the only work I really enjoyed. For humorous fantasy, can't go past Barry Hughart's "Bridge of Birds", Harvard Lampoon's "Bored of the Rings" and Seamus Cullen's smutty "Astra & Flondrix"
I mentioned Cullen in a video here about a year ago. Pratchett is classic 'nerd humour' - 'look how smart I am,' while actually revealing a hollow core, like the Macbeth 'joke' in the opening lines of 'Wyrd Sisters'. Never did anything for me, either.
I read a lot of Pratchett's Discworld books as a teenager in the 90s, but I stopped after Hogfather and haven't read any since. I still feel nostalgia for the Kirby covers though, and I've noticed that when they show up second-hand they get snapped up quickly.
Yes, there was a big outcry when they moved from the smaller 'A format' to the now standard B as it meant later books would not sit on the shelves together neatly - it's as if designers forget people often have limited space and enjoy the aesthetic of uniformity in a series. But of course publishers make these decisions on cost to them as much as anything else, sadly. Have you seen the new jacket style? Dreadful, bland rubbish.
I was given the PB omnibus edition of LOTR for Xmas just before my 12th birthday but swapped it out for the Unwin three volume slipcase version as the omnibus omitted the appendices.
I also don’t see the challenge separating fantasy from sci-fi unless you’re looking at specific authors that do some mixing like Gene Wolfe. I have only read one sci-fi Poul Anderson book as a kid but I liked it-I am putting the one you spotlit on my reading list. I have been going back and exploring more fantasy and sci-fi from my childhood days that I passed on back then. That Thomas Covenant edition looks great. I grew up in the 80s with the Darrell Sweet covers published by Ballantine. They’re still my favorite covers and most everything I have seen since then has been pretty generic. Currently reading Gormenghast. I bought my daughter the recent Overlook Press illustrated hardcover edition (and a Kindle edition for myself when it was on sale for a buck). I tried a Pratchett book and didn’t last a chapter. It may be brilliantly witty and clever but I just don’t much like the silliness and style.
I agree that the 'challenge' of separating SF from Fantasy isn't a problem for those who understand the fundamental and terminally divisive philsophies behind the two genres, but many, many people don't. I'd also suggest that many 'Science Fantasy' "mixes" like Wolfe or M John Harrison can, with a bit of application, be decided for one or the other- to me, 'The Book of the New Sun' is clearly SF- but more on this in a future video on 'Science Fantasy'. Totally agree re Pratchett. Thanks for your comment, do check out my Elements of SF series for more thoughts on the division between SF & Fantasy.
I was hugely disappointed by both Brooks and Donaldson when I tried to read them. Previously I had read the same range of fantasy as you…. and now I’m wearing the same yellow watch as your Casio…..”bet I bought mine first! …(new) weird! Your producing so many videos that I’m struggling to keep up. I think I was quite snobby about the 1980s fantasy, I was busy with all the Picador and Virago stuff, and people like Fowles. Then Robert Holdstock, Tanith Lee and Storm Constantine into the nineties. Pratchett was not for me, although I did like the Watch, Vimes. The golden age of watches? The “yoofs” don’t wear ‘em no more. Sigh… apart from my younger daughter who wears several old ones that don’t work. Thanks as ever for my favourite UA-cam channel.
Hi Keith, good to hear from you - I regard the wearing of a watch as a sigil of awareness: when I was recruiting people for bookshop jobs (for decades) if they were without a watch, they'd never get the position. It says a lot about a person.
Well, despite the misgivings of many re their literary quality-which I can understand- I personally sold hundreds of all six in the 1980s. And I was one of many who did...they were genuine bestsellers.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I too worked in bookstores when I was young, from 1981-88. But I worked around the Cleveland OH area. P.S. Your cover art is all wrong! (Ha-ha)
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I'll dig up some on-line. I'm remembering an artist by the name of Darrel Sweet, who did the Donaldson's and all of the Piers Anthony's as well.😄 Oops! Can't seem to be able to send images through this. I tried using my e-mail, but that wouldn't fly either. You'll just have to believe us.
27:40 You would think.... meeting all your Fans would be at the top of the list.... for every one making such great works(the books) The fans spend their money and collect their favorite books.
I've always considered the difference between sword & sorcery, and high fantasy is that high fantasy goes on for far too long! 😉 I think they call it the new weird in a vague attempt to get young people who wouldn't touch the old stuff with a barge pole, to give them a chance. The Donaldson books were the Marmite of the book market, in that readers either loved them, or hated them. I fell into the latter group, but I haven't tried them since they were first published. The Eddings books came out around the same time as I decided I was really bored with high fantasy. I remember having a long phone conversation with Terry Pratchett, when he told me that he'd just turned in the latest Discworld book (the 8th, I think),and he was done with that series. He wanted to do something else now. I'd have loved to have seen what he might have done, had he not been so successful he felt he had to keep the Discworld going. I liked them a lot for a while, but eventually lost interest... Long before the series ended. I have the US 1st edition of The Colour of Magic, which isn't the proper UK first, but might be worth a Bob, or two. I also have the Cup and Sourcery promo set, which was a cardboard box made to look like the luggage, containing a paperback of Sourcery, and a limited edition mug. I've never come across one of these online. I heard that maybe 200 were made, but there was some sort of mishap, and all bar around 40 were badly damaged. I wonder what sort of money that will fetch when I decide to sell it?
I get you, James. Thing is, they are actually two very different things in my opinion, with different philosophies and aims behind them. The linking between them is increasingly misleading as time goes on -there will be a video on this topic at some point.
Really enjoyed donaldsons first trilogy second was okish. Liked his sf gap series read it as it came out long time ago so don’t know if it stands up on a reread . Moorcock Elric corum and dancer’s brilliant enjoyed all I’ve read by him picked up knight of swords again recently grabs you from the opening words . Much better than Tolkien for my money .
I’ve got the same paperbacks of belgariad somewhere in the loft along with pratchett, Gemmell, Brooks and feist among many others. Might be my age (54) but modern fantasy just isn’t the same as the earlier ones 😕
This is an era of fantasy writing that I am still exploring, as I was just a toddler at that age and I grew up with the big Tolkien copycats. I read Feist and Donaldson. I wonder if Eddings is still worth reading if you're nearly 40. Should I still give that a try? And Gemmell is one I want to be familiar with.
I'd say that if you are a serious reader of popular Fantasy, then Eddings is important historically, though for me he's 2 points below Donaldson and 1 point below Feist.
"Sword and sorcery and high fantasy are nearly indistinguishable..." What!? They are very different. And I say this as someone who, like you, only occasionally reads fantasy. Sword and sorcery is stuff like Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber and Karl Edward Wagner. Gritty, smaller scale, mainly humans. High fantasy is Tolkien, Terry Brooks and most of Dungeons and Dragons. Humans, elves and dwarfs banding together to stop the evil overlord's plans for world domination. I prefer S&S. High fantasy gets repetitive and tiresome.
I prefer S&S and I take your point, but read what the genre experts who edited 'The Encyclopedia of Fantasy' had to say on this sub-subgenre distinction. There are High Fantasy elements (In the way you describe it) even in things like Moorcock's Elric and Hawkmoon books - but I agree it's the grit and character that make the difference, though the stuff of both is the same, really.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I guarantee you know more than I do about how to classify fantasy. It just struck me, because I like one more than the other😉
I'm sure many people did like him, but I have to be quite honest and say I've heard many anecdotes from book trade insiders about his demeanour that were negative. Thing is, an author and their works are different things and it's easy to conflate the two, we've all done it.
My first (long) comment has disappeared, possibly due to me adding a link to LIbrarything where you can find a whole lot of SIlverthorn covers including the one with the swords.
An interesting video, Steve. Like you, I'm really an SF reader, and have little time for fantasy, some Jack Vance, particularly the Cugel tales, Peake of course, Tolkien no, its badly and tediously written. Eddings and Feist, I tried, but found them dreadful. Pratchett, basically the Wodehouse of fantasy, writing the same thing over and over again, with small variations. The Donaldson trilogy I enjoyed. I read them in US proof copies for Fontana and recommended that they publish them because they'd be big. Incidentally, Chris Evans (not the writer) and Colin Murry were the editors at Fontana, nice guys. Chris is now dead, Colin became a writer of crime novels and is partnered with Lisa Tuttle.
Agreed. Incidentally, I noticed that Lisa has a book coming out in NYRB Classics later this year- that'q quite something, great news for her, she's a good 'un.
I totally agree with you. Anyway I prefer SF but I really tried to read modern Fantasy in the 90s but didn't find the excitment I had when reading Thomas Covenant or the Amber Chronicles. To be frank, I was bored by David Eddings and the like.
@@danieljette8007 Well, they are formulaic works written to make money rather than be truly imaginative- ironic when the genre that's supposed to be the most imaginative ends up as mere slavishness, right?
Put it this way, you can probably get away with only reading the first volume-that's what I tend to do with Fantasy series. They're written primarily for commercial reasons as series, remember. Let's put it this way- there was a long, long gap before he did the final trilogy.
Thomas Covenant appalled me as I couldn't like a rapist, couldn't understand how the plot was forwarded and/or the character improved by such. Loved Mordant's Need and The Belgariad, the later Terry Pratchett books including Wee Free Men, preferred the Empire Trilogy to the rest of the Riftwar Saga, loved The Riddle of Stars and The Faded sun trilogies most.
I think there's an important point to make here- and I'll state quite openly I'm not a fan of Donaldson really, I just view him as a critic and historian. We're talking about Fiction and in fiction, there are no rules, only reader expectations: characters don't have to be sympathetic to be of interest or narrative value, this is just people's expectation based on the limited forms of popular storytelling in the mass media. Covenant is an Anti-Hero and should be viewed as such- you don't have to identify with him or cheer him on, Donaldson is saying something here about the problem of prophecy, superstition, destiny and expectation of 'heroic' figures and underlining the weakness of a worldview that believes in saviours of this kind, even if they step up and fulfill a destiny by acting to create it. In a more sophisticated text- such as 'Lolita' by Nabokov- which show all human emotions moving chameleon-like across both 'victim' and 'abuser' (and showing how blurred these lines are in the complexity of human emotions and actions) - this is clearer and that, if anything, is the literary fault with Covenant. Ultimately, you don't have to like Covenant- have you considered that Donaldson is as much damning him as praising him?
@@outlawbookselleroriginal thank you for responding, I recognize the validity of your assessment and it is a perspective I will try to develop in myself (I was also a naive 20 yo when I read it).
When I first started reading Discworld (god, in Primary School!) there were some of the books in the series that I devoured in a couple of sittings, and some that I struggled with to the degree that I only ever finished them decades later when I read them all in order in 2014. The quality was choppy, and I feel he did suffer in the later works with that curse of the big star writer...your publisher becomes frightened to edit you. The books got longer but not necessarily better! As to whether his style can't be copied as well as him? I'm not so sure on that.
@@neiltaylor513 I enjoyed them but there was certainly something off about the last couple! I do think that the best way to read them is in order. You get a sense of his own development as a writer and some variety. A thing that I've noticed with the new versions is that as well as changing the covers, they've consciously put on the spines "The Wizards Series", "The Witches Series". Which really takes the books out of their original context. Perhaps I'm being a pedant but that never agreed with me.
Yes. I really like the first one and have read the first five, but the returns diminish fairly rapidly, I feel, as they often did with Roger's post 1960s stuff.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal, I have an omnibus edition of all the Amber books. I tried to read the first one, but fantasy is just not my thing. Having said that, I do enjoy the old Robert E Howard Sword and Sorcery Conan stories. C. L. Moore's fantasy are also enjoyable.
Depends on condition. Also if you've identified them correctly as firsts - many books that have 'first edition' printed in them are not firsts- what collectors want is first printings, but because the whole collecting world uses 'first edition' (a misleading term that relates to content, not printing) that muddies the water. Values? Best thing is to look at what people are selling the same for on abebooks and the sold listings on ebay.
I think there's an important point to make here- and I'll state quite openly I'm not a fan of Donaldson really, I just view him as a critic and historian. We're talking about Fiction and in fiction, there are no rules, only reader expectations: characters don't have to be sympathetic to be of interest or narrative value, this is just people's expectation based on the limited forms of popular storytelling in the mass media. Covenant is an Anti-Hero and should be viewed as such- you don't have to identify with him or cheer him on, Donaldson is saying something here about the problem of prophecy, superstition, destiny and expectation of 'heroic' figures and underlining the weakness of a worldview that believes in saviours of this kind, even if they step up and fulfill a destiny by acting to create it. In a more sophisticated text- such as 'Lolita' by Nabokov- which show all human emotions moving chameleon-like across both 'victim' and 'abuser' (and showing how blurred these lines are in the complexity of human emotions and actions) - this is clearer and that, if anything, is the literary fault with Covenant. Ultimately, you don't have to like Covenant- have you considered that Donaldson is as much damning him as praising him? There's also the point that at the conclusion of the series, Covenant's positive actions go some way to redeeming him.
Now that's interesting, because the trade paperback is the one I haven't been able to find a pic of anywhere and I remember selling it vividly- dozens of copies- and it did not have that jacket, which is the same design as the A format. It gets weirder...
sword & sorcery and high fantasy are very distinguishable even to such a laymen as myself :) do you mean this cover? s.s-bol.com/imgbase0/imagebase/large/FC/0/5/1/5/1001004002855150.jpg
Yes, dinstinguishable - just about- but the point made by the true experts in 'The Encyclopedia of Fantasy' (I tend not to disagree with John Clute, since he's spent his entire life researching, reading and writing about genre fiction for a living) is that the differences are very small.
I’m 61 and this brought back so many memories of my own! I worked in bookselling until 1987 when I became a librarian. I just got a lot of these on Kindle because my physical collection has outgrown my house!
I was born in 95, but I enjoy finding and reading old fantasy books from the 30's to 90's. They have a certain charm and polish to them that a lot of modern fantasy series lack. Reading the Belgariad earlier this year helped lift me out of a depression.
There was a higher standard in the 80s, even in formula fiction- it was still relatively fresh then.
I’ve officially run out of complimentary adjectives, Steve. All of your videos are amazing and this one is no exception. I was the inverse of you, I started as a fantasy reader and then moved into SF (and thanks to your knowledge and erudite presentation I continue to learn at the feet of the master). I can wholeheartedly second your recommendations in this video. They are all great books and I will bang the drum for Stephen Donaldson & Thomas Covenant all day long. It’s a shame that those books aren’t as widely read these days. Thank you, Steve. Cheers!
My feeling is that books should revert to the cover designs they had when at their commercial zenith - this would at least pique the interest of readers...but sadly, the cliche 'don't judge a book by its cover' has more than a grain of truth in it. Most readers are conservative and want things that look the same as the material they've enjoyed. I'm the opposite of this, myself. I'd reissue the Donaldsons with those jackets, as the current ones are bland and uninviting.
I love that Hawkwind shirt! I recall considering myself exclusively an SF fan outside of REH until I found Elric and Hawkmoon and Corum, and I found I had abundant reader affection to share with that kind of fantasy. Great talk on Fantasy from that formative time.
Many, many thanks again Jack. I think Moorcock has more of the edgy feel of SF, inherited from Bester and meshed with Howard in MM's work- sadly, Anthony Skene's 'Zenith' stories, huge influence on MM are only available from Savoy in a now massively pricey hardcover (like a fool I sold my copy years ago).
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I really must find a shirt like that. .
It was David eddings sparhawk and David Gemmells Drenai series really that set me onto reading fantasy, found them in my schools library in the early 90's and I was hooked.
Check my other fantasy videos, especially the one about the 1980s. You'll love it.
"Closer to Gandalf than Elric", you say. That's because you are like a wise sage, sharing your knowledge.
This video brought back memories of growing up in the 1980's when i noticed that fantasy novels started to get a larger following and dominate bookshelves. I was daunted by the length of the Thomas Covenant novels to attempt to read them.
Damiano is in a triptych.
I still have my Bantam Spectra paperback copy of A Trio for Lute, which contains Damiano, Damiano's Lute and Raphael. It has great artwork on the cover.
The artwork is what grabbed my attention when i purchased it as a fifteen year old. I must re-read it.
I recall in the 1980's R.A. Macavoy was a prolific writer, whose work was widely available. I don't think her work is in print anymore.
I just opened my copy of A Trio for Lute, and R.A. Macavoy states that the character Damiano was based on musician Pierre Bensusan. Curiously, there is a quote in the novel from a poem by Ezra Pound, who had fascist leanings.
Another Bantam Spectra paperback I recall reading in the 1980's was a fantasy based on Celtic myths , Riders of the Sidhe, by Kenneth C Flint, which i recall i really enjoyed. Unfortunately i no longer have my copy. It was part of a trilogy, but i could not find the other novels in bookshops.
I voraciously read Raymond Feist's Riftwar series, on their release in the 1980's. It was the artwork on the covers that lured me. I reread them in the late 1990's and i did not the books as compelling than when i was an adolescent. I found the dialogue a bit trite and the prose not very compelling. I preferred the books he wrote with Jenny Wirt. I recall that the prose was more compelling, the characters were better described and well rounded and captivating plots.
I used to sell the MacAvoy trilogy back in the day- she never really caught fire in the UK, I think the setting was basically too original for most Fantasy readers, though I thought it was a good gambit.
I did a bookshop event with Feist in 1988 and about six people turned up -despite him being very popular, he seemed to attract a readership who weren't that rabid- a few weeks before I'd hosted Moorcock for the first time and sold 120 books. This was the first of three events I did with MM, all well attended.
Eddings and Gemmell were my goto's as a teenager. Absolutely loved those Eddings books. Never got Tolkien, could not be doing with the wackiness and humour of Pratchet. Weirdly I did enjoy rhe Xanth books. Loved Gormenghast. Currently on a reread of Titus Groan and loving it. Great vid. Thanks for the memories! Cheers.
I almost included Gemmel, but I have none in my collection, despite his grittier take. Anthony will feature on the channel later this month. Pratchett was too nerdy for me. Peake- brilliant!
I still have some of the Xanth, though again I think I only went Upto 8-9, I felt began to lose their way
@@neiltaylor513 I think almost anything loses its way at that point, though I have a few series authors I'd say were exceptions.
In the 70's, I was heavily into fantasy--but I can measure my disillusion in the genre by the books still on my shelf... I read Tolkien many times by 1979, Evangeline Walton, TH White, Earthsea, Anne McCaffery, Leiber, Andre Norton, and so on were staples in my paperback collection. Piers Anthony was a favorite--read the first 4 or 5 Xanth books before I tired of it (still hung on to his SF works for a few years later). I read Terry Brooks when he came out--made it about halfway through the second book, no more. I read Strata and the Colour of Magic when they came out, never made it to the second Discworld book. I made it through Thomas Covenant's 2 trilogies--later on I forced my way through the third series. Other than Holdstock, Glen Cook, and a few others, I didn't get back to fantasy until I read Ice and Fire from Martin, The First Law from Abercrombie, and now I'm slogging through the endless pages of Wheel of Time. I might quit that before too long-I'm on the 5th book, so I might be committed. The crossovers from Zelazny, Harry Harrison, P.J.Farmer, Bulmer, Wolfe, Niven and so on are still great, but there are too many derivative fantasy books upon whom I will not waste my time. I'd much rather break open another Bernard Cornwell or Joseph Conrad book.
I concur- especially on the Conrad point!
Have and have read some of the four . I must say i prefer Donaldson Mordant's Need . Along with his short story collections( a bit of a clenser after TC) .I also read lots of Tanth Lee and Cherryh . Almost fell down too deep into the Piers Anthony Xanth et al rabbit hole ( i will so no more ) . Now fantasy have become so " cookie cutter like " ( 🤔 what the hell do i mean ?) .I feel a sense of tiredness , trying to read, and they go on and on . ( My bias informed opinion ) Thanks for the video awaiting more . Mayhaps some of the less know or remembered .
I think there was still some freshness in the genre then, but popular Fantasy was almost always hamstrung by its inherent limitations.
Ah yes, the 80s... I started working in late 83 and would go to London each month to spend a chunk of my wages on books and LPs (mostly LPs, I have to say). I'd start, usually, on Oxford Street, dropping in at HMV & Virgin (and Simon's and Our Price, too), then make my way to Charing Cross Road. So many book shops back then! It really was something of a boom time. And, of course, being pre-internet, pre-Amazon, it was exciting to discover books I didn't know existed. Good times!
Marvellous video. I still have all those books on bookshelf even though they are now 30-40 years ago.
This is a problem with so-called "fantasy book tubers" on UA-cam, it is like all these great books don’t exist. If it wasn’t published in the last 10 years they don’t want to know.
On the Terry Pratchett thing, you would be lynched by the Facebook groups, I joined them as I liked his early works but I had to leave, they are fanatics, it is like, Terry wouldn’t like this, Terry would agree with this, I was like, I just like his books (early ones), he wasn’t writing a bible that I followed and lived my life around, but some of them on there do.
Well, there is the fundamental problem that many people for some reason automatically assume that 'New' is better than old, as it constant improvement is a given-which we know it isn't, of course. I'm sure many TP fans would be unhappy with my comments, but I'm not alone in my experiences. Glad you liked the video, thank you!
I've been a fan of David Eddings since the mid '80's starting with that Corgi edition of Pawn of Prophecy - which, even though it *is* in a bit of a state, I still have on my shelf. I think his work still holds up well even today.
I'm not really a fantasy reader at all. I get fed up with quests, swords and elves. I did read LotR when it was almost compulsory to read it. I loved parts of it. I was completely freaked out by the Dark Riders and thought the return to the Shire at the end really captured what soldiers must have felt returning to Britain, but I was never convinced by the battle scenes, and the endless bit featuring Treebeard, I would have gladly given the hobbits a chain saw!
I did try to read some Donaldson but hated his style of writing. I remember a drinking game among fans where you had to take a shot of something every time the word "clench" came up. Few remained sober for the first 20 pages.
I read bits of Pratchett, but I'm not good with humour books. I tend to get what the author is doing in the beginning and get bored with the style quite quickly. Not just TP but most humourists. I even find P G Wodehouse repetitive.
I have to say I agree with all your points here.
Another fabulous video. Your statement on nostalgia in particular resonated with me. I've been sitting on a copy of the first half of Magician for about a year now, and I think this will finally prompt me to read it. Given your Silverberg appreciation, I was slightly surprised to not see Lord Valentine's Castle make the cut here, but I guess as Science Fantasy it's a bit of an outlier (also nowhere near the same class of sales I'm sure).
I regard Valentine as Fantasy, since it has magic in it. In the UK the sales were nowhere as near as high as for the books mentioned in this vid. Better written than all of them, though!
❤❤❤
Thomas Covenant, I had a lovely set of those in my teens, sold em for pennies. I have now replaced them, and mordants need which I think I preferred.
Eddings, had those books in my teens, and the following series. Sold em for beans. 😢
Pratchett, had the first 4 dw books back then, just pb, still have em! Faded now.
Feist, had those too, flogged em for beer money. Have replaced 1 and 3 now, still missing Silverthorn. The collab with Janny Wurts, set on the other side of the rift, was good, better arguably.
V nostalgic video!
Very enjoyable Steve. Totally with you on Pratchett as a person, sure we've talked about him. It's made me want to try the Donaldson's again. Aren't those original jackets lovely compared to the awful ones today🙂
Yes, we did discuss TP briefly, lots of people in our line of work had a poor impression of him in encounters, shame really. Yes, you can't beat those Fontanas, gorgeous. Busy with editing the mountain of footage I shot in Italy hence radio silence. Be in touch soon, though, mate!
Some great book there... that's the first time I've seen those particular Belgariad covers. Did you ever get into the Chronicles of Amber? They were among my favorites back in the 80's.
Been reading Zelazny since the early 80s, love the early SF and first few Amber books.
He wrote all kinds of fun stuff. Amber (i liked first set better than newer set), Doorways in the Sand (silly but fun story with a college student), At least one bar story with magical animals, and Psychoshop half Zelazny/half alfred bester wild and fun.
A very intriguing dissertation on the Sword & Sorcery/High Fantasy phenom, Stephen. Really opened my eyes about a sub-genre I never warmed up to, but wanted to understand. Thanks much for your insights on the matter. Cheers.
What a great summery especially those who are new to SF. I liked your thoughts on nostalgia - I recently bought some Phantom comics which I collected 20 years ago to buy and start a new collection for nostalgia. From that single book shop visit I saw my first vintage SF novels and the striking cover artwork and was hooked. x3 book hauls later and now discovering all that is vintage SF and a 'new nostalgia' to learn about and discover for myself. My first novel ever and just finished is a excellent example of the first edition -Exiles to Glory : Pournelle, Jerry
I buy books now that I wouldn't have touched 35 years ago- but the memories of stocking and selling them are so powerful, so to celebrate the richness of SF culture then, I find I have built a big 'nostalgia collection' that one day, I'll shelve separately from my core collection- what a video that will make!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal look forward to seeing that video too! Inspired by your channel will upload my first video soon! First ever SF haul with no knowledge to what I have discovered.
Utterly marvelous. I graduated from uni in this period, and found myself with time to read rather than STUDY. In Australia we inherited the UK's publishing trends at the time. Eddings/Hubbard/Zindell, et al.
I ran a University bookshop for a decade, so I know this student reading phenomenon very well!
I read all of these when they were first released and I still re-read them all now and again. Wonderful video ^_^ Many people seem to be unaware that David Eddings wrote his books in partnership with his wife Leigh. Even in the later books which adhered to the formula I feel that they still managed to maintain a freshness and some delightful touches of irony and humour to the end.
Yes, she was only credited on the later ones, however.
@outlawbookselleroriginal
I always wondered when that came out if it had more to do with stretching authors' copywrites or some tax status thing. Lynn Pratchett shows up as a credited author on some of Pratchett's last books. I am not sure if I have seen it on a few others.
A great memory Lane tour, for sure. I remember the fantasy explosion at bookstores when they were suddenly one of the standing table displays. . . for. . . a LONG time. 1977, and the animated Hobbit movie had been released, and produced a number of tie ins in a way that hadn't been seen like that before. And the same display would have the newly-released hardcover of "The Sword of Shannara." I understand why you mentioned the ones you did, and left some others out, but the other big Tolkien cash in release from that year you didn't mention at all, & I wonder if the "Circle of Light" books sold in the UK the way they did here. They were a staple of the fantasy section of book stores for over 10 years (even if very few people ever read them, every bookstore kept them on the shelves.) And this was the time period that Earthsea got its re-release, and iconic covers.
And don't forget how Piers Anthony pioneered the tongue-in-cheek somewhat anachronistic fantasy for-profit Starting in 1977 with the first Xanth novel "A Spell for Chameleon" which sold really well for at *least* 25 years.
It was really a pivotal time for fantasy books. This was also during the re-release and increased attention on Conan and Tarzan and John Carter. The SF section of most bookstores seemed to double overnight: how could it not with all of the fantasy cash-in and Star wars cash in?
The 'Circle of Light' books were non-starters in the UK- I don't think they were even published over here, but we did have quite a number of specialist import shops in major cities then, so a few would have been sold here.
As for Anthony, watch this space...
it's great that you remember instances in your life up to the month and year. I can't even remember what I had for lunch last week.
This is a fundamental skill the bookseller and writer needs to function. Narrative of any kind is time-based and the cultural devil is in the chronological detail. Context is everything. Some would say 'he has no life' but my life is Culture.
Forgive the multiple comments as I respond to different sectjons of this great vid. I made several attempts on Discworld but rarely cracked a smile. His Good Omens collaboration is the only work I really enjoyed.
For humorous fantasy, can't go past Barry Hughart's "Bridge of Birds", Harvard Lampoon's "Bored of the Rings" and Seamus Cullen's smutty "Astra & Flondrix"
I mentioned Cullen in a video here about a year ago. Pratchett is classic 'nerd humour' - 'look how smart I am,' while actually revealing a hollow core, like the Macbeth 'joke' in the opening lines of 'Wyrd Sisters'. Never did anything for me, either.
I read a lot of Pratchett's Discworld books as a teenager in the 90s, but I stopped after Hogfather and haven't read any since. I still feel nostalgia for the Kirby covers though, and I've noticed that when they show up second-hand they get snapped up quickly.
Yes, there was a big outcry when they moved from the smaller 'A format' to the now standard B as it meant later books would not sit on the shelves together neatly - it's as if designers forget people often have limited space and enjoy the aesthetic of uniformity in a series. But of course publishers make these decisions on cost to them as much as anything else, sadly. Have you seen the new jacket style? Dreadful, bland rubbish.
Kirby covers only! They are a huge part of Discworld to me.
Very enjoyable, Steve!
Glad you liked it!
I was given the PB omnibus edition of LOTR for Xmas just before my 12th birthday but swapped it out for the Unwin three volume slipcase version as the omnibus omitted the appendices.
Terry Pratchett was so good writer. I think his more mature books are better, my favorite is Night Watch.
I also don’t see the challenge separating fantasy from sci-fi unless you’re looking at specific authors that do some mixing like Gene Wolfe.
I have only read one sci-fi Poul Anderson book as a kid but I liked it-I am putting the one you spotlit on my reading list. I have been going back and exploring more fantasy and sci-fi from my childhood days that I passed on back then.
That Thomas Covenant edition looks great. I grew up in the 80s with the Darrell Sweet covers published by Ballantine. They’re still my favorite covers and most everything I have seen since then has been pretty generic.
Currently reading Gormenghast. I bought my daughter the recent Overlook Press illustrated hardcover edition (and a Kindle edition for myself when it was on sale for a buck).
I tried a Pratchett book and didn’t last a chapter. It may be brilliantly witty and clever but I just don’t much like the silliness and style.
I agree that the 'challenge' of separating SF from Fantasy isn't a problem for those who understand the fundamental and terminally divisive philsophies behind the two genres, but many, many people don't. I'd also suggest that many 'Science Fantasy' "mixes" like Wolfe or M John Harrison can, with a bit of application, be decided for one or the other- to me, 'The Book of the New Sun' is clearly SF- but more on this in a future video on 'Science Fantasy'. Totally agree re Pratchett. Thanks for your comment, do check out my Elements of SF series for more thoughts on the division between SF & Fantasy.
I was hugely disappointed by both Brooks and Donaldson when I tried to read them. Previously I had read the same range of fantasy as you…. and now I’m wearing the same yellow watch as your Casio…..”bet I bought mine first! …(new) weird! Your producing so many videos that I’m struggling to keep up. I think I was quite snobby about the 1980s fantasy, I was busy with all the Picador and Virago stuff, and people like Fowles. Then Robert Holdstock, Tanith Lee and Storm Constantine into the nineties. Pratchett was not for me, although I did like the Watch, Vimes. The golden age of watches? The “yoofs” don’t wear ‘em no more. Sigh… apart from my younger daughter who wears several old ones that don’t work.
Thanks as ever for my favourite UA-cam channel.
Hi Keith, good to hear from you - I regard the wearing of a watch as a sigil of awareness: when I was recruiting people for bookshop jobs (for decades) if they were without a watch, they'd never get the position. It says a lot about a person.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal thank you for the gift of the word ‘sigil’. Probably first heard in an Alan Garner book.
I'd imagine 80% of all sold Donaldson books are untouched, certainly from vol 2 onwards :D
Well, despite the misgivings of many re their literary quality-which I can understand- I personally sold hundreds of all six in the 1980s. And I was one of many who did...they were genuine bestsellers.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I too worked in bookstores when I was young, from 1981-88. But I worked around the Cleveland OH area. P.S. Your cover art is all wrong! (Ha-ha)
I keep telling him, but he doesn't believe me. . .
Show me your covers, please LOL
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I'll dig up some on-line. I'm remembering an artist by the name of Darrel Sweet, who did the Donaldson's and all of the Piers Anthony's as well.😄 Oops! Can't seem to be able to send images through this. I tried using my e-mail, but that wouldn't fly either. You'll just have to believe us.
27:40 You would think.... meeting all your Fans would be at the top of the list.... for every one making such great works(the books) The fans spend their money and collect their favorite books.
Exactly
I've always considered the difference between sword & sorcery, and high fantasy is that high fantasy goes on for far too long! 😉
I think they call it the new weird in a vague attempt to get young people who wouldn't touch the old stuff with a barge pole, to give them a chance.
The Donaldson books were the Marmite of the book market, in that readers either loved them, or hated them. I fell into the latter group, but I haven't tried them since they were first published.
The Eddings books came out around the same time as I decided I was really bored with high fantasy.
I remember having a long phone conversation with Terry Pratchett, when he told me that he'd just turned in the latest Discworld book (the 8th, I think),and he was done with that series. He wanted to do something else now. I'd have loved to have seen what he might have done, had he not been so successful he felt he had to keep the Discworld going. I liked them a lot for a while, but eventually lost interest... Long before the series ended. I have the US 1st edition of The Colour of Magic, which isn't the proper UK first, but might be worth a Bob, or two.
I also have the Cup and Sourcery promo set, which was a cardboard box made to look like the luggage, containing a paperback of Sourcery, and a limited edition mug. I've never come across one of these online. I heard that maybe 200 were made, but there was some sort of mishap, and all bar around 40 were badly damaged. I wonder what sort of money that will fetch when I decide to sell it?
Agreed on all points Dave. I had the 'cup and sourcery' and gave it to a friend decades ago..before ebay...must be worth £100 now easily so far.
I try so very, very hard to get into fantasy. No dice. I'm a science fiction guy. I'll do my best to make it through this video.
I get you, James. Thing is, they are actually two very different things in my opinion, with different philosophies and aims behind them. The linking between them is increasingly misleading as time goes on -there will be a video on this topic at some point.
'A Warm Glow is a Rare Thing in Life' - Stephen E. Andrews
That should be printed on a tee
That would be great, but it's PH not a V, incidentlally
@@outlawbookselleroriginal oh gosh. My bad. Sincere apologies
@@erikpaterson1404 Not an issue- you know me, a stickler for correct English etc LOL
Love the Hawkwind t-shirt. Moorcock all the way!
Right on.
Really enjoyed donaldsons first trilogy second was okish. Liked his sf gap series read it as it came out long time ago so don’t know if it stands up on a reread . Moorcock Elric corum and dancer’s brilliant enjoyed all I’ve read by him picked up knight of swords again recently grabs you from the opening words . Much better than Tolkien for my money .
Moorcock was the writer I used to try and get people to read then to see something beyond the formula yet still cleave to the pioneers.
I’ve got the same paperbacks of belgariad somewhere in the loft along with pratchett, Gemmell, Brooks and feist among many others. Might be my age (54) but modern fantasy just isn’t the same as the earlier ones 😕
Gemmel was the big British breakthrough at the darker end, I used to sell tons of the initial trilogy.
This is an era of fantasy writing that I am still exploring, as I was just a toddler at that age and I grew up with the big Tolkien copycats. I read Feist and Donaldson. I wonder if Eddings is still worth reading if you're nearly 40. Should I still give that a try? And Gemmell is one I want to be familiar with.
I'd say that if you are a serious reader of popular Fantasy, then Eddings is important historically, though for me he's 2 points below Donaldson and 1 point below Feist.
I've never read Lord of the Rings, and honestly I think I'll go to my grave not having read it.. it is what it is...
You're not actually missing much - it's interesting as a phenomenon, but as a work of literature it is bloated in the extreme.
Your long videos are superb
Many thanks- plenty of them to watch!
"Sword and sorcery and high fantasy are nearly indistinguishable..." What!? They are very different. And I say this as someone who, like you, only occasionally reads fantasy. Sword and sorcery is stuff like Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber and Karl Edward Wagner. Gritty, smaller scale, mainly humans.
High fantasy is Tolkien, Terry Brooks and most of Dungeons and Dragons. Humans, elves and dwarfs banding together to stop the evil overlord's plans for world domination.
I prefer S&S. High fantasy gets repetitive and tiresome.
I prefer S&S and I take your point, but read what the genre experts who edited 'The Encyclopedia of Fantasy' had to say on this sub-subgenre distinction. There are High Fantasy elements (In the way you describe it) even in things like Moorcock's Elric and Hawkmoon books - but I agree it's the grit and character that make the difference, though the stuff of both is the same, really.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I guarantee you know more than I do about how to classify fantasy. It just struck me, because I like one more than the other😉
More Max Bygraves!
I thought someone might get that...
Oh i didnt know that about terry pratchett ...I love his books. Sad that maybe he didnt have the best attitude
I'm sure many people did like him, but I have to be quite honest and say I've heard many anecdotes from book trade insiders about his demeanour that were negative. Thing is, an author and their works are different things and it's easy to conflate the two, we've all done it.
My first (long) comment has disappeared, possibly due to me adding a link to LIbrarything where you can find a whole lot of SIlverthorn covers including the one with the swords.
UA-cam comments are weird, I've seen them disappear many times. If you could post that link again, Mike, I'd be v grateful.
* quietly subscribes * I still have an older copy of Silverthorn! It's the U.S. artwork though, apologies.
Recently found out Charles Platt has a 4 volume autobiography called An Accidental Life from a couple of years ago, have you dug into that?
No, but I'm aware of it- another on the massive 'buy' list....
Austin Tappan Wright "Islandia"
...covered in my book '100 Must Read Fantasy Novels'.
An interesting video, Steve. Like you, I'm really an SF reader, and have little time for fantasy, some Jack Vance, particularly the Cugel tales, Peake of course, Tolkien no, its badly and tediously written. Eddings and Feist, I tried, but found them dreadful. Pratchett, basically the Wodehouse of fantasy, writing the same thing over and over again, with small variations. The Donaldson trilogy I enjoyed. I read them in US proof copies for Fontana and recommended that they publish them because they'd be big. Incidentally, Chris Evans (not the writer) and Colin Murry were the editors at Fontana, nice guys. Chris is now dead, Colin became a writer of crime novels and is partnered with Lisa Tuttle.
Agreed. Incidentally, I noticed that Lisa has a book coming out in NYRB Classics later this year- that'q quite something, great news for her, she's a good 'un.
@outlawbookselleroriginal I agree, Lisa is a good writer, maybe too good to achieve the acclaim she deserves.
I just turned 60 too. Another old nostalgic. Am I prejudiced or is it true that Fantasy in the 80s was a lot more interesting?
I think it was fresher, certainly- but the original S&S from Howard to Moorcock remained streets ahead even then, I think.
I totally agree with you. Anyway I prefer SF but I really tried to read modern Fantasy in the 90s but didn't find the excitment I had when reading Thomas Covenant or the Amber Chronicles. To be frank, I was bored by David Eddings and the like.
@@danieljette8007 Well, they are formulaic works written to make money rather than be truly imaginative- ironic when the genre that's supposed to be the most imaginative ends up as mere slavishness, right?
@15:15 - is it important to read the entire 10-volume set or just the initial three, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever?
Put it this way, you can probably get away with only reading the first volume-that's what I tend to do with Fantasy series. They're written primarily for commercial reasons as series, remember. Let's put it this way- there was a long, long gap before he did the final trilogy.
Thomas Covenant appalled me as I couldn't like a rapist, couldn't understand how the plot was forwarded and/or the character improved by such. Loved Mordant's Need and The Belgariad, the later Terry Pratchett books including Wee Free Men, preferred the Empire Trilogy to the rest of the Riftwar Saga, loved The Riddle of Stars and The Faded sun trilogies most.
I think there's an important point to make here- and I'll state quite openly I'm not a fan of Donaldson really, I just view him as a critic and historian. We're talking about Fiction and in fiction, there are no rules, only reader expectations: characters don't have to be sympathetic to be of interest or narrative value, this is just people's expectation based on the limited forms of popular storytelling in the mass media. Covenant is an Anti-Hero and should be viewed as such- you don't have to identify with him or cheer him on, Donaldson is saying something here about the problem of prophecy, superstition, destiny and expectation of 'heroic' figures and underlining the weakness of a worldview that believes in saviours of this kind, even if they step up and fulfill a destiny by acting to create it. In a more sophisticated text- such as 'Lolita' by Nabokov- which show all human emotions moving chameleon-like across both 'victim' and 'abuser' (and showing how blurred these lines are in the complexity of human emotions and actions) - this is clearer and that, if anything, is the literary fault with Covenant. Ultimately, you don't have to like Covenant- have you considered that Donaldson is as much damning him as praising him?
@@outlawbookselleroriginal thank you for responding, I recognize the validity of your assessment and it is a perspective I will try to develop in myself (I was also a naive 20 yo when I read it).
That’s the thing though, Thomas wasn’t written to be liked, he despised himself as well, only in the last book did he redeem himself.
@@neiltaylor513 Exactly.
When I first started reading Discworld (god, in Primary School!) there were some of the books in the series that I devoured in a couple of sittings, and some that I struggled with to the degree that I only ever finished them decades later when I read them all in order in 2014. The quality was choppy, and I feel he did suffer in the later works with that curse of the big star writer...your publisher becomes frightened to edit you. The books got longer but not necessarily better!
As to whether his style can't be copied as well as him? I'm not so sure on that.
Gigantism, the curse of the overly-successful writer- look at King and Rowling, bloat city!
I think his illness began to show in his later years. I have all his books, except I have not read the last 4 or 5, they just sit on my book shelf.
@@neiltaylor513 I enjoyed them but there was certainly something off about the last couple!
I do think that the best way to read them is in order. You get a sense of his own development as a writer and some variety. A thing that I've noticed with the new versions is that as well as changing the covers, they've consciously put on the spines "The Wizards Series", "The Witches Series". Which really takes the books out of their original context. Perhaps I'm being a pedant but that never agreed with me.
@@StrayGator I think you're absolutely right, Chris.
Did you ever read the Amber series by Zelazny?
Yes. I really like the first one and have read the first five, but the returns diminish fairly rapidly, I feel, as they often did with Roger's post 1960s stuff.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal, I have an omnibus edition of all the Amber books. I tried to read the first one, but fantasy is just not my thing. Having said that, I do enjoy the old Robert E Howard Sword and Sorcery Conan stories. C. L. Moore's fantasy are also enjoyable.
What first editions are worth any $$, l have many,lol
Depends on condition. Also if you've identified them correctly as firsts - many books that have 'first edition' printed in them are not firsts- what collectors want is first printings, but because the whole collecting world uses 'first edition' (a misleading term that relates to content, not printing) that muddies the water. Values? Best thing is to look at what people are selling the same for on abebooks and the sold listings on ebay.
I really didn't like the Thomas Covenant books. I may have gotten halfway through the second book. The main character was so dislikeable.
I think there's an important point to make here- and I'll state quite openly I'm not a fan of Donaldson really, I just view him as a critic and historian. We're talking about Fiction and in fiction, there are no rules, only reader expectations: characters don't have to be sympathetic to be of interest or narrative value, this is just people's expectation based on the limited forms of popular storytelling in the mass media. Covenant is an Anti-Hero and should be viewed as such- you don't have to identify with him or cheer him on, Donaldson is saying something here about the problem of prophecy, superstition, destiny and expectation of 'heroic' figures and underlining the weakness of a worldview that believes in saviours of this kind, even if they step up and fulfill a destiny by acting to create it.
In a more sophisticated text- such as 'Lolita' by Nabokov- which show all human emotions moving chameleon-like across both 'victim' and 'abuser' (and showing how blurred these lines are in the complexity of human emotions and actions) - this is clearer and that, if anything, is the literary fault with Covenant. Ultimately, you don't have to like Covenant- have you considered that Donaldson is as much damning him as praising him? There's also the point that at the conclusion of the series, Covenant's positive actions go some way to redeeming him.
Looks like the dustjacket of the 1985 Granada Silverthorn hardcover is here: isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/File:SLVRTHRNFQ1985.jpg
Now that's interesting, because the trade paperback is the one I haven't been able to find a pic of anywhere and I remember selling it vividly- dozens of copies- and it did not have that jacket, which is the same design as the A format. It gets weirder...
sword & sorcery and high fantasy are very distinguishable even to such a laymen as myself :) do you mean this cover? s.s-bol.com/imgbase0/imagebase/large/FC/0/5/1/5/1001004002855150.jpg
Yes, dinstinguishable - just about- but the point made by the true experts in 'The Encyclopedia of Fantasy' (I tend not to disagree with John Clute, since he's spent his entire life researching, reading and writing about genre fiction for a living) is that the differences are very small.