Once again Michael excellent choices Dunsany & lieber, peake zelazny moorcock & m j Harrison all superb authosr & Donaldson I read them when I was younger it can be a difficult read though stick with it & it's defintly controversial & the kane series is well worth reading thank you for posting this excellent eclectic choices enjoy your read 👍
Well, I now have the hardback set of the Elric Saga, I have the Thomas Covenant books in the SF Book Club editions from ages ago, and the Ghormenghast stories in a trade paperback. I'm more of a sci-fi than a fantasy reader, but starting with the above I'm going to try and give fantasy another chance in 2023. You mentioned a few others that look intriguing as well.
I ‘d never even heard of the Gormenghast! Of course, I’ll wait to see your comments. Viriconium has been on the TBR for some time now. I wish you good luck with Malazan. Nice list!
I read one of the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser books many years ago. I don't remember which one it was , but it was a quick read and very entertaining. I look forward to hearing what you have to say about this series.
My favorite genre! I love hearing about your picks for this TBR. I read the Worm Ouroboros in grad school. Once you get in the rhythm of the language it is a really good plot and a nice read for a lazy Sunday afternoon. I''ve never read Roger Zelazny before. I can't wait to hear your thoughts on his books.
Soon as the cover popped on screen I remembered The Worm Ouroboros, I read that old yellowed paperback in my teens, couldn't tell you much about it - I liked it and liked the cover, a quirky old book, another one of those things lost in the fog of fading memories.
I have to say I had a hard time getting through that book. I remember Lord Spitfire and his ilk were heading to Goblin Land to, I believe rescue someone who was kidnapped. But the prose was pretty difficult to get through.
I love that you have a lot of older titles on your list of Fantasy to read. Some of these I haven't heard of yet, but have them added to my "check it out" list. Great vid! :)
George R.R. Martin has mentioned Gormenghast as an influence on him before, so nice catch in that! Good list. Grey Mouser is near the top of my reading list after finishing some of the Witcher stories, fun to see you're planning on it too.
Great cover on the Gormenghast Novels. I have never seen that title ever. Thanks for rambling on about the fantasy books you will be reading for your five hundred book challenge.
thanks for sharing, I read the "Amber Chronicles" years ago and they were good. I have also read The Fafhard and the Grey Mouser books a couple of times and the older Elric works. I have also read the Thomas Covenant works, I think you will enjoy it. The Karl Edward Wagner works are great.
Love Fritz Leiber. Re-reading “Swords Against Ice Magic” now. Thomas Covenant is a great story and has wonderful imagery. Just got a bit whiny and preachy later on.
Oh you have got to get to The Five Warrior Angels Trilogy soon. It is amazing. I have that edition of The Great Book of Amber as well. Who knows how long it will take me to get to it. :D
Great fantasy on this list! I'm considering doing the "Read What You Own" Challenge myself, starting in January 2023, but I was thinking books wouldn't count if I've read them before because I thought the spirit of the challenge was to read things on your shelves that you haven't read yet. BTW, I have that same version of the Great Book of Amber with the 10 books in it. David Wiley has it too.
I have Viriconium on Kindle unread. The Chronicle of Thomas Covenant aren’t like other fantasies. At least at the time I originally read them in the 80s. By today’s standards the main character is highly problematic, but there are some powerful scenes that come out of his deeds. I never finished the third series.
Chronicles of Amber is awesome! Most people say the first 5 novels are better (and they are) but the last 5 are great fun too, and I just can’t believe you haven’t read at least the first 5! They are absolutely phenomenal and classic fantasy, you should really just stop everything and read them right away. You can let the merlin books for later but at least the first chronicles of amber get to them right away. Its 5 books but they are short and I guarantee you’ll be finished with them in less than a week, no way to stop once you’ve started!
Nice man! I really want to read The Forgetting Moon and the rest of the saga, but I simply can't afford to buy them now :/ However, you did get me into readnig Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars saga so I've just started that one :)
I've read most of these books. A lot of these books were foundational and brilliant and somehow unknown to many fantasy readers. The fantasy crowd does really seem to care about the classics of its genre. They are more concern with what is popular at the time. Which isn't to say such books are bad. It's just frustrating that great authors seem to be forgotten. I found The Worm Ouroborous boring as hell, but I may have been burned out on fantasy when I read it. The Gormenghast novels are some of the most beautiful novels ever written. I particularly like the first two and it is a shame Peake never completed the series. I enjoyed the first five novels of Amber (and MOST of Zelazny I've read.) I love Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser as a teenager, but now think they are tremendously uneven. A lot of the early stuff like "Thieve's House" is really great, but the last story "Mouser Goes Below" is horrible. That said I am glad I found them when I did.
Blasphemy! The worm ouroboros is not boring! Also I don’t think they are really forgotten, just that people don’t seem to talk about them much. I mean I love most of these but what is there to say about it? Esp that hasn’t been said before, I mean you like them or you don’t😂
Looking forward to your thoughts on Worm Ourobos and other works from that era. Just picked up the Illustrated version of Gormenghast on Kindle. I've read TG but never got to the others, as I got distracted trying to find The Boy in Darkness novella, even though it's not really considered canonical as far as the series goes. Happy reading!
I've been meaning to ask you about Viriconium. You mentioned The Pastel City a while ago. I read the whole series, including the short stories, and quite liked it, although the later parts are not as good as The Pastel City itself, and it raises a lot of questions. The writing is gorgeous but it masks some of the oddities of "the situation." I have a sneaking hunch that the whole thing is a sendup of the heroic saga/space opera/fantasy world genre, but I may be wrong. Look forward to hearing your thoughts about that, eventually.
The Great Book of Amber! Very much looking forward to your take on this series. I enjoy Zelazny's prose and his wit. It's hard to find authors today who can pull off his style. Would also love to hear your take on Karl Edgar Wagner....and there it is. Just popped up on your video, Lol.
@@MasterMalrubius I've only read the first book in the Merlin series. And I'd agree with your assessment. But I thought the first series was brilliant.
I can't remember you ever talking about Jack Vance. Are you a fan? I can't imagine reading 500 books of any genre without it being liberally peppered with some Jack. The Fritz Leiber, Roger Zelazny, and Michael Moorcock are on my TBR and reread list, hope to join you there.
I'm about halfway thru Durfee's Forgetting Moon. Really good so far. I still need to read Gwymne's Hunger of the Gods, sequel to Shadow of the Gods. It's been sitting on the shelf, but I want to refresh myself with Shadow first.
I would be interested in rereading Ouroboros myself, which I last did nearly 20 years ago. I found myself less vexed then by the pseudo-archaic language (which struck me as pointless enough) than the infernally silly nomenclature. Wonder how I might go with it now. I have that giant edition of Amber. Never read it, and I suspect it might actually be beyond my abilities to read it now. Hopefully the ebook version I've got is easier. Also have that Dunsany edition, which I finally finished earlier this year, only some 20-odd years after starting it... always found it incomprehensible that it places the first book at the END of the collection, and that the ebook edition does the same. I"ve struggled terribly with Peake. Never got beyond the first book, which I just found kind of grey and uninviting. Viriconium, the Lankhmar stories and those Moorcocks are all on my own to-read list. I really liked those early Elric stories from the 60s, so I really should check out the rest.
Read chronicles of amber, it just looks long but trust me it’s like reading a tiny book. Its fantastic. Frankly, you’ll have a harder time going through the later elric novels (that get more pretentious and loooooong for no good reason), and god forbid viriconium which is way too convoluted and literary (and really only the first book is straight sf/fantasy, the rest is experimental and weird).
@@michaelk.vaughan8617 Yeah. It came out in 2000, and it adapted the first two novels of the series. It was pretty good, despite its budgetary limitations. Christopher Lee played Flay.
I was already old when Harry Potter came out so I never really got into those books, unfortunately. Everyone else in the world seems to love them so obviously I missed out.
@@michaelk.vaughan8617 Most of us were old quite likely when they came out. But HP is not simply YA or Children's stories. They have quite complex and intriguing characters and storylines, something that young and old alike would enjoy. You are doing yourself a disservice IMO by not giving at least the first book a go.
Swelter's eyes meet those of his enemy, and never has there held between four globes of gristle so sinister a hell of hatred. Had the flesh, the fibres, and the bones of the chef and those of Mr Flay been conjured away and away down that dark corridor leaving only their four eyes suspended in mid-air outside the Earl's door, then, surely, they must have reddened to the hue of Mars, reddened and smouldered, and at last broken into flame, so intense was their hatred - broken into flame and circled about one another in ever-narrowing gyres and in swifter and yet swifter flight until, merged into one sizzling globe of ire they must surely have fled, the four in one, leaving a trail of blood behind them in the cold grey air of the corridor, until, screaming as they fly beneath innumerable arches and down the endless passageways of Gormenghast, they found their eyeless bodies once again, and reentrenched themselves in startled sockets If this doesnt make you want to read gormenghast, nothing will
Stephen Donaldson's writing totally sucked out my will to live when I read him many, many years ago. I found his books boring and problematic. Why they are so popular is a mystery, but I'll be interested to know your opinion.
My experience with Stephen R. Donaldson failed and I DNF'd the first trilogy. My dislike stemmed from several things, paramount being incredibly bad writing. He never met an adjective he understood or used properly, and he loved to fling them around. Then there was the naming scheme for characters. Strongheart Foamfollower? I mean, get real. Then of course there is the loser attitude of the titular character. So, anyway, be warned. This is crap, in my view.
![일상 속 기분 좋음 [Proto disco meme]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/DwmEIaZ7XGQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Love me some Gormenghast. You've got a lot of fantasy to get through -- enjoy!
Once again Michael excellent choices Dunsany & lieber, peake zelazny moorcock & m j Harrison all superb authosr & Donaldson I read them when I was younger it can be a difficult read though stick with it & it's defintly controversial & the kane series is well worth reading thank you for posting this excellent eclectic choices enjoy your read 👍
Well, I now have the hardback set of the Elric Saga, I have the Thomas Covenant books in the SF Book Club editions from ages ago, and the Ghormenghast stories in a trade paperback. I'm more of a sci-fi than a fantasy reader, but starting with the above I'm going to try and give fantasy another chance in 2023. You mentioned a few others that look intriguing as well.
Hurrah for fantasy 🙌
I ‘d never even heard of the Gormenghast! Of course, I’ll wait to see your comments. Viriconium has been on the TBR for some time now. I wish you good luck with Malazan. Nice list!
Thanks!
Love Fafrd and the Mouser.
I read one of the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser books many years ago. I don't remember which one it was , but it was a quick read and very entertaining.
I look forward to hearing what you have to say about this series.
Great stuff!
I seriously hope Roger isn't still reading erotica on the toilet....🤣😆
My favorite genre! I love hearing about your picks for this TBR. I read the Worm Ouroboros in grad school. Once you get in the rhythm of the language it is a really good plot and a nice read for a lazy Sunday afternoon. I''ve never read Roger Zelazny before. I can't wait to hear your thoughts on his books.
Yeah, I’m really looking forward to those.
Soon as the cover popped on screen I remembered The Worm Ouroboros, I read that old yellowed paperback in my teens, couldn't tell you much about it - I liked it and liked the cover, a quirky old book, another one of those things lost in the fog of fading memories.
I have to say I had a hard time getting through that book. I remember Lord Spitfire and his ilk were heading to Goblin Land to, I believe rescue someone who was kidnapped. But the prose was pretty difficult to get through.
@@MasterMalrubius Maybe thats why I don't own it anymore, I may have decided I wasn't going to reread that again.
I love that you have a lot of older titles on your list of Fantasy to read. Some of these I haven't heard of yet, but have them added to my "check it out" list. Great vid! :)
Thanks Bart!
George R.R. Martin has mentioned Gormenghast as an influence on him before, so nice catch in that!
Good list. Grey Mouser is near the top of my reading list after finishing some of the Witcher stories, fun to see you're planning on it too.
Great cover on the Gormenghast Novels. I have never seen that title ever. Thanks for rambling on about the fantasy books you will be reading for your five hundred book challenge.
thanks for sharing, I read the "Amber Chronicles" years ago and they were good. I have also read The Fafhard and the Grey Mouser books a couple of times and the older Elric works. I have also read the Thomas Covenant works, I think you will enjoy it. The Karl Edward Wagner works are great.
Love Fritz Leiber. Re-reading “Swords Against Ice Magic” now. Thomas Covenant is a great story and has wonderful imagery. Just got a bit whiny and preachy later on.
I love The Gormenghast trilogy! Definitely one of the most unique portrayals of life within a fantasy castle. Hope you have fun with them :)
Oh you have got to get to The Five Warrior Angels Trilogy soon. It is amazing. I have that edition of The Great Book of Amber as well. Who knows how long it will take me to get to it. :D
This is an amazing list of books! All very good!
Great fantasy on this list! I'm considering doing the "Read What You Own" Challenge myself, starting in January 2023, but I was thinking books wouldn't count if I've read them before because I thought the spirit of the challenge was to read things on your shelves that you haven't read yet. BTW, I have that same version of the Great Book of Amber with the 10 books in it. David Wiley has it too.
I think rereads should count if you haven’t read them in a while. You do own the books after all! But I guess it will be up to you.
I have Viriconium on Kindle unread. The Chronicle of Thomas Covenant aren’t like other fantasies. At least at the time I originally read them in the 80s. By today’s standards the main character is highly problematic, but there are some powerful scenes that come out of his deeds. I never finished the third series.
Chronicles of Amber is awesome! Most people say the first 5 novels are better (and they are) but the last 5 are great fun too, and I just can’t believe you haven’t read at least the first 5! They are absolutely phenomenal and classic fantasy, you should really just stop everything and read them right away. You can let the merlin books for later but at least the first chronicles of amber get to them right away. Its 5 books but they are short and I guarantee you’ll be finished with them in less than a week, no way to stop once you’ve started!
Nice man!
I really want to read The Forgetting Moon and the rest of the saga, but I simply can't afford to buy them now :/
However, you did get me into readnig Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars saga so I've just started that one :)
I've read most of these books. A lot of these books were foundational and brilliant and somehow unknown to many fantasy readers. The fantasy crowd does really seem to care about the classics of its genre. They are more concern with what is popular at the time. Which isn't to say such books are bad. It's just frustrating that great authors seem to be forgotten.
I found The Worm Ouroborous boring as hell, but I may have been burned out on fantasy when I read it. The Gormenghast novels are some of the most beautiful novels ever written. I particularly like the first two and it is a shame Peake never completed the series. I enjoyed the first five novels of Amber (and MOST of Zelazny I've read.) I love Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser as a teenager, but now think they are tremendously uneven. A lot of the early stuff like "Thieve's House" is really great, but the last story "Mouser Goes Below" is horrible. That said I am glad I found them when I did.
Blasphemy! The worm ouroboros is not boring! Also I don’t think they are really forgotten, just that people don’t seem to talk about them much. I mean I love most of these but what is there to say about it? Esp that hasn’t been said before, I mean you like them or you don’t😂
I still need to get more Elric books. This list was great by the way.
Thanks!
Looking forward to your thoughts on Worm Ourobos and other works from that era. Just picked up the Illustrated version of Gormenghast on Kindle. I've read TG but never got to the others, as I got distracted trying to find The Boy in Darkness novella, even though it's not really considered canonical as far as the series goes. Happy reading!
It’s going to happen Michael! Don’t crush my dreams (A Song of Ice and Fire completion) 😬
Sorry! I’m sure those books will be finished any day now 🙄
I dont love Lord of the Snooze..ahem...Rings 😉😉 Yes it IS about time you read Thomas Covenant. 👏👏
I've been meaning to ask you about Viriconium. You mentioned The Pastel City a while ago. I read the whole series, including the short stories, and quite liked it, although the later parts are not as good as The Pastel City itself, and it raises a lot of questions. The writing is gorgeous but it masks some of the oddities of "the situation." I have a sneaking hunch that the whole thing is a sendup of the heroic saga/space opera/fantasy world genre, but I may be wrong. Look forward to hearing your thoughts about that, eventually.
Once I read the whole thing I will let you know what I think. I look forward to it.
The Great Book of Amber! Very much looking forward to your take on this series. I enjoy Zelazny's prose and his wit. It's hard to find authors today who can pull off his style. Would also love to hear your take on Karl Edgar Wagner....and there it is. Just popped up on your video, Lol.
I enjoyed the first half. When he switched to the son Merlin it seemed worn and a bit 60’s-ish in the prose.
@@MasterMalrubius I've only read the first book in the Merlin series. And I'd agree with your assessment. But I thought the first series was brilliant.
I can't remember you ever talking about Jack Vance. Are you a fan? I can't imagine reading 500 books of any genre without it being liberally peppered with some Jack. The Fritz Leiber, Roger Zelazny, and Michael Moorcock are on my TBR and reread list, hope to join you there.
I haven’t read enough Vance but I have a bunch of his books ready to read.
I'm about halfway thru Durfee's Forgetting Moon. Really good so far. I still need to read Gwymne's Hunger of the Gods, sequel to Shadow of the Gods. It's been sitting on the shelf, but I want to refresh myself with Shadow first.
Amber starts out great. But several books in it begins to bog down and get repetitive in my opinion. Definitely read the first half.
Hope you are having a wonderful day❤✨✨
I would be interested in rereading Ouroboros myself, which I last did nearly 20 years ago. I found myself less vexed then by the pseudo-archaic language (which struck me as pointless enough) than the infernally silly nomenclature. Wonder how I might go with it now.
I have that giant edition of Amber. Never read it, and I suspect it might actually be beyond my abilities to read it now. Hopefully the ebook version I've got is easier. Also have that Dunsany edition, which I finally finished earlier this year, only some 20-odd years after starting it... always found it incomprehensible that it places the first book at the END of the collection, and that the ebook edition does the same.
I"ve struggled terribly with Peake. Never got beyond the first book, which I just found kind of grey and uninviting.
Viriconium, the Lankhmar stories and those Moorcocks are all on my own to-read list. I really liked those early Elric stories from the 60s, so I really should check out the rest.
Read chronicles of amber, it just looks long but trust me it’s like reading a tiny book. Its fantastic. Frankly, you’ll have a harder time going through the later elric novels (that get more pretentious and loooooong for no good reason), and god forbid viriconium which is way too convoluted and literary (and really only the first book is straight sf/fantasy, the rest is experimental and weird).
You should really check out the BBC production of Gormenghast starring Christopher Lee.
Wait? What? That exists!?
@@michaelk.vaughan8617 Yeah. It came out in 2000, and it adapted the first two novels of the series. It was pretty good, despite its budgetary limitations. Christopher Lee played Flay.
Please do a classics TBR and a nonfiction TBR.
Good idea!
Will you count The Complete Malazan as one book or ten volumes?
Ten, of course. I’m not completely mad.
Any love for the Harry Potter series? My son was asking.
I was already old when Harry Potter came out so I never really got into those books, unfortunately. Everyone else in the world seems to love them so obviously I missed out.
@@michaelk.vaughan8617 Most of us were old quite likely when they came out. But HP is not simply YA or Children's stories. They have quite complex and intriguing characters and storylines, something that young and old alike would enjoy. You are doing yourself a disservice IMO by not giving at least the first book a go.
Next - "My 500 TBR: The Romance" 💘!
Don’t hold your breath for that one!
@@michaelk.vaughan8617 😝
Swelter's eyes meet those of his enemy, and never has there held between four globes of gristle so sinister a hell of hatred. Had the flesh, the fibres, and the bones of the chef and those of Mr Flay been conjured away and away down that dark corridor leaving only their four eyes suspended in mid-air outside the Earl's door, then, surely, they must have reddened to the hue of Mars, reddened and smouldered, and at last broken into flame, so intense was their hatred - broken into flame and circled about one another in ever-narrowing gyres and in swifter and yet swifter flight until, merged into one sizzling globe of ire they must surely have fled, the four in one, leaving a trail of blood behind them in the cold grey air of the corridor, until, screaming as they fly beneath innumerable arches and down the endless passageways of Gormenghast, they found their eyeless bodies once again, and reentrenched themselves in startled sockets
If this doesnt make you want to read gormenghast, nothing will
Ha! Definitely!
what happened to the old copy of lord of the rings behind your back?
It’s hiding in another part of the Manor.
Stephen Donaldson's writing totally sucked out my will to live when I read him many, many years ago. I found his books boring and problematic. Why they are so popular is a mystery, but I'll be interested to know your opinion.
I couldn’t get through Covenant either, but his Mordant books were a bit better.
@@konstantinos-6-6-6-8 Really? I'll give one a try. Thanks!
My experience with Stephen R. Donaldson failed and I DNF'd the first trilogy. My dislike stemmed from several things, paramount being incredibly bad writing. He never met an adjective he understood or used properly, and he loved to fling them around. Then there was the naming scheme for characters. Strongheart Foamfollower? I mean, get real. Then of course there is the loser attitude of the titular character. So, anyway, be warned. This is crap, in my view.
Foamfollower!? Really!?