The Pastel City

Author	Gene Wolfe
ISBN	0671540661

Wolfe has an almost legendary status amongst fellow authors; Gaiman called him 'a ferocious intellect', Swanwick said he's "the greatest writer in the English language alive today", and Disch called this series "a tetralogy of couth, intelligence, and suavity".

You can rarely trust the...

Author	Jack Vance
ISBN	0671831526

I did not like this book much the first time I read it, but after reading it a second time while visualizing its characters as puppets, I found I liked it much more.

This book—particularly the first three stories—irritated me. I found its wizards to be contemptible creatures, morally...

Author

Lord Dunsany

In fantasy, I've seen magic used in many ways: as plot device, curio, religious allegory, and the personification of morals, but rarely do I find a book where magic is truly magical. Too often, it's a convenience, a cliche, but for Dunsany, magic is pervasive, mysterious, unknowable, and lovely. He...

Author	K.J. Bishop
ISBN	0553382918

Gwynn and Raule are rebels on the run, with little in common except being on the losing side of a hard-fought war. Gwynn is a gunslinger from the north, a loner, a survivor . . . a killer. Raule is a wandering surgeon, a healer who still believes in just--and lost--causes. Bound by a desire to escape the ghosts...

Author	Robert Holdstock
ISBN	0765307294

The mystery of Ryhope Wood, Britain's last fragment of primeval forest, consumed George Huxley's entire, and long, life. Now, after his death, his sons have taken up his work. But what they discover is beyond what they could have expected. For the Wood is a realm where myths gain flesh and blood, tapping...

Author	Michael Moorcock
ISBN	0441203981

It is the colour of a bleached skull, his flesh; and the long hair that flows below his shoulders is milk-white. From the tapering, beautiful head stare two slanting eyes, crimson and moody....He is Elric, Emperor of Melnibone, cursed with a keen and cynical intelligence, schooled in the art of sorcery...

Author	Mervyn Peake
ISBN	0879514256

What an odd fantasy! No swords, no sorcery, no elves, no thieves, no imaginary beasts, no multiple planes of existence . . . nothing but a cavernous castle peopled by eccentrics with Dickensian names (Sepulchrave, Prunesquallor, Swelter, Flay) whose lives are determined by centuries--perhaps...

Author

Mervyn Peake

Titus Groan is seven years old. Lord and heir to the crumbling castle Gormenghast. A gothic labyrinth of roofs and turrets, cloisters and corridors, stairwells and dungeons, it is also the cobwebbed kingdom of Byzantine government and age-old rituals, a world primed to implode beneath the weight...

Author

Lucius Shepard

Deviating from traditional tales that feature lonely vampires who prowl through human society in search of victims or solace, this account of vampires flourishing in their own "inhuman society" takes place in the year 1860, when their centuries-long breeding experiments have finally produced...

Author	Michael Moorcock
ISBN	0586208771

Holy crap! I, Mark Lawrence, have read an entire book in 4 hours!

Admittedly I picked it up after discovering that it was only 24,000 words long, or 1/2oth of a George Martin epic.

EDIT: over the long grind of this summer holiday I've been writing a "short" story that I'm being paid to write...

Author	Iain M. Banks
ISBN	0316071986

There is a world that hangs suspended between triumph and catastrophe, between the dismantling of the Wall and the fall of the Twin Towers, frozen in the shadow of suicide terrorism and global financial collapse. Such a world requires a firm hand and a guiding light. But does it need the Concern: an all-powerful...

Author	Gene Wolfe
ISBN	0671416162

Severian is in possession of a gem considered to be "The Claw of the Conciliator", a powerful relic of the Master of Power, a legendary figure of mythic proportions. Armed with his sword, Terminus Est, and the Claw, Severian continues his journey to Thrax, the city of his exile. Bizarre apes, strange...

Author	Ursula K. Le Guin
ISBN	0441011241

Tales from Earth Sea (The Earthsea Cycle, #5), Ursula K. Le Guin
Tales from Earthsea is a collection of fantasy stories and essays by American author Ursula K. Le Guin, published by Harcourt in 2001. It accompanies five novels (1968 to 2001) set in the fictional archipelago Earthsea.
"The Finder"....

Author	Gene Wolfe
ISBN	0671631934

This, as well as the first two books and theoretically the last in the series, is rapidly becoming the most difficult work of SF I've ever read. Why? It's not particularly difficult to follow; the Hero's Quest is rather straightforward throughout. Nor is the main character Severian particularly uninteresting...

Author	William Hope Hodgson
ISBN	1406905747

Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder is a collection of supernatural detective short stories by author William Hope Hodgson. It was first published in 1913 by the English publisher Eveleigh Nash. In 1947, a new edition of 3,050 copies was published by Mycroft & Moran and included three additional stories....

Author	James Branch Cabell
ISBN	0486235076

One of the most-talked-about works of the 1920s, this compelling fantasy recounts the odyssey of a middle-aged pawnbroker who regains his youth for a year of amorous adventures. Jurgen's allegorical journey leads through a supernatural dreamscape to romances with Guenevere and The Lady of the Lake...

Author	Clifford D. Simak
ISBN	0881848522

A classic tale from one of science fiction's most creative forces. Suddenly, strange things begin to happen. World industries collaspe. People--sometimes whole towns--disappear without a trace. And writer Jay Vickers knows he's being watched. Now, to save his own life--and all of humanity--he...

Author

Poul Anderson

Thor broke the sword Tyrfing to save the roots of Yggdrasil, the tree that binds earth, heaven and hell. Now the elves need the weapon for their war against the trolls. Only Scafloc, a human kidnapped and raised by elves, can hope to persuade Bolverk the ice-giant to make Tyrfing whole again. But Scafloc...

Author	Jack Vance
ISBN	0671559915

Rhialto the Marvellous takes up the personal and political conflicts among a conclave of two dozen magicians of Ascolais and Almery in the 21st Aeon. The shocking appearance of the Llorio the Murtha, a powerful female force from an earlier aeon threatens to unbalance nature by “ensqualming” or...

Author	Michael Moorcock
ISBN	0441248667

The seventh installment in the prolific Moorcock's series about warrior Elric of Melnibone is set early in the warrior's career, opening as the Lord Gho Fhaazi seeks the principal seat on the ruling Council of Seven of the city of Quarzhasaat. He lures Elric into seeking the Pearl at the Heart of the World--the...