What other fantasy books do YOU read?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

I've just had a book buying binge again (damn Waterstones and Tesco with their cheap paperbacks... ).

I read Urban Grimshaw and The Shed Crew in an evening or so, a true story and a little too gritty (but very good). So I decided to read something that was a total contrast afterwards, and I'm now onto The Mists of Avalon! I'd forgotten how good it was!

I must have read it in the mid 80's first time around and it was a library book so I've not set eyes on it since. Basically, its a retelling of the Arthurian myths from the point of view of the women, and it also has a very pagan feel to it. I'm currently at the point where Arthur is about to be conceived...

Do I hear an echo of Tristram Shandy here? Any winding of clocks?

I wonder how davem's strictures about Tolkien's Christian subtext--or should I say LMP's Christian subtext apply--if at all--to a book which so directly incorporates the struggle between pagan and Christian visions.

This issue relates to a point Lalwendë made some posts ago about Neil Gaiman' s mythology. If I remember correctly, Lal suggested that our appreciation of his American Gods depends upon our prior knowledge of the old mythologies. Is this a failure according to davem's theory of experiencing fantasy?

I've recently finished a book which is not usually categorised as fantasy--William Gibson's Neuromancer--but science fiction. (Well, both are often subsumed under the rubric speculative fiction these days, so perhaps that division does not matter.)

Why do I have this urge to think of Neuromancer as fantasy? Especially since Gibson is 'credited' with inventing the idea of the Net. There is one aspect particularly in which his work reminds me very much of Tolkien: the language.

Gibson has so fully realised his time because he creates many new words to give shape, texture, credibility to his vision: technology is married to nature in his first sentence, which describes the sky in colours of television screens. His metaphors are astoundingly apt, sharp, direct. Tolkien created the elven languages and was scrupulously particular in his use of English philology to characterise Middle earth.

Is there something in the very language which an author uses to write his or her work that gives rise to the tradition of fantasy? Does fantasy involve a major reimagining of language, so that it is not merely descriptive of a different reality but actually implies that reality? Or is this simply a feature of the masters of the genre? (if I'm making much sense here)