Tuesday 15 January 2019

Good Non-Fantasy/SF Novels for Fantasy/SF Fans

I just wrote a long post about Billy Liar and various other topics but you're going to be denied those insights, possibly forever: just as I was adding a link to finish things off there was a slip of the finger and my decrepit laptop interpreted this as me wanting to go "back" a billion times in quick succession in my browser - and now the post is gone, not even saved. Yay. I'm too dispirited to write it out again, so, in lieu of that, something totally different: a list of some good Non-Fantasy/SF Fiction Books for Fans of Fantasy/SF, jotted down in no particular order:


  • We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. Could possibly be categorised as horror, but isn't really. I don't think it is the work of genius it is sometimes cracked up to be, but it's a very effective little novel you can read in one sitting.
  • The Magus by John Fowles. You can't read this one in one sitting. You might want to, though. Possibly the best literary thriller ever written? I can't think of a rival candidate that comes close. Again, it could be categorised as horror, or fantasy, but isn't really either.
  • Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder. One of the rare huge bestsellers that I think deserves it. 
  • The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. I mean, come on.
  • Azincourt by Bernard Cornwell. You all know who Cornwell is and you have all read some of his books, of course. This is a lesser known one, but one of his better efforts (I think).
  • Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg. Kind of feels like a technoir/cyberpunk novel, even though it isn't. 
  • The Mysterious Mr Quin by Agatha Christie. Okay, it isn't a novel, but it has that character. It's Christie's strangest and, I think, best work: not fantasy, but almost like proto-slipstream fiction - stories about what happens when the real world touches something that isn't quite real itself.
Tell me some others.

14 comments:

  1. I'd recommend 'This Book Will Save Your Life' by A. M. Homes. It has almost the structure of a Vancian picaresque except that the landscape is Los Angeles and all the 'random encounters' are just slightly odd people or events.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Interesting. I have heard of it but kind of unfairly assumed I'd hate it.

      Delete
  2. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantell scratches all the Game of Thrones type I tches. Also - War and Peace - just as long and complicated as any epic fantasy with great battles and characters and is also a way better written classic of literature.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I love War and Peace. Will get round to reading Wolf Hall one of these days I'm sure.

      Delete
  3. The Aubrey/Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brian have so many fans in the SFF community that they're practically honorary SF novels by now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Read the first one and really enjoyed it. I'll have to get onto the others.

      Delete
  4. The Polish Trilogy by Henryk Sienkiewicz. Three novels by the author of Quo Vadis, the first With Fire and Sword about a Cossack uprising, the second The Deluge about the Swedish invasion of Poland, and the third Fire in the Steppe about wars between Poland and the Ottoman Empire. Lots of battles, and a lot of other plots too. All are great.

    ReplyDelete
  5. If someone likes The Dresden Files, the Marcus Didius Falco series is pretty close to it in vibe, I feel.

    James Clavell's Shogun is a great read for fans of fat fantasy epics.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was disappointed with how Shogun ended. It was as though he just got sick of writing it and decided to hit fast-forward.

      Delete
  6. Eiji Yoshikawa's novel Musashi has all the bloodshed and badassery one might hope for. It's also an interesting depiction of an idealized warrior as seen by a popular Japanese writer just before the war broke out.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield It's about the battle of Thermopylae

    ReplyDelete