I'm talking like proper ass pulp shit with some Frank Frazetta ass shit on the cover, like a big Barbarian dude throwing an axe at a sorcerer with a pet giant snake.

I've never actually read any of that stuff but I'm curious what that genres Citizen Kane is.

  • Mardoniush [she/her]
    ·
    2 months ago

    I love the dragon riders of Pern so, so much. It's the feminine equivalent of a sword and sorcery novel about some over-sexed warrior.

    • BlueMagaChud [any]
      ·
      2 months ago

      Same, I read all of them, I loved how they're both scifi and fantasy. It's weird that the genre is perceived as super masculine when there are tons of great female authors that I read growing up such as Anne McCaffrey, Mary Stewart, Ursula LeGuin, and Robin Hobb

    • Diuretic_Materialism [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      2 months ago

      Eh that's too comedic and self aware. I'm talking like actually just trashy ass fantasy shit.

  • Frank [he/him, he/him]
    ·
    2 months ago

    Bard, by some australian dude

    The Drenai Saga, which is just Conan with 3% less racism

    Fafrd and the Grey Mouser, which I haven't read but is apparently a classic and/or satire of the genre

    The Books of the New Sun by Gene Wolf

    The Dying Earth series by Jack Vance.

    Most everything in the genre is full of content warning stuff, so exercise caution. There's probably recent writing that's better but I stopped learning new things in 1978.

    • TheLepidopterists [he/him]
      ·
      2 months ago

      Most everything in the genre is full of content warning stuff, so exercise caution.

      You're not kidding, suggesting an older fantasy novel sometimes requires a CW list longer than the book itself.

      I recently, in the last year, got into Tanith Lee, and read the first three of her Tales from Flat Earth novels.

      She was writing in the '70s, and in some ways the books feel much more forward-thinking than you would expect from something that old. There are strong female protagonists, characters of a variety of ethnicities (well, the first book notwithstanding), several prominent LGBT characters including the hero of the second book who is gender fluid. At the same time I'd probably list the top ten CWs I could think of if I tried to recommend the books and still miss something notable.

    • Diuretic_Materialism [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      2 months ago

      The Books of the New Sun by Gene Wolf

      Hey I've actually read that one!

      Now that I think of it, it was a lot hornier than i initially recalled soviet-hmm

      • Mardoniush [she/her]
        ·
        2 months ago

        It was probably not appropriate for my parents to let me read Litany of the Long Sun and encounter Hyacinth at age 7

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
      ·
      2 months ago

      Howard was turbo-racist. Like I agree that there can be a positive interpretation of the Conan character shorn of Howards baggage, but the plain text is racist af.

  • The_sleepy_woke_dialectic [he/him]
    ·
    2 months ago

    The Zanth novels are peak corny. They're sexist and weird with constant reminders of the Author's fetishes, don't get me wrong, but you get gems like unicorns competing to see who is the strongest by jumping up in the air and driving their horns into the ground. The winner is whichever can balance on their horn the longest. Or, the protagonist getting caught by a harpy while pooping in the woods, then he tries to run away with his pants down, the harpy shouting abuse at him.

    Do I recommend them? No, absolutely not.

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
      ·
      2 months ago

      I would not reccomend Zanth at all. Piers Anthony was a pedophile, a real pathological sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children pedophile, and it's spread all through the books. I don't think he ever actually attacked kids. But his condition cannot be removed from his writing and anyone who tries to read the books should be informed going in.

      • Mardoniush [she/her]
        ·
        edit-2
        2 months ago

        Yeah, I can read a good book that occasionally makes me want to throw it against the wall with great force, heck, I like John C Wright!

        But avoid Zanth it's....not a good time..., if you must embrace cheesy problematic author's barely disguised fetish stuff there's good old Jack Chalker.

        I actually suspect that old Jack might have been less about hardcore sexist transformation fetishes and more sublimating some gender stuff and getting it out in writing. in which case good for him, but, "oh Jack Chalker no!"

  • GarbageShoot [he/him]
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    2 months ago

    I've seen people say good things about the Corum series, in the context of its comic adaptations at least.

    • Mardoniush [she/her]
      ·
      2 months ago

      Corum of the Silver Hand, right? yeah one of the better parts of the Cycle of the Eternal Champion.

  • REgon [they/them]
    ·
    2 months ago

    The early discworld novels are a direct spoof of that kinda pulp fantasy. They're pretty good

  • Mardoniush [she/her]
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    edit-2
    2 months ago

    Already posted once but if you want the real titan of the Genre it has to be Michael Moorcock and his Cycle of the Eternal Champion. He's an Anarchist and a comrade too.

    Start with Hawkmoon (far future fantasy with a decadent fascist Britain trying to conquer Europe.), though Elric (the template for Arthas from Wow, basically) is the most popular figure.

  • Bobson_Dugnutt [he/him]
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    2 months ago

    I enjoyed the Shannara series as a kid. Sort of halfway between Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, with a little bit of A Canticle for Leibowitz thrown in.

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
      ·
      2 months ago

      Shannara is interesting historically because it was one of the first really successful attempts to write a Tolkien style fantasy after LotR was released. Today it reads as LotR fanfic, which it basically is, but it played a very important role in opening up the fantasy genre. I believ the same author also wrote the slapstick "Magic Kingdom for sale: sold!" Series and some modern urban fantasy stories that I remember being good.

  • UlyssesT
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    edit-2
    2 months ago

    deleted by creator