Day: January 5, 2007

I will admit readily that I am a Fantasy/Sci Fi snob and a girly snob at that. I particular dislike the crunchy hard stuff with the very manly men, like Conan or Gor and the whiny misanthropic stuff, like Thomas Covenant. And to be fair I do TRY to read something before I give it a pass. I’m not opposed to Mary Sue as such. I don’t think you can read or write fantasy without having a certain amount of guilty Mary Sue-esque pleasure in it. But the majority of my taste is for funny stuff, like Discworld or really juvenile and girly things like the Dragonriders of Pern (well, the early books at least). However, I love and heartily recommend the Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser books by Fritz Leiber. They are pretty standard sword and sorcery, but the characters and writing style are so much fun that you just have to enjoy them. Read these books and then go back and read any later fantasy and I’m sure at least one of Leiber’s ideas will show up in them. It’s a lot like H. P. Lovecraft (whether or not you enjoy him). I had the books sitting around and decided to re-read them and I’m really glad I did.