(Part 2) Best fantasy criticism books according to redditors

LotR is one of the most, if not the most, profoundly Catholic works of fiction ever written. So the answer to your question is "basically everything." I'd recommend Brizer's J.R.R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth, Flieger's Splintered Light, or the writings of Tom Shippey if you're interested in a more thorough examination of what Tolkien is doing. Peter Kreeft has written a good bit on Tolkien as well, but I've only skimmed.

Sure. Stop me when this gets boring!

The History of Middle-earth.

The History of the Hobbit.

The Road to Middle-earth, J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century and Roots and Branches, all by Tom Shippey

You should read Tolkien's Letters, too.

Other books to consider:

The LOTR reader's Companion

J.R.R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances

Perilous Realms: Celtic and Norse in Tolkien's Middle-earth

The Keys of Middle-Earth: Discovering Medieval Literature through the Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien

Understanding The Lord of the Rings: The Best of Tolkien Criticism

J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide

If you're feeling rich, you could try to find a copy of Songs For The Philologists, a collection of poems, mostly in Old English, written by Tolkien and E.V. Gordon (I only have a .pdf copy).

I'd also read Tolkien's Beowulf criticism.

and just for fun, read Ents, Elves, and Eriador: The Environmental Vision of J.R.R. Tolkien, which is nothing to do with philology but which was cowritten by my major professor :)

Let's see, what else? Anything by Douglas A. Anderson, Verlyn Flieger or Michael Drout (especially Drout's Beowulf and the Critics and How Tradition Works: A Meme-Based Cultural Poetics of the Anglo-Saxon Tenth Century.

That's pretty much all that leaps immediately to mind, just glancing over my bookshelves, but if you search for "Tolkien scholarship and criticism" you will find much, much more. Hope this helps!

If you haven't already, you should check out my friend Marc Aramini's book on Wolfe called Between Light and Shadow. In the book he breaks down all of Wolfe's work up until the early 80's (I think). His interpretation of T5oC is the best I have ever read and probably closest to Wolfe's actual intentions. His theories about the book also involve the things you mentioned. Marc's book is only the first half of a massive work; part two will be out pretty soon. I can't wait to read it.

A few I haven't read, but have heard good things about here and elsewhere:

• On Writing and Worldbuilding, Vol I
  
• Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding
  
• Fantasy cartography book
  
• Short book on language creation

Also: J. R. R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-Earth https://www.amazon.com/dp/1932236201/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_0MCpDbBPTZPQK

I just got this book, The Making of Middle-earth, the other day. I've yet to finish it, but so far it has spoken about Tolkien's history and his love of mythology. Including his naming techniques.

Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun: A Chapter Guide https://www.amazon.com/dp/1947614096/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_rC6WDb32X6Q7V

Not at all difficult, people who understand how languages work do it all the time: Klingon, Dothraki, and so on. People have written books on the topic.

Esperanto was invented as a universal language in the late 19th century, and while it never caught on, there are still groups who speak it for grins. William Shatner did a whole movie in it.

I know it is unpopular around here, but I would recommend reading the Brian Herbert/Kevin Anderson books a read. Borrow em from your library if you are nervous.

Nothing as cerebral as Dune but I am a big fan of John Ringo's stuff. He had a collaboration with David Weber that was good "The Empire of Man" which begins with "March Upcountry".

I also started The Horus Heresy series and am on book 9 and cannot get enough.

There is The Road to Dune which sheds some more light on Frank and the development of the original novel.

There is Dreamer of Dune which is a biography of Frank.

Last but not least, this book is kind of cool: The Science of Dune. It is a collection of essays by scientists and philosophers about different aspects of Dune and their scientific foundation (i.e. could Arrakis exist). Disclosure, the links I provide might be an affiliate link.

Congrats on finishing! WoT really is a wild ride, no other series has left me with a feeling even close to what I felt when I put down AMOL for the last time...

As for your reread, I just want to let you know there are some other books and stories that can help expand your reread. New Spring is an awesome prequel book to the series, I would recommend starting the reread with that first!

Also, if you want to get alllll the info you can on Randland, the WoT Companion book is an awesome encyclopedia of it all while The world of RJ's WoT is almost like a mini textbook describing much of the land and nations. Lastly, there is a very very short story about Bao the Wyld, it's basically a deleted scene. I'm not sure of the ways to access it besides getting the Unfettered anthology though that one is pretty cheap and has a lot of other very good stories from varying authors.

Either way, enjoy the reread! I'm doing my first reread now and I'm having a blast catching all the foreshadowing and hidden gems :)

It’s so gratifying that someone else enjoys it. If Ultan corrects you, just keep moving forward!
Amazon assures me that you can buy the print version here:
Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun: A Chapter Guide https://www.amazon.com/dp/1947614096/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_NZcXDbWF7F1R4

Cool find!
If you're into the Science of Dune, you owe yourself a read of - literally - The Science of Dune, a compilation of essays by notable, credentialed authors on various aspects of Dune's biology, ecology, technology, culture, astronomy and more. Genetic memory, stillsuits, the physical location of Dune (which is a real planet!), anti-gravity... It's a great read.

https://www.amazon.com/Between-Light-Shadow-Exploration-Fiction-ebook/dp/B011YTDGY2 This includes a long essay on New Sun. Though some theories in New Sun are explained in round about ways in the Long and Short Sun books.

There is this quite unknown online store, they have it:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074KQHDVN/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

If you do not want to have a mobi-version you can try e.g. kobo.com for an epub-version. At least for Germany they offer the title too.

God of Thrones. $9.99

Gods of Thrones: A Pilgrim's Guide to the Religions of Ice and Fire https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JLNZB9G/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_F21.BbNY8KVJ4

You’re most welcome. 😀 Like you, I have an interest in writing science fiction and, years and years ago, I discovered that book, which is part of a series of books for writers. There’s one on time travel as well, written by Paul Nahin, that’s also very good:

Time Travel: A Writer's Guide to the Real Science of Plausible Time Travel

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Time-Travel-Writers-Science-Plausible/dp/1421400820/

Edit: oh, and one on alien civilisations. Let me find a reference.

Here:

Aliens and Alien Societies

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00B2B8FOO/

This one focuses on biology and how to create believable aliens from a physiological point of view.

It seems to be "The Making of Middle-earth: A New Look Inside the World of J. R. R. Tolkien" by Christopher Snyder.

You can look inside the book on its Amazon page to check if it's the right one. The page you showed is not available in the preview, but it has the right chapter names and the dragon next to the page numbers.

Philosophy of Pratchett is a great book

I'm currently using On Writing and Worldbuilding: Volume I by Timothy Hickson as a reference book to build my Hard Sci-Fi/Fantasy world that I plan on writing a novel series in. He has a pretty big youtube channel with a lot of writing and fan theory content called Hello Future Me with almost half a million subs. So far his book has helped me identify writing and plot techniques in the shows and books I read and has been really helpful. It's also pretty small and he gets to the point quickly.

There are quite a few philosophy books that look at philosophical topics that are raised by different things in pop culture -- there's Philosophy and Terry Pratchett, Philosophy and Blade Runner, The Office and Philosophy, etc.

I don't think it should be a problem. I looked up a couple of these books and they don't mention having to clear the rights with the media companies in question.

You might find this book interesting and helpful: The Dreams our Stuff is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World.

I recommend throwing a little William Gibson in the reading list, either Nueromancer or some of the short stories in Burning Chrome. They are old enough to be dated but were highly influential on pop culture. (Gibson coined the term "cyberspace", yet his ideas of what the internet would become are a little off-base.)

You might want to check out this book it has a ridiculous amount of short stories, history and insight. It covers easy stories everything from alchemy to android. It covers so much that you can get a real idea of what is out there and help you find what type of stories like. I would think if you get the book and browse to see what you would like to cover and then either find alternative sources or some of the stories are common enough to be easily found online. This book isn't near as good but it still alright and is specifically sci-fi.

Cool time travel book by James Gleik. This is his weakest book so far, but he could write about sock fuzz and I would still run out to buy it. He's that good.

There are a number of books and articles on this theme, most notably Ents, Elves, and Eriador: The Environmental Vision of J.R.R. Tolkien, by Dickerson and Evans.

This is basically what Lexicon Urthus is to BotNS. Definitely helped me wrap my head around the Long/Short Sun books.

Here is the mobile version of your link

I really would love 💘 to have that in ebook too. But the only ebook I ever came across is:



Game of thrones fan theories explain:
https://www.amazon.com/Game-Thrones-Fan-Theories-Explained-ebook/dp/B00T1OZTS4/ref=mp_s_a_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1539161172&sr=1-7&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=game+of+thrones+theory&dpPl=1&dpID=51556y6uIML&ref=plSrch


It very interesting, but only discusses a few can theories. There's another book that I brought that has a outline of the winds of winters. It's not a complete outline. It just base on the chapters that are already out, but it also have one on Euron. Very interesting.

Mischief Managed!

There's an overarching theory behind how these will all help with a school experience. Which is, basically, that you need to have fun in between studying. All work and no play makes jack a dull boy, goes the saying.

• So, since we're talking about wine, I thought I should point out that one of my favorite ways of enjoying wine is with a nice bath. And what better way to make that prospect quite a bit safer, than with this piece of heaven?
  
• Next, we come to brooms. What else would a wizard or witch ride? You know what else is interesting about witches? According to Harry Potter, they basically enjoy a tickling sensation while pretending to be burned at the stake (I swear I remember this from the books). Since they're already having fun with it, I think they should have even more fun by turning the flames colors.
  
• You know who wears a lovely hat? Well, bonnet. A pretty, floral bonnet. Captain Mal Reynolds. I could surely use this to maximize my time enjoying Captain Mal's world.
  
• This one is a tough one. Because there are so many books I could want, but that's such a traditional explanation... So, since we're talking about books as a journey, I really wanted to put a choose-your-own-adventure book. But it hasn't come out yet, so I'll have to content myself with this journey provoker.
  
• Moving on to trunks. Trunks are storage, right? And I've got a bunch of jewelry that's just begging for a home. This looks like the perfect place for it.
  
• Finally, we come to capes. Superheros, wizards, Sherlock Holmes. All these people have a history of wearing capes. And wizards are a strange people, and we sometimes need to work to understand strange people. This book might help guide the way.

I just subscribed to this sub, and I'm so sad you didn't get any answers here. I came here after reading a few books that deal with the actual science behind the physics of time travel.

Here are a few to get you started.

How to Build a Time Machine

Time Travel and Warp Drives

I really recommend From Eternity to Here, it's just raw science on time, though there is an interesting chapter that really explains what it would take for travelling through time backwards. Overall, a very important read if you want to know what time actually is, compared to how we perceive it.

Also, I'll recommend the first book I started with, which I got into because I was writing a short story for a college class that involved time travel. It explains time travel and how to use it in fiction, so it's much less technical but gives a solid understanding as to how we would typically perceive the effects of them. it deals with getting paradoxes right etc. Here it is.

EDIT: Just realized all my links were to Canadian amazon, I'm sure they'll be on the US amazon if that's where you happen to live. Have fun!

https://www.amazon.com/Adventure-Rocketship-1-Tidhar-Lavie-ebook/dp/B00CYPXGHI/ref=sr_1_8?s=gift-cards&ie=UTF8&qid=1527560781&sr=8-8&keywords=adventure+rocketship

This should keep you busy a while....personally I would start with newer stuff and not really worry about reading Asimov, Stapledon, etc. Current authors have built on the work of others, plus they're writing for the current times we're in, so I think some newer stories might have more meaning and relevance.

That's not to say these old stories aren't good, Ted Sturgeon is awesome. There are so many great authors, Gregory Benford, M. John Harrison, Fritz Leiber, Ted Sturgeon. You'll just have to start reading and see what you like.

https://www.northatlanticbooks.com/bookshop/?bauthor=STURGEON,%20THEODORE

• Novels Reading List (Summer and Fall 2018)
  
  
• Library of America: Fantasy, Science Fiction, & Horror
  
  
• A Basic Science Fiction Library
  
  
• Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels (1949-1984)
  
  
• SF Masterworks
  
  
• Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985 – 2010