Best myths & legends fantasy books according to redditors

"I found a number of books that I loved, and stories that I can't wait to finish"....YAY. This, THIS is why I seize every chance I can to make people aware of the many excellent yet seemingly invisible female authors in the field--because so many terrific books are out there waiting to be discovered and enjoyed by more readers. OP, I am so glad you've found some new authors to love.

But every time a thread about female authors appears, I see the same mistaken assumptions pop up in the comments. Rather than responding to folks individually, I thought I'd tackle them here.

Mistaken assumption #1: Not many women write epic or secondary-world fantasy.

Not true, and never has been true. See this other comment I wrote in the thread. The problem is not that women don't write the genre, but that people don't hear about them. Take a look at this list of epic fantasy written by women (where I held to a fairly strict definition of epic fantasy, as opposed to S&S, adventure fantasy, etc). How many have you heard or or read? How about this more general list of 40 women writing secondary-world fantasy taken from my own shelves and all the names in the comments? Or the names mentioned in this thread about sweeping epics?

Mistaken assumption #2: Well, even if women write secondary-world fantasy, I haven't heard about them because they're not any good. Except maybe Robin Hobb.

Again, no. The idea that "quality will always rise to the top" is a happy fantasy shared by many readers and newbie authors because they don't understand how the publishing industry works. See this comment where I detailed a whole bunch of reasons an excellent book may not sell well--reasons that have nothing to do with gender. When you put gender in the mix, you get an even bigger problem, because female authors are much more likely to be saddled with misleading covers and blurbs.

For a really stark example, check out the US cover for Betsy Dornbusch's Emissary. Now look at the German edition. Which one of these correctly signals that the book is a bloody political epic fantasy full of battles and almost no romance?

There is also the chicken-and-egg marketing problem. Male authors have sold big, therefore publishers are more likely to choose a male-authored book as their lead title and throw their full marketing weight behind it, therefore the cycle continues. (The amount of marketing support from a major publisher makes a huge, HUGE difference in how many readers a book can reach. The impact is almost impossible to overestimate. And it has nothing to do with ads; it has to do with convincing bookstores to put in large orders, and paying for front-of-store displays and endcaps and other special placement, and blanketing the online world with ARCs, etc.)

Okay, but why should I care?

We all want to find more books we'll love, right? The point here is that you may have been choosing books from a pool limited not by your preferences, but by mistaken assumptions on the part of someone at the publisher. (Either, "Hey, this author is a woman. She must be writing romantic fantasy--give her a cover to match." Or even, "Okay, this is a gritty political epic fantasy, but the author is a woman so let's try and pull in some of the enormous romance market. I don't care how many epic fantasy fans we lose if we can pull in a fraction of the romance readers. Make sure the blurb focuses on feelings.")

Maybe you're a slow reader and you already have a huge backlog of books you want to read; fine. But if you're actively on the hunt for something new & good to read, the way to make sure you're not missing out on excellent books that are right in your sweet spot is to look even more closely at those written by female authors. Forget covers and blurbs, try the actual samples on Amazon. Or yes, you can even deliberately seek out recs of female authors who write the sort of stories you like. The point is not that you should read them because they're female. The point is to find more awesome books that you didn't get to hear about because the author is female.

EY recently published a light novel, A Girl Corrupted by the Internet is the Summoned Hero?! Short but fun.

The Naruto rationalist fic The Waves Arisen may have been written by EY under a pseudonym. It's similar to HPMOR in style, though again it's much shorter.

http://www.amazon.ca/Gnomes-Deluxe-Collectors-Edition-Huygen/dp/0810998467

His prior novel for sale on Amazon was A Girl Corrupted by the Internet is the Summoned Hero?!.

Here is the Gumroad version.

Here is the first four out of thirteen chapters for free on his website.

I am unaware of any other novels on sale by him other than Rationality: From AI to Zombies (and that one's free unless you feel like donating some money to him).

If you happen to be Dutch, you can probably buy it here. It's made by two Dutch artists, but apparently was also translated to English under the name "Gnomes", which you can find here . Hopefully this is what you were looking for! I loved those books as a kid, and I still browse them sometimes.

He published this almost a year ago: A Girl Corrupted by the Internet is the Summoned Hero?!

It looks like Dark Lord's Answer was written first, but not published first because it wasn't up to Eliezer's standards, but he decided to publish it anyway.

It's an Italian TV show (very poorly dubbed into english, mine adult ears now tell me), based off of an [awesome book] (http://www.amazon.com/Gnomes-Deluxe-Collectors-Edition-Huygen/dp/0810998467 ) originally published in The Netherlands. I think it aired on Nickelodeon during the 80's but it's on Amazon Prime now, woo!

UK link to the free book

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Falls-Shadow-Chronicles-Midgard-ebook/dp/B005D9ZZGW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1331485420&sr=8-2

The LN is licensed, its currently at volume 11

Accelarator's manga is al licensed

https://www.amazon.com/Certain-Magical-Index-Vol-11/dp/0316360007/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1500602451&sr=8-1&keywords=a+certain+magical+index+light+novel+11

What do I read first the manga or LN

I believe it's in this one which is the re-print of the one I had as a kid.

Yup, there it is. Guess I should have googled more thoroughly.

just read yudkowsky's erotic isekai

e: oh no it's on libgen. is anyone brave enough to read it and report back?

One of my all time favorites is "die stadt der träumenden Bücher" by Walter Moers.

It is a novel that is set in a fantasy realm called Zamonien and is about a dinosaur-like being that goes on a quest to find the author of a wonderful text. The plot takes place in the city of Bucheim, which is totally and solely focused on everything that deals with books. It is really funny written and full of funny and weird creatures.

Age of Zeus by James Lovegood
?


"The Olympians appeared a decade ago, living incarnations of the Ancient Greek gods on a mission to bring permanent order and stability to the world. Resistance has proved futile, and now humankind is under the jackboot of divine oppression. Then former London police officer Sam Akehurst receives an invitation too tempting to turn down, the chance to join a small band of geurilla rebels armed with high-tech weapons and battlesuits. Calling themselves the Titans, they square off against the Olympians and their ferocious mythological monsters in a war of attrition which not all of them will survive!"

Non-mobile: Skinwalkers

^That's ^why ^I'm ^here, ^I ^don't ^judge ^you. ^PM ^/u/xl0 ^if ^I'm ^causing ^any ^trouble. ^WUT?

Thanks! DM me your email for a free eBook (which I'm running very low on). If you prefer paperback you can find it here https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Who-Chose-Us/dp/1733119302/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Fucking hell, Wizard alt-right. That is fucking terrifying. You're amazing. Is the "Rookie War" something your timeline has happening currently?

I know you said in another post that you've considered writing a book but that you find it easier to write history and backstories rather than action and adventure. Have you considered writing it as a history textbook?

Or maybe a coffee table book. Something similar to Gnomes by Wil Huygen and illustrated by Rien Poortvliet, but doing it as a history of the magical world instead of an anthropological look at Gnome culture.

Just collecting the posts you've made here would be about 75% of the writing.

This reminds me of one of Rien Poortvliet’s illustrations in the 1970s “Gnomes” book.link

There is this short novel. Same premise, brilliant execution:

https://www.amazon.com/Girl-Corrupted-Internet-Summoned-Hero-ebook/dp/B01B2BP726/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1503131397&sr=1-5&keywords=yudkowsky

I really enjoyed Dragon Sword and Wind Child by Noriko Ogiwara. It may slant YA, but I read it as an adult and liked it.

I've got a few short stories out there, but I'll just plug the ones that are traditionally published in collections with other authors...

The Futuristic Canada anthology just came out on Canada Day this year. My story in that is called Carbon Concerns.

I have a D&D-inspired story called Dangers of Tensire in the Scoundrels anthology.

My short story 1100 Before Gods' War was published in an anthology, but the guy who put it together never paid the authors, so I just published it myself.

More on the fantasy lane, but who doesn't like gnomes? If you haven't read or browsed this classic, you're missing out. It's beautifully illustrated with intricate and often hidden details and reads like a field guide to the hidden world of gnomes, trolls, and other fantastical creatures.

German Amazon link http://www.amazon.de/gp/aw/d/B005D9ZZGW/ref=aw_ls__1?coliid=I17XI23K1TY3S2&colid=NT9IPKSEM7WD

Warriors of the Raven (Legendeer Trilogy) by Alan Gibbons?

Even if this is not the book you're looking for, this series sounds really interesting to me.

I love the TOMT posts for books. It gives me new ideas to research books that I wouldn't even think of looking for on my own. Thanks!

A friend of mine wrote a great novel for Pathfinder: Skinwalkers. It's about a Viking-pirate mom who fights shape-shifting cultists to keep her friends and family safe.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0810998467/ref=mp_s_a_1_7?qid=1413249052&sr=8-7&pi=AC_SX110_SY165_QL70

Not scifi by a long way, but Brian Froud & Alan Lee's book Faeries (google images) is one of the most beautiful compilations of art I've ever seen - think "history of Irish folklore" done in the style of the Dark Crystal and The Labyrinth. Myths from around the world are illustrated in fantastic style.
Similarly, Brian Froud's Gnomes is an absolutely gorgeous book presenting itself as a documentary of the lives of gnomes from around the "old-world" (Ireland across to Siberia), and how they work with & around woodland animals. If you grew up with access to woods or forests, this is basically a beautifully-illustrated love story to that magic.

Going slightly more towards scifi now with Terry Pratchett's The Last Hero illustrated by Paul Kidby. More a comicbook than anything else, but does have amusing technically-illustrated-descriptions of vehicles, characters, animals and scenes that you don't normally get from the novels.

As far as I am concerned, it is THE gnome book. :) http://www.amazon.com/Gnomes-Deluxe-Collectors-Wil-Huygen/dp/0810998467/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375405812&sr=1-1

Seriously. Do none of you people remember that there's an entire guide to Gnomes out there?

The dictionary.

I changed my mind. This was very Anglo-centric of me, and wouldn't get very much about our world across. Instead I choose... Gnomes.