Sheeeeit, this is making me feel uncultured.
Re. Chabon: Telegraph Avenue. Started it, never had time to get into it, regret having dropped it. Probably worth picking up, I've heard it said that it's even better than Cavalier and Clay. Got this for my birthday, making my way through it. Beautiful. But. I feel like a hallmark of the modern cartoonist I mean Graphic Novelist is to make sure that everybody knows the work is SERIOUS by way of making all characters very very sad and conflicted. Would it kill you to put a dude slipping on a banana peel every few pages? No, as long as he's very contemplative about the results afterward. There's plenty of good modern fantasy, just gotta know where to look. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is one of my favorite books ever. Read it maybe five times now, get something new out of it every time. The Magician series by Lev Grossman is great, very tongue-in-cheek, a must-read for anybody just out of school. Added perk, the final one in the trilogy just came out. The Name of the Wind series is only two books in right now, but it's great. Not as heavy as Jonathan Strange, not as smart as Grossman, but good clean fun. Oh, and speaking of magicians, Gene Wolfe's "Wizard Knight" duo is great. Dense, hallucinatory. Also not really a fantasy, I don't think. Making my way through The Fatal Shore right now, which should count as two or three books. Keep meaning to quote it on the quote thread, but I could easily quote the whole thing, which would take a while. Kudos, this is an impressive list.
If I had to push one of those not previously read on you, I'd say the two Wizard Knight books, aptly titled The Knight and The Wizard. Wizard in question being the knight of the first book. See how he did that? Caveat being I haven't read it in about eight years, so what I thought was, like, deep man, might be kind of... not. Seem to remember some heavy-handed biblical/mythological references. But the gist stuck with me, very pretty, very heartbreaking. Maybe I should go back, re-read, see if it's worth anything. I give Wolfe the benefit of the doubt though, since his other stuff is pretty out there in a good way. What'd you think about the two Kingkiller books?
Yeah, originality is difficult. Esp. in the fantasy genre- feel like there are two, maybe three fantasy frameworks, and not much deviates from that. Ultimately, a fantasy novel better have something going for it in terms of style, tone, narrative structure, etc or it's gonna feel like LOTR 8.0. Trying to think of an original contemporary fantasy, coming up goose eggs- maybe Curse of Chalion? That was pretty good. I liked the two Kingkiller books the way I like, say, Star Trek TNG- total comfort food. Feel shitty in any way, there are certain things you can hang out with on the couch and they'll just take your mind off for a while- that's how I approach those two books. That's plenty for me when it comes to fantasy these days.
There's plenty of good modern fantasy, just gotta know where to look. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is one of my favorite books ever.
-Me too. What an enjoyable read. I hope they turn it in to a film and treat it with the respect it deserves.
I heard something somewhere about it being optioned to BBC or ??? But who knows if it'll ever go through. I trust BBC to do a good job with it.
From wikipedia Exciting: Even more exciting: I trust BBC to do a good job with it.
-Me too and it appears to be real. On 15 October 2004, New Line Cinema announced that it had bought a three-year option on the film rights to Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.[60] Clarke received an unknown "seven-figure sum", making the deal "one of the biggest acquisitions of film rights for a book in recent years".[61] New Line chose Christopher Hampton, whose adaptation of Dangerous Liaisons won an Academy Award, to write it; New Line executives Mark Ordesky and Ileen Maisel were overseeing the production.[62] On 7 November 2005, The Daily Telegraph reported that Hampton had finished the first draft: "As you can imagine, it took a fair amount of time to work out some way to encapsulate that enormous book in a film of sensible length ... [b]ut it was lots of fun – and very unlike anything I have ever done before."[63] At that time, no director or cast had yet been chosen.[63] As of June 2006, Hampton was still working on the screenplay.[64] Julian Fellowes then took over writing duties before the collapse of New Line Cinema.
On 30 November 2012, it was announced that a six-part adaptation of the book was to made by the BBC for broadcast on BBC One. The book will be adapted by Peter Harness and directed by Toby Haynes, and produced by Cuba Pictures and Feel Films.[65][66] In April 2013, various sites reported that a number of co-producers have joined the project, including BBC America, Screen Yorkshire, Bell Media's Space and Far Moor, and that it is to be distributed by Endemol Worldwide Distribution. Pre-production is due to begin in April 2013, and filming later in the year, including locations in Yorkshire and Canada. The number of episodes has also grown to seven.[67]
Clarke is currently working on a book that begins a few years after Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell ends. It will centre on characters such as Childermass and Vinculus who, as Clarke says, are "a bit lower down the social scale"