Mythic Fiction discussion

What books do you personally consider mythic fiction must-reads?

Percy Jackson :D

Mary Stewart's Merlin series.

I love the Endicot list but I would add Bless me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya

The Sevenwaters saga by Juliet Marillier
The Bridei Chronciles by Juliet Marillier
The Light Isles series by Juliet Marillier
The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher"
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire
Mirror by Gregory Maguire
The Wicked Years by Gregory Maguire
The Chronciles of Narnia by CS Lewis

Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy is so incredible to me. It adds so much to the Arthurian text and is super-entertaining.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
The Once and Future King by TH White
Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Mary Stewart's Merlin series
The Silver John series by Manley Wade Wellman

I have a lot of mythic fiction favorites, but I'll narrow it down to a few that really stood out for me...

The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Little Big by John Crowley
The Fox Woman by Kij Johnson
Red as Blood by Tanith Lee
The Merlin series by Mary Stewart
In the Night Garden by Catherynne M. Valente

These might seem like obvious picks, but Neil Gaiman's Sandman stuff, and the Hellboy / BPRD stuff are both obviously based on folklore.

Everything from Charles de Lint!

Bard by Morgan Llywelyn
Daughter of the Forest (and just about anything else you can find) by Juliet Marillier
The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue

---

Will edit to add more when I think of them. : )

I think Charles DeLint is great. I found a hardcover copy of The Newford Stories at a library book sale for a dollar once - that was a happy day! I liked Jack of Kinrowan - and SpiritWalk and MoonHeart are two other favorites.

I Love Charles De Lint!!! I recently discoverd the Newford books, and I have been snapping up every book of his that I can find. His ideas are very original and fresh, and he can make the most magical stories come alive and seem tangible.

I also recommend:
The Faery Reel: Tales From the Twilight Realm
Happily Ever After
Tales from the Perilous Realm

Gene Wolfe's works below:
Greek: Latro in the Mist
Norse/Celtic/Arthurian: The Knight
and it's sequel: The Wizard

All Charles De Lint, pretty much every Catherynne M. Valente as well.

If you want to enjoy must read mythic fiction, you can never go wrong with the classics.

The Iliad.
The Odyssey
One Thousands and One Nights
The Mabinogion
Le Morte d'Arthur
The Nibelungenlied

And don't forget Hesiod, Virgil and Ovid.

Kernos wrote: "And don't forget Hesiod, Virgil and Ovid."

Agreed!

I am interested in the recommendation of Gregory Maguire. I tried WICKED and bounced off; are the later volumes better?

Brenda wrote: "I am interested in the recommendation of Gregory Maguire. I tried WICKED and bounced off; are the later volumes better?"

I hated Wicked but enjoyed some of his other stuff. They aren't novels I love and will re-read but I thought they were decent enough.

I bounced hard off of Wicked because OZ is near and dear to my heart and I really didn't like his version of it at all, so if your reason for not enjoying the novel resembles that one, you can probably try another novel. However, the writing style in Wicked is pretty standard for the rest of his works.

Hmm, doesn't sound promising...

Robert Holdstock's Mythago Wood has a really facinating take on Celtic Mythology, beautifully written and so well researched it's like an encylopedia (only you don't realise it until it's over)

Obviously Gaiman, but also The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly, loved this book although it is a kids book (kind of anyway)

What is it you like about Gaiman, L.E.? I don't mean to challenge you, but my experience with him (American Gods and Anansi Boys) was not really rewarding for me.

I feel the same way about Neil Gaiman and I also don't mean it at a challange! I was expecting to really love his work, but was not moved by Anansi Boys or Stardust
and I wonder what people like.

Perhaps you and I should should start our own thread, Jalilah: "Disgruntled Gaiman Readers. We Want Our Money Back!"

And just to add my own preferences to the lists above for suggested mythic reading, a nod to my ancesters who lived under the midnight sun: Finland's The Kalevala

Craig wrote: "Perhaps you and I should should start our own thread, Jalilah: "Disgruntled Gaiman Readers. We Want Our Money Back!"

And just to add my own preferences to the lists above for suggested mythic r..."

Good one, Craig. The Kalevala is an excellent recommendation.

I like Gaiman because I like fantasy books. He's not a five star author for me but he still has enjoyable reads.

As for Maguire, I loved Wicked and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister.

Thank you Kevis. Qualitatively I do think The Kalevala is a mythic source that should get more attention.

And I don't mean to heap scorn on anyone's preferences Rora, so pardon me for giving a thumbs down on Gaiman. That was just my opinion. While to me Gaiman is more smoke than fire, I do think there are parts of Gaiman's writing that were truly inspired and exceptionally well done.

I'm hot and cold on Gaiman, personally. I loved American Gods and Good Omens because of their twist on mythology, but I haven't been able to get into any others of his works.

Percy Jackson stories I like quite a bit too; the twist of mythology into realism is what gets me (and what I wrote my own novel around).

I feel that the root of Gaiman's strength is in the comics form; his SANDMAN graphic novels are indeed seminal. Start in either at the beginning, or with Vol. 3 DREAM COUNTRY, and it will rapidly become clear whether you enjoy Sandman or not.
Some of his fiction (THE GRAVEYARD BOOK) I enjoy and some (AMERICAN GODS) I just cannot get into.

I got my son, aged 13, the first volume of Sandman "Preludes and Noctures", but he does not like it and finds it creepy. I think it is for older readers.

Frankly, it is. There are bits of PRELUDES that I cannot read just before bedtime. Heaven knows these days, just because it is in comic format does not mean that it is suitable for younger readers.

It's been awhile since I read the first volume, but I remember it to be quite disturbing and violent in parts.

Vertigo is DC's imprint for adults, so I'm not surprised it doesn't appeal to 13 year old boys much.

Yes, it is important to look at the age designation for these things, especially for parents/gift-giving. SANDMAN was not written for the younger reader; it's definitely an adult work.

When I asked the girl at the book store she said she had started reading it at that age. The content did not sound any creepier than a lot of the manga he reads, so that is why I got it, but he did not read past the first few pages anyway.

Perhaps when he's older he'd enjoy it.

David wrote: "American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
The Once and Future King by TH White
Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Mary Stewart's Merlin series
The Silver John series by Manley W..."

I would agree with all of these and add the works of Stephen Grundy

Adria wrote: "The Sevenwaters saga by Juliet Marillier
The Bridei Chronciles by Juliet Marillier
The Light Isles series by Juliet Marillier..."

Definitely Marillier and for Celtic Morgan Llywelyn and some of Stephen Lawhead, esp the Pendragon and Hood series and the young Patrick.

Jalilah wrote: "Everything from Charles de Lint!"

Yes!! I second that :)

Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins. This is an amazing retelling of a number of fairy tales, all sort of chained together. Writing is excellent, and approaches to the fairy tales very original and yet true to their spirit. Five stars.

Red as Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer. Her version of Rapunzel still sticks with me after reading it years ago.

Mythago Wood and its sequels: a "wild wood" in England spawns archetypes from the recent to the ancient: the wild girl, the wild hunt,

Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold, a retelling of Cupid and Psyche.

Waking the Moon, a new tale of an old goddess.

Unicorns in the Rain, out of print and hard to find, but an amazing modern rendition of Noah and the flood that's spare and yet heart-wrenching.

River Marked by Patricia Briggs is the 6th book of the Mercedes Thompson series.
If you like to indulge in good urban fantasy,the Mercedes Thompson series is, in my opinion, one of the better ones. This novel has elements of Native American mythology in it. There is a version of legend of the Thunderbird and the Lake Monster that I have read about in other stories. In River Marked it is Mercedes who takes on the Monster, that in this book, lives in the Colombia River. Thunderbird as well as the Coyote trickster are in the novel as well. There are also Faeries in this series and it seems that Patricia Briggs knows her Faerie mythology as well, so even though the Mercedes Thompson series categorises as Urban Fantasy, for me it also qualifies as Mythic fiction.

Several people have mentioned Mary Stewart's Merlin books below; those are among my favourite books. Another and even more "historically" based (no magic at all) Arthurian story is Rosemary Sutcliff's Sword at Sunset. It's connected to her most famous Roman books and has some of the same characters as The Lantern-Bearers (which won the Carnegie Medal) but is adult rather than YA.

Modern mythic fiction: A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness... Beautiful stunning wonderful!

K.V. wrote: "Several people have mentioned Mary Stewart's Merlin books below; those are among my favourite books. Another and even more "historically" based (no magic at all) Arthurian story is Rosemary Sutcliff's Sword at Sunset..."

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I haven't re-read this since the 60s when I was involved with digging at South Cadbury hillfort, sold as a presumed candidate for Camelot. The overall expectation was that the Dark Ages weren't called that for nothing, and my abiding impression of Sword at Sunset is of melancholy, tragedy and not a lot of humour. Very worthy, I felt at the time, but I'd have to be in the right melancholic mood to revisit it now, and other titles beckon...

Chris wrote: "I'd have to be in the right melancholic mood to revisit it now, and other titles beckon...

Yes, Sword at Sunset was a very strong story, very moving, but it's not a Sutcliff I go back and reread very often. It's tragedy in the traditional sense, rather than something that ends on a more hopeful note, the glimmer of light enduring in darkness theme she returned to so often in her YA books.

If you want Arthurian, a good obscure one is THE IDYLLS OF THE QUEEN by Phyllis Ann Karr. She obviously read Malory very closely indeed, and worked her entire novel into the cracks and interstices.

I'm compelled to add Mary Renault having just finished The Charioteer which is not mythic fiction, but uses the Chariot allegory from Plato's Phaedrus as a metaphor. Her Theseus and Alexander series are superior, IMO.

Jalilah wrote: "I feel the same way about Neil Gaiman and I also don't mean it at a challange! I was expecting to really love his work, but was not moved by Anansi Boys or Stardust
and I wonder what people like."

I admit that Anasi Boys was a let down, but Neverwhere is a brilliant book as is American Gods. Stardust is just one for the kids.

In his day Gaimen was an exceptional author, unfortunately he hasn't produced anything to American Gods standard since, but it doesn't devalue the original books, which were very enjoyable.

LE wrote: "...In his day Gaimen was an exceptional author, unfortunately he hasn't produced anything to American Gods standard since, but it doesn't devalue the original books, which were very enjoyable."

In his day? He's only 51 and I hope had a lot of life in him, esp since he's working on American Gods II. I liked Anasi Boys a lot an thought it an elegant tangent to Am Gods. Stardust may be a fairy tale, but the prose has a lyrical quality I thought compelling.

It was not that I hated Anasi Boys and Stardust. I gave them 3 stars. I just did not feel like rushing out and getting all his books. They were not page turners for me. I would still at some point like to try Neverwhere and American Gods.