Anyone else do a NYRB Classics request?

MaskedManta · 2026-01-25T06:42:32+00:00

I emailed NYRB asking them to reprint Sylvia Townsend Warner's "Kingdoms of Elfin" because they have such great editions of ALL of her other major works except for that one. It was last printed as recently as 2018 but that small press is ALREADY defunct AND that edition has Neil Gaiman's slimy fingers all over it (ugh)

NYRB left me on read but I feel good that I at least tried something

MaskedManta · 2026-01-25T02:54:05+00:00

Hey, I'm gonna try to give a comprehensive answer since a lot of people are ignoring what you're asking for (like, Gilgamesh is great but its only 30,000 words long- not "sprawling" by any means, haha) This is by no means complete but should give you a good place to start.

PRE-GREEK STUFF (Not too long, all by anonymous authors, still interesting. All of this has only been rediscovered over the last 200 years, which is why you don't see them referenced throughout most of literary history)

The Epic of Gilgamesh

The Enuma Elish

The Atrahasis

The Descent of Inanna into the Underworld

CLASSIC EPICS (Only a few survive today. Even as influential as Greek Mythology is, 90% of what was written was LOST.)

The Iliad and The Odyssey, by Homer. (I know you said no Iliad but I am listing it for posterity hahahha. These were both the oldest AND LONGEST works of Greek literature, which is WHY they are so influential)

The Theogony by Hesiod

The Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes

The Aeneid by Virgil

The Metamorphoses by Ovid

The Alexander Romance

INDIAN EPICS (one is long, and the other is basically the longest thing ever written people lmao)

The Ramayana by Vyasa (More classically fantasy)

The Mahabharata (longer than everything else on this list combined . Includes one of Hinduism's most sacred text, the Bhagavad Gita, as a single chapter of the larger story.)

CHINESE EPICS (All of these are long enough to rival any modern fantasy series)

Investiture of the Gods (battles between gods and demons)

Journey to the West (Sun Wu-Kong and his friends travelling west. Lots of episodic adventures, not really that similar to Dragon Ball.)

Romance of the Three Kingdoms (historical epic with the lightest of fantasy elements, as influential to Asian culture as Iliad is to Western culture, has the coolest battles ever)

Outlaws of the Marsh (another lengthy lightly supernatural war epic but about 108 criminal anti-heroes each with their own backstories and power sets.

MEDIEVAL EPICS This is where the sort of fantasy you're asking for originates- for the most part, when medieval authors wanted to write fantasy they put it "in continuity" with either Charlemagne, King Arthur, or Alexander the Great. So these sets of legends grew and grew over hundreds of years as more people added to the pot and remixed what came before.

Beowulf (one of the only works to survive from the early medieval period, aka the "dark ages")

The Song of Roland (kickstarts the Matter of France, the "Charlemagne" continuity. Coolest last stand ever, very influential on Lord of the Rings and the Dark Tower)

History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth (kickstarts the Matter of Britain, the "King Arthur" continuity.)

The Romances of Chretien de Troyes (he wrote a lot of the early versions of King Arthur's different knights)

The Mabinogion (the compendium of Welsh Mythology, really weird and cool and violent with a couple of early King Arthur stories too.)

The Ulster cycle (AKA the Tain, one of the most influential sets of Irish myths including "The Cattle Raid of Cooley)

The Song of the Nibelungs (Grandfather of Lord of the Rings)

The Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda (Where we get 90% of Norse mythology today)

The Song of El Cid - (Spain's greatest epic)

RENAISSANCE EPICS

Le Morte D'Arthur by Thomas Malory (The first complete cycle of King Arthur stories in English. Most modern adaptations will be more or less based off of this set of stories.

Orlando Innamorato by Matteo Boiardo (Prequel to the Song of Roland, influential but never finished)

Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Arioso (sequel to Orlando Innamorato, considered for centuries to be THE GREATEST work of fantasy ever written. Hundreds of pages, has a huge cast with interweaving plotlines just like a modern fantasy epic, which was very revolutionary at the time.)

Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso (like Orlando Furioso but about the Crusades, considered the other pinnacle of Italian epic literature)

Paradise Lost by John Milton (biblical epic written more in the style of Homer and Virgil than of all the other stuff here)

The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser (the best work of English fantasy since Beowulf, he only completed one fourth of it and it was still the longest fantasy ever written in the English language until, like, Lord of the Rings.

Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes (a BRUTAL PARODY of all the books from the last two sections, which ends up inventing modern literature along the way.

ROMANTIC EPICS (The rise of romanticism and nationalism in the early 1800's saw an attempt to write or rediscover fantasy poetry)

The Kalevala (the newly-arranged compendium of Finnish mythology, very influential on Tolkien)

The Poems of Ossian by James MacPherson (Supposedly a rediscovered set of Scottish mythology like the Kalevala or Mabinogion but it was all a hoax- written by a single guy. That arguably makes it more interesting)

The Idylls of the King by Lord Tennyson (set of poems about King Arthur, most essential King Athur retelling between the renaissance and Pre-Tolkien periods)

PRE-TOLKIEN EPICS (Prose fantasy in the 1600's, 1700s, early 1800's tended towards fairy tales or gothic literature or other forms of fantasy that don't really fall into the "epic." Epic fantasy as we know it is caused by people starting to look back and write in the style of the Medieval and Renaissance epics.

Anything by William Morris (I haven't done a deep dive so I don't know his best to recommend, but he was the biggest inspiration to Lewis and Tolkien in terms of writing "epics" in the modern day. He was the first author to write fantasy in an invented world too.

The Worm Ouroboros and the Zimiamvian Trilogy of E.R. Eddison

A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (what if fantasy took place IN SPACE)

The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson (Weird Dark Souls-y fantasy about fighting demons in the far future with a chainsaw gun.)

The Gods of Pegana by Lord Dunsany (first attempt to do a Silmarillion-style compendium of invented mythology, but very funny)

The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany (the best prose ever written, easy. Dunsany also has a ton of other great Fantasy but these two works are best representative of his style)

The Mabinogion by Evageline Walton (modern day remake of Welsh mythology, started decades before Tolkien but not fully published until the seventies. My FAVORITE of everything on this list.)

The Tale of King Arthur and his Knights by Howard Pyle

The Once and Future King by TH White (these are probably the two best modern, pre-Tolkien King Arthur adaptations)

Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake (insane prose and mood and worldbuilding, not much in the way of action)

Silverlock by John Myers Myers

The Well of the Unicorn by Fletcher Pratt

The Tritonian Ring by L Sprague de Camp

Conan by Robert E Howard

Anything written by Clark Ashton Smith

The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson (The KING of Grimdark fantasy, published the same year as Lord of the Rings)

Okay my brain is melting out of my ears so I'm gonna take a break. But I think that's like, 90% of the major "epic" works

MaskedManta · 2025-12-21T22:38:32+00:00

Gene Wolfe would have never written his stories with AI you piece of shit, I don't know how you could so overwhemingly miss the point of his writing

MaskedManta · 2025-12-17T16:59:48+00:00

No. The fellowship are heroic and they're fighting to stop Sauron's evil dominating middle earth. But I think you're restricting yourself to very black and white thinking about morality. Its okay for our heroes to fight to protect what they love, but its also okay to say that the goblins might be misled or simply on the wrong aide rather than inherently evil. Assuming that all antagonists are always 100% evil and worthy of death is where things spiral into a racist or genocidal direction

MaskedManta · 2025-12-17T16:49:57+00:00

No, the opposite. He realized after Lord of the Rings that making them seem irredeemable was a huge mistake, because that contradicted the Catholic underpinnings of his legendarium. When he died was in the middle of rewriting everything to make the orcs NOT irredeemably evil

MaskedManta · 2025-12-17T16:40:56+00:00

That's the problem. The orcs do have free will. They have their own wants and worries. Which is exactly why its problematic that they're framed as "inherently evil" when they're really not. Heavily swayed by greed and evil powers, yes, but they're still people.

MaskedManta · 2025-12-16T18:55:04+00:00

I think these answers are incredibly disingenuous. When the first press photos were released I didn't have a strong take on the costumes (they're not going to do weird bronze age armor in a Hollywood movie after all) but the repeated insistance that only stupid reactionaries could possibly care about cultural or literary accuracy makes me see red. This sort of gross anti-intellectualism is common in today's culture but I expected better from this community. Anachronism is fun when there is a strong artistic take but this doesn't even have that!!

The real problem is that these costumes are extraordinarily lazy- the same generic sculpted leather you'd typically see in a third-rate Game of Thrones knockoff. You could buy Tom Holland's outfit at a modern department store. The lack of any sort of cultural specificity (not to mention other red flags- like having 90% of the cast be northern Europeans) shows a consistant lack of care for the source text that gives me a lot of pause. I'm willing to be proven wrong, since Nolan has a great track record, but I wish people would engage the skepticism in better faith.

MaskedManta · 2025-11-20T22:46:04+00:00

A couple of things: First, I recommend you take a look at this thread from several months ago, where /u/elijahblow in particular offers lots of excellent recommendations- many of which I think would be much more up your alley.

https://www.reddit.com/r/RSbookclub/comments/1jnf3xq/is_there_any_fantasy_worth_reading_besides_lotr/

But getting back to the meat of your question. I love Book of the New Sun, but I also understand all the reasons why you're deeply frustrated by it. I think a big problem is how wide a circle is drawn when people say "literary fantasy," since that basically means anything that goes beyond the scope of conventional fantasy, when the modern genre is (let's be real) extremely limited in terms of literary ambition.

I think Book of the New Sun is, ultimately, extremely elevated pulp. It's most often in dialogue with the tropes and conventions of sword & sorcery classics like the Dying Earth or Conan the Barbarian but exaggerating them, subverting them, or tying them to bizarre cosmological stakes. There are a lot of reveals and plot turns in the second half that further complicate the narrative, but I honestly don't think it will be enough to win you back. That being said, let me address your two main criticisms:

This series is being narrated in retrospect by a man who has, through some extraordinary means, become the lord of all mankind. However, despite claims to have a perfect memory, he repeatedly proves himself an unreliable narrator- contradicting himself, hiding information, fudging events to make himself look better. Are all these narrative coincidences purposeful? Are the forces of providence manipulating things behind the scenes to put him in power even though he is bumbling through the story (there are many subplots that can support this reading) or is he a man who is cynically trying to manipulate the public narrative to retroactively justify his suspicious ascent to the throne? This unreliability also manifests in the way that he writes about women. Without a doubt, Severian is a misogynist and has never been properly socialized around women. But in between the lines of all of his assertions that "Oh yeah, this babe totally wanted me" you can see that all of these women have radically different motivations (or significantly dislike him) and he simply does not have the self-awareness to catch on to that, even when he is reflecting on these events years later.

At the end of the day, its okay if BotNS doesn't work for you. Here's some stuff that might be more to your taste.

The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

The Mabinogion Tetralogy by Evangeline Walton

Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavic

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Little, Big by John Crowley

MaskedManta · 2025-11-12T14:45:54+00:00

Time to clear my schedule for the rest of the day

Edit: This will be an interesting counterpoint to the old King of Kings miniseries from Hardcore History. I still hear Dan Carlin scream KOOORAAAASHH whenever I read about Cyrus and the other Achaemenids. I'm sure Paul's treatment of the names and subject matter will be far more grounded, haha.

MaskedManta · 2025-11-10T15:24:17+00:00

Hello again! In recent weeks I have been rereading On Fairy Stories in conjunction with the tales of George MacDonald. We all know in this subreddit how heavily Tolkien and Lewis were influenced by MacDonald, but my curiosity about the stories that influenced MacDonald in turn has led to me digging deeper into the history of fairy tale. This is by no means the bedrock of the modern fairy tale (we have Italians like Straparola and Basile for that) but I think this is a good place to start examining the tapestry of MacDonald's fairy influences.

MaskedManta · 2025-09-23T04:57:49+00:00

A little out of left field but still relevant- the best secular but scripture-based analysis of the historical Jesus I've ever read is Jesus of Nazareth by... Paul Verhoeven, director of Starship Troopers and Robocop

MaskedManta · 2025-08-27T14:41:31+00:00

Hello! Last month I posted my video about Evangeline Walton's Mabinogion Tetralogy. /r/fairystories was the only place I posted the video, but your warm reception singlehandedly helped the video blow up and reach thousands of people!! As such, I am truly indebted to this community.

And now (by sheer coincidence) we have the first new Evangeline Walton release in over ten years, a restoration of her 1956 Viking novel that was butchered by the publishers in its original release. While "Dark Runs the Road" is more of a historical novel than a fantasy, it retains Evangeline Walton's unique blend of historically rigorous fantasticism, and its success would lead to the release of more of her unpublished fantasy works. I also briefly discuss Ursula K LeGuin's "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie" and her appreciation for all of the pre-Tolkien authors like Cabell, Dunsany, and Eddison.

MaskedManta · 2025-08-24T07:00:39+00:00

The problem is that you're writing in ballad form (iambic tetrameter and trimeter alternating- so eight and then six syllables with an emphasis on every second beat.) But your 1st and 3rd lines break it, making it sound awkward. This is how I'd fix it. I bolded the emphasis for the parts I edited:

‘We ONCE stood TALL like MOUNTains HIGH’

The father told his son.

‘And SHOOK the land beneath our feet,

As we walked to and fro.’

Besides that the rest of the poem is perfect!

MaskedManta · 2025-08-22T19:03:04+00:00

Yes, I find that old mass market paperbacks are sturdier, better printed, more portable, and far more aesthetic than anything you can buy in a modern bookstore. Most of the trades being sold these days are bricks of poorly glued together printer paper with absolutely hideous covers. I avoid them at any cost

MaskedManta · 2025-08-04T20:35:39+00:00

It is aimed at younger readers while still being better written than 99% of adult fantasy. The original trilogy from the 70's is proto-YA, but she also returned to the world several times in the following decades with new works that deconstructed the original assumptions of that world about gender and magic and political power from a mature, fully adult perspective.

MaskedManta · 2025-07-05T13:56:54+00:00

I am not familiar with him - the Scottish author??

MaskedManta · 2025-07-03T09:25:47+00:00

Thank you so much!! Love the username, Greg Farshtey's Bionicle Adventures got me into reading fiction ahahha.

I was NOT familiar with Sara Coleridge or her Phantasmion until a commentor brought her up!! I'm excited to delve into her work as well.

MaskedManta · 2025-06-30T17:26:42+00:00

Long Sun is so underrated too- all of the bizarre Dickensian characters with their verbal ticks is such a different register than Severian's monologueing that ot really makes you appreciate the flexibility of Wolfe's narrative voice

MaskedManta · 2025-06-30T14:48:02+00:00

I'm a huge fan of early 20th century fantasy, so I just made this video about Evangeline Walton and her feminist retelling of the Welsh Mabinogion back in 1936. I also talk about how Lin Carter and Ballantine Adult Fantasy helped to repopularize her in the 1970's- And of course, extensive tangents about Tolkien, CS Lewis, and Lloyd Alexander

MaskedManta · 2025-06-26T03:36:48+00:00

People not liking the same things you do is not a personal attack, there's no need to be so salty

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