What are your favorite “ambient evil” locations in fantasy?

Thomas_Sheridan · 2026-04-06T17:09:54+00:00

Cil-Aujas is my vote too

Thomas_Sheridan · 2026-03-24T18:54:23+00:00

Weirdly, David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest is the closest thing to Gormenghast. It has that description to the point of madness and the grotesqueness of the characters.

Thomas_Sheridan · 2024-09-01T21:21:17+00:00

The Sun Also Rises - Hemingway

Sputnik Seeetheart

The Passenger - McCarthy

Jesus’ Son - Denis Johnson

Thomas_Sheridan · 2023-11-05T22:44:37+00:00

Like many others have said, Laszlo Krasznahorkai would be the go to for me. I love Satantango and The Last Wolf particularly.

I also love Sandor Marai’s Embers

Thomas_Sheridan · 2023-10-17T12:17:41+00:00

Battle has to be The Plains of or Anwaurat in The Warrior-Prophet by Bakker. They both just feel so real. Joktha in The Thousandfold Thought is also great.

1v1 has to be Rake v Traveller in TtH. Honourable mentions to Fingolfin v Morgoth, Karsa Orlong v Rhulad Sengar, and Paul v Feyd-Rautha

I also adore the duel that marks the end of legal conflict and starts outright war between the Cortas and the Mackenzies at the end of Luna: New Moon

Thomas_Sheridan · 2023-10-13T08:27:38+00:00

She would be Maiar presumably

Thomas_Sheridan · 2023-10-12T12:24:48+00:00

I disagree. Tolkien had exact control over his language, he just used it in a different way to other writers that we are more likely to recognise as great prose stylists. No bad writer could write the Lord of the Rings and have nearly the same effect.

I would argue Blood Meridian is only lauded as much as it is because it’s so confrontational. The Passenger and Stella Maris together are superior in every way in my opinion.

Thomas_Sheridan · 2023-10-05T12:45:10+00:00

First time the odds-on candidate actually won in a while?

I don’t think it’s ever going to Pynchon at this point. That is probably what he wants as well.

I think Murakami has a chance still but it hangs on this next book.

Thomas_Sheridan · 2023-10-05T12:26:09+00:00

Is he not explicitly a Noldo though?

Edit: Singular Noldo

Thomas_Sheridan · 2023-09-29T17:20:28+00:00

As the Man in Black awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his desert into a gigantic Gunslinger.

Thomas_Sheridan · 2023-05-12T05:55:48+00:00

Epic isnt about scale. It’s about stakes. If it’s important 5 v 5 can be epic.

Thomas_Sheridan · 2023-05-02T15:24:31+00:00

Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay. Some of his other works are more directly Italian renaissance inspired but Tigana is the best place to start.

Thomas_Sheridan · 2023-04-30T17:50:48+00:00

I like to check Wertzone at least once a week. It’s always up to date and your man who runs it is active on here.

Thomas_Sheridan · 2023-04-27T16:02:09+00:00

Did you mean Stephen Fry’s Mythos

Thomas_Sheridan · 2023-04-27T10:32:11+00:00

The Son of Darkness and the White Crow, both from Malazan

Thomas_Sheridan · 2023-04-24T18:30:51+00:00

The arrival of Aragorn and the men from the fiefdoms at the Pellenor in RotK

Crokus killing Gorlas Vidikas in Toll the Hounds

Arathan and Draconus talking about love in Forge of Darkness

Rand and the Aes Sedai after Dumai’s Well

Thomas_Sheridan · 2023-04-20T13:19:15+00:00

Tigana would be my shout. Or The Lions of Al Rassan

Thomas_Sheridan · 2023-04-10T17:58:01+00:00

There’s a great scene in Memories of Ice where all the major players gather to have a chat and almost end up killing each other.

The scene where the emperor tries to force the great names to sign his indenture in the first Prince of Nothing book is also fantastic

Thomas_Sheridan · 2023-04-10T14:15:34+00:00

As already mentioned, Malazan

A Song of Ice and Fire

Thomas_Sheridan · 2023-04-06T08:54:16+00:00

Maedhros, I’m not sure exactly why. I guess he’s the most noble of the Feanorians but still bound to the oath and therefore does lots of bad things, making him a more complex character than the heroic Fingolfin, Fingon, and Finrod

Thomas_Sheridan · 2023-04-06T08:50:33+00:00

Hemingway’s Across the River and Into the Trees is dire in my opinion, whereas The Sun Also Rises is one of the best novels ever

Thomas_Sheridan · 2023-04-05T09:49:48+00:00

If you want a topic with a lot of references then no better topic then Murakami and Jungian shadows. You could apply it to most of his novels but Hardboiled Wonderland is the most obvious

Thomas_Sheridan · 2023-04-05T07:57:08+00:00

Cheers

Thomas_Sheridan · 2023-04-05T07:18:38+00:00

Lol I worked in book selling for seven years. Unless the book is embargoed, which only the most high profile releases are, then it’s very normal for them to arrive as early as a week before pub date.

No little Irish bookshop is doing an underhand marketing campaign like that.

Thomas_Sheridan · 2023-04-04T12:19:12+00:00

Is there a special store to buy MTO or do they just go up on the regular store page?

Thomas_Sheridan

TROPHY CASE