Maybe it’s middle-aged nostalgia, but over the last few months, I’ve been thinking in general about series that were poppular when I was in junior high, high school, and college. I’m talking about ones that everyone was reading or that were ubiquitous. You found them everywhere, they seemed to stay in print, and the authors and the series were well-known.
Let me give you some examples. First, there was Jack chalker’s Well of Souls. I read the first two books in this series when I was in seventh grade. They were NOT age appropriate, which soured me on Chalker for a long time. There was a bit of an ick factor to them, I thought, although at the time, I didn’t think inthose terms. Like over twenty years a long time.
A friend in college told me the changing body stuff was in pretty much everything he wrote. I tried one of Chalker’s stand alone novels a little over a decade later. My friend was right.
Lately, though, I’ve been thinkingn of giving the Well of Souls another try. I’m wondering how I would react to them now that I’m more mature older.
What prompted thins line of thought was revisting the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. A brief discussion of that series came up nearly two years ago (has it really been that long?). Afterwards, I thought about rereading them and got about five chapters into the first book before life got in the way and I didn’t get back to it. But I bought the first trilogy on sale as a bundle in audio. I listened to them while driving back and forth to work. I’ll express my thoughts in more depth in another post. I still think Covenant is pretty dispicable, but I understand him better than I did when I was twenty.
You don’t see and hear as much about Thoms Covenant in any of the three series featuring him these days.
For a while, I was doing a semi-regular series of post over at Black Gate on the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. While that series focused primarily on reprints, there were some original books. One of those was Katherine Kurtz’s Deryni series. the first two books were paret of that series, and the third volume of the first trilogy was probably intended to be part of that line based on the cover art. I reviewed the first volume, Deryni Rising, a dozen years ago at Black Gate.
Those books (multiple trilogies) were everywhere when I was younger. I remember enjoying Deryni Rising, but I remember very little about it. This was a major fantasy series for a number of years. It also seems to have dropped off hte radar. I’m going to try to work at least the first trilogy in sometime over the course of the year.
And then there’s Dordon R. Dickson’s Dorsai series, but I’ve rambled enough. I’ll save it for a future post.
Are there any series I haven’t mentioned that you think should be considered for this list?
Belgariad? Thieves World? Mythadventures?
Those are good suggestions. I’ve only read one or two of the Thieves World stories. I read the first two Myth Adventures. Never got around to the BElgariad.
Hi
When I saw your subject line in my email I thought of the Well of Souls, Chalker had so many series but this one was everywhere. I tried his Rings of the Master, and the ick factor is there as well. I have been meaning to try the Deryni. But one that was also everywhere and never seemed to end was Xanth. I will leave it there.
All the best
Guy
Is Piers Anthony still writing Xanth? I thought he was.
Dordon Dickson? LOL. I immediately thought of Covenant, of which I read the first three and gave up. I read the first five of the Well of Souls—I think he wrote more but that was enough. I found the world building fascinating, but the protagonist unlikeable. I read the first two Deryni trilogies, and have reread the first, but the “Saint” Camber stuff lost me.
There were Conan ripoffs that had a vogue—Throngor, Brak, etc., that were not interesting enough for me to continue. Norman’s Gor series was a thing in its day, but went off the rails for me after about book four, and I think I never made it past book seven or eight. I found, and find, the Horseclans Saga by Adams very good.
Hammer’s Slammers?
I picked up a bunch of the Horseclan books last fall, but I haven’t gotten to them yet. I remember Gor being everywhere when I first started reading adult sf in middle school. Norman was still writing them at the time. I read the first one and didn’t see what all the commotion was about. I learned later that the more controversial content didn’t crop up until after the first few books. I thought Drake was still writing in the Hammer’s Slammers series until shortly before his death, but there weren’t a lot of new installments.
I haven’t read them, but I got the impression that Kurtz and Chalker weren’t that good. Again, I haven’t read them. I only read the first Thomas book and did not really care for it. The rape put me off. (I remember some guy on Amazon saying it was more “mature” than the Lord of the Rings because of the rape though.)
Some writers are forgotten that don’t deserve to be. A. Merritt was very influential and a great idea man even if I don’t think he had the best prose. Of course, I found that a lot of people don’t know say Fritz Leiber which is a shame. Same with Roger Zelazny. I don’t think fantasy fans are necessarily good at remembering the better authors.
It’s been too long since I read Chalker to be able to say how good he was. I think Kurtz may have fallen out of fashion.
If a friend hadn’t given me a heads-up about the rape, I don’t think I would have gotten past that chapter.
I completeluy agree with you about Merritt, Leiber, and Zelazny. Zelazny’s Amber books were pretty common when I was young, and then he continued the series later.
I think Perry Rhodan may still be going in Germany, but the English language version died some decades ago. In general, very few series survive their creator. Sherlock Homes, Tarzan, and Conan are still going; otherwise, not so much.
I think you’re rightr about Perry Rhodan. I never read any of those. E. C. Tubb’s Cumarest of Terra and Alan Burt Akers’ Dray Prescott both had long runs also but have faded away.
I’d be interested in seeing how the Covenant books stand up. Weirdly enough, I couldn’t get into them initially until I read ‘The One Tree’ which convinced me to go back and give the first trilogy a second chance. I think what makes the series work is the contrast between Covenant and the other characters. The inhabitants of the Land very much conform to Tolkien prototypes; they’re either intrinsically decent (occasionally with some fatal Shakespearean flaw) or they’re flat-out evil, whereas Covenant is much more dimensional. I always saw his rape of Elena as a violent rejection of the world he believes to be a beguiling and dangerous illusion. By extension, his need for atonement is what makes him into a heroic figure. Or so I reckon – but then, it’s been a while….
I agree with you about the contrast between Covenant and the other characters. It was interesting revisiting the books because I had forgotten most of the details. I understand Covenant better than I did when I first read the books. I particularly found Covenant’s insistence that everything was a dream and the guilt he carried with him to be interesting. It created this dynamic tension that made it possible to put up with him even when he was being totally insufferable.