1. Terry Pratchett.
The first of his books that I read was Wyrd Sisters, of which more below. I read it because a friend had bullied me along to an amateur dramatic rendition and the story caught my attention. So, I read the book and it was like a drug. I couldn't get through them fast enough and I think I have every book in the Discworld series, or have at least read them.
How to describe the Discworld. Well, it's a perfectly flat world, carried on the back of four elephants standing on a turtle. It's a very, very big turtle.
The inhabitants are very ordinary, well apart from the clothes and the magic, and the story is told in such a matter-of-fact way you can sometimes forget how totally bizarre the facts are.
In some ways, the Discworld is much like ours. It has a postal service, banks, restaurants, a tyrranical patrician who is actually doing a pretty good job, a werewolf on the police force (they're very progressive) as well as a six foot adopted dwarf, a vampire a zombie and a golem. I told you it was progressive.
Many of the stories are familiar, but with a huge twist. Macbeth, Hamlet and Phantom of the Opera all get their own stories, while there nods to all kind of things everywhere you look.
One of the things I like best is the cutting wit that soaks every page, and the very precise way Pratchett describes the indescribably. The sheer breadth of background knowledge is staggering, from pagan religions, to folklore, to quantum physics, all there, side-by-side on the page. There are actually companion novels that twist your minds in knots explaining (brilliantly) some of the science involved.
Needless to say, I am a huge huge fan and this series is a must-read for anyone who like things different but recognizable, funny, sad, clever, multi-layered and that makes you feel like a crazy made up world is actually your home.
It says a lot when one of my favourite characters is Death. Well, a death (the Death of Rats is most amusing) who once worked in a curry house and likes kittens.
This is the first one. There are many more
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2. Anything by Storm Constantine
In my opinion Storm Constantine is a hugely underrated author. She has created an entire universe, including its own religion on which there are companion books, and a beautiful set of tarot cards. How none of her work has been turned into a film yet is beyond me. Maybe she wants to keep the integrity of her work.
The series that first got me hooked was the Wraeththu series. At that time, there were three books, now there are six in the main series, along with novellas and short stories (and the mythos and religion texts). She had her own press and is the only author I know who publishes Fan Fic alongside her own books, with, apparently, the same care and attention to detail.
The Wraethtu series is set in a not-too-distant future where a new breed of being is rising to replace humanity. It all started with a single person who developed magical powers and found that ingesting his blood would change others to be like him.
By and large this new breed, names Har, were less interested in taking over the world than by making sense of their own. There was no great war that wiped out humanity, although you can bet there was fighting when humanity kicked back. Instead their biggest struggle was to make sense of their new reality.
As humanity, who were now sterile, dwindled, hara built their own civilization, rising from the ashes of the old in an unruly, organic way. This was inevitable as the only converts were teenage males. After going through the transition, they found themselves with new powers and new bodies that were neither male not female but something entirely new that was all but immortal and eventually became able to reproduce among themselves.
These new beings grew from a single frightened boy to a group of boys who didn't have a clue, to an entire civilization divided in regions, countries and continents each with their different flavour and attracting different kinds of people who, as with humans, tended to band together with those who were similar to themselves. They adopted tribal names and tended to live in communities, large and small, rather than cities.
This series was my first introduction to a world where men (kind of) loved other men (kind of) in a way that was entirely natural and barely worth mentioning among the literally world-changing events going on around them. Apart from a brief mention here and there it was a non-issue and it drew me into the world of m/m without the angst (although there was plenty of that in other ways) and not a lot of sex (none as we know it), which before had been my expectation from gay books, and why I had never really read them. In many ways, it's Storm Constantine's fault that I write the books I do
today.
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The second series - The Grigori Trilogy had its feet more firmly on the earth, although some of those feet belonged to fallen angels. A lot of the background and imagery is drawn from Enochian myth and the Sumerian religion and the angels are nothing like those spoken of in Christian myth. Great powers are stirring and the Grigori have been watching and waiting. As ever, they can't resist involving themselves in human affairs and human lovers. This series has m/f, f/f, m/m, a/a and a/h relationships. (where 1=angel and h=human)
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The Magravandian Trilogy - which is high fantasy on an epic scale.
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Of the standalone books Burying the Shadow is my favourite, a sleek take on gothic horror that grabs you by the balls from the outset, burrowing deep into the darkness of the soul where...creatures lurk with beautiful, smiling faces.
3. Dragonlance Chronicles
This series holds a special place in my heart as it arose from a Dungeons and Dragons game. I am utterly obsessed with D&D and am currently involved in 4 games.
They follow a group of people, made up of fairly standard D&D characters on a classic adventure full of dragons, dwarves, wizards and a kender.
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4. And finally for this time, Piers Anthony's Xanth Series
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These books take place in a world where magic is everywhere, enthusing everything. From living in a cottage cheese, to plucking bread fruit (literally loaves of bread) from trees, everything is magic and everything is deliberately or accidentally funny. For pure escapism this series is perfectly delightful. The world is just as unique, but far less mind-bending as the Discworld, written in the same kind of no-nonsence, of course you know all about this already, style.
I have read every book and am so absorbed into Xanth lore, history and day-to-day life that I see absolutely no reason why a cottage cheese shouldn't be big enough to live in, or why I can't literally go to hell in a hadcart, or visit the zombie king and his ghostly wife in a castly badly run by zombies. Just lose yourself in simple joy with all the weird and wonderful characters and their even weirder world.
I'm exhausted after that, so we'll leave it there for today. Next time, I'll run over some great m/m books/series I've read.
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