My Favorite Fantasy Story

by Martin H. Greenberg, Elisabeth Waters, Barbara Kingsolver, et al.

Book Overview

Who do today's top fantasy writers read -- and why? This was the question posed to some of the most influential authors in the field today. This book is their answer. Here are seventeen of the most... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0886779057
• ISBN13: 9780886779054
• Release Date: August 2000
• Publisher: Daw Books
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 4.2" x 6.8"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

A very good collection

This book has a variety of well chosen stories, with the exception of "Stealing God" which I did not like. The writers have chosen works that are classic yet show a great variety. Must reads include the two Vance stories, the Harrison, and the Zelazny. This book is a good safe bet for the fantasy fan.

An Excellent Fantasy Anthology

This is a very good fantasy anthology. It's got excellent stories like 'Troll Bridge' by Pratchett, 'Stealing God' by Doyle & Macdonald, 'Liane the Wayfarer' by Vance, 'More Spinned Against' by Wyndham, and the classic 'Unicorn Variations' by Zelazny.Not all of the stories are excellent. I didn't enjoy the older ones (I always have a difficult time with pre-1900 fantasy) by Ingelow, Dickens, or M.R. James. The Harrison story had so much information in it that it was difficult to follow.What makes this anthology stand out from others are the short introductions given by other authors in which they explain why they enjoy that particular story. They don't always go into great detail (Marion Zimmer Bradley and Tanya Huff wrote very short pieces, but the intros by Donaldson and George R.R. Martin were particularly interesting.This anthology brought several good stories to my attention that I likely would never have otherwise read, notably the Wyndham and Doyle/Macdonald pieces. There's a lot of good fiction in here for a low price. Check it out.

A wonderfully eclectic volume of fantasy writing

I enjoyed last year's predecessor volume, My Favorite Science Fiction Story, but this volume is even better. The premise is that eighteen bestselling fantasy writers were asked to pick their all-time favorite fantasy story (by another writer). The result is a very eclectic assortment of tales. Most of these stories I had never seen before (even though I had read other stories by the same authors), but the most enjoyable part was reading the introductions, and discovering why each author picked the story he or she did.I loved M. John Harrison's story "The Dancer from the Dance," but I think I liked it more than I would have otherwise, just because Stephen Donaldson's very evocative introduction sets the stage so well. Also, I have always loved Jack Vance's "Dying Earth" stories, and I loved reading Robert Silverberg and George R. R. Martin each explaining why they chose a different story from that book, and seeing how their opinions closely mirrored my own. Neil Gaiman chose a story by R. A. Lafferty that I had never read before. Not only did I love the story, but it also made me reexamine some of Gaiman's own work, and think about the ways which Lafferty might have influenced his writing.If you are looking for the fantasy found in endless volumes of Tolkein ripoffs and Jordan wannabes, this is not the book for you. (Even Margaret Weis, who has often been a guilty practitioner of the aforementioned, picks a beautiful story by Charles Dickens to introduce.) But if you are looking for one of the most interesting and well-rounded collections of first-rate fantasy literature to be found in print today, you should buy this book.