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The Best Fantasy Books of the 1990s · Mythmakers

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  Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
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  creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. And today I'm continuing my
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  conversation with my podcast friend Jacob Renica. We've just been looking at the fantasy
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  universes and now we're going to go and look at the 1990s and pick out the top three reads from
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  the 1990s with the idea of trading backwards through the 20th century and picking out highlights
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  from each decade. So Jacob I was doing a quick survey of the 1990s but before I tell you what were
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  the main fantasy books of that era what were you doing in the 1990s? 1990s I was firmly in
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  yeah middle school junior high high school that was my you know formative adolescence coming
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  to terms with myself in the world trying to evade the eye of adults and yes trying to do something
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  I want to say meaningful trying to do something entertaining and leaving my mark on the world
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  burning myself out. So for me the 1990s was a very interesting decade so I had left college
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  I'm a bit older than you as you can tell. I left college in 1990 and I joined the Bushish
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  diplomatic service and so I spent three years living in Poland I'm also married and when I came
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  home in 1995 I then did a doctorate at Oxford University and during the course of that doctorate
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  which finished in 2000 I had two of my three children so I was moving into young parenthood time.
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  So for me probably less time to read fantasy but I was aware of what was going on
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  as the sort of person who loves literature and certainly I have read quite a lot of the titles
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  that came out in the 90s in the 2000s when I was you know reading to kids or reading for my own
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  pleasure or starting to learn you know starting my career as a writer which began in 2006.
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  So for me that's where I was okay shall I tell you what were the sort of you know big titles
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  of 1990s some you can probably guess if you're doing your you know your tick list obviously obviously
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  we've got Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone which came out in 1997 for Americans that is
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  Harry Potter and the Magicians Stone I think isn't it something like that a different title in the
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  States Philosopher's Stone is natural philosophy the idea of that you know that's why she's called it
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  that you know the what do I have to say not much everyone knows Harry Potter so that came out in 1997
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  the other sort of big title again from the UK in that era was the beginning of the Northern
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  Lights series by Philip Pullman he's dark materials again I think there may be a different
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  title in America yes golden compass yes so Harry Potter was yeah that was the Sorcerer's Stone
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  and then the Northern Lights is golden compass yeah but the Northern Lights is the first of that
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  and that came out in 1995 just a couple of years before and then also in the
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  children's or moving into YA one book which I'd like to some mention is the Sabriel book by
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  Garth Nyx I couldn't find Sabriel I have it but I think someone borrowed it so I found the other
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  two books in the series that's Garth Nyx who's Australian so shout out to Australia and then we've
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  got so that's Sabriel is 1995 and the other parts of the series are in the early 2000s then we've
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  got I thought I should mention we've got Wicked and Gregory McGuire in 1995 I mentioned it mainly
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  because it's such a huge fantasy title now probably a bit of a slow burn that one and then
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  we've also got the beginning of the Robert Jordan Wheel of Time series I've got here the eye of
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  the world I've not read these so I have a son and a husband who have and I look at the all
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  100 volumes of them they're all this thick I think I don't know I don't know so so there that's
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  the kind of landscape we've got real big hitters some of which have become you know films or tv
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  series or whatever so do you have I missed any major titles off that I mean I may be different
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  from the ones you'd like but in terms of the big hitters I missed anybody yeah you missed a game
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  of thrones did that begin did that begin in the 90s oh I didn't begin in the 90s yeah it's that early
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  yeah yeah so that's so well maybe didn't have you know it obviously the television series is what
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  launched it into public consciousness and kind of global thing but yeah but yeah but yeah that
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  that began began there in the 90s so I can go to date for that oh I don't have I don't I don't
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  have the date on it but 96 sorry 96 yes I do okay 1996 so mid 90s yeah there's also you have
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  and not not in terms of like series but books that's you know Terry Pratchett it's good omens
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  is one that you know it's a standalone but right one that has certainly in in terms of fantasy
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  landscape that's kind of your you know comedic satirical like you know classic Terry Pratchett um
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  yes Neil Gaimler isn't it as well yes yeah yeah and that's the 90s title is it yep yep
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  I'm excited to put it later to put it in the 2000s but there you go you learn something every
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  day so thank you anything else I've missed those are the I think yeah those are the biggest ones
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  I mean I wanted to put since we we since we we didn't have the 2000s on there I wanted to pull
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  the Dresden files uh Jim butchers Dresden files it was published in 2000 it was written as
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  technically written and no no no no the really 99 yeah put off then I can't I can't go Dresden
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  files so you have yeah so later you don't have so that that's where you have kind of urban fantasy
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  is kind of like picking up there so you don't white have sorry it doesn't exist I the other one
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  I did wonder about mentioning is Robin Hope the assassins apprentice as well right yeah there we go
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  and also yeah another one of those if you want a Ella enchanted uh for like and like children's
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  books um are more there but those are kind of the uh heavy hitters um
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  okay so we're going to have a top three um perhaps um starting with your third on your list
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  rather than your top one so what are you going to pitch to me Jacob as your top three I think
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  in terms of best we need to yeah best yeah that needs to define yeah so when you're saying
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  yeah in terms of these what are you what I'm not talking about best selling let's get that out
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  the way um I'm defining this as the book you go back to read with pleasure okay so you go back to
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  it happily and perhaps it's changed or shifted your ideas about what fantasy could do yeah I think
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  if it's um sci-fi feel free to include it um if it's in that sort of more sci-fi-ish world right so it's
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  got to be a reading for pleasure thing because obviously what is best is such a right objective
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  is that when they give the Oscar for the best film you always think well you know what does that mean
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  that wasn't the best yeah so what do you go back to and actually enjoy so what's your number three
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  on your list three um I'd have to do I don't know if
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  yeah personally and not the impact that they had right here looking at yeah um it is rather
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  more limited I suppose because like I did have I mentioned in our last conversation about
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  Star Wars that was when they'd the 90s mid 90s would there'd been a drought from star for
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  Star Wars content for a long time for probably a decade or so um and they finally released a set
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  of uh stories of trilogy of of novels that were sequel novels that took place you know 20 years
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  after the original films um uh called air to the Empire and it's no longer canonical uh in the
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  Disney uh you know kind of reset um and they're kind of recon nonifying and analyzing a nonification
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  of of of what uh of what is considered Star Wars but they're taking free borrowing freely
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  from characters and parts of this they're they're putting now into it anyway so those were
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  ones that in the mid 90s that those are the ones that I would go back to because I had such
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  that I mentioned before you know the nostalgia for the this world of Star Wars um and
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  and there was that main writer or something appearing out of the studio it was Timothy
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  it was Timothy's on yeah so so he was a science fiction author um so for me uh that that was where
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  my 90s like what I was most excited about and then like in 99 they took um uh actually Terry uh
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  Terry Brooks um you know so uh sort of Shinara um uh fantasy author like well known in the
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  Tolkienian kind of vein um uh there he was tapped to write the novelization of the first
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  Star Wars prequels it was published in 1999 um uh the Phantom Menace and that one was surprisingly
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  good because it was taking somebody who had writing chops like fantasy writing chops and see what they
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  did with the script and what happened with on on film so it's almost kind of a separate
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  entity in terms of its flavor and character exploration um so and for me a fantasy that the parts
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  that I enjoy most about Star like Star Wars are the fantastical elements unless so the technology
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  just because I'm more fantasy oriented by temperament um probably because I didn't
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  it really enjoy math as well my maths weren't stellar so the the technology part is something that I
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  kind of like I'm scared of um but the like fantasy magic um um that sort of thing so that that's
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  where I was in terms of but in terms of like the what we were talking about here probably the ones
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  that I would um go back to most uh I think wicked holds up as uh you only got one in slot number three
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  the three yeah I do yeah I'll do all the you just stick stick with your um Star Wars extension
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  because I've got my number three I'll put that yes I'll put I'll put her to the empire
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  to the other ideas so I've got my number three so um my number three I just want to explain
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  first of all why northern lights doesn't make my three because it is excellent novel
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  but I never go back to read it yeah I don't particularly like it I can see that it's brilliant
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  but I don't like it because of partly because of the sort of child murder
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  thing going on um yeah I do love demons and all of that um but I don't like it so
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  apologies Philip you're brilliant but it's not for me in terms of fave favorite um
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  I just got plenty of fans so it doesn't need me so my number three I'm just going to
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  whisk up which is um it's an unexpected one it's Nora Roberts writing as JD Rob
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  and it's called the first part of this very long series it's still going it's like part 60 or
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  something now cool and the first part is called naked in death and it's a police procedural so it's
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  like your kind of gritty crime thing but it's set in around 2050 in New York and so it's set
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  Eve Dallas is the main sort of cop in it who's a very um clever but damaged you know all the things
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  it's that it's it's basically your detective I love detective stories and to find a detective
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  story that felt real projecting into the future but not so far in the future I'd and her plots
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  are also very good she's managed to keep on switching it up even though we're at part 60 or something
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  the problem she has is that we're catching up so she starts this in 1995 and she posits in it
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  a sort of war situation in the 2010s that has changed society and people are coming out of that
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  in the 2050s and of course we've blown through that so we're in a parallel universe rather than
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  a projected future and but I enjoy them there's a romance slightly improbable oh super rich has
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  husband figure but okay fine uh all good fun um but I just really enjoy her imagining what a
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  slightly futuristic world would be and it's so it's police procedural with a twist with a fantasy twist
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  so that's something I go back to to read with pleasure not great literature in that terms but
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  it's great genre literature yeah and adult it's very adult it's not something for kids so don't
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  give it to a teenager so that's my number three what about your number two
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  I think I would do northern lights golden compass um not because again not because I like it
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  necessarily but because I'm fascinated by it um and by which I mean his you know so
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  he told them and said they started this kind of initially he wanted to do kind of a retelling
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  of paradise lost and so my you know academic background a part of my dissertation was looking at
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  I was an analysis of paradise law um and mythological influences on paradise lost so
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  I think for me seeing how he's just so how he's you know working in different because he unless
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  you know that you're saying I okay here's here the different figures from paradise lost and here's
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  what what he's kind of working into there um so and the so the world I'm fascinated yeah by the
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  world that he's created it's clearly you know the flavor of the world isn't something that I love
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  that I would want to like dip back into and and enjoy um and I recognize I'm able to see and also
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  here's here's how he's dealing with his own you know religious trauma or you know a political
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  like these sorts of things and so like so part of me is fascinated and trying to that I enjoy
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  seeing like so how would I is there a way in which this world would be like more enjoyable or
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  I don't know it doesn't like would it capture my imagination and art so it's like mind and heart
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  is the thing for for for me with with with some of these and what makes you come back to it is not
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  just because it's like technically well written um it does it does something that moves you
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  emotionally emotionally I like the but the protagonist I don't care like I don't care about
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  Lyra she doesn't she's not one that like I aspire to is the one that I really want to follow
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  and would want to like well you see I quite like Nyra she for me she's one of the high spots I did
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  enjoy so I just recently read the Book of Dust trilogy um a really a really enjoyed the middle part
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  of it didn't enjoy the first part and I found the ending of the third part a bit disappointing it
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  kind of fizzled out but I'm really really light so the if you think of them as six books that
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  right number five is my favorite I loved it yeah um and a lot it is a lot to do with Lyra
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  and seeing that grew up and well I would love to see more of that than yeah and I have I read
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  I did read the book of dust first yeah the of the of the of the of the new trilogy I think it's
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  code yes yes yes yes I'm just transforming with the titles but the middle one the secret common well
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  secret common that's the one that's and that's and that's kind of borrowed from fair and like
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  you introduce it so there are some things in there like who's starting to come by introducing
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  with Bell Savage that had to do with like fairies and like different like exploring kind of the idea
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  of demons and even like demons and like water like to you know kind of uh titular spirits of water
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  or different forces of nature and so so part of that so so seeing some of the potential there
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  and you know having like the witches and their different relationships with their kind of
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  familiar as with their with their demons um like those are the things those are the ideas that
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  are really interesting to me that I like looking back and seeing how the world building is doing
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  kind of from like a from a writer's perspective going back to that um and from again like the sources
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  you know from predecessor mythology what kind of things is he kind of playing with um and looking
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  those in some ways as like okay so here's how inspiration happens and here's how it can be put
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  together into a world how do I want to do this sort of thing with my own world so I think it's
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  it's more from like a like a creative um uh like wrestling conversation partner point that I
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  go back to that and see how he's done it and what I like and what I don't like like it's one that I
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  wrestle with yeah so it's a worthy number two and I would say I'd love to study it you know is
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  that but I'd love to study yes yes so much in it and it's so so much depth right still have an
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  enjoyment problem about it okay so my number two is um I've mentioned already um I would I just
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  want to do a also would have put in is the um tomorrow pierce immortals uh or tet but I'm saving
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  tomorrow pierce for the next decade um but do look that out because it's lovely um but I'm going to
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  put Garth nix in as number two uh sadriel um and the reason I'm putting that in is I like the time
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  period that he's chosen so it's a non-typical fantasy it feels a bit sort of 1940s maybe it's got a
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  sort of mid 20th century feel to the technology in it but I like the way the magic works I like the
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  idea of the sort of the runes and also the um the necromancy with the bells and it's got a very
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  interesting sort of different flavor to it and the characters are the main characters sort of swaps
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  between the books um and it's still managed to keep my sort of interest in the different
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  characters in the different parts so I um really like that series so well done Garth nix that would
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  be my number two okay now I'm gonna ask you some more questions about that one specifically so
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  with sub-real right it's it kind of straddles lane it's it's it's in our world in like but it's also
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  there's part but so how so it's not a poor fantasy there's a right it's not a poor fantasy yeah
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  there's a world in which there's like an intensely magical part and then there's a border
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  and then there's the sort of the world below that which is more or less normal but sometimes magic
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  leeches in or in boats um so there's a kind of no man's land it's a bit like imagine north
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  career in south career in fact the map looks a bit like that north Korean south career with the
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  no man's land between with the sort of influence of the North Korean aspect of the northern lands
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  coming into interfering with the southern lands and sub-real herself has been raised and educated
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  in the sort of southern part to keep safe but she has to go and take up her sort of
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  inherited role as the apportion and to put people to lay lay the dead because the idea of the
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  dead goes through a series of gates on their way to rest but people can call them back and have
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  sort of armies of our armies of the dead or resurrected people who are very dangerous of course
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  it's just really really well imagined and I just would highly recommend it to anyone who likes
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  fantasy look at how he does his magic economy how it works yeah so just very enjoyable yeah
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  well that's great yeah and I think yeah that's the interesting area we're talking about with
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  like in our last conversation with like Winnie the Pooh as like there's a secondary world is kind
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  of like kind of portal fantasy ish but what's happening in the portal when the main character the
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  creator is not there um so yeah so there's so and where's with uh with uh northern lights golden
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  compass it's an alternative you know fully yeah yeah no it's nothing like that temporary world
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  yeah it's it's more of a zone a zone effects and maybe it's coming out of the
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  because graphics would have grown up as ideas under the cold war with the iron curtain
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  it's definitely a feeling of that so that one set of people living by one rule and another set of
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  people living by another rule so we're fantasy can reflect back on ourselves it you can sort of see
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  the applicability of those sorts of ideas in his his world so a YA book as well so older
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  older children and teens can read this with quite happily okay right number one
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  we're going to put your nail in your colors to the mast yeah so for the purposes of revisiting for
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  being interesting imaginative uh and kind of heart felt um connection um yeah i'd go with uh
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  in america this higher bottom the sorcerers stone okay i've got it here as well as my number one
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  parry potter and the philosopher's stone yeah why why have you picked this i have particular reasons
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  why i've picked yeah um yeah i think it's the again like if we're looking at things that you know
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  ignite imagination it's the the idea of right kind of like a hidden world the world that exists
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  kind of behind our own there's this um the potential for magic around any corner right that you
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  in your world imagine oh oh did i just see was that a bird or was that was it actually an owl
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  that i saw this hearing Sunday summer right so it's so it's way that um the world that you see it
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  isn't exactly how it is that it's more magical than it might appear and so there's this i know
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  i i hope for the fantastic uh the the wonderful um and i want to see more wonder in the world and so
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  this is a story that essentially you know it says like well but if there there was actually the
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  world is more more full of wonders uh then then you can imagine but also all along with that with
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  greater dangers right as well so for me yeah and it's also heartfelt right with the characters
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  the relationships um the the character dynamics um are nice uh it's not and at least in that first
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  book you know it's it's not the peril isn't you know it's not a nail bider uh it's one where the peril
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  it's it's a it's a middle grade it's a middle grade book um and and and it's it's a world that's
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  rich enough that you can see the deeper um uh more weightier uh moral um ethical themes that
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  are are there kind of implicit in that world that then can be teased out later as the characters
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  get older and start to ask those sorts of questions so in terms of the the audience the ideas
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  that exploring in that rich world um appropriate for a middle grade for people who at that point
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  of their life who are asking those sorts of questions looking for themselves right who probably
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  all every child feels that they are that they are the one that's neglected uh that that isn't being
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  taken seriously that and you know the odds are stacked against them every every adolescent
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  everybody who's starting to grow into this world of adults um uh kind of i'd imagine like a lot
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  of my friends you feel feel that way and so to have this kind of you know nobody character who's
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  turns out to be something that's very actually very special and the world is bigger
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  and more beautiful and wondrous than uh then it appears and that you actually belong in this other
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  world uh that's something that is helpful and i think uh yeah heartening uh for a lot of folks so
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  those for me yeah well said and i agree with lots of that and also um just going back to the time
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  of life when i read these books these were the books that were the rock star books when my kids were
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  growing up and they caught up in my mind with all the best moments of peak bookshop going to
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  midnight openings and the excitement of the story that idea of story having such a power um that
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  people would queue up and drink hot chocolate and have owls in the bookshop i mean it was just so
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  marvelous we really really enjoyed it as a as a family and sort of separating the more sort of
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  controversial parts of jk running since which um has divided opinion in our household about her um
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  but going back to that original innocence uh we all really loved them and enjoyed them and found
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  them they're not the funny thing about them is that in a way they're not original
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  because there's so many elements that it's almost as if they were always written or always existed
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  because she's picked up so many ideas which you kind of know but yeah you say oh yes of course
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  this is how it works and maybe that's the ultimate in art that it seems so sort of well of course
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  it's this it's it's almost seamless that idea of yes there's a magic score and yes they do this and
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  you know this is how they intersect with with our life um so i agree with you i think in terms of
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  the pleasure it's given our family you know we went to see the Harry Potter and the Curse child
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  when it didn't particularly like that but we still went and saw it and we saw the films and um
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  i've been this i've been to see the audio books i go back to it and still find things to enjoy
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  and it does reflect because i think uh jk Rowling had a similar scoring experience to me
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  you know you can see your own teachers in these ones that she's made into magicians so there's a sort
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  comedy level which i enjoy of thinking about oh just the way way teachers behave in the strain sort
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  of little micro cultures you get in schools so yeah i agree with you i think it's a very very
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  good book and will stay classic for a long while i think so yeah it is the standout book of the
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  1990s maybe not the best written but you know that's not what we're judging by it we're judging by
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  what we go back to and um enjoy yeah so yeah so we so just to go back through our top three
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  mine were um the JD Rob series in death there's lots of them but it starts with naked in death
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  then it was Sabriel by Garthniks and then it was at top of the tree was jk Rowling and you were
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  number three was number two was heir to the empire to mithuson for pure star wars nostalgia purposes
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  and two was uh northern lights golden compass um philopolman and first for me also was Harry Potter
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  and that philosopher stone which was shamefully retitled as the sorceress stone in the u.s
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  so um i'd be very interested to find out um from anyone listening if they have a different a very
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  different three line up of three i feel as though because there's only so many books any one person
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  can read there's gonna be some really obvious things we've missed out um so do tell us because um
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  part of the reason for doing this is to point people to new fantasy reads and uh do join us again
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  as we tackle the 1980s so i'm gonna do my research about you know what came out then and find
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  some some good reads to throw at you Jacob great i'm going to do that thank you everybody for listening
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