I wrote this series for a friend who asked me to recommend some very modern fantasy novels as a primer on the directions fantasy has taken in the last twenty or so years. The list is not intended to be exhaustive, but is merely my opinion on what shouldn't be missed and where to start. I left out Narnia, Tolkien, E. Nesbit, The Dark is Rising, The Once and Future King, and A Wrinkle in Time on the basis of age, even though several older books snuck in anyway. Once again, this is a personal and somewhat arbitrary list, so please don't email me to ask why I left out [your favorite fantasy novel.]

A touchstone book for the genre, and a must-read. Le Guin wondered what wizards were like before they became old and wise and grey-bearded, and so created the first of a long line of literary schools for young wizards. But a book less like Harry Potter cannot be imagined. It's serious in tone, stunningly well written in a deceptively simple style, often epic, occasionally whimsical, sometimes terrifying.

Magic in Earthsea is based on names: to know the true name of a thing or person is to have power over it. This is a brilliant metaphor for the power of words, and writing, and art. It reminds me of Georgia O'Keefe saying that God told her that if she could paint a mountain, she could have it. Le Guin's tale of an arrogant young wizard and his strange quest - chased by and chasing a thing with no name - reads as fresh and new now as if it hadn't had a thousand imitators.

There are sequels. The Tombs of Atuan is as good as Wizard; The Farthest Shore is not quite up to that standard, but excellent nevertheless. Tehanu and its sequels were written much later and represent a rethinking of the earlier novels; if the portrayal of women and women's magic bothers you in those, you should definitely read the later ones. Ignore the horrible movie, which has nothing in common with the books but its name.

Like A Wizard of Earthsea, The Last Unicorn has attracted many imitations, all of which fail utterly to even resemble the original, let alone match it.

"The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone. She was very old, though she did not know it, and she was no longer the careless color of sea foam but rather the color of snow falling on a moonlit night. But her eyes were still clear and unwearied, and she still moved like a shadow on the sea."

Into this lovely fairy-tale beginning strays a butterfly who cannot speak on its own, but spouts quotes from Shakespeare, from modern pop songs, from somebody else's dreams. And Mommy Fortuna and her unforgettable menagerie, Schmendrick the Magician, and dour Molly Grue. Their world is one in which myth and reality and cheap plastic imitations of both jostle for supremacy. People long for magic, even if it kills them, but can't recognize a unicorn when she passes by.

The novel has the feel but not the schema of an allegory, and alternates scenes of breathtaking beauty with ones which are merely placeholders, although even those have some excellent lines. I tend to re-read certain scenes - the beginning, Mommy Fortuna, the transformation, the end - more than the whole book cover to cover. I have read the harpy scene so often I could almost recite it from memory.

Hambly is a prolific writer and sometimes an excellent one, and she's written a number of my favorite books in this category. I'm recommending this one because it's a stand-alone. (There are sequels, actually, but they are dreadful, depressing, and unnecessary. Pretend they don't exist.)

Once the half-trained witch Jenny Waynest and the scholar John Aversin combined their forces to slay a dragon. The book begins a number of years later, when Jenny and John have had several children together and settled down. Jenny is torn between being a family woman and pursuing the solitude needed to perfect her magic, and John is frustrated that his work won't allow him the leisure he needs for study. But matters could have continued like that indefinitely until a young man rode into town, with an urgent task for the only two people who had ever slain a dragon...

You can see already how Hambly is subtly subverting classic fantasy elements, but parody is not her main concern. Instead, she's examining how much a person's dreams are worth to them, how one longing may conflict with another, and what one might be willing to sacrifice to perfect one's art. Jenny's teacher of magic told her that the key to magic is magic; but what exactly does that mean? It's a moving and thoughtful novel, with a twisty plot and excellent characterization.

I also highly recommend Hambly's Darwath trilogy, which begins with The Time of the Dark (you might want to skip the related but overly grim novel Icefalcon's Quest); her Windrose series which begins with The Silent Tower; her gaslight scientific vampire novels which begin with Those who Hunt the Night; her Arabian fantasy Sisters of the Raven; her charming early Hollywood adventure Bride of the Rat God; and her extremely dark Star Trek novel Crossroads. Her characterization is wonderful, her plots are odd and clever, and she has great sympathy for ordinary people who have impossible dreams and know it.

A vast sprawling epic set in a complex medivalesque world where seasons last for years, full of intricate political maneuvering, reversals of fortune, and difficult journeys over exotic lands. Here Martin takes a number of standard genre elements, such as dragons, noble knights, desert nomads, animal companions, and elves, and tweaks them in interesting ways. The plotting and characterization here are nothing short of brilliant. There is a huge cast of characters with an enormous number of plotlines, and every single one is compelling. For a great big series, there is surprisingly little padding - all those pages are needed because the story itself is so vast.

Be warned, however, that this is an extremely dark and violent series, and an unfinished one. The fourth book is due some time in 2005, and the author has estimated that there will be seven in all.

This is Martin's only high fantasy series, but his other novels are all worth reading. I particularly recommend the riverboat vampire novel Fevre Dream, the rock'n'roll horror/fantasy The Armageddon Rag, and any of his collections of short stories, but especially A Song For Lya.

An extremely well-done historical fantasy, also concerned with true names. See my complete review.

A beautifully written fantasy set in Heian Japan about a dying princess who writes a story about a cat who becomes a woman warrior. If you're already thinking, "Or am I a butterfly dreaming that I'm a man?" you're not far off.

The cat meets up with a God who, without asking her permission or explaining why, transforms her into a woman. But the woman still thinks and fights like a cat, and possesses strange belongings which correspond to her feline attributes: twenty knives, for instance, the color of her claws. When she gives one away, a raw place appears where one of her nails used to be. She experiences war, speaks to ghosts, and never quite learns what it is to be human, though the humans she meets learn a lot about what it is to be a cat.

The atmosphere and details of Japan are fascinating and accurate, without the smothered feeling of too much research. The prose is gorgeous, the insights are wise, the incidents are heartbreaking, and the conclusion is extremely satisfying.