This week’s Top 10 Tuesday is about listing books that you have picked up – or avoided – because of the hype around them. I fall in neither group — I’m a little wary of Hyped Books, so while I add them to my TBR, but save them for a later day. Instead, it’s the lesser known books which catch my eye… hoping to find some hidden gem perhaps?
So — here’s a list of some obscure books that I really think deserve a lot more love! Er, you may have seen these recommended around these parts before…
Book/ Series: A Midsummer Tempest by Poul Anderson (Operation Otherworld Series Book #3, but can be read as standalone)
Published: 1974
Book Tropes: Alternative English History/ Fantasy
Recommended for fans of: Shakespeare (esp. The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream), R.L. Stevenson (esp. The Black Arrow)
Awards: 1975 Mythopoeic Award
Some time back, LibraryThing recommended A Midsummer Tempest for those who like Shakespeare’s plays, steampunk, the old adventure classics and medieval English history. I’ll second that recommendation, as long as you are certain that this blend is exactly what you’re looking for.
Oh, what an absolute gem of a book. Quiet and unassuming on the surface, yet so utterly charming and thought-provoking.
Bon Agornin dies one day, leaving behind two sons and three daughters. His sons, Penn and Avan, are in the clergy and government respectively, and his eldest daughter, Berend, is the matron in a wealthy family. The youngest daughters, Haner and Selendra, are unmarried, and are forced apart when their patriarch dies. Much of the story is about Haner and Selendra being uprooted from their old home and settling down in their new environment: Haner with Berend and her husband, and Selendra with her parson brother Penn.
They are all dragons. And dragons have a singular custom — that of eating dragon flesh of the deceased, because that is the only way they can increase in power and sustenance. Walton gives them other dragon-like characteristics and rituals too, but at the heart of the story is the grim truth that dragon eats dragon to flourish. It is to Walton’s credit that she makes dragon customs like these feel real but empathetic.
The Darkangel Trilogy by Meredith Ann Pierce
Books: The Darkangel, A Gathering of Gargoyles, The Pearl of the Soul of the World
Published: 1998-1999
Recommended if you like: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin / The Chronicles of Narnia / The Ancient Mariner / Gothic mysteries in general
Rating: 8.5 / 10 – Recommended!
The Ancient Ones created the world, and disappeared. The wicked White Witch took advantage of their disappearance, and enslaved and bewitched the Wardens of the kingdoms. Her evil magic has caused the planet to become a barren, perilous desert.
The Witch’s vampyric sons, the Icari, also trap the souls of human women in order to become immortal. One of them, Irralyth, kidnaps a human bride and the bride’s slave girl, Aeriel.
“Can a magician kill a man by magic?” Lord Wellington asked Strange.
Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. “I suppose a magician might,” he admitted, “but a gentleman never could.”
Ironically, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke is the exact reverse of this contemplation. It is the downhill path that a magician’s ambition must inevitably take him. If you are looking for a finger-biting adventure into the hearts of men, look no further.
The book is based on an alternative history of England, when magicians once used to rule the land. The most illustrious of these was John Uskglass, or the Raven King. For some unknown reason, Raven King wrapped up his Faerie courts one day and vanished. With him, magic disappeared from England for centuries.
