Your Favorite Fantasy Books (besides Tolkien!)

I don't mind books written with an anti-hero viewpoint. Lots of great fiction is structured that way. I generally don't enjoy fiction that is too far in the other direction with a Dirk Pitt sort of superman as the hero. That gets old, real fast. My favorite characters in Game of Thrones (TV version) for example, tended to be the ones like Tyrian, the Hound and Davos. They were all rehabilitating themselves in some fashion.

Did any of you read the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan? A young friend at work keeps recommending them to me. They sound interesting.

Thanks Ron, I appreciate the feedback. I am going to acquire the first couple of books in that series and give it a try. Sounds interesting. I don't mind slower paced books or movies. I loved 2001 and Bladerunner for example.

I agree Doc Savage was my kind of guy. Not like that stupid John Carter!

Wheel of Time and Discworld will keep you occupied for a very long time. Something in the neighborhood of 40 books for Discworld and the WOT series just gets longer and bigger.

Discworld should have you in stitches.

I hate to admit that I have the first Jordan book in my rejects box in the garage. I gave up after about 30 pages - it just didn't grab me. Maybe I should dig it out and try again.

Wheel of Time was excellent.  Highly recommend.

If you are looking for other great books "Good Omens" by Prachett and Gaimin, Piers Antony's Incarnations of immortality as well as the Apprentice Adept series.  Katherine Kurtz Deryni books were great.  Can't forget the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the rest of Douglas Adams' writings.

There have been so many over the years that I cannot recall off the top of my head.  I'll think about it and post additional suggestions.

ExChef

I think I made it through book 7, so you did better than me.  Very long winded.  Brother-in-law loves them, though.

I have the Mistborn series on my shelf.  I need to get to it!

Check for scorpions when you fetch it from the garage.

That's really special. In what way did you collaborate?

I worked with Ray to create a new opening sequence and end sequence for the film.  Due to fallout from the Twilight Zone disaster, where Vic Morrow and the child actor leads were killed, studios stopped location shooting that involved child actors.  When Something Wicked This Way Comes was shot, all of the scenes were done on a sound stage, or the large set that Disney had built on its backlot.  There was no exterior footage and the film had a claustrophobic visual feel.  There was none of the feel of autumn in the film.  There were other structural issues as well in the film that left both Disney and Bradbury unsatisfied.  Jack Clayton's contract gave him control over the picture until it was publicly screened and he was happy with the picture and refused to make any changes to it.  So the picture sat while the various parties tried to come to an agreement.

While this all was happening, I was working on TRON as the background painting supervisor and was also providing layout design to the film.  As I was approaching the end of that project I was offered work on SWTWC.  The studio decided that the film could not be released in its current state and had decided to shoot new opening and ending sequences for the film, as well as rescoring and redoing all of the visual effects.  To this end they assembled a crew from TRON and other projects to handle the revisions.  To get around Jack's contract, the studio opened the film quietly at a theater in Hollywood for one screening in the late morning mid week, then pulled it.

I was set to work drawing "inspiration sketches" for a new opening sequence, all Fall exteriors, which were sent to Ray.  He would review the sketches, offer suggestions, I would do more sketches, toss some more ideas at him, and we had this back and forth for several weeks until he had what he needed to write a new opening as well as an opening monologue voiced over for the picture.  Later, I flew with a crew to Vermont to film the Fall colors for the exteriors that we would need to open up the show.  In addition, I worked on more sketches and boards for other parts of the show, like the tarantula sequence.

Both Disney and Bradbury were happy with the revisions and I got quite a nice birthday present when the production threw a birthday lunch for me.  Ray came to the studio to have lunch with me and after the party, stayed to chat with me for a couple of hours about all sorts of stuff.  Needless to say, I was thrilled.

I never did get my sketches back.  Ray like them too much to part with them, and he didn't trust the studio to return them if he sent them to me.  Ray was probably right about that.  So he had an assistant make xerox copies for me to reference when I was in Vermont.  At the time I wasn't too thrilled about it, but in retrospect, that was quite the compliment.

Anyway, that's the story.

Very Cool Sable!

I'll be safe for another couple of months. Although I've actually never seen a scorpion here - just big-arse centipedes (including in the house).  Lots of flesh-ripping red racer snakes last year, but they keep the mice population down.