The Best Fantasy Books of the 1990s

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