Aja Jin wrote:

Amidst all that modern stuff, I read the first 3 Elric books. Utterly different in storyline, as the novels/novellas/short stories are loosely connected. Formitive to the fantasy field, in particlar the anti-hero genre. Must reads (at least some if not all) along with Fritz Lieber's Fafred/Gray Mouser books. 

I'm really going to have to read some hard SF next. 

Yes. Moorcock and Leiber (with those series) along with Poul Anderson's better fantasy (The Broken Sword, Three Hearts and Three Lions, The Queen of Air and Darkness etc.) were absolutely fundamental to me being able to overcome JRRT's turgid prose and enjoy reading fantasy again.

<smacks own forehead> And you have just reminded me that Moorcock is another thread in my mental fabric connecting Hopeland with the Robert Barry book.  So now I need to go looking for a dude in a certain establishment in the Rosenstrasse.

 

I’m mistified, I’m afraid. What about Hopeland? Why are we pining for old (but good ) fantasy? Are we distinguishing fantasy from science fiction when we acknowledge that much SF is better written than the Gee Whiz Big Idea SF by the Giants of the past? And since when do we not like the writing style of JRRT? I always thought hiis writing was beautiful and that he belongs in the Modern Canon…

Surtac wrote:

Okay.  I clearly need to unpack that last post somewhat before it will likely make any sense to anyone who isn't carrying my brain and memories around.

I read LOTR as a teenager in college - it seemed to be in fashion at the time. I had been reading mainly SF up until then and I really struggled with the style and language. I came to the fantasy work of Moorcock, Leiber and Anderson because i was already au fait with their SF and was willing to give it a try on that basis. No problems ensued and I have been able to read most other modern epic fantasy since, including, I might add, those of Stephen R Donaldoson, which I know some people struggled with when they first appeared.

Thirty years later, after the first of Jackson's movie trilogy was released, I attempted a re-read of LOTR.  It didn't work - I simply could not get and sustain a start this time around.

It's another twenty years further on.  Do I attempt to try again?  I don't know if I can take the risk of more wasted time and disappointment.

Oh, and the link between Moorcock and Hopeland?  It's indirect and it involves Moorcock in his occasional alter ego guise of musician rather than writer. 

I guess I should pull my finger out and get cracking on telling that whole story next, if life here at Chateau Dysfunction will get out of the way and let me.

Thanks for that beginning. I have slightly more sense of where you’re going, but I’m looking forward to the whole story.

We had very different experiences of LotR. I never read it as a kid, and when I heard the Peter Jackson movies were being made, I made sure to read it beforehand. So I was in my 40s. I thought was perhaps the best fantasy I’d ever read, and I loved its rich world building, memorable characters, and evocative description. Perhaps more than anything, I admired his prose, though maybe a little archaic now. Still exemplary. I have been reading it to starwoman for several years now. She loves it, but often we get only a paragraph done before she falls asleep. Occasionally a few pages.  We are now finally in Rivendell. My sense is the book is one of the classics of twentieth century literature, full stop. But as always, tastes differ.

Anderson, Moorcock and Lieber are all favorites of mine. But I must admit that I prefer Anderson’s science fiction to his fantasy. The list is long, amd he may have continued to get better and better throughout his long career. For me, Moorcock’s most memorable work was Behold the Man, the novella, which was surely SF. Lieber’s fantasy is great, of course.

All that said, it’s clear that there’s way more to this, and that you have a lot rattling around in your brain. I’m sure we all look forward to hearing it when you’re ready!

 
 

Like Kokipy, I too am finding that much of what I am reading these days, and I know I'm reading less voraciously than I once did, is no longer primarily SF/F.  Yes. I'm waiting for the new Ian McDonald to drop in a few days time and CJ and Jane's next Alliance book in October, but other than that there's very little forthcoming SF/F to look forward to imnsho.

Most of the fiction I'm reading now is British and Scandinavion crime fiction - tartan and nordic noir.  But I'm also straying into literary fiction and a lot of inter-related non-fiction -  Sorokin, Fosse, Robert Barry, David Toop and suchlike to name two examples of each.

By far the best thing I've read recently is Cairn by Kathleen Jamie, who is Scotland's poet laureate equivalent.  It's labelled as non-fiction but I think that's a misnomer.  It clould be called many things - it's a miscellany of fragments: poetry, micro-essays, scenes and memories of a life as lived by the writer herself, her own feelings and regrets.  It's also a multi-layered personal cri de coeur against worldwide climate change and its debilitating effects on wildlife species extinction as directly observed by Jamie in its effects on Scottish birdlife during her lifetime so far.  Highly recommended.

My reading has dropped off for several reasons.  For about 8 years now I have been more and more addicted to watching for news updates on many foreign and domestic fronts.  Anxiety producing addictive waste of time.
Also, both our daughters are back home from college  now, not yet working, and one of them has a very needy dog, and I find that the constant interruptions from all directions  have created in me a kind of old age onset ADHD.  I seem to feel that I can’t sit down with a book and concentrate because someone or some creature is going to need something from me imminently. Their needs always trump my reading  so instead I have devolved into playing various STUPID games on my iPad, for hours every day. I need to pull my socks up, and put all that nonsense behind me, but I have had trouble finding books I like to take the place of these evil addictions. 
however, Surtac, I can recommend to you a US crime novelist, William Kent Kruger, who writes about murders in the cold and rural parts of Minnesota, home of, among other notables, Tim Walz. There are about 21 of  them and they are pretty good so far.  I have only read the first 3 but look forward to getting the rest at some point.  They are the kind of book I would rather check out of the library than buy at this point. 
also, have you read the books the TV show Slow Horses are based on? I thought they were terrific. Mick Herron is the author.