 John the OFM  | 15 Oct 2025 7:29 a.m. PST |
Clear enough?
The novel stands alone and never had a movie or tv show. It can't be part of a series with the same characters or setting. Hrolf Kraki's Saga, Poul Anderson The Broken Sword, Poul Anderson Glory Road, Robert Heinlein The Drawing of the Dark, Tim Powers |
| 35thOVI | 15 Oct 2025 8:07 a.m. PST |
How about a ones that had poor shows based on them and need to be done better. But one not done, that would make interesting shows. Vlad Taltos series by Steven Brust
Kingkiller Chronicle series By Patrick Rothfuss if he EVER finishes that last book! Taking lessons from Jordon and Martin
Gentleman Bastard Series by Scott Lynch. Again another author who can't finish a series. |
| Wackmole9 | 15 Oct 2025 8:11 a.m. PST |
Guardians of the Flame series by Joel Rosenberg |
| John the OFM | 15 Oct 2025 8:35 a.m. PST |
But it's part of a series! 🙄 |
| John the OFM | 15 Oct 2025 8:37 a.m. PST |
If I wanted nominations for an author who cannot finish a series, I would have nominated Avram Davidson! AAARRRRGGGGHHHH! |
| 35thOVI | 15 Oct 2025 8:43 a.m. PST |
OPPs missed can't be part of a series. Well Taltos books can be done independently. |
| robert piepenbrink | 15 Oct 2025 9:14 a.m. PST |
Oh. That's Barbara Hambly's Bride of the Rat God. Runner up is Lois McMaster Bujold's The Spirit Ring. Third place is less clear, but you can make a good case for Judith Merkle Riley, The Master of All Desires. Or you can just punt and go with E. R. Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros. OFM, I know how you feel,but cut Rosenberg a little slack: the man is dead after all. Davidson, too. (The Joel C. Rosenberg who does thrillers is different. I checked.) Some sort of honorable mention for Scott & Barnett, The Armor of Light? 35th, if you want an interesting show, look at the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories--or the Conan stories done straight. Davidson's "Likekiller" or "Eszterhazy" stories would make a nice couple of seasons on cable, but the audience would have to actually pay attention, and what are the odds? |
| John the OFM | 15 Oct 2025 9:23 a.m. PST |
I know the grumpy guy has passed, but Davidson had so many 2-part "trilogies"…
My DnD magic user had an Intelligence of 17, real roll, and a Strength of 4. Naturally he became Appledore, from the Perrgrine 2 part trilogy. 🙄 Wuite a colorful character to role play. |
| FilsduPoitou | 15 Oct 2025 9:35 a.m. PST |
Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson I would say Elantris by Brandon Sanderson too, but it apparently has a short story and novella set in the same setting. |
| robert piepenbrink | 15 Oct 2025 10:16 a.m. PST |
And while I babbled of beloved obscurities, I missed a potential winner--John M. Ford's The Dragon Waiting. |
 Parzival | 15 Oct 2025 10:32 a.m. PST |
Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson The Face in the Frost by John Bellairs Steel Magic by Andre Norton (Children's novel) The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley (right up your alley, John— a young lady from Not-Victorian Not-Britain is kidnapped in Not-Afghanistan by a native warlord/king, but neither he, she, nor the kidnapping are all that they first appear.) |
| 35thOVI | 15 Oct 2025 11:49 a.m. PST |
Robert, thanks. I have read all of Conan. Not the other. |
| glengarry6 | 15 Oct 2025 11:51 a.m. PST |
Elric of Melnibone by Michael Moorcock |
| Wackmole9 | 15 Oct 2025 11:52 a.m. PST |
Sorry about the error. So Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson |
| robert piepenbrink | 15 Oct 2025 3:02 p.m. PST |
Good calls Parz. But you might double-check The Blue Sword. Good story, but it sticks in my mind that McKinley set something in the same universe--not exactly a sequel, though, so possibly OK. |
| John the OFM | 15 Oct 2025 3:19 p.m. PST |
The only decent Conan stories were by R E Howard. Period. None of the other bandwagon hoppers. By the way, ages ago, we adopted a wonderful pup from the SPCA. The ex suggested that he needed a "tough" name, to balance how sweet he was. So I suggested "Conan", and thus he became. Best dog ever. I wept when …. But he's still not eligible in this Poll. 😄 |
| John the OFM | 15 Oct 2025 3:21 p.m. PST |
Authors who cannot finish a series….
That would have to be a Poll started by someone else. I'm all tapped out.
But George RRRRR Martin would win, hands down. So why bother? |
| robert piepenbrink | 15 Oct 2025 4:14 p.m. PST |
"But he's still not eligible in this Poll." Fully agree, OFM. 35th was talking about series which might work on film. Incompletes. I long ago sold off my "Game of Thrones" books along with my with P. C. Hodgel, but I still have all three volumes of Alexi Panshin's five-book Antony di Villiers series, both volumes of the "Morigu" trilogy (Perry?) and the first and ONLY volume of the "Spiral Dance" series. Could actually be worse. I own a mystery in which we discover that the deceased was acting in a very eccentric manner. One of the characters understands why and is just about to explain it when she's interrupted. I figured sloppy editing. Decades later, the author was a personal friend, and I asked her about it. She had no recollection, and she's dead now, so there's an itch I can't scratch in this life. Could be MUCH worse, actually. Imagine someone producing a sequel to the "Star Wars" trilogy. |
| Major Mike | 15 Oct 2025 4:26 p.m. PST |
Personal Demon by David Bishoff |
| 35thOVI | 15 Oct 2025 5:15 p.m. PST |
Yes Martin is bad, but he lives still. I think Jordan wins hands down. The Wheel of Time had to be finished by Sanderson because Jordan milked it until he died. |
| John the OFM | 15 Oct 2025 8:41 p.m. PST |
Martin knew how the sausages were made in Hollywood.
When he had enough money to go back to writing, he sat down and decided to write a series that would be unfilmable. He succeeded. 😄
So when Beniof and Wise came to him to offer to buy the rights for many dump trucks of $100 USD he agreed.
I personally thought that the main problem was that he had far too many subplots and unnecessary characters. Nimble Dick???🤷 Why?
He finished the fifth book just as the first season ended. Not to worry.
But he found that having Natalie Dormer sit on his lap for pictures at ComicCon was far more fun than writing. Not being Asimov or King, he never was vaccinated against Writers Block.
So Seasons 6, 7, and 8 were not done competently to say the least. George wandered off and Dumb and Dumber rushed the ending to grab an imaginary Star Wars trilogy. I know he could write better endings but he doesn't really give a damn. |
| The H Man | 15 Oct 2025 10:44 p.m. PST |
This is all seeming highly discriminatory. I've only read a few novels. Mostly due to the time it takes. I'm not sure the gripe with TV and film? You'll probably find many have audio versions also. I get TV and film are going to be different, but your cutting out the only way many people know of them, then asking them to comment on things they have no knowledge of. Why not try to ask a question anyone can actually answer? Or is the appeal in making unanswerable questions? If so, why? It seems counter productive. |
| The Last Conformist | 15 Oct 2025 11:09 p.m. PST |
Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees.
I've got Glory Road mentally filed as sf, not fantasy, but that's perhaps mostly because of the author.
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| John the OFM | 16 Oct 2025 1:13 a.m. PST |
I'm not sure the gripe with TV and film? Because we are just now wrapping up a Poll which had 5 different Round 1 polls. And just about every finalist had movie tie ins. That annoyed several loudmouths like myself. It seemed like the literary quality of a specific work was being judged on a movie which, let's face it, could be poles apart in theme. I'm quite sure that Starship Troopers made it to the final round because of Denise Richards' shower scene. |
| The H Man | 16 Oct 2025 1:34 a.m. PST |
I don't know, it certainly wasn't Denise Richards I remember. Was she even in that scene? Considering she was a pompous pilot and all. In the words of Kevin Macalister, "I don't think so." So there's two films that need watching. I just hope kindergarten cop isn't the third. On second thoughts, as there is already confusion re the shower scene, best catch the tip to Arnold first. And coming from a fan of "boobies", it's an odd mistake to make. PS Apparently she turned down appearing in the scene as well as a seperate nude scene written especially for her. Oh, well, we'll always have Showgirls. And RoboCop, while I'm on it. (If you're a Liefeld does Cap, kind of guy) |
| robert piepenbrink | 16 Oct 2025 3:29 a.m. PST |
Some day, H Man, you must explain to us your understanding of the difference between fantasy and science fiction. Yes, it is "discriminatory" to want to discuss books and not movies. It is also discriminatory to want to discuss 1970's music and not 1950's/1960's Folk, or GOOD books or movies and not bad ones. Discrimination is an act of distinguishing one thing from another. It is not inherently immoral or criminal. Books take too long to read? As opposed to movies? That's because they're books. You make movies out of them by chucking out characters and sub-plots, which makes them novellas. A novella can be read in an afternoon or evening. Many are excellent, and I recommend trying a few of the better ones. But of course that's also descriminatory. |
| robert piepenbrink | 16 Oct 2025 6:17 a.m. PST |
Two mile walk and I'm still mad. H Man, books and movies are different. If the only way you "know" a book is from the movie, then you do not know the book, and were not asked to comment on it. You're out of the discussion, the same way I'm out of the discussion of Starship Troopers the movie because I never saw that. (No shower scene in the book, by the way, though I think a fight scene was done there for privacy.) I'm also out of all those interminable polls on 1970's music and bands by the way. TMP has something for pretty much everyone, but tastes differ and not everything can be for everyone. |
| The Last Conformist | 16 Oct 2025 6:47 a.m. PST |
I expect it takes less time to read The Hobbit than watching even one of the movies. |
| The Leidang | 16 Oct 2025 7:33 a.m. PST |
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 miniMo | 16 Oct 2025 8:06 a.m. PST |
Dang, the first six I was going to nominate have all been done on screen too, and I haven't seen any of the movie versions (including The Hobbit!)… Otherwise, outside of series, I think the only hasn't been movied ones I've read are short story collections. The closest I can get is a really good horror novel.
The not-series limitation eliminates a lot of more recent writing because publishers prefer to do series. Unless someone nominates something I'm completely overlooking, I don't think I'll be able to vote for anything in this poll.
Of the nominees so far, I've read The Worm Ourobrous; but while it was certainly very influential, I would not vote for it as 'the best'. Fantasy writers have gotten a lot better since then!
: P |
| robert piepenbrink | 16 Oct 2025 8:53 a.m. PST |
Last, it takes most of us a little more time to read The Hobbit than to read any single one of the three movies. The movies just FEEL longer. Much longer. MiniMo, Worm was 1922. It's later than a lot of Dunsany and almost all of Kipling. George MacDonald was already dead. It's contemporary with Merritt and only six years ahead of Howard's first "Kull" story. If fantasy has "gotten a lot better" you'll have to tell me how. Easier reading, certainly. More novels, fewer short stories and many more unfinished series. But are any of these objectively superior? |
| miniMo | 16 Oct 2025 9:36 a.m. PST |
It's been awhile since I read it. The memorable take aways were an opening framing device that then just disappears, demons that mostly just act human, names that appear to have been rolled up on a names generator table. I'm a fan of purple prose, but this struck me as a dullish hue somewhere between purple and a vague musty Middle English. I had forgotten is was 1922, seems dustier than that. |
| miniMo | 16 Oct 2025 10:37 a.m. PST |
Howard does much shinier purple prose that spins a better yarn. Susanna Clarke does much more precise [not quite so] archaic language with Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Both do much more engaging characters. Heck, Watership Down does much more engaging characters. These are among the better works that aren't eligible for nomination here.
And my best vote would go to Le Guin. |
| robert piepenbrink | 16 Oct 2025 10:43 a.m. PST |
Fair points, miniMo. I think calling one side "demons" was an outright mistake. Eddison clearly meant them for humans or near enough. And it's good Jacobean English, but still… It was the notion of progress in fantasy literature which sent me off. The local B&N is full of fantasy novels--generally part five or six of an undetermined number--written by eager young people anxious to prove they believe all the things right-thinking people are supposed to believe in 2025, and demonstrating that they have no idea how or why pre-industrial societies worked. If the store were giving them away as door prizes, I wouldn't carry them home. Nonetheless, I posted intemperately. If you'll tell me the sort of fantasy you enjoy in series, I'll be happy to suggest stand-alone novels of the same type if I can. (At my age starting something the author hasn't finished seems like a poor idea.) The era of peak fantasy is probably a separate discussion, and I suspect the answer would be different for short stories, novels and extended series--but also different for high, "urban" and low fantasy. (We are probably now at peak series romantasy. At least I sincerely hope so.) |
| miniMo | 16 Oct 2025 10:54 a.m. PST |
I was editting as you were typing — Earthsea Trilogy for best in series. Howard's Conan for great shorter stuff. Dresden files for pretty entertaining in a more recent vein.
Aha, I do have a nomination that should be eligible! The name of the book was used for a movie, but the movie was definitely not the book: On Stranger Tides, Tim Powers |
| robert piepenbrink | 16 Oct 2025 12:22 p.m. PST |
Interesting miniMo. As soon as I read your first line, I thought of Tim Powers' Declare. (For series work, the early volumes of Stoss' Laundry Files.) Richard Matheson's Hell House might also be a possible. No one else does fantasy adventure like Howard--and Heaven knows they all tried back in the 60's and 70's. (C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner came closest. See Kuttner's "Elak of Atlantis" and Moore's "Jirel of Joiry.") But as a Howard fan, you are obliged to go through Leiber's Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories long enough to read "The Two Best Thieves in Lankhmar" and find out why adventurers never retire. |
| The H Man | 16 Oct 2025 4:54 p.m. PST |
"Some day, H Man, you must explain to us your understanding of the difference between fantasy and science fiction." Ask the person who brought up Starship Troopers. Better yet, ask most bookstores, as they don't seperate them. A big time reader should already know that. Yet, I do. Funny that. "not everything can be for everyone." Yet here I am. Go read a book on Rosa Parks. "I expect it takes less time to read The Hobbit than watching even one of the movies." I wrote on Smaug at school, so I only had to read the start and end. |
| John the OFM | 16 Oct 2025 6:10 p.m. PST |
I deliberately did not mention On Stranger Things. Powers wrote it. Then the Pirates of the Caribbean show runners came up to him and gave him a ton of money. He cashed the check, and he and his wife dressed up for the premiere. |
| The H Man | 16 Oct 2025 7:12 p.m. PST |
That's funny. I thought it was called On Stranger Tides? Perhaps reading and actually paying attention to what you read are two different things? I think it's called skimming. |
| John the OFM | 17 Oct 2025 4:24 a.m. PST |
It appears that AI and autocorrect hijacked it. It is indeed "On Stranger Tides". 🤷 It just attempted to do it again. "Stranger Things" is a popular show on Netflix right now. |
