First draft: fantasy of manners / mannerpunk reading list

[kate_nepveu]

This is the first stab at a reading list for the fantasy of manners / mannerpunk subgenres that I talked post-before-last. Any more suggestions, descriptions of things I haven't read, etc.? I'm hoping to put this up on a web site as a resource.

Update: superseded by new draft.

Links are to my book log or reviews, unless otherwise noted. (Because I can, that's why.)

(Also posted to rec.arts.sf.written for feedback.)

• Steven Brust
  • Khaavren series. Dumas pastiches.
    • The Phoenix Guards
    • Five Hundred Years After
    • The Paths of the Dead
    • The Lord of Castle Black (forthcoming August 2003)
    • Sethra Lavode (forthcoming)
  • Issola. The most recent in the Vlad Taltos series, and quite literally a novel of manners.
• Steven Brust and Emma Bull, Freedom and Necessity. An epistolary novel set in 1849 with a Lymond-type protagonist. It's ambiguous as to whether there's magic.
• Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign. A volume in the ongoing Vorkosigan series, which was strongly and explicitly influenced by Heyer, Austen, and Sayers.
• Emma Bull's non-Bordertown novels
  • War for the Oaks. One of the classic works of urban fantasy.
  • Bone Dance. Post-apocalyptic fantasy with an sf feel.
  • Possibly her other novel, Falcon, though it's been long enough since I read it that I'm not sure.
• Pamela Dean
  • Tam Lin. Set in a small liberal-arts college, and based on the ballad.
  • possibly the Secret Country trilogy, which is a variant on doorway-into-another-world.
• Charles de Lint. To me these don't have the same prose style or dialogue as the other urban fantasies listed, but they are close cousins in terms of subject matter, so I put them down tentatively.
  • Newford urban fantasies (numerous)
  • Jack of Kinrowan
• Teresa Edgerton
  • Goblin Moon and The Gnome's Engine. An alternate-world fantasy duology with a Regency flavor and a Lymond/Lord Peter type.
  • The Queen's Necklace. I haven't read it yet, but I understand it to be in a similar vein.
• Lynn Flewelling's Nightrunner series. I know nothing about these but that someone in the audience at Readercon recommended the books to me.
• John M. Ford
  • The Dragon Waiting ( Pam's review). Alternate history of, inter alia, Richard III and the Princes in the Tower.
  • The Last Hot Time. An urban fantasy closely related to the Bordertown universe.
  • possibly Growing Up Weightless, a hard sf coming-of-age tale.
• Diana Wynne Jones
  • Howl's Moving Castle. Frankly, I didn't like this book, but it was mentioned at Readercon, so I include it for your consideration.
  • Deep Secret, to a certain extent; I think it has a lot of the structural elements, particularly disguise and language, and a bit of the "feel"—helpful, I know.
• Ellen Kusher, all of her novels:
  • Swordspoint. The classic fantasy of manners novel.
  • Thomas the Rhymer, a ballad-based novel.
  • The Fall of the Kings, co-written with Delia Sherman; set in the same world as Swordspoint. On my to-read list.
• Andre Norton and Rosemary Edgehill, The Shadow of Albion and Leopard in Exile. These were recommended to me at Readercon by the same person as above, and appear to be alternate history. On my to-read list.
• Madeleine Robins, Point of Honour. Described as Austen noir at the Readercon talk. On my to-read list.
• Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett, Armor of Light, Point of Hopes, Point of Dreams. On my to-read list.
• Delia Sherman, The Porcelain Dove. Haven't read this, either, but it was mentioned at the Readercon talk.
• Caroline Stevermer: all of her novels under this name are fantasy of manners.
  • The Serpent's Egg. A swashbuckling court fantasy.
  • A College of Magics. Alternate early-20th c. fantasy.
  • When the King Comes Home. Alternate Renaissance fantasy, in the same world as College.
• Martha Wells
  • The Element of Fire. A brilliant, sadly out-of-print swashbuckler.
  • The Death of the Necromancer. Less brilliant, IMO, set later in same city.
• Elizabeth Willey's novels: The Well-Favored Man, A Sorceror and a Gentleman, The Price of Blood and Honor. These were summed up by someone else as "Nice Princes in Amber"; I think I've only read the first.
• The Bordertown shared universe, created by Terri Windling and Mark Alan Arnold (urban fantasy):
  • Anthologies:
    • Borderland
    • Bordertown
    • Life on the Border
    • The Essential Bordertown
  • Novels:
    • Will Shetterly, Elsewhere and Nevernever
    • Emma Bull, Finder
• Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer
  • Sorcery and Cecilia, or, the Enchanted Chocolate Pot. Epistolary Regency-with-magic novel.
  • The Grand Tour. The sequel, forthcoming 2004 (?).
• Patricia Wrede
  • Mairelon the Magician and Magician's Ward. Set in the same universe as Sorcery and Cecilia.
  • Snow White and Rose Red. An Elizabethan England fantasy.

Comments

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I can't see anything useful in a list that includes Growing Up Weightless and Sorcery and Cecelia, and as GUW isn't fantasy, I can't see any grounds for calling it a fantasy of manners at all.

This is just so broad as to be meaningless.

If you mean "stuff that looks like Dunnett is an influence" you could consider adding some Kay.

[kate_nepveu]

Hmmm. I think you're right--_Bone Dance_ is not, to my mind, actually science fiction, though it was cited by Keller as a work that was sf and yet fantasy of manners (or possibly mannerpunk).

Taking _GUW_ out, though, do you still think it too broad?

[kate_nepveu]

I've decided, by the by, to split out the fantasy of manners and the mannerpunk lists, since I'm primarily interested in the first and I think it would be more useful.

Tomorrow, probably.

[annewashere.livejournal.com]

This is interesting, as I haven't read most of the books on this list, but have enjoyed very much the ones I have read.

Is it mostly women who write these types of books? Just wondering about the pattern.

[kate_nepveu]

I think most of the works clearly within the genre are by female authors, yes, but I don't know if that's an artifact of there being more female authors in fantasy generally.

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

The things on this list that I have read, I mostly really really liked. (Which includes Freedom and Necessity thought I was the only one in my reading group who did.) I'm going to save it so I can use it as a suggestion for more when I'm in that kind of mood. I have reluctantly promised a certain editor I'd give Brust another chance, so some of the ones on this list might be good choices.

MKK

[kate_nepveu]

_Issola_ would be a rotten place to pick Brust back up again, because it's sort of the culmination of the series to date. If you like the florid tongue-in-cheek language of the Dumas pastiches, you'll probably like the Khaavren books.

[ex-greythist387.livejournal.com]

If they needn't all be published works, I imagine that ajhalluk's Lust over Pendle and Time Shall Not Mend would count.

I'd agree with papersky that the list feels broad, though. If the point is to collect titles of books whose concerns turn upon structured manners, no worries. If these are all mean to share something of the same manner-structure (governing cultural influence and/or basis?), the "something" seems too subjective. I guess I'm asking how far from *central* focus a book can stray and still qualify for this list.

I've read about two-thirds of what you list, for what it's worth in evaluating my question. If Martha Wells' Death of the Necromancer counts, Delia Sherman's The Porcelain Dove should as well. Not as sure about Elsewhere and Never-never.

And I'd add one if we're collectively going for the looser sense: Liz Williams, The Poison Master. David Kennedy recently reviewed it on r.a.sf.w, and I posted a brief plug for it some time earlier. (Slow connection, not going to hunt down google refs.)

[kate_nepveu]

The problem I'm having, or am going to have when I split up the list (see upthread), is that a lot of what I see in common is a sort of stylistic I-know-it-when-I-see-it.

We are all about the cat-vacuuming *and* the subjectiveness, here . . .

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

By the way. Do you know Walter Jon Williams' Duke Maijstral series? They're comedy of manners space opera. Jordin and I enjoyed them very much, but the only title which comes to me now, of the three, is Rock of Ages.

MKK

[kate_nepveu]

Yes, good call; I think of them more as "farce," but they should probably be on the "honorary mention" sublist.

[turnberryknkn.livejournal.com]

Wow. There's a huge number of ideas here. Thanks!