I often lace mythology, fairy tale, or folklore into my novels and short stories. I grew up on the truly grim Grimm’s Fairy Tales but embraced them regardless, and I adored the giant book of Russian fairy tales I still own. After discovering Tolkien at ten, in high school, I read Hesiod’s Theogony between classes, The Odyssey and the Iliad for fun over summer break, and bits of Rigveda. Later, Beowulf, Popol Vuh, Poetic Edda, and more. I also love multiple sub-genres of fantasy, but especially stories that incorporate myths and folklore.
I adore books that combine literary style with the genre elements of fantasy, and Helene Wecker’s The Golem and the Jinni does it beautifully (as does her sequel, The Hidden Palace).
The sense of time (1899), place (New York), and culture (Syrian and Jewish) add depth and substance to the relationship of two lost souls who find each other in a land that’s foreign to them both.
'One of only two novels I've ever loved whose main characters are not human' BARBARA KINGSOLVER
For fans of The Essex Serpent and The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock.
'By far my favourite book of of the year' Guardian
Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life by a disgraced rabbi who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic. When her master, the husband who commissioned her, dies at sea on the voyage from Poland, she is unmoored and adrift as the ship arrives in New York in 1899.
I haven’t seen evidence that the Elk-headed woman is actual folklore of the Blackfeet, though elk-based legends and anthropomorphic animals are certainly common across Native American stories.
This horror novel is another example of a genre book weaving relationships with a literary flair but also a spare, gut-punch writing style as it explores themes of regret and revenge.
By the end of chapter one, I knew it would end up on my favorite books list.
"Thrilling, literate, scary, immersive." -Stephen King
The Stoker, Mark Twain American Voice in Literature, Bradbury, Locus and Alex Award-winning, NYT-bestselling gothic horror about cultural identity, the price of tradition and revenge for fans of Adam Nevill's The Ritual.
Ricky, Gabe, Lewis and Cassidy are men bound to their heritage, bound by society, and trapped in the endless expanses of the landscape. Now, ten years after a fateful elk hunt, which remains a closely guarded secret between them, these men - and their children - must face a ferocious spirit that is coming for them, one at a time. A spirit…
The Strange Case of Guaritori Diolco
by
Bill Hiatt,
Guaritori awakens from a coma to find that he's lost twenty years--and his entire world.
Fiancée, family, and friends are all missing, perhaps dead. Technology has failed, and magic has risen, leaving society in ruins. Most survivors are at the mercy of anyone who has strong enough magic. Guaritori has…
Tim Powers incorporates mythology into many of his books and Last Call is hands-down my favorite of his.
This World Fantasy Award-winning novel combines a fantastically imagined version of the legend of the Fisher King as well as Tarot, elements of Greek mythology (a theme common to many of his books), and his trademark—an elaborate and intricate magic system seamlessly blended into the real world.
Last Call is the first book in his Fault Lines trilogy, but also works as a standalone story.
Twenty years ago Scott Crane abandoned his career as a professional poker player and went into hiding, after a weird high-stakes game played with Tarot cards. But now the cards - and the supernatural powers behind them - have found him again.
Crane's father killed gangster Bugsy Siegel in 1948 to become the Fisher King, and to keep that power he is determined to kill his son. Now Scott Crane must cross the Mojave Desert to his father's Perilous Chapel in Las Vegas, and take up the cards again for one last poker duel. And the stakes are the highest…
I put off starting this novel, worried by the publisher's summary that it would be depressingly poignant along the lines of misfit stories like Edward Scissorhands or Flowers for Algernon but, while the author takes a sensitive look at the life of a creature trying to fit in, because the minotaur never feels self-pity, the book doesn't tap into that sadness that can come with being seen as different.
The literary minutiae of the minotaur's life and truths told about universal hopes and fears of any who doesn't neatly fit in are the heart of the book, though, and beautifully written. The Audible version is performed to perfection by Holter Graham, right down to somehow giving meaning to the minotaur's various grunts.
Five thousand years out of the labyrinth, the Minotaur finds himself in the American South, living in a trailer park and working as a line cook at a steakhouse. No longer a devourer of human flesh, the Minotaur is a socially inept, lonely creature with very human needs. But over a two-week period, as his life dissolves into chaos, this broken and alienated immortal awakens to the possibility for happiness and to the capacity for love.
Steven Sherrill is a graduate of UNC Charlotte and holds an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. The recipient of a NEA…
The Strange Case of Guaritori Diolco
by
Bill Hiatt,
Guaritori awakens from a coma to find that he's lost twenty years--and his entire world.
Fiancée, family, and friends are all missing, perhaps dead. Technology has failed, and magic has risen, leaving society in ruins. Most survivors are at the mercy of anyone who has strong enough magic. Guaritori has…
The weirdly wonderful writing of China Miéville is showcased in this fabulously imaginative, sometimes horror and sometimes laugh-out-loud adventure centered on the lore of the giant kraken.
Miéville’s imagination is like Technicolor suddenly blooming on a black and white television, and for readers who enjoy New Weird, this urban fantasy set in a London beset with magic on all sides is a wild and fun ride.
It was for me, at least, and is my favorite of Miéville’s books so far.
Winner of the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, Kraken is a darkly comic, wildly absurd adventure by author of Perdido Street Station, China Mieville.
Deep in the research wing of the Natural History Museum is a prize specimen, something that comes along much less often than once in a lifetime: a perfect, and perfectly preserved, giant squid. But what does it mean when the creature suddenly and impossibly disappears?
For curator Billy Harrow it's the start of a headlong pitch into a London of warring cults, surreal magic, apostates and assassins. It might just be that the creature…
Greek mythology and contemporary fantasy collide in this fantasy thriller by award-winning author, L. D. Colter. Get ready to dive head-first into an alternate 1958 Greece where conjoined queens rule a nation perched above an underworld filled with demi-gods and monsters, and a mortal man holds the key to the fate of the ancient Greek gods.
“Shunning clichés, Colter crafts a suspenseful plot that dashes along to the rousing ending, weaving gryphons and harpies, magical tattoos, transformations, and betrayal… in this polished world.” – Publishers Weekly
