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Great Science-Fiction & Fantasy Works

Science-fiction & fantasy literature: a critical list with discussions.

Welcome to the Great Science-Fiction & Fantasy Works web site!

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“‘The Observer will decide’, I said.”

– Kiteworld,
Keith Roberts

Why These Are Not Yet in the Lists

Regrettably, I have in recent years been spared little time for further development of this site. While I hope and expect that I will be returning to a heavier commitment to it soon now, in the meantime I thought to augment the site a bit with a list of some books yet-unlisted here but by authors already in the lists.

The attentive visitor to this site will have noticed that the main lists already contain books not yet read by me—all duly marked with a # sign before the title—and so may wonder why the particular unread books here are not also in those lists. Well, there are some authors who are so good that anything by them can be trusted; and there are others who, if not “for the ages”, are both acceptably good and consistent. Works by either sort may, in my opinion, be recommended unread, subject to two provisos: first, that the recommender—me, in this case—makes it clear that the recommendation is based on repute, not an actual reading; and second, that the book eventually be read and, if regrettably it be necessary to remove it, be removed. Such, in my opinion, are the # books now in the lists.

There remain quite a number of authors who can at least on occasion rise to acceptable quality, as evidenced by their being represented in these lists at all, but whose output shows significant variations in quality (“quality” always, of course, meaning “quality as I perceive it”). That category naturally includes a number of writers of middling ability, who can now or then hit the bell; but it also includes a nontrivial number of authors of presumed excellence who nevertheless—to me—seem capable of producing occasional potboilers or worse along with their better work.

Let us get one thing clear: this is emphatically not a list of “marginal” works of dubious quality. It is simply a list of works not yet read and evaluated, and (so far as I can tell) of unpredictable quality. So, while it doubtless contains some marginal work (possibly even some drek), it likely also contains not a few wondrous gems. I put it forth simply so that should anyone come to this site looking for some thoughts on where to expand their current reading acquaintance they can have the regular lists—necessarily limited by what one man can read in a given span—augmented by at least plausible suggestions about authors who have already proved, whether once or repeatedly, that they are capable of producing worthwhile reading. Note also that these are by no means complete bibliographies of these writers, even just with the field of speculative fiction.

I also want to make a second thing quite clear: this is also emphatically not a complete bibliography of each of the authors listed here. Some of these authors have huge numbers of works in our fields, and I have not tried to list each and every yet-unread work by those authors. Rather, I have tried to present a reasonable-length sampling of their yet-unread (by me) output as a suggestion (both to you and to myself) of what of theirs to try next. If you want complete bibliographies, go to the Internet SF Database site.

I have, in a few cases, included some limited comments about the author, but only as an aide-memoire, not as any sort of definitive analysis.

And I say yet again: I really don’t know much about any of these books save that their respective authors have produced at least some work of merit.

(Remember also that there is also a page here about other candidate authors, not yet represented here but pending consideration.)

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The List

In these listings:

The standard marks on this site also apply, notably that a * after a book title indicates that it is a collection of tales, not a novel.

The key distinction in these lists is that a title that is not boldfaced is a work that I am not sure qualifies as either science-fiction or fantasy. (It may also happen that a title that is boldfaced is not either, since I am going by general repute, not actual reading experience.)

• Ackroyd, Peter
  (It is hard to tell without a full reading—reviews are little help—which, if any, of the novels listed below contain material that would justify their inclusion as “speculative fiction”.)
  • The Plato Papers
  • The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein
  • The Death of King Arthur
  • Hawksmoor
  • English Music
  • The House of Dr. Dee
  • The Fall of Troy

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• Adams, Richard
  • Tales From Watership Down *
  • The Plague Dogs
  • Traveller

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• Aickman, Robert
  • Original Collections:
    • We Are For The Dark *
    • Dark Entries *
    • Powers of Darkness *
    • Sub Rosa *
    • Tales of Love and Death *
    • Intrusions *
    • Night Voices *
    • The Strangers and Other Writings *
  • Reprint Collections:
    • Painted Devils *
    • The Wine-Dark Sea * (New York edition)
    • The Unsettled Dust *
    • The Collected Strange Stories * [set of two volumes]
    • The Late Breakfasters and Other Strange Stories *
    • Compulsory Games *
  • Novels:
    • The Late Breakfasters
    • The Model

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• Aiken, Joan
  (Aiken wrote numerous novels, most YA, and frankly the “YA” aspect in them sometimes gets tedious for adults. But her short fiction—whether for children, young adults or not-young adults—simply sparkles; obviously, some are better than others, but none descend to tedium. There is, so far as I can see, no sharp line between her work for children and her work for adults, except the so-called “magic and mystery” books—not listed here—which are for very young children: the rest share a delightful charm, so the category labels below are largely irrelevant (but are included because the Joan Aiken site’s excellent bibliography table is so coded).)
  • Omnibuses:
    • All and More *
      • All You’ve Ever Wanted *
      • More Than You Bargained For *
  • Fantasy:
    • All You’ve Ever Wanted * [see omnibus, above]
    • More Than You Bargained For * [see omnibus, above]
    • A Small Pinch of Weather *
    • Smoke from Cromwell’s Time *
    • A Harp of Fishbones *
    • Not What You Expected *
    • The Winter Sleepwalker *
    • A Handful of Gold *
    • Moon Cake *
    • Ghostly Beasts *
    • Snow Horse *
  • Supernatural:
    • The Windscreen Weepers *
    • A Bundle of Nerves *
    • Dead Man’s Lane *
  • “Picture Books” (children’s fantasy):
    • Kingdom Under the Sea *
    • Mice & Mendelson *
    • Tale of a One-Way Street *
    • The Kitchen Warriors *
    • Fog Hounds, Wind Cat, Sea Mice * aka Fog Hounds & Other Stories
    • Past Eight O’Clock *
    • Helena and the Wild Man *
    • Serve Me Stefan *
    • Wise Girl *
    • The Wooden Dragon *

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• Amis, Kingsley
  (This may or may not qualify as speculative fiction.)
  • The Anti-Death League

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• Amis, Martin
  • Einstein’s Monsters *

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• Arnason, Eleanor
• Daughter of the Bear King
• Big Mama Stories *
• Hwarhath:
  • Hwarhath Stories: Transgressive Tales by Aliens *
  • Ring of Swords
• Lydia Duluth:
  • Stellar Harvest
  • The Cloud Man
  • Lifeline
  • Moby Quilt
  • Tomb of the Fathers
  • Tunnels

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• Attanasio, A. A.
  • Dominions of Irth (as by “Adam Lee”):
    • The Dark Shore
    • The Shadow Eater
    • Octoberland
  • Brave Tails
    • The Moon’s Prophecy [YA]
  • Hunting the Ghost Dancer
  • The Moon’s Wife: A Hystery
  • Solis
  • Silent (with Robert S. Henderson)
  • Centuries
  • The Conjure Book
  • Killing with the Edge of the Moon
  • Collections
    • Beast Marks 8 *
    • Twice Dead Things *

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• Auster, Paul
  (Auster also has produced some excellent fiction that is nearly but not quite “speculative” as I understand that term; it is listed elsewhere on this site, under the general heading that collects such things, “The Book on the Borderland”.)
  • Moon Palace

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• Baker, Frank
  (The tantalizingly little information generally available suggests that others of his oeuvre may well also be of interest. There is a nice web site available, Frank Baker Author. His complete fiction oeuvre is 15 novels and a story collection; how many are speculative is unknown to me. The list below is based in good part on Tartarus Press’s Baker entry of their Guide to Supernatural Fiction, and also on the ISFDB list for Baker. The titles above the linbe are definitely speculative fiction; those below are unclear to me.)
  • The Birds (possible inspiration for the Hitchcock movie, the DuMaurier story notwithstanding)
  • Sweet Chariot
  • Mr Allenby Loses the Way
  • Before I Go Hence: Fantasia on a Novel
  • The Downs So Free
  • Stories of the Strange and Sinister *

    ---

  • The Twisted Tree
  • Embers: A Winter Tale
  • Blessed Are They
  • Teresa: A Journey Out of Time

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• Ballard, J. G.
  • Elementals:
    (The first of these, The Wind from Nowhere, is not listed here since Ballard himself has disowned it as a “piece of hackwork”.)
    • The Drowned World
    • The Burning World aka The Drought
    • The Crystal World
  • Hello America

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• Barker, Clive
  (Barker has a much larger oeuvre, but most of it is “horror”, which this site does not deal in.)
  • The Books of the Art:
    • The Great and Secret Show
    • Everville
    • A third (and concluding) volume is in preparation.
  • Imajica [two-book omnibus edition]
  • The Books of Abarat [YA]:
    (Be sure to get editions with the original artwork included!)
    • Abarat
    • Days of Magic, Nights of War
    • Absolute Midnight
    • Kry Rising [forthcoming; title tentative]
    • Until the End of Time [forthcoming; title tentative]
  • Chilead [two-book omnibus edition]
  • Galilee
  • The Adventures of Mr Maximillian Bacchus and His Travelling Circus * [scarce and expensive]

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• Barrett, Neal
  (Some of these may be “mainstream” rather than speculative fiction. Also, Barrett evolved tremendously as a writer, so his earlier work is often not as impressive as his later usually is.)
  • Finn, the Master Lizard Maker [YA]:
    • The Prophecy Machine
    • The Treachery of Kings
  • Through Darkest America:
    • Through Darkest America
    • Dawn’s Uncertain Light
  • Novels:
    • Kelwin
    • The Gates of Time
    • The Leaves of Time
    • Highwood
    • Stress Pattern
    • The Karma Corps
    • Prince of Christler-Coke
  • Story Collections:
    • Day the Decorators Came *
    • Perpetuity Blues: And Other Stories *
    • A Different Vintage *
    • Way Out There *
    • Other Seasons: The Best of Neal Barrett, Jr. *

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• Beerbohm, Max
  • The Dreadful Dragon of Hay Hill [children’s]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Benson, Stella
  • Kwan-Yin [chapbook]
  • Collected Short Stories * [includes several fantasy tales]

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• Bisson, Terry
  • Novels:
    • Voyage to the Red Planet
    • Pirates of the Universe
    • The Pick-up Artist
    • Any Day Now
  • Story Collections:
    • Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories *
    • In the Upper Room and Other Likely Stories *
    • Greetings & Other Stories *
    • Numbers Don’t Lie *
    • The Left Left Behind *
    • TVA Baby and Other Stories *
  • Chapbooks:
    • Dear Abbey
    • Planet of Mystery
    • Catch ’Em in the Act
    • TVA Baby
    • The Cockroach Hat
    • Where the Lost Things Are

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• Bramah, Ernest
  • The Mirror of Kong Ho

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• Brunner, John
  (Brunner’s oeuvre is enormous and of variable quality; the four listed below are generally thought to be his best novels—but if you like them, there’s lots more where those came from.)
  • Stand on Zanzibar
  • The Shockwave Rider
  • The Sheep Look Up
  • The Jagged Orbit

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• Bryant, Edward
  (Some of these will be horror, not speculative fiction, but it’s hard to know which is what.)
  • Story Collections:
    • Among the Dead: And Other Events Leading Up to the Apocalypse *
    • Wyoming Sun *
    • Particle Theory *
    • Neon Twilight *
    • Darker Passions *
    • The Baku: Tales of the Nuclear Age *
    • Trilobyte *
    • Predators and Other Stories *
  • Chapbooks:
    • The Man of the Future
    • The Cutter
    • Fetish
    • The Thermals of August *
    • Aqua Sancta

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• Bulgakov, Mikhail
  • The Heart of a Dog and Other Stories *
  • Diaboliad: And Other Stories *

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• Cady, Jack
  (Cady’s books all tend to the supernatural, but most seem to transcend the “horror” genre.)
  Fairwood Press is in process of issuing all of Cady’s works in a uniform set, “The Jack Cady Collection”, which I recommend.
  • Novels:
    • The Well [more straight “horror” than his others]
    • McDowell’s Ghost
    • The Man Who Could Make Things Vanish
    • Dark Dreaming [as by “Pat Franklin”]
    • Embrace of the Wolf [as by “Pat Franklin”]
    • Inagehi
    • Street
    • The Off Season
    • The Hauntings of Hood Canal
  • Story Collections:
    (The “Collected Writings” series will presumably expand to one or two more volumes; they also contains some stories not collected elsewhere.)
    • The Burning and Other Stories *
    • Tattoo *
    • The Sons of Noah and Other Stories *
    • The Night We Buried Road Dog *
    • Ghosts of Yesterday *
    • Phantoms: Collected Writings, Volume 1 *
    • Fathoms: Collected Writings, Volume 2 *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Carter, Angela
  • Novels:
    • Shadow Dance aka Honeybuzzard
    • The Magic Toyshop
    • Several Perceptions
    • Heroes & Villains
    • The Passion of New Eve
  • Story Collections:
    (The volume below anthologizes all of Carter’s short stories, including some unique to it.)
    • Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories *

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• Chabon, Michael
  • The Yiddish Policemen’s Union

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Chambers, Robert W.
  • The Maker of Moons *
  • The Mystery of Choice *
  • The Tree of Heaven *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Chapman, Stepan
  • Danger Music *
  • Common Ectoids of Arizona [chapbook]
  • Life on Earth [chapbook]

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• Cherryh, C. J. (These—plus the main listings—are nowhere near all of Cherryh’s work. I have omitted much of her “Alliance-Union” set [I am not fond of books largely based on political intrigue], the entire “Foreigner” set, and the “Gene Wars” duology, and some other things; I do not thereby disparage anything omitted, but just feel that they are likely not her best work, albeit some of it quite popular work. If you want to see Cherryh’s full bibliography, it is at her entry at the ISFDB.)
  • Finisterre:
    • Rider at the Gate
    • Cloud’s Rider
  • Goblin Mirror
  • Faery in Shadow

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• Cisco, Michael
  • The Narrator
  • The Great Lover
  • Celebrant
  • Member
  • Animal Money
  • The Wretch of the Sun
  • Unlanguage
  • Do You Mind If We Dance With Your Legs? [chapbook]
  • Antisocieties *

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• Cokal, Susann
  • Exhalation *

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• Collier, John
  • Tom’s A-Cold aka Full Circle

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• Compton, D. G.
  • Katherine Mortenhoe:
    • The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe aka The Unsleeping Eye aka Death Watch
    • Windows
  • The Quality of Mercy
  • Farewell, Earth’s Bliss
  • The Silent Multitude
  • Synthajoy
  • The Palace
  • The Missionaries
  • A Usual Lunacy
  • Ascendancies
  • Deathwatch
  • Radio Plays
  • Scudder’s Game
  • Ragnarok [with John Gribbin]
  • Nomansland
  • Justice City

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• Connolly, John
  • Tom’s A-Cold aka Full Circle
  • Nocturnes:
    • Nocturnes *
    • Night Music *
  • Samuel Johnson [YA]:
    • The Gates
    • Hell’s Bells
    • The Creeps

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• Cook, Glen
  • The Heirs of Babylon
  • A Matter of Time
  • Sung in Blood
  • Starfishers:
    • Shadowline
    • Starfishers
    • Star’s End

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• Cooper, Louise
  (This is a smattering of her prodigious output; it is what reviews suggested as the most likely of her works to eventually make this site. If you try some and like them, there’s plenty more where these came from, but of what quality deponent sayeth not.)
  • Time-Master:
    (There are three other trologies set in the same world as this one; whether they are plausible candidsates is hard to tell just from reviews.)
    • The Initiate
    • The Outcast
    • The Master
  • Sacrament of Night
  • The Book of Paradox
  • The Summer Witch
  • The Spiral Garden *

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• Cooper, Susan
  • Seaward
  • King of Shadows
  • Green Boy
  • Victory

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• Crawford, F. Marion
  • Uncanny Tales *

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• Dahl, Roald
  (None of Dahl’s children’s books are likely to be less than pleasing, but how many, and which, will make the full lists is hard to say; these are the current contenders.)
  • The BFG
  • The BFG, Matilda, and George’s Marvelous Medicine
  • The Enormous Crocodile
  • Esio Trot
  • Fantastic Mr. Fox
  • George’s Marvelous Medicine
  • The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me
  • The Gremlins
  • The Magic Finger
  • Matilda
  • The Minpins
  • The Twits
  • The Vicar of Nibbleswicke
  • The Witches
  (Dahl also wrote distinctly adult work—some creepy, some sexy, all (or most) well-regarded—which I have yet to sample. Here are the contenders in that arena, though as almost all are story collections there is probably some—possibly much—overlap in contents.)
  • My Uncle Oswald
  • 5 Bestsellers *
  • Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life *
  • The Best of Roald Dahl *
  • The Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl *
  • Completely Unexpected Tales *
  • Further Tales of the Unexpected *
  • The Great Automatic Grammatizator and Other Stories *
  • Kiss Kiss *
  • Lamb to the Slaughter and Other Stories *
  • The Mildenhall Treasure *
  • More Tales of the Unexpected *
  • The Roald Dahl Omnibus *
  • Over to You *
  • Selected Stories of Roald Dahl *
  • A Roald Dahl Selection: Nine Short Stories *
  • A Second Roald Dahl Selection: Eight Short Stories *
  • Skin and Other Stories *
  • Someone Like You *
  • Switch B***h *
  • Tales of the Unexpected *
  • Tales of the Unexpected (Volume 1) *
  • Tales of the Unexpected (Volume 2) *
  • Taste and Other Tales *
  • Twenty Nine Kisses from Roald Dahl *
  • Two Fables *
  • The Umbrella Man and Other Stories *

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• Dalkey, Kara
  • Blood of the Goddess:
    • Goa
    • Bijapur
    • Bhagavati
  • Mitsuko:
    • Little Sister
    • The Heavenward Path
  • Sagamore:
    • The Curse of Sagamore
    • The Sword of Sagamore
  • Steel Rose:
    • Steel Rose
    • Crystal Sage
  • Water:
    • Ascension
    • Reunion
    • Transformation
  • The Nightingale
  • Genpei

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• Davies, Robertson
  (Caveat: it is unclear which of these is or might be speculative fiction. Substantial reading of articles about Davies and his various works does not, for me, lessen the difficulty: one reviewer refers to Davies’ work as “novels suffused with something awfully close to magic.”
  • The Salterton Trilogy
    (An omnibus containing the works individually linked below.)
    • Tempest-Tost
    • Leaven of Malice
    • A Mixture of Frailties
  • The Deptford Trilogy
    (An omnibus containing the works individually linked below.)
    • Fifth Business
    • The Manticore
    • World of Wonders
  • The Cornish Trilogy
    (An omnibus containing the works individually linked below.)
    • The Rebel Angels
    • What’s Bred in the Bone
    • The Lyre of Orpheus
  • The Toronto Trilogy
    • The Cunning Man
    • (left incomplete at Davies’ death)

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• Davies, Tod
  (She started this series with a readable book, >Snotty Saves the Day, but it remains to be seen if she carried that level into the successor books.)
  • The “History of Arcadia” Series:
    • Lily the Silent
    • The Lizard Princess
    • Report to Megalopolis

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• Davis, Kathryn
  (Davis continually walks the line between realism and fantasy, but each of these has qualities that qualify it for these lists, some more, a few less—for example, in Versailles Marie Antoinette’s ghost is summoned merely as a device to give us a fictional autobiography. But In the other books here, the fantastic is more strongly present.)
  • Duplex: A Novel
  • The Silk Road
  • Labrador
  • Walking Tour
  • Versailles

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• Dexter, Susan
  • The Calandran Tales:
    (It is unclear whether some or all of these are YA; it’s anyone’s guess so far as I can tell.)
    • Moonshine
    • The Winter King’s War Cycle:
      • The Ring of Allaire
      • The Sword of Calandra
      • The Mountains of Channadran

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• Dickinson, Peter
  (Dickinson is almost exclusively a “young adult” author. I have tried some other work by him, which is passable reading but not up to the standard I hope these main lists represent. These are the sole potential candidate yet unevaluated here.)
  • Ropemaker:
    • The Ropemaker
    • Angel Isle

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• Disch, Thomas M.
  (Disch was a prolific writer, and much praised. I suspect that most—possibly all—of the works listed below belong on the lists, but we shall see.)
  • Supernatural Minnesota:
    • The Businessman: A Tale of Terror
    • The M.D.: A Horror Story
    • The Priest: A Gothic Romance
    • The Sub: A Study in Witchcraft
  • Novels:
    • The Genocides
    • Mankind under the Leash
    • Echo Round His Bones
    • On Wings of Song
    • The Word of God: Or, Holy Writ Rewritten
    • The Brave Little Toaster: A Bedtime Story for Small Appliances [children’s; good adult reading]
  • Story Collections:
    • One Hundred and Two H-Bombs *
    • Under Compulsion *
    • White Fang Goes Dingo and Other Funny SF Stories *
    • The Right Way to Figure Plumbing *
    • 334 *
    • Getting into Death *
    • The Early Science Fiction Stories of Thomas M. Disch *
    • Fundamental Disch *
    • Burn This *
    • Orders of the Retina *
    • The Man Who Had No Idea *
    • Here I Am, There You Are, Where Were We *
    • About the Size of It *
    • The Wall of America *
    • Endzone *
    • Fun with Your New Head *
    • Fundamental Disch *

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• Dowling, Terry
  • Clowns at Midnight
  • Wormwood *
  • An Intimate Knowledge of the Night *
  • The Man Who Lost Red *
  • Antique Futures: The Best of Terry Dowling *
  • Blackwater Days *
  • Basic Black: Tales of Appropriate Fear *
  • Make Believe: A Terry Dowling Reader *
  • Amberjack: Tales of Fear and Wonder *
  • The Night Shop: Tales for the Lonely Hours *

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• Duncan, Dave
  • Pandemia:
    • A Man of His Word:
      • Magic Casement
      • Faery Lands Forlorn
      • Perilous Seas
      • Emperor and Clown
    • A Handful of Men:
      • The Cutting Edge
      • Upland Outlaws
      • The Stricken Field
      • The Living God
  • The Years of Longdirk (as by “Ken Hood”)
    • Demon Sword
    • Demon Rider
    • Demon Knight
  • The King’s Blades:
    • Tales of the King’s Blades
      • The Gilded Chain
      • Lord of the Fire Lands
      • Sky of Swords
    • Chronicles of the King’s Blades:
      • Paragon Lost
      • Impossible Odds
      • Jaguar Knights
    • The King’s Daggers [YA]):
      • Sir Stalwart
      • The Crooked House
      • Silvercloak
  • Dodec:
    • Children of Chaos
    • Mother of Lies
  • Nostradamus:
    • The Alchemist’s Apprentice
    • The Alchemist’s Code
    • The Alchemist’s Pursuit
  • Brothers Magnus:
    • Speak to the Devil
    • When the Saints
  • The Starfolk:
    • King of Swords
    • Queen of Stars
  • Ivor of Glenbroch [YA]:
    • The Runner and the Wizard
    • The Runner and the Saint
    • The Runner and the Kelpie
  • The Enchanter General:
    • Ironfoot
    • Trial by Treason
    • Merlin Redux
  • Standalone Novels:
    • A Rose-Red City
    • Shadow
    • West of January
    • Strings
    • Hero!
    • The Cursed
    • Daughter of Troy [as by “Sarah B. Franklin”]
    • Ill Met in the Arena
    • Pock’s World
    • Against the Light
    • Wildcatter
    • The Eye of Strife
    • Irona 700
    • Eocene Station
    • Portal of a Thousand Worlds
    • Pillar of Darkness

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• Ducornet, Rikki
  • The Alchemy Quartet:
    • The Stain
    • Entering Fire
    • The Fountains of Neptune
    • The Jade Cabinet

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• Duncan, Andy
  • An Agent of Utopia: New & Selected Stories *

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• Effinger, George Alec
  • Heroics
  • Budayeen:
    • The Audran Sequence
      • When Gravity Fails
      • A Fire in the Sun
      • The Exile Kiss
    • Budayeen Nights
      • The City on the Sand
      • King of the Cyber Rifles
      • Marîd and the Trail of Blood
      • Marîd Changes His Mind
      • Marîd Throws a Party
      • The Plastic Pasha
      • Slow, Slow Burn
      • Schrödinger's Kitten
      • The World as We Know It
  • Time:
    • The Nick of Time
    • The Bird of Time
  • Story Collections:
    (There will be some overlap in contents between these various collections.)
    • A Thousand Deaths *
    • Mixed Feelings *
    • Irrational Numbers *
    • Dirty Tricks *
    • Idle Pleasures *
    • The Old Funny Stuff *
    • George Alec Effinger Live! From Planet Earth *

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• Eisenstein, Phyllis
  • Alaric the Minstrel:
    • Born to Exile
    • In the Red Lord’s Reach
  • Night Lives: Nine Stories of the Dark Fantastic * [with Alex Eisenstein]

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• Fessier, Michael
  • Fully Dressed and in his Right Mind

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• Findley, Timothy
  • Not Wanted on the Voyage
  • Headhunter

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• Finney, Jack
  • The Woodrow Wilson Dime
  • Marion’s Wall

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• Ford, Jeffrey.
  • Novels:
    • Vanitas
    • The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque
    • The Cosmology of the Wider World
    • The Shadow Year
    • Ahab’s Return: or, The Last Voyage
    • Out of Body
  • Story Collections:
    • The Best of Jeffrey Ford *
    • The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant & Other Stories *
    • The Empire of Ice Cream *
    • The Drowned Life *
    • Crackpot Palace *
    • A Natural History of Hell *

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• Ford, John M.
  • Web of Angels
  • The Dragon Waiting: A Masque of History
  • The Scholars of Night
  • Fugue State
  • Growing Up Weightless
  • The Last Hot Time
  • Heat of Fusion and Other Stories *

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• Frayn, Michael
  • The Tin Men
  • A Very Private Life

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• Friesner, Esther M.
  (Friesner has a bibliography as long as your arm. Selecting, from reviews, which of her works might be as good as the few that made the main lists here is virtually impossible, so I list none here. You can examine that bibliography at her ISFDB entry.)

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• Gaiman, Neil
  • American Gods
    • Black Dog
  • Angels and Visitations: A Miscellany *
  • Coraline and Other Stories *
  • Norse Mythology *
  • On Cats & Dogs: Two Tales *
  • A Walking Tour of the Shambles (with Gene Wolfe)
  • The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains
  • Odd and the Frost Giants [children’s]
  • Fortunately, the Milk [children’s]

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• Gardner, John
  (Gardner also wrote several collections of stories aimed at children; I have not included those here, nor any of his mainstream works.)
  • In the Suicide Mountains

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• Gemmell, David
  (I have already sampled a few of the books below, and it is my feeling that Gemmell was slipping somewhat, unable to maintain the standard he set with the “Drenai” books. Possibly that is a consequence of his having had the pedal to the metal—his production rate was exceeding high. His segment of the speculative-fiction field is one that requires care and effort in the writing if it is not to quickly degenerate into generic thud-and-blunder, and I suspect he had started skimping that care; he was well entitled to write as he pleased in order to make money from his work (as did, for example, Michael Moorcock), but we as readers need to be selective in evaluating his work. Caveat emptor.…)
  • Lion of Macedon:
    • Lion of Macedon
    • Dark Prince
  • Hawk Queen:
    • The Ironhand’s Daughter
    • The Hawk Eternal
  • Rigante:
    • Sword in the Storm
    • The Midnight Falcon
    • Ravenheart
    • Stormrider
  • Troy:
    • Lord Of The Silver Bow
    • The Shield of Thunder
  • Knights of Dark Renown
  • The Lost Crown
  • Morning Star
  • White Knight, Black Swan
  • Dark Moon
  • Echoes of the Great Song

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• Gentle, Mary ***
  • Ilario
    (an omnibus containing the two novels linked separately below)
    • The Lion’s Eye
    • The Stone Golem
  • A Hawk in Silver [YA]
  • 1610: A Sundial in a Grave
  • The Black Opera
  • Cartomancy *
  • Left to His Own Devices
    (an omnibus containing the title novel plus two novelettes and a novella; all but the two novelettes also appear in The White Crow)

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• Geston, Mark S.
  • The Books of the Wars
    (an omnibus containing the three novels linked separately below)
    • Lords of the Starship
    • Out of the Mouth of the Dragon
    • The Siege of Wonder
  • Mirror to the Sky

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• Goldstein, Lisa
  • A Mask for the General
  • Tourists
  • Summer King, Winter Fool
  • Walking the Labyrinth
  • The Alchemist’s Door
  • Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon
  • Ivory Apples
  • Daughter of Exile:
    • Daughter of Exile [as by Isabel Glass]
    • The Divided Crown [as by Isabel Glass]
  • Travellers in Magic *

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• Gray, Alasdair
  • 1982, Janine
  • McGrotty and Ludmilla
  • Poor Things
  • A History Maker
  • Old Men In Love

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• Gray, Nicholas Stuart
  (As noted in the main list, Neil Gaiman has written that Gray “is one of those authors I loved as a boy who holds up even better on rereading as an adult.” Whether all of these will hold up remains to be seen.)
  • Novels:
    • Over the Hills to Fabylon [rare and expensive]
    • Down in the Cellar
    • The Seventh Swan
    • The Stone Cage
    • The Apple-Stone
    • Further Adventures of Puss in Boots [chapbook]
    • The Wardens of the Weir
    • The Garland of Filigree
    • The Sorcerer’s Apprentices [chapbook]
  • Story Collections:
    • Mainly in Moonlight *
    • The Edge of Evening *
    • A Wind from Nowhere *

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• Hansen, Eric Fosnes
  • Falcon Tower [not yet translated]
  • The Lion Woman [not yet translated]

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• Hoban, Russell
  (Hoban is maddening: he can produce works of genius and works of trash with equal facility. His biggest problem seems to be keeping a rein on his hebephrenic sense of humor. These books might all be immortal wonders or all be rubbish. One can only try them one by one. This list omits his numerous children’s books, at least some of which are—some say—readable for pleasure by adults.)
  • Fremder
  • Mr. Rinyo-Clacton’s Offer
  • Amaryllis Night and Day
  • Her Name Was Lola
  • Come Dance with Me
  • Linger Awhile
  • My Tango With Barbara Strozzi

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• Hoffman, Alice
  (Many of Hoffman’s books are mainstream; some of these might be.)
  • Practical Magic:
    • The Rules of Magic
    • Magic Lessons
  • Seventh Heaven
  • Turtle Moon
  • Second Nature
  • The River King
  • The Probable Future
  • Blackbird House
  • The Ice Queen
  • Skylight Confessions
  • The Red Garden
  • Nightbird
  • Faithful
  • The World That We Knew

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• Holdstock, Robert
  (This omits some series published under pen names.)
  • The Merlin Codex:
    • Celtika
    • The Iron Grail
    • The Broken Kings
  • Novels:
    • Eye Among the Blind
    • Legend of the Werewolf
    • Earthwind
    • The Satanists
    • Necromancer
    • The Emerald Forest
    • Death Angel
    • The Fetch aka Unknown Regions
  • Story Collections:
    • In the Valley of the Statues *
    • The Bone Forest *
    • The Ragthorn *

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• Houarner, Gerard Daniel
  (Houarner specializes in horror tales, but this seems to be an exception—somewhat of an exception, that is.)
  • In the Country of Dreaming Caravans

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• Hughes, Rhys
  (Hughes is a fantasy absurdist, so it will likely take several books read before I feel I have a reasonable handle on him: I have done only one so far.)
  • The Truth Spinner: The Complete Adventures of Castor Jenkins *
  • The Fanny Fables *
  • The Abnormalities of Stringent Strange
  • Sangria in the Sangraal: Tucked Away in Aragon *
    (The link is to the updated edition with two more stories.)
  • The Lunar Tickle *
  • The Sticky Situations of Zwicky Fingers *
  • Engelbrecht Again! *
    (Being a sequel to Maurice Richardson’s famous comedic work The Exploits of Englebrecht.)
  • Captains Stupendous or: The Fantastical Family Faraway *
  • The Honeymoon Gorillas
  • The Nostalgia That Never Was
  • Tallest Stories *
    (This and the book below are a teeny sample of Hughes’s prodigious short-story output; they are recommended by Hughes himself as good staring points.
  • Bone Idle in the Charnel House *

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• Hunt, Samantha
  • The Seas
  • Mr. Splitfoot
  • The Dark Dark: Stories *

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• Irwin, Robert
  (Irwin is a noted expert on the Orient, and has written respected non-fiction books on the topic. He also writes lush (yet crisply written) fantasy fiction with Oriental settings.)
  • The Limits of Vision
  • The Mysteries of Algiers
  • Exquisite Corpse
  • Prayer-Cushions of the Flesh
  • Satan Wants Me

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• Jackson, Shirley
  • The Sundial
  • We Have Always Lived in the Castle

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• Jerrold, Douglas #
  (In his time, Jerrold was accounted the equal of Thackery and Dickens; there is a long, interesting contemporary homage to Jerrold from the very first issue of The Atlantic Monthly magazine available online. He wrote more novels than just the two listed below, but whether any of the others constitute speculative fiction I don’t know yet.)
  • A Man Made of Money and The Chronicles of Clovernook
    (an omnibus of the two books linked separately below)
    • A Man Made of Money
    • The Chronicles of Clovernook

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• Jeter, K. W. **
  (Jeter has written a lot of books, but they are almost all pure horror works; thosae below seem to be the exceptions.)
  • Infernal Devices
    • Fiendish Schemes
    • Grim Expectations
  • Noir

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• Jones, Diana Wynne
  (This is just a smattering of her dozen and a half os so novels; one hopes they are some of the more nearly adult samples.)
  • Archer’s Goon
  • The Homeward Bounders
  • Fire and Hemlock

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• Joyce, Graham
  (Joyce’s adult fiction is top-notch, and I am sure that all of the adult novels below will wind up on the list; but I have not sampled any of his young-adult works.)
  • Dreamside
  • Dark Sister
  • House of Lost Dreams
  • The Tooth Fairy
  • The Stormwatcher
  • The Web: Spiderbite [YA]
  • Indigo
  • Smoking Poppy
  • Partial Eclipse and Other Stories *
  • The Limits of Enchantment
  • TWOC [YA]
  • Do the Creepy Thing [YA]
  • Three Ways to Snog an Alien [YA]
  • The Devil’s Ladder [YA]
  • The Silent Land

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• Karr, Phyllis Ann
  • Frostflower:
    • Frostflower and Thorn
    • Frostflower and Windbourne
  • The Follies of Sir Harald
  • The Gallows in the Greenwood

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• King, Stephen
  (King’s work is, first off, hard to segregate as between fantasy and horror—see this Salon ezine article [archived] on one of his books. Second, but almost as important, while King at his best is the right stuff, in his later years his reputation was so huge that—by common report—he evaded some very, very badly needed editing. The “Dark Tower” series I started and gave up on, in doing which I am, I believe, scarcely alone.)
  • Territories:
    • The Talisman [with Peter Staub]
    • The Black House [with Peter Staub]

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• Kotzwinkle, William
  (Kotzwinkle has written numerous popular children’s books (with titles like Walter the Farting Dog) and—apparently with very bad results—“novelizations” of some major movie scripts (such as E.T.), as well as a good number of adult novels, many fantastical (and commonly described as satirical); he is a two-time winner of the National Magazine Award for Fiction and a winner of the World Fantasy Award. His fiction seems—by report, anyway—variable in quality, so I do not yet add the items below to his main list. These may not all be speculative fiction; and, conversely, may not include all of his speculative fiction—there seem no convenient lists.)
  • Novels:
    • Hermes 3000
    • Doctor Rat
    • Seduction in Berlin
    • Herr Nightingale and the Satin Woman
    • Jack in the Box
    • Christmas at Fontaine’s
    • Great World Circus
    • Nightbook
    • The Game of Thirty
    • The Bear Went Over the Mountain
    • The Amphora Project
  • Story Collections:
    • Elephant Bangs Train
    • Trouble in Bugland
    • Jewel of the Moon
    • Hearts of Wood and Other Timeless Tales
    • The Hot Jazz Trio
    • Tales from the Empty Notebook

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• Le Guin, Ursula K.
  (Ursula K. Le Guin—I guess the initial is to distinguish her from all the other Ursula Le Guins who write—is famous, or notorious, in speculative-fiction circles for maddening inconsistency, to the extent that the clever phrase “good Ursula, bad Ursula” [coined by Doug Muir] has acquired considerable currency. “Bad Ursula” shows up when Le Guin lets her do-good impulses over-ride her writerly ones, and produces a tract rather than a story. She truly is the little girl with the curl: “When she was good / She was very good indeed / But when she was bad she was horrid.” — H. W. Longfellow. The list below, wwhich is just a scattershot sampling from her huge bibliography, doubtless includes samples of both Ursulas.)
  • The Dispossessed
  • The Lathe of Heaven
  • The Wind’s Twelve Quarters *
  • Buffalo Gals *
  • A Fisherman of the Inland Sea *
  • Four Ways to Forgiveness *
  • The Birthday of the World *

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• Lee, Tanith
  (The contents of the various listed story collections probably overlap a fair bit. There is available a complete online bibliography of her work that is an absolute model of how to do a useful online bibliography.)
  • Eva Fairdeath
  • Companions On The Road and The Winter Players: Two Novellas
  • Day By Night
  • Sometimes, After Sunset [2 novellas]
  • Sung In Shadow
  • Tamastara, Or, The Indian Nights
  • The Gorgon And Other Beastly Tales
  • Dreams Of Dark And Light: The Great Short Fiction Of Tanith Lee *
  • A Heroine Of The World
  • Forests Of The Night *
  • The Blood Of Roses
  • Reigning Cats And Dogs
  • Vivia
  • When The Lights Go Out
  • White As Snow
  • Mortal Suns
  • Lionwolf:
    • Cast A Bright Shadow
    • Here In Cold Hell
    • No Flame But Mine

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• Lewis, C. S.
  • Till We Have Faces

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• Lightman, Alan
  • Reunion
  • Ghost
  • Mr g: A Novel About the Creation

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• Lindholm, Megan
  • Cloven Hooves
  • Alien Earth
  • The Gypsy [with Steven Brust]
  • Ki and Vandien:
    • Harpy’s Flight
    • The Windsingers
    • The Limbreth Gate
    • Luck of the Wheels
  • Tillu and Kerlew:
    (These are perhaps only marginally speculative fiction, as opposed to historical fiction.)
    • The Reindeer People
    • Wolf’s Brother

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• Lindsay, David
  (Lindsay’s lesser works, after Voyage to Arcturus, share the same vices and virtues—powerful ideas and grand visions struggling to escape from pedestrian prose—but the balance is, by general report, not as favorable in these; nonetheless, they have their articulate defenders, and are worth at least trying.)
  • The Haunted Woman
  • Sphinx
  • Adventures of Monsieur de Mailly aka A Blade for Sale
    (Perhaps not very “fantastic”.)
  • The Violet Apple
  • Devil’s Tor
  • The Witch

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• Lively, Penelope
  (Lively—quite a name for a writer—has a prodigious output of fiction, including both books for adults and for children; she has seven different literary awards to her name, with some in both areas. Regrettably, none of her explicitly adult fiction seems—so far as I can tell—to be speculative. Curiously, a good deal of her children’s work apparently is; but it also seems that much of her children’s work is for very young children, and so below the level which even a wise adult might find pleasing. I have nonetheless listed books here without trying to definitely make an age-based cutoff, because one doesn’t know all that much from short reviews. All in all, this woman can write.)
  • A Stitch in Time
  • Astercote
  • The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy
  • The Ghost of Thomas Kempe
  • The Voyage of QV66
  • The Cat, the Crow and the Banyan Tree
  • The Whispering Knights
  • The Revenge of Samuel Stokes
  • Good Night, Sleep Tight
  • Uninvited Ghosts and Other Stories
  • Debbie and the Little Devil
  • Judy and the Martian
  • A Martian Comes to Stay

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• Lupoff, Richard
  (Lupoff writes wildly diverse material, much of it humorous or even sarcastic. What quality level is present in the works below is impossible to guess, but when he sets himself to it, he can be impressive.)
  • Sacred Locomotive Flies
  • Into the Aether
  • The Crack in the Sky aka Fool’s Hill
  • Sandworld
  • Lisa Kane
  • Space War Blues
  • Lovecraft’s Book
  • The Forever City
  • The Adventures of Professor Thintwhistle and His Incredible Aether Flyer [with Steve Stiles]
  • Claremont Tales *
  • Claremont Tales II *

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• Lustbader, Eric Van
  • The Pearl Saga:
    • The Ring of Five Dragons
    • The Veil of a Thousand Tears
    • The Cage of Nine Banestones aka Mistress of the Pearl

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• MacAvoy, R. A.
  • Death and Resurrection

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• Mark, Jan
  • Divide and Rule [YA]
  • Aquarius [YA]
  • Riding Tycho [YA]:
    • Riding Tycho
    • Voyager
  • The Eclipse Of The Century

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• Marks, Laurie J.
  • The Watcher’s Mask

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• Mayhar, Ardath
  (She has a vast output of books; I list here only those few in a series some parts of which are on the main list, which is not to disparage by implication any of the others.)
  • Tales of the Triple Moons
    • Warlock’s Gift
    • Lords of the Triple Moons

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• McDonald, Ian
  (McDonald is another author with a long, long bibliography; these are just a few random picks for further exploration of his oeuvre.)
  • Evolution’s Shore aka Chaga
  • Terminal Cafe aka Necroville
  • River of Gods

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• McIntyre, Vonda N.
  (This is just a sampling of her other works.)
  • Fireflood & Other Stories *
  • Starfarers:
    • Starfarers
    • Transition
    • Metaphase
    • Nautilus

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• McKiernan, Dennis
  • Mithgar:
    • Tales of Mithgar *
    • Red Slippers: More Tales of Mithgar *
    • Dragondoom
    • The Eye of the Hunter
    • Voyage of the Fox Rider
    • City of Jade
    • Stolen Crown
    • Hel’s Crucible
      (a two-novel omnibus containing the novels listed below)
      • Into the Forge
      • Into the Fire
  • Once Upon:
    • Once Upon a Winter’s Night
    • Once Upon a Summer Day
    • Once Upon an Autumn Eve
    • Once Upon a Spring Morn
    • Once Upon a Dreadful Time

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• McKillip, Patricia
  • The House on Parchment Street
  • The Night Gift
  • Stepping From the Shadows
  • Moon Flash
  • The Moon and the Face
  • Fool’s Run
  • Something Rich And Strange

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• McKinley, Robin
  • A Knot in the Grain and Other Stories *

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• Millet, Lydia
  • Mermaids in Paradise

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• Mills, Magnus
  • Tales Of Muffled Oars

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• Mitchell, David
  • Horologists:
    • The Bone Clocks
    • Slade House
    • Utopia Avenue

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• Modesitt, L. E.
  (I have in fact read some of the works listed below—but I can’t remember just which, so little did each leave with me. Modesitt can pretty well be counted on to be readable, but it is as Nero Wolfe’s cook, Fritz Brenner, said of a certain dinner: Mangeable, mais pas mémorable. Well, just in case, here is Modesitt’s considerable output; I shouldn’t list so much from one author, but by the time I realized that, the list was done, so why waste it?.)
  • The Corean Chronicles:
    • Legacies
    • Darkness
    • Scepters
    • Alector’s Choice
    • Cadmian’s Choice
    • Soarer’s Choice
  • Johan Eschbach:
    • Of Tangible Ghosts
    • The Ghost of the Revelator
    • Ghost of the White Nights
  • Recluce:
    • The Magic of Recluce
    • The Towers of Sunset
    • The Magic Engineer
    • The Order War
    • The Death of Chaos
    • The Fall of Angels
    • The Chaos Balance
    • The White Order
    • Colors of Chaos
    • Magi’i of Cyador
    • Scion of Cyador
    • Wellspring of Chaos
    • Ordermaster
  • Spellsong Cycle:
    • The Soprano Sorceress
    • The Spellsong War
    • Darksong Rising
    • The Shadow Sorceress
    • Shadowsinger
  • The Ecolitan Institute:
    • The Ecologic Envoy
    • The Ecolitan Operation
    • The Ecologic Secession
    • The Ecolitan Enigma
  • The Forever Hero:
    • Dawn for a Distant Earth
    • The Silent Warrior
    • In Endless Twilight
  • Parafaith Universe:
    • The Parafaith War
    • The Ethos Effect
  • Timegod’s World:
    • The Fires of Paratime aka The Timegod
    • Timediver’s Dawn
  • Archform:
    • Archform: Beauty
    • Flash
  • Gravity Dreams
  • The Octagonal Raven
  • The Eternity Artifact
  • The Green Progression [with Bruce Scott Levinson]

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• Moers, Walter
  (Some of Moers works await translation into English. With his current surge in popularity, they will probably be forthcoming before long.)
  • Zamonia:
    • Ensel und Krete [not yet translated]
    • Princess Insomnia and the Nightmare-Colored Nightmare [not yet translated]

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• Monaco, Richard
  • Leitus:
    • Runes
    • Broken Stone
  • Journey to the Flame
  • Unto the Beast

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• Nathan, Robert
  (Nathan is not much remembered today, save perhaps for Portrait of Jenny, and he is especially conspicuous by his absence from most lists of speculative-fiction writers—despite which (as with Portrait) he regularly used fantastic elements in his work. Perhaps it is that today we do not much value light, pastel-toned tales: which is a shame, and arguably an indictment of our times, and us. Trying to pick out which of Nathan’s many books have a fantastical element was much eased by the fine capsule summaries at The Robert Nathan Library (but beware spoilers!).
  • The Puppet Master
  • Jonah:
    • Jonah
    • Jezebel’s Husband
  • The Woodcutter’s House
  • Profesor Wutheridge:
    • The Bishop’s Wife
    • There is Another Heaven
  • Tapiola [children’s]:
    • Journey of Tapiola
    • Tapiola’s Brave Regiment
  • But Gently Day
  • The River Journey
  • The Married Look
  • The Innocent Eve
  • The Train in the Meadow
  • The Rancho of the Little Loves
  • So Love Returns
  • The Snowflake and the Starfish [children’s]
  • The Weans
  • The Wilderness-Stone
  • The Devil With Love
  • The Mallott Diaries
  • Stonecliff
  • Mia
  • The Elixir
  • The Summer Meadows
  • Heaven and Hell and the Megas Factor

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• Nesbit, E.
  • Arden Family:
    • The House of Arden
    • Harding’s Luck
  • The Wonderful Garden
  • The Magic World *
  • Fairy Stories *

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• Nichols, Ruth
  (Nichols’ works are all YA.)
  • A Walk Out of the World
  • The Marrow of the World
  • The Left-Handed Spirit
  • The Burning of the Rose

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• Norwood, Warren
  • Time Police (co-written by Mel Odom):
    (A fourth novel in this series, Refugee, exists in unedited manuscript, but was never published.)
    • Vanished
    • Trapped!
    • Stranded
  • The Double-Spiral War:
    • Midway Between
    • Polar Fleet
    • Final Command
  • The Seren Cenacles [with Ralph Mylius]
  • Shudderchild
  • True Jaguar

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• Offutt, Andrew
  (Offutt wrote with no great pretensions, and though one of his series managed to make the lists—barely—most of the rest of his output seems, from a brief sampling of reviews, inappropriate for this site. Nonetheless, I list a few that the adventuresome might venture. Obviously, I have eliminated all his sf-pornographic and other junk works—all written under pseudonyms.)
  • War of the Wizards (co-written with Richard K. Lyon):
    • The Demon in the Mirror [with Richard K. Lyon]
    • The Eye of Sarsis [with Richard K. Lyon]
    • Web of the Spider [with Richard K. Lyon]
  • Standalone Novels:
    • The Castle Keeps
    • Deathknight

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• Ore, Rebecca
  (This is not all of her other works, just what seemed most likely.)
  • The Illegal Rebirth of Billy the Kid
  • Gaia’s Toys
  • Time’s Child

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• Ozick, Cynthia
  • The Pagan Rabbi and Other Stories *
  • Levitation: Five Fictions *

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• Palmer, Thomas
  • The Transfer

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• Park, Paul
  • Celestis aka Celestis
  • All Those Vanished Engines
  • The Roumainian Quartet:
    • A Princess of Roumania
    • The Tourmaline
    • The White Tyger
    • The Hidden World
  • If Lions Could Speak *
  • Other Stories *
  • A City Made of Words plus Climate Change plus A Resistance to Theory and Much More *

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• Pierce, Meredith Ann
  • The Woman Who Loved Reindeer

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• Pinkwater, Daniel
  (Pinkwater’s books are nominally not even “young adult” but actually “children’s books”; well, so were Alice and Looking-Glass. Pinkwater is a serious danger to the health, in that one could asphyxiate from laughter reading his stuff. He is prolific, but most of his better work of the sort that belongs on this site has been collected in omnibus editions, the remaining unlisted one of which is listed below.)
  • Young Adults

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• Piserchia, Doris
  • Blood County [as by “Curt Selby”]
  • I, Zombie [as by “Curt Selby”]

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• Powers, Tim
  (These are very early works by Powers, and so are listed here rather than being automatically included unread in the main lists.)
  • The Skies Discrowned aka Forsake the Sky
  • An Epitaph in Rust aka Epitaph in Rust

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• Priest, Christopher
  • Fugue For a Darkening Island
  • Real-Time World *
  • The Space Machine
  • A Dream of Wessex
  • An Infinite Summer *
  • The Affirmation
  • The Glamour
  • The Quiet Woman
  • The Extremes
  • “The Dream Archipelago”:
    • The Dream Archipelago *
    • The Separation
    • The Islanders *

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• Resnick, Mike
  (Resnick’s output is almost comically copious. He is definitely offbeat, and I for one would need to see a lot more before reaching a definite overall-worth conclusion. I have already read a few of the things listed here, but so long ago now that I need to repeat them. Owing to that copiousness, the list below is just a sampler, mostly omnibuses: for his full bibliography, click the preceding link.)
  • Mike Resnick’s The Galactic Comedy [omnibus]
  • Masters of the Galaxy * (The Jake Masters stories)
  • The Complete Tales of the Galactic Midway [omnibus]
  • The Complete Tales of the Velvet Comet [omnibus]
  • Widowmakers [omnibus]
  • Kirinyaga * (The Kirinyaga stories)

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• Roberts, Keith
  (Roberts is a heavyweight writer, and I suspect that most or all of these will make the list. Still, when some works of a given writer remain immensely popular while others are almost utterly neglected, I want to make sure.)
  • Kiteworld
  • Machines and Men *
  • The Grain Kings *
  • Gráinne
  • The Inner Wheel
  • Anita *
  • Ladies from Hell *
  • The Lordly Ones *
  • Molly Zero

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• Ruff, Matt
  • The Mirage
  • Lovecraft Country
  • 88 Names

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• Rushdie, Salman
  (Rushdie’s reputation is not a guarantee: his fantasy Grimus was one of the worst books trees ever died for. But let’s see.)
  • Midnight’s Children
  • The Satanic Verses
  • The Ground Beneath Her Feet
  • The Enchantress of Florence
  • Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights

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• Russell, Sean
  • Initiate Brother
    (an omnibus of the two novels linked separately below)
    • The Initiate Brother
    • Gatherer of Clouds

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• Ryman, Geoff
  • The Warrior Who Carried Life
  • The Child Garden
  • Lust: or No Harm Done
  • Air: Or, Have Not Have
  • Paradise Tales *

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• Salmonson, Jessica Amanda
  • Novels:
    • The Swordswoman
    • Anthony Shriek, His Doleful Adventures; or, Lovers of Another Realm
  • Story Collections:
    (Some of these are rare—because issued in limited numbers—and thus expensive.)
    • Tragedy of the Moisty Morning *
    • The Complete Weird Epistles of Penelope Pettiweather, Ghost Hunter *
    • On the Shores of Eternity *
    • Feigned Death & Other Sorceries *
    • Hag’s Tapestry *
    • A Siver Thread of Madness *
    • The Ghost Garden *
    • John Collier & Fredric Brown Went Quarreling Through My Head *
    • Harmless Ghosts *
    • Mystic Women: Their Ancient Tales and Legends, Recounted by a Woman Inmate of the Calcutta Insane Asylum, with Notes and Commentaries *
    • The Goddess Under Siege *
    • The Mysterious Doom & Other Ghostly Tales of the Pacific Northwest *
    • The Eleventh Jaguarundi & Other Mysterious Persons *
    • The Dark Tales *
    • The Deep Museum: Ghost Stories of a Melancholic *
    • Daisy Zoo and Other Punk-Ass Nonsense *

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• Scarborough, Elizabeth
  • Song of Sorcery
    (This is available with its sequel, The Unicorn Creed, which is in the main lists, in a two-book omnibus Songs from the Seashell Archives Volume 1.)
  • The Healer’s War

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• Shea, Michael
  • In Yana, the Touch of Undying
  • A Quest for Simbilis (Set in Jack Vance’s “Dying Earth” world.)
  • Polyphemus *
  • The Autopsy and Other Tales *
    (A huge collection—including the above collection and lots more—but quite rare and thus now quite expensive.)

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• Shepard, Lucius
  (This is effectively a Shepard bibliography, because it is quite likely that most or all of it will qualify for the main lists.)
  • Griaule:
    • The Dragon Griaule *
    • Beautiful Blood
  • Novels:
    • Green Eyes
    • Life During Wartime
    • The Golden
    • Valentine
    • Colonel Rutherford’s Colt
    • Louisiana Breakdown
    • Floater
    • Viator
    • Trujillo
    • A Handbook of American Prayer
    • Softspoken
  • Story Collections:
    • The Jaguar Hunter *
    • Nantucket Slayrides: Three Short Novels * [with Robert Frazier]
    • The Ends of the Earth *
    • Sports & Music *
    • Barnacle Bill the Spacer and Other Stories * aka Beast of the Heartland and Other Stories
    • Trujillo * aka Trujillo and Other Stories
    • Two Trains Running *
    • Eternity and Other Stories *
    • Dagger Key and Other Stories *
    • The Best of Lucius Shepard *
    • Skull City and Other Lost Tales *
    • Vacancy & Ariel *
    • Viator Plus *
    • Five Autobiographies and a Fiction *

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• Sherman, Delia
  (She also has several YA books that might be of interest.)
  • Young Woman in a Garden *
  • The Fall of The Kings (co-authored with Ellen Kushner: set in Kushner’s Swordspoint world)

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• Shetterly, Will
  • Dogland:
    • Dogland
    • The Gospel of the Knife
  • Cats:
    • The Tangled Lands

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• Silverberg, Robert
  (Silverberg is one of the Old Hands at the science-fiction game. He is generally held in high repute; while I think he is a decent writer who occasionally rises to something better than just “good”, I also think he is—in common with many writers who first made their names forty and fifty years ago, when the overall standard of quality was awful—somewhat over-rated, as I have put it elsewhere, one deemed a giant because he walked among pygmies. Even extracting just the nontrivial novels from his awesomely prolific bibliography leaves the long list below, all of which are at least worth an examination. (I’ve read several of these, but ages ago, so I do not deem my thin recollections sufficient to rate them now.)
  • Thorns
  • The Time Hoppers
  • To Open the Sky
  • The Man in the Maze
  • The Masks of Time
  • Downward to the Earth
  • To Live Again
  • Up the Line
  • Hawksbill Station
  • Tower of Glass
  • The Second Trip
  • The World Inside
  • A Time of Changes
  • The Book of Skulls
  • Dying Inside
  • The Stochastic Man
  • Shadrach in the Furnace
  • Homefaring
  • Gilgamesh the King
  • Sailing to Byzantium
  • Tom O’Bedlam
  • Project Pendulum
  • At Winter’s End
  • The Queen of Springtime [sequel to At Winter’s End]
  • To the Land of the Living
  • The Face of the Waters
  • Kingdoms of the Wall
  • Hot Sky at Midnight
  • Starborne
  • The Alien Years
  • The Longest Way Home
  • Roma Eterna

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• Simak, Clifford
  (Simak is not a millennial author, but his best is good; unfortunately, that means his less-than-best is only fair, sometimes worse. The books on this huge laundry list will just have to be evaluated one by one.)
  • Empire
  • Time and Again aka First He Died
  • City
  • Ring Around the Sun
  • Time is the Simplest Thing
  • The Trouble With Tycho
  • They Walked Like Men
  • All Flesh Is Grass
  • Why Call them Back From Heaven?
  • The Werewolf Principle
  • The Goblin Reservation
  • Out of Their Minds
  • Destiny Doll
  • A Choice of Gods
  • Cemetery World
  • Our Children’s Children
  • Enchanted Pilgrimage
  • Shakespeare’s Planet
  • A Heritage of Stars
  • The Fellowship of the Talisman
  • Mastodonia aka Catface
  • The Visitors
  • Project Pope
  • Where the Evil Dwells
  • Special Deliverance
  • Strangers in the Universe * [early 11-story edition]
  • The Worlds of Clifford Simak *
  • Aliens for Neighbours * aka The Worlds of Clifford Simak *
  • All the Traps of Earth and Other Stories * [early 9-story edition]
  • Worlds Without End *
  • Best Science Fiction Stories of Clifford Simak *
  • So Bright the Vision *
  • The Best of Clifford D. Simak *
  • Skirmish: The Great Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak *
  • Brother And Other Stories *
  • The Marathon Photograph and Other Stories *
  • Off-Planet *
  • The Autumn Land and Other Stories *
  • Immigrant and Other Stories *
  • The Creator and Other Stories *
  • Over the River and Through the Woods: The Best Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak *
  • The Civilisation Game and Other Stories *

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• Smith, Thorne
  • The Bishop’s Jaegers
  • Skin and Bones
  • Lazy Bear Lane [children’s book]

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• Snyder, Midori
  • The Queens’ Quarter aka Oran:
    • New Moon
    • Sadar’s Keep
    • Beldan’s Fire
  • The Flight of Michael McBride
  • Soulstring

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• Sucharitkul, Somtow
  (Sucharitkul has also written under the pen name of S. P. Somtow.)
  (Sucharitkul is capable of good to excellent work, but also of not-so-good work. I do wish contemporary authors would recover from their acute vampirrhea, fantasy’s answer to the hula hoop and the pet rock. This is far from all his work—just a smattering of what looks plausible.)
  • Riverrun
    • Riverrun
    • Forest of the Night
    • Yestern
  • Chronicles of the High Inquest
    • Homeworld of the Heart
  • The Ultimate, Ultimate, Ultimate Mallworld *
  • Alien Heresies *

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• Spinrad, Norman
  (When he forgets to keep telling us, with sledgehammer subtlety, how great sex and drugs are, and how screwed power structures are, he actually writes surpassing well; but he rarely forgets. Here are a few possibilities from his large oeuvre.)
  • The Star-Spangled Future *
  • The Iron Dream
    (A weird and controversial book!)

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• Starrett, Vincent
  • Coffins for Two *
  • The Quick and the Dead *
  • The Great All-Star Animal League Ball Game
    [for children, but possibly of amusement for adults]

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• Stewart, Sean
  • Magic Returned:
    • The Night Watch
  • Mockingbird

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• Stockton, Frank R.
  • Novels:
    • The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander
      (The premise—immortality—is interesting, but whether Stockton is up to it I don’t know.)
  • Story Collections:
    (Stockton produced a great many collections of stories aimed at children, but also some aimed an an adult readership. Listed below are those tht seem to be in that category.)
    • Amos Kilbright: His Adscititious Experiences with Other Stories *
    • A Borrowed Month and Other Stories *
    • The Watchmaker’s Wife and Other Stories *
    • A Story-Teller’s Pack *
    • The Science Fiction of Frank R. Stockton *

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• Stoddard, James **
  • The Animonean Chronicles:
    • The Back of the Beyond

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• Tepper, Sheri S.
  (Tepper reminds me in some ways of Ursula Le Guin: I’m surprised no one has yet referred to “good Sheri, bad Sheri”.)
  • Six Moon Dance

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• Theroux, Paul
  • A Christmas Card

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• Thurber, James
  (Thurber, the urbane writer and cartoonist of New Yorker fame, also wrote some children’s books that seem to receive unanimous praise. Neil Gaiman has, probably whimsically, called The Thirteen Clocks “probably the best book in the world”.)
  • The Thirteen Clocks

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• Travers, P. L.
  (These two are outliers to the Mary Poppins saga: one teaches the alphabet with appropriate Mary Poppins vignettes, the other teaches cooking basics with an associated short Mary Poppins story. They might be of interest to completists.)
  • Mary Poppins From A to Z
  • Mary Poppins in the Kitchen

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• Wells, Martha
  • Ile-Rien:
    • Between Worlds: The Collected Ile-Rien and Cineth Stories *
    • The Fall of Ile-Rien:
      • The Gate of Gods

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• White, E. B.
  • Three Beloved Classics by E. B. White
    (White wrote three classic “children’s books”, all of which are readable for pleasure by adults; this omnibus includes all three, which are nonetheless linked separately below, save Stuart Little, which is already in the main lists.)
    • Charlotte’s Web
    • The Trumpet of the Swan
    • Stuart Little

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• White, T. H.
  • The Maharajah and Other Stories *
  • Earth Stopped:
    • Earth Stopped: or Mr. Marx’s Sporting Tour
    • Gone to Ground

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• Whitehead, Colson
  • Zone One

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• Wilhelm, Kate
  (Kate Wilhelm is one of the long-established writers of above-average—many would say well above—speculative fiction. But it has been decades since I last read any of her work, and I can no longer recall it well, and so will have to dive in again to see if it is as good as virtually everyone says. Meanwhile, here is all of her huge speculative-fiction oeuvre not yet in the main list—all because after hours of scanning reviews, I could find no excuse for omitting anything here.)
  • Novels:
    • The Clone [with Theodore L. Thomas]
    • The Nevermore Affair
    • Let the Fire Fall
    • The Year of the Cloud [with Theodore L. Thomas]
    • Margaret and I
    • City of Cain
    • The Clewiston Test
    • Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang
    • Juniper Time
    • A Sense of Shadow
    • Oh, Susannah!
    • Welcome, Chaos
    • Huysman’s Pets
    • Crazy Time
    • Justice for Some
    • The Good Children
    • Skeletons
  • Story Collections:
    • The Mile-Long Spaceship aka Andover and the Android
    • The Downstairs Room and Other Speculative Fiction *
    • Abyss *
    • The Infinity Box *
    • Somerset Dreams and Other Fictions *
    • Listen, Listen *
    • Better Than One * [with Damon Knight]
    • Children of the Wind *
    • State of Grace *
    • And the Angels Sing *
    • Kate Wilhelm in Orbit, Volume One *
    • Masters of Science Fiction: Kate Wilhelm *
      (In two volumes sold as a set: now rare and expensive.)

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• Williams, Michael
  • City Quartet
    • Trajan’s Arch
    • Vine: An Urban Legend
    • Dominic's Ghosts
    • Tattered Men
  • From Thief to King
    • A Sorcerer’s Apprentice
    • A Forest Lord
    • The Balance of Power
  • Tales with a Twist *

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• Williams, Tad
  (There is some overlap in these collections’ contents.)
  • Rite: Short Work *
  • A Stark and Wormy Knight *
  • The Very Best of Tad Williams *

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• Williams, Walter Jon
  (Some writers are just much better at humor than solemnity, and I reckon Williams is one such.)
  • Quillifer:
    (This appears to be an ongoing series, with more books expected.)
    • Quillifer
    • Quillifer the Knight

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• Wolf, Gary K.
  • The Resurrectionist
  • The Late Great Show!
  • Typical Day
  • The Road to Toontown! *

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• Wyndham, John
  • Novels:
    • The Day of the Triffids
    • The Chrysalids
    • The Midwich Cuckoos
    • Trouble with Lichen
    • Chocky
  • Story Collections:
    (This is just a sample—representative, one hopes—of his short-story collections.)
    • Jizzle *
    • The Seeds of Time *
    • Consider Her Ways and Others *
    • The Best of John Wyndham aka The Man from Beyond and Other Stories *

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• Zindell, David
  • Shanidar and Other Stories *

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