An Owlcroft Company
web site.

 Click to 
email us.

If you like this site,
please post a link to it!

Great Science-Fiction & Fantasy Works

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

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

You have apparently come to this page from a link on a search engine or another site. If this is your first visit here, I much recommend that you take a few minutes to look over the introductory material accessible via the red “Introductory” navigation block just below the pictures. An understanding of the purposes and principles of organization of this site will, I hope and believe, much augment your experience here, for this page and in general. You can simply click this link to get at the site front page, which, unsurprisingly, is the best place to start. Thank you for visiting.

Search, or just roll your cursor over the colored boxes farther below.

(Google Searchbox will appear here.)

Click the “X” above to dismiss the Search results.

You are here:  Home  »  Authors  »  Candidate Books ( = this page)

Site navigation: place your cursor over a block below to see the pages list for that block.

“‘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.)

Return to the page top. ↑

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 Ackroyd’s many novels contain material that would justify their inclusion as “speculative fiction”; the list below are those that seem likeliest—about half his novels.)
  • The Great Fire of London
  • Hawksmoor
  • English Music
  • The House of Dr. Dee
  • Milton in America
  • The Plato Papers
  • The Fall of Troy
  • The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein
  • English Music
  • Mr Cadmus

  Return to the page top. ↑

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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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 *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Amis, Kingsley
  • Novels:
    • The Anti-Death League [this may or may not qualify as speculative fiction]
    • The Alteration
    • Russian Hide-and-Seek
  • Story Collections:
    (This is not an exhaustive list, nor are the collections necessarily all speculative stories, but each does include at least some.)
    • Collected Short Stories *
    • Complete Stories *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Amis, Martin
  • Einstein’s Monsters *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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
  • Killing with the Edge of the Moon
  • The Conjure Book
  • Collections
    • Beast Marks *
    • Twice Dead Things *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Baker, Frank
  (The tantalizingly little information generally available suggests that a fair bit of his oeuvre may well be of interest. His complete fiction oeuvre is 15 novels and a story collection; how many are speculative is difficult to ascertain, as several are virtually invisible on the web. 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 [which I think somewhat less reliable].)
  • Speculative:
    • 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 *
  • Speculative Nature Unknown (to me):
    • The Twisted Tree
    • Full Score aka Allanayr
    • Embers: A Winter Tale
    • Talk of the Devil
    • Teresa: A Journey Out of Time

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Barrett, Neal
  • Through Darkest America:
    • Through Darkest America
    • Dawn’s Uncertain Light
  • Finn, the Master Lizard Maker [YA]:
    • The Prophecy Machine
    • The Treachery of Kings
  • Novels:
    • Prince of Christler-Coke
  • Story Collections:
    (Some of these collected stories may be “mainstream” rather than speculative fiction.)
    • A Different Vintage *
    • Way Out There *
    • Other Seasons: The Best of Neal Barrett, Jr. *

  Return to the page top. ↑

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

  Return to the page top. ↑

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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Bramah, Ernest
  • The Mirror of Kong Ho

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Bryant, Edward
  (Some of these will be horror, not speculative fiction, but it’s hard to know which is what; generally, the later the book—the list is in chronloogical order—the more likely it is that the stories in it are horror.)
  Note: as of 15 March 2021, we read: “Arkham House is presently preparing a huge retrospective of four decades of his work.”
  • 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

  Return to the page top. ↑

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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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. ↑

• Carrington, Leonora
  • The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington *
    (This cheats a little by omitting two novellas, Little Francis, & The Stone Door. Are not novellas “stories”?)
  • The Milk of Dreams * [nominally children’s stories, not included in the collection above]

  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 *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Chabon, Michael
  • The Yiddish Policemen’s Union [more alternate history than sf/fantasy]

  Return to the page top. ↑

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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Chapman, Stepan
  (Sad to say, each of these works by Chapman is now rare to the vanishing point; sorry.)
  • Danger Music *
  • Common Ectoids of Arizona [chapbook]
  • Life on Earth [chapbook]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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 *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Cokal, Susann
  • The Kingdom of Little Wounds [YA]
  • Mermaid Moon [YA]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Collier, John
  • His Monkey Wife: or Married to a Chimp
  • No Traveller Returns [chapbook]
  • Tom’s A-Cold aka Full Circle

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Collodi, Carlo
  • The Adventures of Pipì the Pink Monkey [translated and “expanded” by Alessandro Gallenzi]

  Return to the page top. ↑

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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Connolly, John
  • Nocturnes:
    • Nocturnes *
    • Night Music: Nocturnes Volume 2 *
  • Samuel Johnson vs the Darkness: a Trilogy [YA]:
    (an omnibus comprising the three novels listed separately below)
    • The Gates
    • Hell’s Bells aka The Infernals
    • The Creeps
  • The Chronicles of the Invaders [YA]:
    (co-authored with Jennifer Ridyard)
    • Conquest
    • Empire
    • Dominion

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Cook, Glen
  • The Heirs of Babylon
  • Star Fishers:
    • The Starfishers Trilogy
      (This is an omnibus comprising the three books linked individually below.)
      • Shadowline
      • Starfishers
      • Star’s End
    • Passage at Arms
  • A Matter of Time
  • The Darkwar Trilogy
    (This is an omnibus comprising the three books linked individually below.)
    • Doomstalker
    • Warlock
    • Ceremony
  • Sung in Blood
  • The Complete Instrumentalities of the Night Series
    (This is an omnibus comprising the four books linked individually below.)
    • The Tyranny of the Night
    • Lord of the Silent Kingdom
    • Surrender to the Will of the Night
    • Working God’s Mischief

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Cook, Hugh
  • The Shift
  • Plague Summer
  • To Find and Wake the Dreamer
  • Bamboo Horses
  • Oceans of Light:
    • West of Heaven
    • East of Hell
    • North of Paradise

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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—visit the link in the previous sentence—but of what quality deponent sayeth not. Note that much of her work is Young Adult—and possibly not the sort of YA also suitable for adults—or else “supernatural romance”.)
  • Time-Master:
    (There are three other trilogies, including a young-adult spinoff, set in the same world as this one; whether any are plausible candidates here is hard to tell just from reviews.)
    • The Initiate
    • The Outcast
    • The Master
  • The Summer Witch

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Cooper, Susan
  (Those listed here, with the one exception noted, are “young adult”—her own classification—and, from experience of her other work, quite palatable for adults. I have omitted here her ten or so books expressly for children, but they might also be of interest.)
  • Mandrake [science fiction; for adults]
  • Seaward [YA]
  • King of Shadows [YA]
  • Green Boy [YA]
  • Victory [YA]
  • Ghost Hawk [YA]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Crawford, F. Marion
  • The Complete Wandering Ghosts *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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 some contenders.)
  • Works for Young Readers:
    • Roald Dahl Collection: 16-Book Box Set
      (A boxed set of 16 Dahl books for young readers, comprising the novels linked individually below; it’s not all his young-reader work—there are 3 other books—but it’s a big chunk of it. It’s not cheap, but on a per-book basis it’s quite reasonable. There are other omnibus editions of varying contents, not listed here.)
      • James And The Giant Peach
      • Charlie And The Chocolate Factory
      • The Magic Finger
      • Fantastic Mr. Fox
      • Charlie And The Great Glass Elevator [a disappointing sequel to Chocolate Factory, but it’s in the set]
      • Danny The Champion Of The World
      • The Twits
      • George’s Marvelous Medicine
      • The BFG
      • The Witches
      • Boy: Tales Of Childhood
      • The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me
      • Going Solo
      • Matilda
      • Esio Trot
      • The Minpins
    • Uncollected Books:
      • The Enormous Crocodile
      • Revolting Rhymes
      • Dirty Beasts
  • Works for Adult Readers: (Dahl also wrote distinctly adult work—some creepy, some sexy, all (or most) well-regarded—which I have yet to sample; here is a nice sampler collection with which to get started.)
    The Roald Dahl Omnibus: Perfect Bedtime Stories for Sleepless Nights * [28 short stories]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Dalkey, Kara
  (It is hard to be sure from reviews which of her books are “young adult” and which plain adult; I have marked those definitely YA—but those, too, might well be readable for civilized adults.)
  • Sagamore:
    • The Curse of Sagamore
    • The Sword of Sagamore
  • Blood of the Goddess:
    • Goa
    • Bijapur
    • Bhagavati
  • Mitsuko: [YA]
    • Little Sister
    • The Heavenward Path
  • Steel Rose:
    • Steel Rose
    • Crystal Sage
  • Water [YA]
    • Ascension
    • Reunion
    • Transformation
  • The Nightingale
  • Genpei

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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 ISFDB lists the Deptford and Cornish trilogies, but not the Salterton, which is omitted here. Caveat lector.
  • 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)

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Davies, Tod
  (She started this series with a readable book, Snotty Saves the Day, but—for me—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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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.)
  • Labrador
  • Walking Tour
  • Versailles
  • Duplex: A Novel
  • The Silk Road

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Dexter, Susan
  • The Calandran Tales:
    (See also the main list of her books.)
    • Moonlight aka Moonshine [YA; published as Moonlight in 2001 and as Moonshine in 2014—whether the later version is a revision I cannot determine, but I suspect it is.]
    • Wizard’s Destiny – aka The Winter King’s War [YA]
      (A bibliographical mess: the “The Winter King’s War” trilogy was published by del Rey from 1981 to 1986; then, in 2012, Dexter re-wrote the lot from end to end and self-published the rewritten versions as “Wizard’s Destiny”. One might think the later versions better, but it ain’t necessarily so. Anyway, the links below will bring up all versions of the given novel, so you can pick by publication date. Ya pays yer money an ya takes yer chances…)
      • The Ring of Allaire
      • The Sword of Calandra
      • The Mountains of Channadran
  • Thistledown [YA]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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 candidates yet unevaluated here.)
  • Ropemaker:
    • The Ropemaker
    • Angel Isle

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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; said to be good adult reading]
  • Story Collections:
    (These are many in number, with a lot of content overlap; the list below is an incomplete sampling that includes most of his better-regarded work.)
    • The Early Science Fiction Stories of Thomas M. Disch *
    • Under Compulsion *
    • Fun with Your New Head *
    • Getting Into Death and Other Stories *
    • 334 *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Dorsey, Candas Jane
  • Black Wine
  • Machine Sex and Other Stories *
  • Vanilla and Other Stories *
  • Ice & Other Stories *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Dowling, Terry
  • Clowns at Midnight [perhaps more horror than speculative]
  • Wormwood * [perhaps more horror than speculative]
  • An Intimate Knowledge of the Night * [perhaps more horror than speculative]
  • The Man Who Lost Red * [2 novellas]
  • Antique Futures: The Best of Terry Dowling * [only 3 stories not in any of the works listed above]
  • Basic Black: Tales of Appropriate Fear *
  • Make Believe: A Terry Dowling Reader * [no stories not in any of the works listed above]
  • Amberjack: Tales of Fear and Wonder *
  • The Night Shop: Tales for the Lonely Hours *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Ducornet, Rikki
  • The Complete Butcher’s Tales *
  • Gazelle [It is unclear if this is speculative fiction, despite the appearance in it of a “magician”.]
  • Trafik: A Novel in Warp Drive [chapbook]
  • The Alchemy Quartet:
    (It is by no means clear, from reviews, that any of these novels are “speculative fiction”, despite their being listed at the ISFDB. It sounds as if the third might faintly be, the fourth perhaps; the first two do not seem to be. Caveat lector.)
    • The Stain
    • Entering Fire
    • The Fountains of Neptune
    • The Jade Cabinet

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Duncan, Dave
  • The Pandemia Cycle:
    • A Man of His Word:
      (An omnibus comprising the four novels linked individually below.)
      • Magic Casement
      • Faery Lands Forlorn
      • Perilous Seas
      • Emperor and Clown
    • A Handful of Men:
      (An omnibus comprising the four novels linked individually below.)
      • 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
    • [A fourth and series-concluding novel was intended but never written.]
  • The King of Chivial’s Blades:
    • Tales of the King’s Blades
      • The Gilded Chain
      • Lord of the Fire Lands
      • Sky of Swords
      • One Velvet Glove
      • The Ethical Swordsman
    • The Monster War: A Tale of the King’s Blades [YA]
      (An omnibus comprising the three novels linked individually below.)
      • Sir Stalwart [YA]
      • The Crooked House [YA]
      • Silvercloak [YA]
    • Chronicles of the King’s Blades:
      • Paragon Lost
      • Impossible Odds
      • Jaguar Knights
  • Dodec:
    • Children of Chaos
    • Mother of Lies
  • The Brothers Magnus:
    • Speak to the Devil
    • When the Saints
  • The Starfolk:
    • King of Swords
    • Queen of Stars
  • 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
    • The Adventures of Ivor * [YA]
    • Irona 700
    • Eocene Station
    • Portal of a Thousand Worlds
    • Pillar of Darkness

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Effinger, George Alec
  (This is a selected list, not a complete bibliography.)
  • Heroics
  • Death in Florence aka Utopia 3
  • Budayeen:
    • The Audran Sequence
      • When Gravity Fails
      • A Fire in the Sun
      • The Exile Kiss
    • Budayeen Nights *
  • Time:
    • The Nick of Time
    • The Bird of Time
  • Story Collections:
    (There will be some overlap in contents between these various collections.)
    • Mixed Feelings *
    • Irrational Numbers *
    • Dirty Tricks *
    • Idle Tricks *
    • Idle Pleasures *
    • The Old Funny Stuff *
    • George Alec Effinger Live! From Planet Earth *
    • A Thousand Deaths *

  Return to the page top. ↑

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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Emmons, Josh
  (It is unclear from published descriptions as to whether either of these is “speculative”, but it seems possible, so I list them.)
  • Prescription for a Superior Existence
  • A Moral Tale and Other Moral Tales *

  Return to the page top. ↑

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

  Return to the page top. ↑

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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Finney, Jack
  • The Woodrow Wilson Dime
  • Marion’s Wall
    (The collection About Time extracts the time-travel tales from the two books below, which are likely worth getting on their own.)
  • The Third Level *
  • I Love Galesburg in the Springtime *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Ford, Jeffrey.
  • Novels:
    • Vanitas
    • The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque
    • The Girl in the Glass
    • The Shadow Year
    • Ahab’s Return: or, The Last Voyage
  • Story Collections:
    • The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant & Other Stories *
    • The Empire of Ice Cream *
    • The Drowned Life *
    • Crackpot Palace *
    • A Natural History of Hell *
    • A Primer to Jeffrey Ford *
    • The Best of Jeffrey Ford *
    • Big Dark Hole * [forthcoming, due 6 July 2021]
  • Chapbooks:
    • The Cosmology of the Wider World
    • A Meeting in Oz [part of the multi-author Oz Reimagined series]
    • A Terror
    • Rocket Ship to Hell
    • The Thyme Fiend
    • The Twilight Pariah
    • Out of Body

  Return to the page top. ↑

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

  Return to the page top. ↑

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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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.)

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Gaiman, Neil
  • Collections: (There is probably overlap in the contents of these books.)
    • Angels and Visitations: A Miscellany *
    • Warning: Contains Language *
    • On Cats & Dogs: Two Tales *
    • Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions *
    • Two Plays for Voices *
    • Speaking in Tongues *
    • Telling Tales *
    • A Little Gold Book of Ghastly Stuff *
    • A Portfolio of Stories *
    • Norse Mythology *
    • The Neil Gaiman Reader: Selected Fiction *
  • Chapbooks: (Some of these may be included in some of the Collections listed above.)
    • Day of the Dead
    • The Last Temptation
    • Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar
    • Marvel 1602
    • Click-Clack the Rattlebag
    • How to Talk to Girls at Parties
    • The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains
    • A Calendar of Tales
  • Children’s Books: (Many—possibly all—of these are probably good entertainment for adults. At least several will be in Chapbook format.)
    • The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish
    • Melinda
    • MirrorMask
    • Odd and the Frost Giants
    • The Dangerous Alphabet
    • Blueberry Girl
    • Crazy Hair
    • Instructions
    • Chu’s Day
    • Fortunately, the Milk
    • Chu’s First Day of School
    • Hansel and Gretel
    • The Sleeper and the Spindle
    • Chu’s Day At The Beach
    • Cinnamon
    • Pirate Stew

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Gardner, John
  • In the Suicide Mountains
  • Vlemk the Box-Painter

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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: (an omnibus of the two books listed below)
    • 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
  • Morning Star
  • Dark Moon
  • Echoes of the Great Song
  • Rhyming Rings

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Gentle, Mary ***
  (Some of the stories in each of the two collections fit into the “White Crow” cycle.)
  • Scholars and Soldiers *
  • 1610: A Sundial in a Grave
  • Cartomancy *
  • Ilario:
    (An omnibus comprising the two novels listed below.)
    • The Lion’s Eye
    • The Stone Golem
  • Black Opera

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Geston, Mark S.
  • Mirror to the Sky

  Return to the page top. ↑

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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Gray, Alasdair
  • 1982, Janine
  • Poor Things
  • A History Maker

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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.” He also said “he’s the kind of author someone definitely ought to bring back into print,” and that is because most of his work is now scare and pricey. I have divided the list below into three categories, based on prices [including shipping to the U.S.] as I type in spring of 2021: Reasonable, meaning under $50 for copies in at least “very good” condition; Expensive for anything over $50—and some go into the three-digit range—and a basket for books for which no VG or better copies are available [again, as I type: those things change by the day]. Whether all of these will hold up on reading remains to be seen, but I suspect most or all will.)
  • Reasonable:
    • The Seventh Swan: An Adventure Story
    • The Sorcerer’s Apprentices [chapbook]
  • Expensive:
    • The Apple-Stone
    • The Garland of Filigree
    • Over the Hills to Fabylon
    • Down in the Cellar
    • The Stone Cage
    • Further Adventures of Puss in Boots [chapbook]
    • The Wardens of the Weir
    • The Edge of Evening *
    • A Wind from Nowhere *
  • No “Very Good Condition” (Or Better) Copies Found:
    • New Lamps for Old
    • Mainly in Moonlight *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Green, Simon R.
  • Drinking Midnight Wine

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Hansen, Erik Fosnes
  • Falcon Tower [Falketårnet: not yet translated]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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, the residue of some extensive review-checking—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
  • Amaryllis Night and Day
  • The Bat Tattoo
  • Soonchild [[YA]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Hoffman, Alice
  (The “speculative” element in some of Hoffman’s books is significant, while in others it sems—by descriptions, these are unread here—to be light window dressing. So far as I can tell, there is at least some of what reviewers call “magic realism” in each of the books listed below, though to what extent it matters is hard to say. Also, this list omits her numerous YA/childern’s books.)
  • Practical Magic:
    • The Rules of Magic [prequel to Practical Magic]
    • Magic Lessons [s second prequel to Practical Magic]
    • The Book of Magic
  • Seventh Heaven
  • Turtle Moon
  • The River King
  • The Probable Future
  • Blackbird House
  • The Ice Queen
  • Skylight Confessions
  • The Third Angel
  • The Red Garden
  • The Dovekeepers
  • The Museum of Extraordinary Things
  • Faithful
  • The World That We Knew

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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 *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Houarner, Gerard Daniel
  (Houarner specializes in horror tales (not covered on this site), but this seems to be an exception—somewhat of an exception, that is.)
  • In the Country of Dreaming Caravans

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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. And, as you see, he is stunningly prolific.)
  • Novels:
    • The Percolated Stars: An Astro-Caffeine Romp in Three Cups Featuring Batavus Droogstoppel Merchant and Scientist and Bourgeois Monster: One Lump or Two?
    • Engelbrecht Again! * [Being a sequel to Maurice Richardson’s famous comedic work The Exploits of Englebrecht.]
    • Mister Gum; Or: The Possibly Phoney Profundity of Puerility
    • Twisthorn Bellow
    • The Young Dictator
    • Captains Stupendous or: The Fantastical Family Faraway
    • Cloud Farming in Wales
    • The Honeymoon Gorillas
    • The Nostalgia That Never Was
  • Novellas:
    (This omits novellas already anthologized, but is probably still an incomplete list.)
    • Students of Myself
    • My Rabbit’s Shadow Looks Likes a Hand
  • Story Series:
    • Castor Jenkins: The Truth Spinner: The Complete Adventures of Castor Jenkins *
    • Fanny: The Brothel Creeper: Stories of Sexual and Spiritual Tension * [includes all of The Fanny Fables]
    • Stringent Strange: The Abnormalities of Stringent Strange *
    • Albarracín: Sangria in the Sangraal: Tucked Away in Aragon * [The link is to the updated edition with two more stories.]
    • Mermaid: The Mermaid Variations *
    • Thornton Excelsior: The Lunar Tickle *
    • Titian Grundy: The Long Chin of the Law *
    • The Old Cosmos: Young Tales of the Old Cosmos *
    • Zwicky Fingers: The Sticky Situations of Zwicky Fingers * [included in Omnibus #One, listed below]
  • Collections:
    (His output is huge, so I here list only omnibus volumes of his shorter works; click the link in this sentence to see the whole shebang.)
    • Better the Devil *
      (link is to the revised, expanded edition: 86 short stories, 9 subsumed mini-collections, & 2 essays)
    • Rhysop’s Fables *
      (link is to the omnibus of the original Rhysop’s Fables plus Rhysop’s Return)
    • Omnibus #One *
      (an omnibus including the following)
      • Novellas
        • Eyelidiad
        • Rommel Cobra’s Swimming Carnival
        • The Crystal Cosmos
      • Short-Story Collections
        • The Postmodern Mariner [a collection of 8 Castor Jenkins stories]
        • The Just Not So Stories [a collection of 30 stories]
        • The Sticky Situations of Zwicky Fingers [a collection of 10 Zwicky Fingers stories plus an essay]
    • Weirdly Out West *

  Return to the page top. ↑

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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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, often with Oriental settings.
  Note that in some of the books below, it is hard to decide if the fantastic things are happening, or are just imaginings of the protagonist.)
  • The Limits of Vision
  • Satan Wants Me
  • Wonders Will Never Cease
  • The Runes Have Been Cast

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Jackson, Shirley
  • The Sundial

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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.)
  • A Man Made of Money

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Jeter, K. W. **
  (A lot of Jeter’s work is horror rather than speculative, but it is difficult to sort one from the other in unread books, so I show all.)
  • Seeklight
  • The Dreamfields
  • Soul Eater
  • Dr. Adder
    • Dr. Adder
    • The Glass Hammer
    • Death Arms
    • Alligator Alley [with Timothy MacNamara: as by “Dr. Adder and Mink Mole”]
  • Dark Seeker
  • Mantis
  • George Dower
    (This is—so far—a three-book series; see the author link above for more.)
    • Fiendish Schemes
    • Grim Expectations
  • In the Land of the Dead
  • The Night Man
  • Madlands
  • Wolf Flow
  • Noir
  • The Kingdom of Shadows
  • Grimm City
    • Death’s Apprentice [with Gareth Jefferson Jones]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Jones, Diana Wynne
  (Again: her books are all technically “young adult” or, in some cases, classed “juvenile”; I think many reasonably entertaining to adults, but have not sampled these. This list is not a complete Jones bibliography: there are 15 other novels and 7 more story collections.)
  • Derkholm:
    • The Dark Lord of Derkholm
    • The Year of the Griffin
  • Magids:
    • Deep Secret
    • The Merlin Conspiracy
  • Diana Wynne Jones’s Fantastical Journeys Collection:
    (an omnibus comprising the three novels listed below)
    • The Islands of Chaldea [with Ursula Jones]
    • A Tale of Time City
    • The Homeward Bounders
  • Diana Wynne Jones’s Magic and Myths Collection:
    (an omnibus comprising the four novels listed below)
    • The Game
    • Power of Three
    • Eight Days of Luke
    • Dogsbody

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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.)
  • Novels:
    • Dreamside
    • Dark Sister
    • House of Lost Dreams
    • The Tooth Fairy
    • The Stormwatcher
    • Indigo
    • The Limits of Enchantment
    • The Silent Land
    • The Year of the Ladybird aka The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit
  • Story Collections:
    • Partial Eclipse and Other Stories * [9 short stories & a novella]
    • Black Dust & Other Tales of Interrupted Childhood * [3 short stories]
    • 25 Years in the Word Mines: The Best Short Fiction of Graham Joyce * [includes all his published short fiction from the two books above, but expensive]
  • YA Novels:
    • TWOC [YA]
    • Do the Creepy Thing aka The Exchange [YA]
    • Three Ways to Snog an Alien [YA]
    • The Devil’s Ladder [YA]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Karr, Phyllis Ann
  • Frostflower:
    • Frostflower and Thorn
    • Frostflower and Windbourne
  • The Follies of Sir Harald

  Return to the page top. ↑

• King, Stephen
  (King’s work is, first off, hard to segregate as between fantasy and horror—see this Salon ezine article [archived]. Second, but almost as important, while King at his best is interesting, all too often—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. If you want to try something to see if you want more, you could begin with the novel listed below.)
  • 11/22/1963

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Knight, Damon
  (Knight as an author was at his best with short stories; the list below is said to be a good sampler.)
  • Far Out *
  • In Deep *
  • Off Centre * [expanded version of earlier Off Center: note spelling]
  • Turning On: Fourteen Stories * [expanded version of earlier Thirteen Stories]
  • Rule Golden *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Kotzwinkle, William
  (Kotzwinkle has written numerous popular children’s books (with titles like Walter the Farting Dog) and “novelizations” of some major movie scripts (such as E.T.), both of which sorts I omit here. The list below is a review-based selection from his many works; I believe all are speculative, but not all of his that is speculative is here.)
  • Novels:
    • Doctor Rat
    • The Bear Went Over the Mountain
  • Story Collections:
    • Elephant Bangs Train * [These are apparently more parables or fables than actual specfic.]
    • Jewel of the Moon *
    • The Hot Jazz Trio *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Kress, Nancy
  (Kress’s early works—three novels—are fantasies; everything after that is hard sf.)
  • The Golden Grove [fantasy]
  • The White Pipes [fantasy]
  • Trinity and Other Stories *
  • An Alien Light
  • Brain Rose
  • The Aliens of Earth *
  • Sleepless:
    • Beggars in Spain
    • Beggars & Choosers
    • Beggars Ride
  • Oaths and Miracles:
    • Oaths and Miracles
    • Stinger
  • Maximum Light
  • Beaker’s Dozen *
  • Probability Universe:
    • Probability Moon
    • Probability Sun
    • Probability Space
  • Nothing Human
  • Greentrees:
    • Crossfire
    • Crucible
  • Dogs
  • Nano Comes to Clifford Falls and Other Stories *
  • Steal Across the Sky
  • After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall
  • Flash Point
  • Future Perfect: Six Stories of Genetic Engineering *
  • The Body Human: Three Stories of Future Medicine *
  • AI Unbound: Two Stories of Artificial Intelligence *
  • The Best of Nancy Kress *
  • Yesterday’s Kin Trilogy:
    (An omnibus comprising the three novels linked separately below.)
    • Tomorrow’s Kin
    • If Tomorrow Comes
    • Terran Tomorrow
  • The Eleventh Gate
  • Sea Change

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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, which 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 *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Lee, Tanith
  • Ghosteria:
    • Ghosteria Volume 1: The Stories [ghost-themed: all but 4 are reprints]
    • Zircons May Be Mistaken
  • Novels & Novellas:
    (This is a relatively small selection from her copious output, comprising what seem, from reviews, the most promising of her works, but I may have inadvertently omitted some good things—or included some duds.)
    • Day By Night
    • Companions On The Road & The Winter Players [2 novellas]
    • Lycanthia, or The Children of Wolves
    • Sung in Shadow
    • The Blood of Roses
    • Heart-Beast
    • When the Lights Go Out
    • A Different City [3 novellas of Marcheval, an alternate Marseilles]
    • At the Court of the Crow [novella]
  • Story Collections:
    (The contents of the various listed story collections probably overlap a fair bit. These are by no means all collections of her stories: just what reviews suggested might be the better ones; there is available a complete online bibliography of her work that is an absolute model of how to do a useful online bibliography.)
    • Red As Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer *
    • Dreams Of Dark And Light: The Great Short Fiction Of Tanith Lee *
    • Forests Of The Night *
    • Women As Demons: The Male Perception of Women through Space and Time *
    • Nightshades: Thirteen Journeys into Shadow *
    • Tempting the Gods: The Selected Stories of Tanith Lee Volume One *
    • Hunting the Shadows: The Selected Stories of Tanith Lee, Volume Two *
    • Sounds and Furies *
    • Animate Objects *
    • Space Is Just a Starry Night *
    • Phantasya *
    • Dancing Through the Fire: A Collection of Stories in Five Moves *
    • Redder Than Blood *
    • The Weird Tales of Tanith Lee *
    • Venus Burning: Realms *
    • Strindberg’s Ghost Sonata and Other Uncollected Tales *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Leiber, Fritz
  • Novels:
    (Leiber wrote something like ten novels; many were popular, and some won awards, but the one below seems the likeliest—besides the “Change War” works—to be literate)
    • Our Lady of Darkness
  • Story Collections:
    (There are over three dozen Leiber story collections, but the few below—besides the one in the main lists—are said to capture his best work.)
    • The Worlds of Fritz Leiber *
    • The Ghost Light *
    • The Leiber Chronicles: Fifty Years of Fritz Leiber *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Lewis, C. S.
  • Till We Have Faces

  Return to the page top. ↑

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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Lindholm, Megan
  • Ki and Vandien:
    • Harpy’s Flight
    • The Windsingers
    • The Limbreth Gate
    • Luck of the Wheels
  • Cloven Hooves
  • Alien Earth
  • The Gypsy [with Steven Brust]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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
  • The Violet Apple [now quite expensive; also see The Witch, below]
  • Devil’s Tor
  • The Witch [only available packaged with The Violet Apple, and now quite expensive]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Lively, Penelope
  (Lively—quite a name for a writer—has a prodigious output of fiction, including books for both adults and 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—probably best classed as YA—apparently is. Mind, I say “YA”—“young adult”—but the nominal target readership seems usually at the lower end of that range; but I include them all here based on the adult-readability of what is in the main lists here. All in all, this woman can write.)
  • Astercote
  • The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy aka The Wild Hunt of the Ghost Hounds
  • The Whispering Knights
  • The Driftway
  • The Ghost of Thomas Kempe
  • A Stitch in Time
  • The Voyage of QV66
  • Treasures of Time
  • The Revenge of Samuel Stokes
  • Uninvited Ghosts and Other Stories *
  • The Five Thousand and One Nights *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Lupoff, Richard
  (Lupoff wrote wildly diverse material, much of it humorous or even sarcastic. What quality level is present in each of the works below is impossible to guess.)
  • Series:
    • Twin Planets:
      • Circumpolar!
      • Countersolar!
    • Sun’s End:
      • Sun’s End
      • Galaxy’s End
      • [A projected third volume was apparently never produced.]
  • Novels & Novellas:
    • One Million Centuries
    • Sacred Locomotive Flies
    • Into the Aether
    • Lisa Kane
    • Sandworld
    • The Triune Man
    • Space War Blues [related stories]
    • The Crack in the Sky aka Fool’s Hill
    • Lovecraft’s Book aka Marblehead: A Novel of H. P. Lovecraft
    • The Forever City
    • Hyperprism & The Digital Wristwatch of Philip K. Dick [2 novellas]
  • Story Collections:
    • Before…12:01…and After *
    • Claremont Tales *
    • Claremont Tales II *
    • Terrors *
    • Deep Space *
    • Visions *
    • The Compleat Ova Hamlet *
    • Dreams *
    • Dreamer’s Dozen *
    • The Doom That Came to Dunwich *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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
  • The Testament:
    • The Testament
    • The Fallen
    • Four Dominions
    • The Sum of All Shadows
  • French Kiss
  • Dark Homecoming

  Return to the page top. ↑

• MacAvoy, R. A.
  • The Book of Kells
  • The Grey Horse
  • The Third Eagle
  • Death and Resurrection
  • Albatross:
    (co-authored with Nancy L. Palmer)
    • Albatross
    • Shimmer

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Mark, Jan
  (Marks’s specfic books are all nominally YA; but, as John Clute et al. put it in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, “her sf stories – which are more complex, dark-hewed and longer than her non-fantastic work – are almost certainly her best work, and are very nearly indistinguishable, except for the age of their protagonists, from adult fiction.”)
  • Ennead:
    • Divide and Rule [YA]
    • Aquarius [YA]
  • They Do Things Differently There [YA]
  • The Sighting [YA]
  • The Eclipse Of The Century [YA]
  • Useful Idiots [YA]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Marks, Laurie J.
  • The Watcher’s Mask
  • Elemental Logic:
    • Fire Logic
    • Earth Logic
    • Water Logic
    • Air Logic
  • The Children of the Triad:
    • Delan the Mislaid
    • The Moonbane Mage
    • Ara’s Field

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Martel, Yann
  • Self
  • The High Mountains of Portugal

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• McDonald, Ian
  (McDonald is another author with a long, long bibliography; these are some likely works for further exploration of his oeuvre.)
  • Series:
    • Shian:
      • Sacrifice of Fools
    • Chaga:
      • Evolution’s Shore aka Chaga
      • Kirinya
      • [A third novel was widely expected, but has never materialized…]
    • India 2047:
      • River of Gods
      • Cyberabad Days *
  • Novels:
    • King of Morning, Queen of Day
    • The Broken Land aka Hearts, Hands and Voices
    • Terminal Cafe aka Necroville
    • Brasyl
  • Story Collections:
    • Speaking in Tongues *
    • The Best of Ian McDonald *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• McIntyre, Vonda N.
  (This is just a sampling of her other works.)
  • The Exile Waiting [same setting as Dreamsnake]
  • Fireflood & Other Stories *
  • Starfarers:
    • Starfarers
    • Transition
    • Metaphase
    • Nautilus
  • The Moon and the Sun

  Return to the page top. ↑

• McKiernan, Dennis
  • Mithgar:
    • Dragondoom
    • The Eye of the Hunter
    • Voyage of the Fox Rider
    • Tales of Mithgar *
    • The Dragonstone
    • Silver Wolf, Black Falcon
    • Red Slippers: More Tales of Mithgar *
    • City of Jade
    • Stolen Crown
    • Hel’s Crucible
      (a two-novel omnibus containing the novels listed below)
      • Into the Forge
      • Into the Fire
  • Caverns of Socrates
  • 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
  • At the Edge of the Forest

  Return to the page top. ↑

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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Meynard, Yves
  • Chrysanthe
  • Angels & Exiles *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Miéville, China
  • The Tain [chapbook]
  • This Census-Taker
  • The Last Days of New Paris
  • The Worst Breakfast [chapbook: children’s]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Millet, Lydia
  (Millet has also written some works for younger readers, which I do not list here; but if you like her work, look them up.)
  • Mermaids in Paradise
  • Sweet Lamb of Heaven
  • A Children’s Bible [It is uncertain whether this qualifies as “speculative”, but it sounds well worth the effort of finding out.]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Mills, Magnus
  • Explorers of the New Century
  • A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked In
  • The Field of the Cloth of Gold
  • Tales Of Muffled Oars
  • The Trouble With Sunbathers
  • Screwtop Thompson * [Includes the contents of two prior collections, Only When the Sun Shines Brightly and Once in a Blue Moon.]

  Return to the page top. ↑

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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Modesitt, L. E.
  (Modesitt’s output is, to put it mildly, voluminous: the ISFDB has his full bibliography. Besides the book in the main lists, I have actually read quite a bit of Modesitt; 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. If you are interested, hit that bibliography and—figuratively, of course—throw a dart at it.)

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Monaco, Richard
  • Leitus Sixtus:
    • Runes
    • Broken Stone

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Nesbit, E.
  • Arden Family:
    • The House of Arden
    • Harding’s Luck
  • The Wonderful Garden
  • The Magic World *
  • Fairy Stories *
  • Adult Works:
    (These are usually dark tales, often supernatural, sometimes sf or fantasy)
    • The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Edith Nesbit: Volume 1 *
    • The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Edith Nesbit: Volume 2 *
      (Those two volumes comprise all the works listed separately below, and possibly more.)

      ---

    • Grim Tales *
    • Something Wrong *
    • Man and Maid *
    • Fear *
    • E. Nesbit’s Tales of Terror * aka In the Dark: Tales of Terror * [a selection from the four above, edited by Hugh Lamb]
    • Dormant aka Rose Royal [a novel]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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

  Return to the page top. ↑

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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Ore, Rebecca
  (This is not all of her other works, just what seemed most likely.)
  • The Illegal Rebirth of Billy the Kid
  • Alien Bootlegger and Other Stories *
  • Gaia’s Toys

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Park, Paul
  • Coelestis aka Celestis
  • If Lions Could Speak *
  • The Roumainian Quartet:
    (Nominally YA, but suitable adult reading.)
    • A Princess of Roumania
    • The Tourmaline
    • The White Tyger
    • The Hidden World
  • All Those Vanished Engines
  • Other Stories *
  • A City Made of Words *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Pierce, Meredith Ann
  (It’s not always clear which of her works are nominally “YA”—so none of those below are so labelled—but adults seem to like it all.)
  • The Woman Who Loved Reindeer
  • The Firebringer Trilogy:
    (an omnibus comprising the three books listed separately below)
    • Birth of the Firebringer
    • Dark Moon
    • The Son of Summer Stars
  • Treasure at the Heart of the Tanglewood
  • Waters Luminous and Deep *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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 yet-unlisted one is listed below, along with his only adult novel.)
  • Once Upon a Blue Moose *
  • The Afterlife Diet [his one adult fantasy]

  Return to the page top. ↑

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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Priest, Christopher
  (This list omits a couple of movie novelizations written under pen names: Short Circuit [as by Colin Wedgelock] and eXistenZ [as by John Luther Novak].)
  • “The Dream Archipelago”:
    • The Affirmation
    • The Dream Archipelago * [link is to preferred edition: updated & expanded]
    • The Islanders
    • The Gradual
  • Novels:
    • Fugue For a Darkening Island
    • A Dream of Wessex
    • The Glamour
    • The Quiet Woman
    • The Extremes
    • The Separation
    • The Adjacent [has some connections with the Dream Archipelago cycle]
    • An American Story
    • The Evidence
  • Story Collections:
    • Real-Time World * [very early works]
    • An Infinite Summer *
    • Ersatz Wines - Instructive Short Stories * [very early works]
    • Episodes: Short Stories *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Resnick, Mike
  (Resnick’s output is almost comically copious. Besides the book in the main lists, I have read some other things by him, but so long ago now that I would need to repeat them, and possibly more, before reaching a definite overall-worth conclusion. Generally, though, Clute et al. put it that “the novels and stories themselves are sometimes told with an almost slapstick vigour that can drown out his serious purpose…[but]…[t]hat he was a consistently entertaining author is attested by the esteem granted his short work in particular”. So look at his ISFDB bibliography and—figuratively of course—throw darts at it to pick some samples.)

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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.)
  • Novels:
    (Many of Roberts’ books comprise a series of linked short stories, and are so tagged below; but they are generally classed “novels”.)
    • Anita [related stories]
    • The Inner Wheel * [related stories]
    • Molly Zero
    • Kiteworld [related stories]
    • Gráinne
  • Story Collections:
    • Machines and Men *
    • The Grain Kings *
    • The Passing of the Dragons * [selected stories from Machines and Men and The Grain Kings]
    • Ladies from Hell *
    • The Lordly Ones *
    • Winterwood and Other Hauntings * [ghost stories]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Ruff, Matt
  • Lovecraft Country
  • 88 Names

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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. Note that some of these are only marginally “speculative fiction”.)
  • Midnight’s Children
  • The Satanic Verses
  • The Ground Beneath Her Feet [alternate history]
  • The Enchantress of Florence
  • Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights

  Return to the page top. ↑

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

  Return to the page top. ↑

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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Salmonson, Jessica Amanda
  • Story Collections:
    (Some of these are rare—because issued in limited numbers—and thus expensive. There may well be overlaps in contents.)
    • 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 *
    • 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 *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Scarborough, Elizabeth Ann
  (This is by no means all her work; follow the link for a full bibliography. This is what looks most promising.)
  • Songs from the Seashell Archives:
    • Songs from the Seashell Archives, Volume 1:
      (an omnibus comprising the books linked individually below)
      • Song of Sorcery
      • The Unicorn Creed [in the main lists here]
    • Songs from the Seashell Archives, Volume 2:
      (an omnibus comprising the books linked individually below)
      • Bronwyn’s Bane
      • The Christening Quest
    • The Dragon, the Witch, and the Railroad
    • The Redundant Dragons
  • The Godmother Cycle:
    • The Godmother
    • The Godmother’s Apprentice
    • The Godmother’s Web
  • The Healer’s War

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Shea, Michael (This is not an exhaustive Shea bibliography: it omits his “Cthulhu mythos” works and his Lovecraftian works.)
  • Novels:
    • In Yana, the Touch of Undying
    • A Quest for Simbilis [set in Jack Vance’s “Dying Earth” world]
    • The Extra:
      (This was to have been a trilogy, but the third book, Fortress Hollywood, was never written; apparently, however, the first two books can stand alone.)
      • The Extra
      • Assault on Sunrise
  • Story Collections:
    • The Autopsy and Other Tales *
    • And Death Shall Have No Dominion: A Tribute to Michael Shea * [includes three previously unpublished stories & several tribute essays]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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. Pick some and try them.)
  • Griaule:
    • The Dragon Griaule *
    • The Skull
    • 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 *
    • Two Trains Running *
    • Trujillo and Other Stories *
    • Eternity and Other Stories *
    • Dagger Key and Other Stories *
    • Skull City and Other Lost Tales *
    • The Best of Lucius Shepard *
    • Vacancy & Ariel *
    • Viator Plus *
    • Five Autobiographies and a Fiction *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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)

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Shetterly, Will
  • Cats:
    • The Tangled Lands [a prequel to Cats Have No Lord]
  • Dogland [this had a quasi-sequel not, I think, worth listing here]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Silverberg, Robert
  (Silverberg is one of the Old Hands at the science-fiction game, and his books total is well over 100 even just in the specfic field. He is generally held in high repute; I think he is a writer who, at his peak, produced some fine work, but he also—especially in his early years—produced a lot of mediocre or worse stuff. The list below, leaning heavily on Clute et al. in “The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction”, seems to me most of his better works. I’ve actually read several of these, but ages ago, so I do not deem my thin recollections sufficient to rate them now.)
  • Novels:
    • Thorns
    • The Masks of Time
    • The Man in the Maze
    • Times Three
      (an omnibus of the three novels listed separately below, each to do with time travel)
      • Hawksbill Station
      • Up the Line
      • Project Pendulum
    • Downward to the Earth
    • Tower of Glass
    • A Time of Changes
    • The World Inside
    • The Book of Skulls
    • Dying Inside
    • The Second Trip
    • The Stochastic Man
    • Shadrach in the Furnace
    • Lord of Darkness
    • Gilgamesh the King
  • Story Collections:
    (These are seemingly countless. Subterranean Press issued a chronologically ordered series, “The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg”, in 8 volumes; the two listed below probably capture most of his best work.)
    • Something Wild Is Loose: 1969-72 * [The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg, Volume 3]
    • Trips: 1972-73 * [The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg, Volume 4]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Simak, Clifford D.
  (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 listed below are probably—once again leaning on Clute et al. in “The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction”—likely to be among the best of Simak’s considerable total output.)
  • Novels:
    • City
    • Time and Again aka First He Died
    • Time is the Simplest Thing
    • They Walked Like Men
    • All Flesh Is Grass
    • Why Call them Back From Heaven?
    • The Werewolf Principle
    • The Goblin Reservation
    • A Choice of Gods
    • A Heritage of Stars
    • The Fellowship of the Talisman
    • The Visitors
  • Story Collections:
    (There are, to date 20 such collections; choosing is difficult. Here are my suggestions—besides the one on the main list.)
    • Strangers in the Universe * [beware other like-named editions— stories were cut]
    • The Worlds of Clifford Simak * [beware other like-named editions— stories were cut]
    • All the Traps of Earth * [beware other like-named editions— stories were cut]
    • Skirmish: The Great Short Fiction *

  Return to the page top. ↑

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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Snyder, Midori
  • Soulstring
  • The Queens’ Quarter aka Oran:
    • New Moon
    • Sadar’s Keep
    • Beldan’s Fire
  • The Flight of Michael McBride
  • Except the Queen [with Jane Yolen]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Spinrad, Norman
  (When he forgets to keep telling us, with sledgehammer subtlety, how great sex and drugs are, and how screwed power structures are—cf. Bug Jack Barron—he actually writes quite well; but he rarely forgets. Here are a few possibilities from his large oeuvre.)
  • The Iron Dream [a weird and controversial book]
  • He Walked Among Us
  • The Star-Spangled Future *
  • Other Americas *
  • Deus X and Other Stories *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Starrett, Vincent
  • The Great All-Star Animal League Ball Game [for children, but possibly of amusement to adults]
  • Story Collections
    (Some of these stories are fantastic, others just “weird” – indeed, many first appeared in Weird Tales magazine)
    • Coffins for Two: Stories of Life, Death, Love, and Other Mysteries * [even reprints are not inexpensive]
    • The Quick and the Dead * [not inexpensive]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Stevermer, Caroline
  (These are all classed “YA”, but may be readable by literate adults.)
  • The Serpent’s Egg
  • River Rats
  • The Glass Magician

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Stockton, Frank R.
  (Stockton wrote a few novels classifiable as speculative fiction, but his real forte was the short story; the collections below—plus the one in the main list—seem, by report, to be the best of his work.)
  • Amos Kilbright: His Adscititious Experiences with Other Stories *
  • The Christmas Wreck and Other Stories aka 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 * [rare and expensive]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Stoddard, James **
  • The Animonean Chronicles
    • The Back of the Beyond
  • Liberty Bell and the Last American [expanded from the short story “The Battle of York”]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Sucharitkul, Somtow
  (Sucharitkul/Somtow is capable of good to excellent work, but also of not-so-good work. A lot of his fiction is—whether or not explicitly so labelled—“young adult”, and another lot is horror stuff (I do wish contemporary authors would recover from their acute vampirrhea, fantasy’s answer to the hula hoop and the pet rock). This list is thus far from all his work—just a smattering of what looks plausible.)
  • Riverrun
    (an amnibus comprising the three novels listed separately below)
    • Riverrun
    • Forest of the Night
    • Yestreen
  • Another Avatar
  • Fire from the Wine Dark Sea *
  • Dragon’s Fin Soup *
  • Other Edens *
  • Alien Heresies *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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”; Bad Sheri is she who wields The Great Hammer of Obviousness.)
  • After Long Silence aka The Enigma Score
  • Six Moon Dance

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Theroux, Paul
  • The Black House
  • A Christmas Card [YA]
  • O-Zone

  Return to the page top. ↑

• 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 [children’s book]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Tournier, Michel
  • The Fetishist and Other Stories *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Travers, P. L.
  • Mary Poppins:
    (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
  • Aunt Sass * [a collection of three stories originally written as a Christmas gift to select friends of Travers and published in a limited set of 500 copies, but now widely available; “Aunt Sass” was Christina Saraset, Travers’ great-aunt and the prototype of Mary Poppins]

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Wellman, Manly Wade
  • Twice in Time

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Wells, Martha
  • Murderbot:
    • The Murderbot Diaries
      (an omnibus of the 4 books listed individually below; the omnibus also includes a short story and an author’s introduction)
      • All Systems Red
      • Artificial Condition
      • Rogue Protocol
      • Exit Strategy
    • Network Effect
    • Fugitive Telemetry
  • The Raksura:
    • The Books of Raksura
      (an omnibus of the 3 books listed individually below)
      • The Cloud Roads
      • The Serpent Sea
      • The Siren Depths
    • The Edge of Worlds
    • The Harbors of the Sun
    • Stories of the Raksura, Volume 1: The Falling World & The Tale of Indigo and Cloud *
    • Stories of the Raksura, Volume 2: The Dead City & The Dark Earth Below *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• White, E. B.
  • Charlotte’s Web [children’s book, considered enjoyable by adults]
  • Charlotte’s WebThe Trumpet of the Swan [children’s book, considered enjoyable by adults]

  Return to the page top. ↑

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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Whitehead, Colson
  • Zone One
  • The Underground Railroad

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Wilhelm, Kate
  (Kate Wilhelm is another of those few authors considered here who are both prolific and consistently good. Of her full bibliography, I have read more than just what made it to the main list here, but of the rest it has been decades since I last read any; but, even after hours of scanning reviews, I could find no excuse for omitting anything in that bibliography, so I don’t list any particular works here. If you tried and liked anything of hers in the main list, try anything else whatever by her.)

  Return to the page top. ↑

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

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Williams, Tad
  • Tailchaser’s Song
  • Story Collections:
    (There is much overlap in these collections’ contents, but each has at least some material not in the others.)
    • Rite: Short Work *
    • A Stark and Wormy Knight *
    • The Very Best of Tad Williams *
  • Shadowmarch:
    • Shadowmarch
    • Shadowplay
    • Shadowrise
    • Shadowheart
  • Osten Ard:
    • Memory, Sorrow & Thorn:
      • The Dragonbone Chair
      • Stone of Farewell
      • To Green Angel Tower
        (a single novel published in the two volumes linked below owing to its length)
        • To Green Angel Tower: Part 1
        • To Green Angel Tower: Part 2
    • The Last King of Osten Ard:
      • The Heart of What Was Lost
      • The Witchwood Crown
      • Empire of Grass

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Williams, Walter Jon
  (These—plus the main listings—are not all of his work. If you want to see his full bibliography, it is at his entry at the ISFDB.)
  • Knight Moves
  • Aristoi
  • Implied Spaces
  • Quillifer:
    • Quillifer
    • Quillifer the Knight
  • The Best of Walter Jon Williams *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Wolf, Gary K.
  • The Resurrectionist
  • The Late Great Show!
  • Typical Day

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Wyndham, John
  • Novels:
    • The Chrysalids
    • The Midwich Cuckoos
    • Trouble with Lichen
    • The Day of the Triffids
    • 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 *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Zelazny, Roger
  • Novels:
    • This Immortal aka …And Call Me Conrad
    • The Dream Master
    • Jack of Shadows
    • Eye of Cat
  • Story Collections:
    (All of Zelazny’s short works, plus other stuff, is now available in a 6-volume hardcover set from the NESFA Press, but the total cost of the set is not modest: circa $300. Below are some of the more notable individual collections.)
    • A Rose for Ecclesiastes * aka Four for Tomorrow *
    • The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth and Other Stories *
    • My Name Is Legion *
    • The Last Defender of Camelot *
    • Frost and Fire *

  Return to the page top. ↑

• Zindell, David
  • Ea Cycle:
    • The Lightstone
      [The publishing history is confusing. The original all-in-one Book 1 of the cycle was called “The Lightstone”. It was later revised and split into two volumes as “The Lightstone: The Ninth Kingdom” and “The Lightstone: The Silver Sword” (UK editions), and into “The Lightstone” and “The Silver Sword” (US editions). The link is to the 2006/2007 US editions titled “The Lightstone”.]
    • The Silver Sword
      [See the notes above: the link is to the US editions of “The Silver Sword”.]
    • Lord of Lies
    • Black Jade
    • The Diamond Warriors

  Return to the page top. ↑

Disclaimers  |  Privacy Policy

This site is one of The Owlcroft Company family of web sites. Please click on the link (or the owl) to see a menu of our other diverse user-friendly, helpful sites.

Like all our sites, this one is hosted at the highly regarded Pair Networks, whom we strongly recommend—click the link to learn more. (To get 20% off on hosting fees if you move to Pair, use code pairref-FyXypEEk)

(Note: All Owlcroft systems run on Ubuntu Linux and we heartily recommend it to everyone—click on the link for more information).

This web page is strictly compliant with the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) Protocol v1.0 (Transitional) and the W3C Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Protocol v3 — because we care about interoperability. Click on the logos below to test us!