[Pig Iron]

The Fins have Mika Valtari. He could probably sue Gene Wolfe over "The Etruscan", which is about an amnesiac travelling around ancient Greece and environs ...

[King Bear]

@Mentalist: thanks, Godsdoom has been added to my reading list. Along with the Watch and the Witcher, it shall serve as my intro to CEE fantasy. I'm quite keen to explore it after all that's been said about it on this thread.

Another question for you, is much English language fantasy translated into Russian? If so, it doesn't seem quite fair, does it

Thanks to everyone who has responded to my questions. I've enjoyed reading your responses. It's been illuminating.

This post has been edited by Quick Ben's Magic Pants: 30 May 2011 - 03:34 AM

[Mentalist]

yep, lots of SFF is translated to Russian. no, it's not fair, . but, hey, I get the best of both worlds, so why complain.

just a word of warning to you: the 3 works you have selected as intro to CEE are VERT different. the Watches are urban fantasy, Witcher plays wit more traditional low fantasy tropes, while godsdoom goes for the epic genre. Approach them with that in mind.

[King Bear]

 Mentalist, on 30 May 2011 - 04:22 PM, said:

yep, lots of SFF is translated to Russian. no, it's not fair, . but, hey, I get the best of both worlds, so why complain.

just a word of warning to you: the 3 works you have selected as intro to CEE are VERT different. the Watches are urban fantasy, Witcher plays wit more traditional low fantasy tropes, while godsdoom goes for the epic genre. Approach them with that in mind.

Thanks for the warning. It shouldn't be a problem though. My taste in fantasy is very eclectic, so I'll pretty much enjoy anything so long as it's well written with a good story.

[Dag]

The only Austrian author I can think of right now is Hans Bemann, who wrote a nice fairytale-fantasy book called "The Stone and the Flute", which I can wholeheartedly recommend. I know the book has been translated and published in English, but I think it's pretty hard to purchase nowadays.


Also, I'm surprised that not one of our members from the German speaking countries mentioned Wolfgang Hohlbein. That probably says a lot about the average age of the forum members...

[Dinivan]

German fantasy is very generic.

I do not like both Heitz and Hohlbein. There are a few nice books from Hohlbein, but many more bad ones, imho.

Others are Kai Meyer, writes nice triologies, but for a younger audience (Teenage, YA stuff), Christoph Marzi (the lycidas-triology is nice, has a strange languagestyle though), Michael Schenk (very classic human+elves+dwarves against evil series), Thorsten Fink (more an egytptian setting. not truly egyptian, but from the feel of the country and culture).

That's about what I can think from the top of my head, but none of it is really amazing, and I have no idea if there is an English translation of these. Most of the fantasy that I hugely enjoy is in English (like MBotF, of course). Not a huge fan of German fantasy

[Puck]

Oh my, the Hohlbeins.. To be honest, Wolfgang & Heike Hohlbein's works are quite nice books for teenagers; darker and edgier than most teenager fantasy-for-starters stuff. It tells a lot though, that Heike Hohlbein is the idea factory between the two. As long as you stop after the third book and move on, you're in for some fun [Krieg der Engel/War of Angels DID creep me out when I was 12, though the target audience was around 15 if the protagonist is something to go by]. But unless you're into reading the same story over and over again, up to the point of having the feeling you've read whole paragraphs several times already, that's where you should stop.

Wolfgang Hohlbein's own books are pretty much the same, just add sex and subtract originality. Funnily enough, he wrote several Indiana Jones novels. None of which seem to ever have been translated to English.

Ralf Isau is another popular German YA writer. Much better and much more original and versatile than Hohlbein. I used to love his books, but none of them have been translated to English.

But that's as far as my expertise with German authors goes.