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Winner of the World Fantasy Award in 1975, "The Forgotten Beasts of Eld" is a truly lyrical, magical book. Back in those days most fantasy wasn't much more than retellings of "The Lord of the Rings" with a few gender or race-swaps; they were, pretty much without exception, awful.

Patricia McKillip considers this her LOTR copy, but I don't see that at all. This is the story of Sybel, a sorceress and the last of a line of wizards. Her sorcery consists primarily in summoning unique magical beasts to her service. They include:

"BOAR CYRIN Keeper of Wisdom, who knew the answers to all riddles... save one.

THE BLACK SWAN OF TIRLITH Who had carried a king’s daughter from the stone tower of exile.

GYLD Green-winged Dragon who dreamt for eons over the cold fire of gold.

FALCON TER Immortal Lord of Air, who had torn to bloody pieces the seven murderers of the wizard Aer."

All serve Sybel, who spends her time seeking lost knowledge of rare magical beasts...until she seeks in the wrong wizard's library, and finds herself the hunted rather than the hunter.

There's love, betrayal, revenge, death, and redemption here. It's a relatively short book, but very full and extremely well-written with a thoughtful depth of feeling to it. It's also, unusually (for those times and these) a singleton; no sequels were ever published. Nor written, as far as I know.

You can borrow it for free from the Internet Archive, but personally I'd say this one is well worth owning.

archive.org/details/forgottenbeastso0000mcki_x1p4

Happy reading! 🤓📖

#Books #Bookstodon #fantasy #BookRecommendation

This is one of my "secret lore" books; my oldest friend introduced me to it when I was in my early teens. He also introduced me to "The Young Ones", "Young Lust Magazine" (it's a parody), and a LOT of comic books. He ended up working at Marvel and DC later on, although not at the same time.

"Those of you who remember how great it was to be a little kid, gang, don't •remember• how it was to be a little kid..."

Drawn and written by the brilliant Gahan Wilson, this book is one of the most accurate representations of what childhood was really like that I've ever seen. Which is probably why it's also the funniest.

The Kid (as he's referred to) is an ordinary kid with the usual experiences. His parents don't understand. His friends (some of them, at least) are idiots. And he WANTS things so desperately much. Toys, and candy, and comic books...

Individual strips of "Nuts" appeared in National Lampoon during their golden era. The book was rare; I treasured my copy. Luckily you can borrow it for free from the Internet Archive. And there are PDFs of it out on the high, seas, too. I'm sure the Kid would understand.

archive.org/details/nuts0000wils_q2w6

Happy reading! 🤓📖

#Books #Bookstodon #humor #ComicStrip #BookRecommendation #BookRecs

Are there any books that made you a different person? Particularly when you were a kid or young teen? There were for me, and this was one of them. The funny thing is that it was •written• by a teen, too: Harry Medved was 17 years old when he wrote "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time".

Specifically it had a HUGE impact on my sense of humor. It covers fifty films which, if not STILL the worst of all time, are certainly still among the worst of the worst. You probably haven't heard of most of them, although some are so awful that they've earned a sort of perverse immortality and even fans. Of course the book was written long before MST3K, but it has much of the same spirit: a twisted enjoyment of the biggest flops, the stupidest scripts, the dumbest concepts, and the most painful acting.

At least a few of these films were also given the MST3K treatment years later, such as "Santa Claus Conquers The Martians" and (I think) "Robot Monster". You can probably find them on YouTube or the Internet Archive.

Each film gets a thorough (and thoroughly funny) writeup, including stills, plot summaries, "Unforgettable Performances", "Immortal Dialogue", the story behind the film, and more.

One example from "The Ambushers" (1967) starring Dean Martin:

MATT HELM: Oh, when you say you're a “38” you ain't just kidding! LINDA: It’s not a gun, Mr. Helm. It’s the new weapon they gave me, developed right here in our labs. MATT: Developed pretty well, too! LINDA: May I point out... MATT: You already do! LINDA: ... that that’s why you're here. To become familiar with our latest equipment. MATT: You're right. An agent should always keep •abreast• of the times!

Feel free to cringe.

This is the book that CREATED bad film fandom. It inspired MST3K, as well as two excellent sequels and a lot of other professional film mockers. Its cultural impact has been enormous.

I've only ever seen the book as a large paperback; I have a copy, of course. But it was never released as an ebook. Luckily it's available to borrow for free online at the Internet Archive, every bad film buff's best friend!

archive.org/details/fiftyworstfilmso0000medv

Happy reading! 🤓📖

#Books #Bookstodon #Humor #Movies #Films #BookRecommendation #BookRecs

This is one of the most precious books I know. It's one of the rare books which brings tears to my eyes every time I finish it. In other words, it's one of the three books which are closest to my heart.

Kipling has a bad reputation as a colonialist author, these days. In fact he's been despised in some circles for many decades now. But "Kim" is the novel which shows that even a colonialist can be a human being with a very human love for the culture of the colonized.

"Kim" is the story of a boy in 1890s India: Kimball O'Hara, the orphaned son of an Irish soldier and an English nanny. Growing up as a native in the city of Lahore, no one except he knows that he's not a native—and he doesn't care about it himself. He lives for fun and excitement, known to the people of the city as "The Little Friend of All the World".

"He sat, in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam Zammah on her brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Gher⁠—the Wonder House, as the natives call the Lahore Museum. Who hold Zam-Zammah, that 'fire-breathing dragon,' hold the Punjab, for the great green-bronze piece is always first of the conqueror’s loot."

Incidentally, Kipling himself grew up in Lahore. His father was the curator of the Wonder-House of Lahore, a museum. And Kipling included his father and the museum itself at the start of the novel.

Kim meets an ancient Tibetan lama who has left his monastery in the Himalayas to find a sacred river. The two become friends and travel together across India; the sheer richness of the many cultures that Kim experiences as he travels across India and up into the lower Himalayas with the lama is mind-blowing. Kipling paints the India of the time with such passionate depth of feeling that it serves as a character in itself. The variety of peoples and customs is simply amazing. Ever since I read this book I've wished I could travel to India in that time.

But "Kim" isn't just a travelogue. There's adventure, intrigue, espionage, humor, and one of the most perfect coming-of-age stories ever written. Kim is drawn into the "Great Game" of spying between the European powers, and is educated as an agent by masters of the craft.

What can I say? It's a deeply moving and beautiful book. And you can download it for free in all the major ebook formats from Standard Ebooks.

standardebooks.org/ebooks/rudyard-kipling/kim

I've often thought that "Kim" is proof that a book doesn't have to be science fiction or fantasy to be breathtakingly exotic and magical, while retaining a core of incredibly touching humanity.

Happy reading! 🤓📖

#Books #Bookstodon #HistoricalFiction #Classics #Adventure #ComingOfAge

I read a lot of books in 2025! Mostly female authors, mostly SciFi, and a lot of really nice and surprising stories that I just found by chance. Have a look at the overview on my #BookWyrm summary:
https://books.theunseen.city/user/ditsch42/2025-in-the-books?key=d23d8d7c4c6442caabbc52f9e9c429d6
(You can also follow my account @ditsch42@books.theunseen.city directly if you're interested in what I read)
If I had to pick 3 favorites:
1. Everything is Tuberculosis (John Green)
2. Piranesi (Susanna Clarke)
3. A Psalm for the Wild-Built+A Prayer for the Crown-Shy (Becky Chambers)
#Bookstodon