Time for me to join in the community fun here.
I've just started reading
The Infinity Concerto, part 1 of
Songs of Earth and Power by Greg Bear. It was recommended elsewhere on this site as a great and different fantasy tale written by someone who normally writes hard science fiction. In fact, as far as I know, this is his only foray into fantasy. So on that interesting bit of info I wanted to give it a shot. I also found the same books (there are 2 in the "set") landing squarely on someone's worst books ever read list, also here on this site.
That made me hesitate a bit, but I still was intrigued so...
I'm only 80 pages in, but I'm loving it. He's very, very wordy at this point in his career so it could likely be edited down a bit, but I don't mind as it's still good reading. The whole thing is much more... serious than your traditional modern fantasy. It's dark, with elements from horror novels I'd say. Not gory or anything (that I've encountered yet), but the horror mood is present in places. It's fairly unforgiving to the main character and everything is very well thought out. It feels real even though it's so bizarre and alien.
Summary from
http://blogcritics.org/books/article...rth-and-power/
Quote:
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Songs of Earth and Power follows the story of Michael Perrin, a teenager from Los Angeles who befriends Arno Waltiri, an aging composer of film scores, then finds himself caught up in magical events that determine the fate of whole worlds. Following directions given to Waltiri by the David Clarkham, a sinister and mysterious former collaborator, Michael stumbles across a boundary between worlds, and finds himself in the Realm of the Sidhe. Stuck in a world that's actively hostile to humankind, he must learn enough to keep himself alive, and ends up doing far more. By the end of the second book, he's not just trying to save himself, he's trying to save the whole world from disaster, as the Sidhe return to Earth.
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