Fantasy book covers: darker, more serious than before?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

There is a lot of overlap in the SF&F writers from the 70's and 80's. There are always been a fair number of women writing fantasy. A Norton, M.Z. Bradley(Darkover), Katherine Kurtz (the Deryni series), Patricia McKillip, Anne McCaffry (Pern). That's off the top of my head, so I may have misspelled a name or two.

The Pern series is actually science fiction.

[Chi Cygni]

Originally Posted by Yolina

Yep - I don't plan book purchases (e or otherwise), I just browse through random stuff, read a few pages of anything that has an interesting enough blurb and then decide whether to buy or not.

Me too. Read and then fish for a new book, genre of the moment depending on mood. Hardly ever hoard. If I do multiple purchases chance is I will not read half of it afterwards.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The Pern series is actually science fiction.

Several authors wrote fantasy with a SF basis back then. Let's see dragons, mind reading, teleportation and sword fights. About the only thing missing is the mages and elves. MZB's Darkover was also a mix of SF and fantasy. The first Pern book came out in 1968. I believe that the first authorized edition of LOTR in the US came out in 1965. The whole Middle Earth fantasy genre with wizards and all that didn't really hit it big until the mid to late 60's. I think the first Darkover book came out in the late 50's.