violentvioletsky:

petermorwood:

dduane:

ibrithir-was-here:

How the heck is there not more talk about Tanith Lee??

Like my gosh, the woman wrote, according to her wiki, 90 books, over 300 short stories, two World Fantasy Awards, and was the first woman to win the British Fantasy Award/Augus Derleth Award and wrote for tv shows.

Like, it’s not like she just wrote a heck ton but wasn’t very good! She was clearly very good she won awards, and i’ve read a swath of her stuff across different genres and really enjoyed most of it. I mean that even if not each one has been my cup of tea I can at least appreciate the skill and quite a lot I have truly enjoyed. She’s got great prose and style and imagination. Not everything obviously was a banger, but they’ve all been at least well written, which is harder to come by in writing than you might think.

But nobody ever seems to talk about her?? And I feel like the fantasy crowd on here would really enjoy her stuff. The woman has done stuff in pretty much every genre from what I can see, but I never see her listed on fantasy authors like Clive Barker or Diana Wynne Jones or Neil Gaiman or Terry Pratchett or Diane Duane even though she was writing at the same time and has a similar sort of ‘80s Doing Cool Stuff with Fantasy vibe’ I feel like people who like those authors would enjoy though she’s very much her own style of author.

Anyway this was really just me putting out a rant that such a prolific and talented author seems to have fallen by the wayside and I think it’s really a shame

Heck she even did a witch-queen fighting againt vampire Snow White a whole decade before Neil Gaiman did his phenomenal Snow Glass Apples and it’s also excellent, give a look here:

Tanith was a goddess, and that’s all there is to say about it.

A craftsmanlike writer; a solid storyteller. Funny. Wildly imaginative. The sexiest, makes-you-want-more prose. Rich, exquisitely nuanced, and sometimes quite erotic word choices. Not afraid to handle difficult subjects… yet somehow always in a subtle way that sucks you in and gives you a good while to realize what you’ve let her get you into.

Her books are shelved all over our house—the ones below are just the ones most readily to hand, in the shelf behind the bathroom door. (The room in our cottage where, let’s be honest. most of the household’s reading probably gets done…)

Those are favorites of mine, up there. The Tales from the Flat Earth group, the books about the world of the demon prince Azhrarn—especially the first three, Night’s Master, Death’s Master, Delusion’s Master—I go back to again and again. Volkhavaar, too, is a tremendous read, and the delight of her prose stands out particularly there.

…So, briefly: Tanith’s a powerful influence on my work, and was a good friend. Without Tanith it seems very unlikely that Stealing the Elf-King’s Roses would ever have happened (as the germ of the novel sprouted when we were having dinner at a favorite restaurant in New York and started telling each other fairy tales).

She’s so much missed. And yes, one of the great names in fantasy, and one who absolutely should get far more attention.

After Anne McCaffrey, Tanith was the first “Writer Whose Work I’d Read” that I actually met, introduced by my then-agent at the second SF/F con I ever attended.

I hadn’t bought any of her books yet - I put that right later in the dealer’s room - but I’d read many of her short stories in anthologies like “Year’s Best Fantasy”, “Swords Against Darkness”, “Flashing Swords”, etc.

Besides the book titles in @dduane’s photo, I recommend “Odds Against the Gods”, “Deux Amours d'une Sorcière” (don’t worry, it’s in English) and “Dry Season”; they’ll give a tasting-menu idea of Tanith Lee’s range.

Incidentally, “Dry Season” was in the same anthology - “Flashing Swords 5” - as “Parting Gifts”, the first thing I’d ever read by a writer called…

Mmm…

Oh yes.

Diane Duane. :->

So true. I do feel like Tanith Lee’s work is criminally unknown. Her works were pretty popular among the 90s Goth community (alongside Storm Constantine, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Poppy Z. Brite, Anne Rice, and Neil Gaiman).

I heard someone jokingly call it the “90s Goth Reading List”. This wasn’t a literal sense but in a figurative sense whereby a lot of folks seemingly had similar taste in authors or would lend you a copy of their favorite work by said author if you hadn’t heard of them. This is isn’t a thing anymore and I miss it.

I loved it when friends would lend me their well loved books with folded corners and wrinkled pages. There’s a certain warmth to a book that has been re-read several times. :)

I have found several book clubs online for fans of spooky bookish types. This has inspired me to recommend some of Tanith Lee’s works in my Spooky Book Clubs and help spread her genius! :)