Fantasy films

I want to know what they were putting in the water in Hollywood during the mid to late 80s. Virtually EVERY SINGLE awesome fantasy movie I know of came out during the mid to late 80s. Don't believe me? Check this out:

1984: The Neverending Story

1985: LadyHawke, Legend

1986: Labyrinth

1987: The Princess Bride

1989: Willow

They were churning out at least one classic fantasy film EVERY YEAR!

And it wasn't until the first decade of the new millenium that fantasy movies started kicking back into gear with The Chronicles of Narnia, Stardust, and of course, the Lord Of The Rings films.

Seriously, what were they doing back in the 80s and can they do it again? I would love to see MORE movies like these made.

Favorite Series: Belgariad/Mallorean

I'm an avid reader. So much so, in fact, that I usually can never remember how & when I found most of the books I've read for the first time. Despite that, I remember exactly when I found this series. It was the tail end of my sophomore year of high school. I was walking down an aisle in my high school's library, running my fingers across the spines of the books. It was a habit I picked up from another book I had read awhile before. About halfway down the aisle, a book pinched me. I jerked my hand back and knocked the book onto the floor. I picked it up and read the title: "Pawn Of Prophecy" by David Eddings. Thus I started to follow the adventures of Garion as he went from young scullery boy to sorcerer to king as written in the Belgariad.


What has indelibly marked this series in my heart & mind is the cast of characters in the story. They take a fairly typical storyline for a fantasy series and turn it into an incredibly unique experience filled with laughter, sadness, adventure, and love. Over the course of the five novels, each character manages to carve out his own niche in your heart. And while you'll definitely develop favorites, each and every one of them becomes a necessary link in the enjoyment of the story. Oh, and since I know you're wondering, dear readers, my favorite character in this series is Belgarath the Sorcerer. There's just something I find very appealing about the casual mischievousness Belgarath portrays throughout the entirety of the series, while at the same time being a strong force for good. When you read the series, you'll understand. But I love all of them.

There were real pangs of loss when I finished Enchanter's Endgame. It felt like I was leaving cherished friends behind. Sure, I could re-read the series, but that would only enhance the loss when I finished it again. And I spent about a month trying to find another series of books I could move on to, in order to get this series out of my head. Nothing really caught my eye until I noticed this black paperback in a stand near the town library's sci-fi & fantasy section. The back of the book was facing out and I started to read the description and stopped halfway through the first sentence. Garion was hunting Zandramas. My jaw hit the floor, there was MORE! Thus I found & continued to follow the adventures of Garion as he journeyed throughout a foreign land in search of his abducted son in the Mallorean.


Most authors would just re-hash the original story in a sequel series, but Eddings actually CONTINUED the storyline, adding a plethora of new characters, re-visiting others, and creating an even MORE compelling story adding even more emotional layers to his established characters, and fleshing out characters (and even entire societies) that weren't fully covered in the first quintet.

Finally, just because, he wanted to make this one of the most awesome series in fantasy genre, Eddings added two prequels telling the life stories of two of the "eternal" characters in the series Belgarath the sorcerer and his lovely daughter, Polgara.


With these two volumes, the history of the worlds created in the Belgariad & expanded upon in the Mallorean was told to completion, while explaining how two of the most beloved characters in the ten books came to be who they are.

This is a series of novels that I have no problem saying I love. And I'd recommend them to anyone looking for a good read. Reading these novels, you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll cheer, and you'll fall in love, just like I did. Read them, and tell me what you think!

Favorite Series: The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

Recently, someone asked me for a recommendation on a good fantasy series to read. The first series that came to mind was The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant written by Stephen R. Donaldson. The series is split up into three parts. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant which consists of the following books:







Lord Foul's Bane — The IllEarth War — The Power that Preserves



The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, which includes:

The Wounded Land — The One Tree — White Gold Wielder



and recently SRD started the Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant which consists of

The Runes Of The Earth — The Fatal Revenant — Against All Things Ending(TBR) — The Last Dark(TBR)



The books follow the story of Thomas Covenant and his adventures in the mystical realm called "The Land". Thomas Covenant is a writer who contracts leprosy. The progress of the disease is arrested, but Covenant is shunned by the society around him. Embittered and with a deepening sense of cynicism, Covenant is transported to "The Land", a world whose basic, accepted realities prove to be an assault on everything Covenant knew to be true.

What makes this series so fucking awesome is the underlying psychology of the story. Any good series has an allegorical component to it. That's what makes a series relatable to so many people. With most epic fantasy series, though, the allegory is on a societal level. Things like whether or not societal progress can be halted and reversed, or whether the pursuit of scientific advancement is detrimental to a society. With the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the underlying allegory has to do with ONE PERSON.

And what's better is that the person whose psyche the author chose to explore is NOT a nice person. Due to years of enforced isolation due to the stigma attached to his disease, Covenant is (to a certain degree) mentally unbalanced. Add to the mix a healthy dose of self-hatred, anger, depression, a tendency to bottle up emotions, a loss of the sense of touch, and a sense of self-preservation honed to a nearly obsessive compulsive edge and you have a dangerous, dark persona to deal with. This doesn't make him necessarily evil, but it does make him a loose cannon and unpredictable.

A sentiment which is echoed, ironically enough, in the events of the First & Second Chronicles. (I'm still reading the Last Chronicles, so I can't say that it applies there, but its a VERY strong theme there as well.) Upon his arrival in the Land, Covenant is branded the re-incarnation of the hero Berek Half-hand, whose appearance will either "save or damn the Land" which essentially translates to saving or damning himself, given the similarities in the issues afflicting the Land and those affecting Covenant himself.

The events that occur in the Land mirror Covenant's internal psychological struggles with his self-hatred, his leprosy, loneliness, and despair. And as he has struggled to maintain a balance between himself and the disease in the world, he must now struggle to maintain a balance between the traits that allow him to survive in the world and the changes he has to make in order to survive in the Land.

This series of books, more than any other I've EVER read, truly reflects the awesome power within a single individual mind and the terrible consequences that can come from using that power AT ALL, let alone irresponsibly.

While this series holds a special place in my heart for reasons I won't go into here, I ended up not recommending this to the person who asked for my recommendation. Frankly, this isn't a series to be read when you're in a good mood. Covenant, to me, represents the quintessential anti-hero. But, I love this series and I'm eagerly awaiting the third book in the Last Chronicles. If you want to read this series, you'll definitely enjoy it, just know. The Land isn't Hogwarts, and Voldemort ain't got crap on Lord Foul The Despiser, or for that matter, on Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever.