Quest The First
Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings is one of the BEST challenge hosts around. No joke. The RIP Challenge and the Once Upon A Time Challenge are so much fun to do. They are flexible challenges where you really sort of work in what you need. Anyways, I have decided to participate in Quest The First which is as follows:
‘Read at least 5 books that fit somewhere within the Once Upon a Time criteria. They might all be fantasy, or folklore, or fairy tales, or mythology…or your five books might be a combination from the four genres.’
Here is my pool of reads:
Pool of Reads
So is there anything in there that I absolutely must read ASAP?
The books in the bottom row actually come from my boyfriend’s mom’s shelf. Apparently his grandma was a HUGE HUGE HUGE reader. Plus a fantasy fanatic. When she died, her books were obviously passed on. I kind of wish I could have met her because I think we would get on fantastically.
Here’s the text list of potential reads:
Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan
Fire by Kristin Cashore
Eon: Dragoneye Reborn by Alison Goodman
Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon
Mistwood by Leah Cypress
Heart’s Blood by Juliet Marillier
Pegasus by Robin McKinley
The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
East by Edith Pattou
Summers At Castle Auburn by Sharon Shinn
Fairest by Gail Carson Levine
A Curse Dark As Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce
Stopping For A Spell by Diana Wynne Jones
Princess Ben by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
Firebirds anthology – for the short story quest
Tam Lin by Pamela Dean
Entwined by Heather Dixon
The Warrior Heir by Cindy Williams Chima
The Tough Guide To Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones
Princess Academy by Shannon Hale
Abandon by Meg Cabot
Trickster’s Choice by Tamora Pierce
A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Pope
Wild Orchid by Cameron Dokey
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart
Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
Shapechanger’s Song: Chronicles of the Chesyuli Omnibus One by Jennifer Roberson
Stronghold by Melanie Rawn
The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams
The White Raven by Diana L. Paxon
The Dragon And The George by Gordon R. Dickson
The Riddle Master of Hed by Patricia A. McKillip
Dark Horse by Mary H. Herbert
Sword-Dancer by Jennifer Roberson
Dragon Prince by Melanie Rawn
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Definitely Fire by Kristin Cashore. One of my faves. 😀
I will definitely read Fire then! I have been wanting to read it for quite a long time. 🙂
I would recommend Trickster’s Choice (and have Trickster’s Queen ready after that), A Curse Dark as Gold, Silver Phoenix, and then Fire.
Tamora Pierce is pretty awesome. I do have Trickster’s Queen ready. Of course, what is a fantasy challenge without any Tamora Pierce?
I would read… Abandon, Warrior Heir, Silver Phoenix, and Pegasus (but only because it’s the only other one I recognize that i haven’t read). I really liked Fairest… love Gail Carson Levine. And Princess Academy was pretty good, too.
Thanks for the feedback. I’ve only read one Gail Carson Levine book and I did not love it, but other reviews said it isn’t as good as her other books.
I highly recommend Heart’s Blood and Mistwood!
Can’t go wrong with Marillier.
EAST April! You must read East!! It’s a retelling of East of the Sun, West of the Moon, an old Norse fairy tale and it’s a beautiful retelling. Although, if I’m being honest, Jessica Day George’s version, Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow is better. Also, Entwined is a lovely fairy tale, I loved Fire and A Curse Dark as Gold is a haunting retelling of Rumpelstiltskin.
lololol YOU ARE SO ENTHUSIASTIC. And enthusiasm gets me every single time. I think I will order Jessica Day George’s version at some point.
Princess Academy! I say that because I, personally, was all “pooh pooh I won’t like THAT” about it and my friend made me read it and now I am the biggest Shannon Hale fangirl around. It was not what I was expecting at all and I adored every second of it!
Also, this entire photo of books just makes me happy.
Yo, if the photo makes you happy imagine how awesome it is to be constantly surrounded by those books.
Also Shannon Hale 4 Life *throws up Goose Girl gang sign*
I really enjoyed Mistwood! Also Summers at Castle Auburn and Howl’s Moving Castle are old favourites. And The Perilous Gard is a creative mix of historical and fantasy. You’ve got a lot of great books to choose from!
I’m glad I picked out good books. I’m so excited to read some of them!
A bunch of these are on my tbr pile, too. I’d say, of the ones you have there, Heart’s Blood, Tender Morsels and Entwined are the ones I most want to read and haven’t.
I second Ashley about East (and about Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow being better, though East is still good). And I really, really liked A Curse Dark as Gold.
I’ve been hearing good things about Eon, too.
I guess I will definitely have to read East since it has an endorsement from both of you.
I really recommend The Howls Moving Castle, I loved it. And then you can watch the cartoon for comparison 🙂 Enjoy your challenge!
I do love watching movies! I totally will be on that like white on rice.
Yay, you signed up for the Once Upon a Time challenge too! We’re both going to do Quest the First and we even have some overlap in our possible reads: Eon and Heart’s Blood.
Some of my favorites from your pile are Fire, Trickster’s Choice (and Trickster’s Queen), Howl’s Moving Castle and Pegasus. The books that you got from your boyfriend’s mom look awesome, I’m curious about Jennifer Roberson’s books.
I started Sword-Dancer by Jennifer Roberson and it is so good so far. It’s very engaging and has interesting mythology.
I am definitely going to read Fire and Howl’s Moving Castle because they have such ringing endorsements.
Let me know if you are definitely going to read Eon and Heart’s Blood because I will read them as well if you do.
LOTS of good books there! Tender Morsels, Fire, East, Princess Ben, Firebirds (lots of good stories), Princess Academy, Howl’s Moving Castle (the author passed away yesterday, actually), and that’s it… Man, I have most of the rest of them on my TBR pile. I either need to read faster or stop buying books…
It’s sad about DWJ passing, she influenced a lot of my favorite authors.
I am glad to see such a ringing endorsement for so many of the books in my pool of reads!
You have some great titles in there. Eon is specially awesome. Princess Ben, Mistwood, Fire – great books and may I say how jealous I am of your reading pile. I think I might do this challenge as well. I have already read a 100 books for the Goodreads challenge so… thanks for bringing this to my attention. And seriously awesome bookblog. I have bookmarked you and intend to stalk your pages. 🙂
I would recommend The Warrior Heir by Cinda Williams Chima. While I haven’t started that series yet, I am two books into her Seven Realms series and it’s absolutely fantastic. I’d highly recommend starting there.
Whoa! What an impressive amount of books! Sounds like a cook challenge as well 🙂