Welcome to the fourth month of the reading/blogging event Flavia and I are hosting, Calendar Girls! It’s a monthly event designed to ignite bookish discussions between bloggers based on the monthly theme. For more information, check out my or Flavia’s launch posts!
April’s Theme:
Best High Fantasy Novel!
Here I thought this was gonna be an easy one. I thought I’d have any number of books to choose from, but it turns out that a lot of the fantasy I read isn’t actually high fantasy. Thus, my pickings were rather slim. Not that it mattered because my choice needs no decision-making. My choice is obvious!
The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe
by C.S. Lewis
I know! I know! The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe is sooo cliche, but it’s a classic! I mean, who doesn’t love this book? Or the whole series for that matter because I’d pick all seven books if I could!
And besides, I think I would always pick this as my favorite high fantasy novel. It doesn’t matter how many books I’ve read or how my tastes change because The Chronicles of Narnia was a series I read even before I liked reading. It was one of those series that broke through my dislike when I was younger and enchanted me. For that I will always love it and always pick it.
Anyone else read The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis?
If you haven’t, you should!
Calendar Girls’ picks for Best High Fantasy Novel!
Flavia –– Wizard’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind
Mandy @ Book Princess Reviews — The Princess Bride by William Goldman
Lauren @ Two Birds, One Blog — Dealing With Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
Deanna — The Once and Future King by T. H. White
Melanie Noell Bernard 
Awesome post! Really like the theme! I also love the Lion the witch and the wardrobe! 🙂
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Thank you! If you want to join, we host a different theme each month. hint hint Haha!
And I think everyone loves LWW. I’ve yet to find someone who doesn’t. 🙂
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Yes! I 10000% agree! The Chronicles of Narnia were my favorite books as a child, and they’re still among my favorites today!
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Yay! FOR NARNIA!
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That is a great choice! One of my childhood favorites. I used to spend many nights reading this to my youngest sister 🙂
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Aw! That’s so cool! I always love when families share a love of the same books or have some tradition. It’s so great! 😀
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I’m fond of the entire Dragonlance saga. Yes, they’re quite 80’s now, but that’s the era I grew up in and these were the books that inspired me to read and write fantasy. Plus I had (have) a major crush on Raistlin Majere.
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Hee hee! I think it’s awesome that you can pinpoint which series inspired you. That’s so cool! 😀 Especially since I’m guessing they’ve remained your favorites throughout the other books you’ve read in the genre.
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Because The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is one of my all time favourite books I wanted to go with either this one too or with the Fionavar tapestry (similar to Narnia but with College aged Torontonians haha). But then I remembered back to the days of my Tolkien and Fantasy class where we discussed how these two series aren’t actually high fantasy. They’re a subgenre of Fantasy called secondary world fantasy because you move from the real world into a secondary high fantasy world.
In answer to your question, I’ve read the first 6 I’ve never managed to get all the way through the Last Battle!
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Woah. I have never heard of this sub-genre of fantasy before (and here I thought I was a master of sub-genres.) Though, I also didn’t study these things in school. Actually, because of that I will pretend I do not know of this fancy secondary world fantasy sub-genre and will praise Narnia! HAIL ASLAN! ;p
How come you never finished?
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I don’t know why I’ve never finished!! I think I just hit burnout by the time I get there cause I try and read them all in a row hahah.
Also I got the name of the sub-genre wrong it’s portal fantasy as in portal to the secondary-world haha.
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Ohh! I have indeed heard of portal fantasy. Though, I’ve never really considered is a sub-genre. I usually considered is a classification or specification of a book, but then I’m not a lit major. 😉
I also have read that many portal fantasies before. So, I don’t have many representations.
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The Narnia stories are awesome. I’ll leave it at that.
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They totally are! 😀 The Magician’s Nephew was world-building at its finest, in my opinion.
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I’ll have to check that out.
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Omigosh, I have no clue how I didn’t remember this one. This is literally a perfect one to do. I read the books back in grade school and then the movie came out so the next few years we were reading the rest of the book series in other classes (even though we were a bit too old for it XD). But it is such a cute story, and as you said, C. S. Lewis will never get old. Wonderful post and choice! 🙂
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What?! You got to read the books for school? I’m jealous! That sounds awesome! And glad you liked my choice. 🙂
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You called it! We once again did not pick the same books haha. I’ve only ever seen the movies based on this series, even though I have the books in my house….I’ve never read them. Awesome choice!
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What?! You’ve never read them! Then you don’t actually know the series because I don’t think they’ve ever even made the 1st book in the series into a movie! Everyone assumes LWW is #1 and it’s not! It’s #2!! dies
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Oh the chronology of Narnia debate!! I love that debate haha it’s funny to watch people argue over original publishing order vs. internal chronology!
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WHAT?! There is a different publishing order?! 0.0 My world has been shattered!
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So the original publishing order was The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe as the first book – but in terms of internal chronological timeline within the books, The Magician’s Nephew comes first.
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Forgot to add – since they’ve republished the books over the years in some of the omnibus editions, or some of the sets, they’ve renumbered the books so Magician’s Nephew comes first, which is wrong if you go by original publishing order. And fights break out over the issue.
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Wellp! Magician’s Nephew is first in my book. So it is. So it shall be!
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Noooope. And WHAT?! Omg I never knew thaaat! My world has been turned upside down….
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Ugh. No one knows that! They all think LWW is the first book and it’s NOT! Rawr!
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Bahaha well now I know!
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Since you haven’t read LotR or The Hobbit, well, I guess J. R. R. Tolkien’s arch-rival’s book will do 😉 Between the two of them the defined High Fantasy and have cast very long shadows.
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No sir. I have not. A shame, truly, but I was not big on reading for many years and am still quite daunted by larger novels. (GOT books take me 1 month+ EACH!) I have a copy of The Hobbit, but lord only knows when I’ll get to it. :p
Though Tolkein writes adult high fantasy. I still believe Narnia is the master of YA high fantasy. What say you?
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Ah yes, I forgot that you are more into YA. So I will concede the Narnia books there.
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Haha! I don’t consider myself an adult quite yet. :p So, yes, I do prefer YA. Hee hee!
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