Friday Fantasy First, Last, Everything! This time it's author William Ray.

William Ray is the author of the Tales of the Verin Empire series, and his debut novel Gedlund was named to Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2016. You can find his work on Amazon and you can find the author at his website and he's (far too frequently) on Twitter @VerinEmpire

My honest first was The Hobbit. My stepfather helped me read it when I was very young. He was a big fan, and he brought me into it with a book that had big colorful images from the cartoon. It helped inspire a lifelong love of reading, and particularly of fantasy stories. I fumbled through Lord of the Rings as well, but it was years before I really understood that story.

Plenty has been said about The Hobbit though, it’s brilliant, and has earned its spot in history, so I feel like I should take a moment to give credit to someone whose praises I see sung less often, the great Rose Estes. In the early days of Dungeons & Dragons, she wrote a series of game books similar to the Choose Your Own Adventure series, called Endless Quest. They were, in essence, single-player D&D games.

In 1982 videogames were mostly limited to eating dots while chasing ghosts through mazes, Harry Potter was nowhere on the horizon, and D&D proper would not have crossed my path until I was older, but I was right in the target market for her bestselling Endless Quest books. They were a version of The Hobbit I could direct myself! I read each of them dozens of times, trying to come up with the right combination of successes and failures that would still reach the end to build the most dramatic iteration of the story.

Those books were like the story-telling equivalent of the Lego system. From those I graduated to D&D and other table-top games, but I’ve never forgotten the early excitement of arranging those pieces the way I wanted. They helped me see such games not as a matter of winning and losing, but as a way of telling stories, and that provided the early experience of building stray fantastic elements into proper tales of adventure.

My most recently finished book was Benedict Patrick’s They Mostly Come Out At Night. While I had seen him rack up SPFBO wins for his amazing covers, I’ll admit I was a bit sketchy on the premise of his Yarnsworld series. I wasn’t entirely sure it had nothing to do with knitting, if I’m honest!

It had nothing to do with knitting.

The setting was a sort of mythic fairy-tale world, where everything feels both grounded yet ephemerally legendary. I highly recommend reading the free short story, And They Were Never Heard From Again first, because I feel like it gives a certain additional perspective on the setting that really enhances the novel.

They Mostly Come Out At Night was exceptionally good. It was fast paced, and really hooked me into the action. It felt like a childhood story, but with an added layer of sophistication that gave it depth and maturity. Everything in it is sort of dreamy and familiar, but with dark undercurrents.

From a writer’s perspective, there was a lot of great craftsmanship in the story. There were a few priorities I might have weighted differently – I definitely would have slowed down some parts, but I also recognize that my own aesthetics of pacing are not for everyone. It both makes me want to construct fairy-tales of my own, and despair because I’m not sure I could ever conjure that trance-like atmosphere that makes Patrick’s book work so marvelously well.

Memory is treacherous. There are countless brilliant stories whose premises spring to mind, yet whose titles and due credit elude me. I haven’t been on Goodreads that long, yet half the titles in my reading list are barely remembered. There’s no singular anchor in that sea of titles I can point to as the most tremendous, or most influential. I’ve loved China Miéville’s work and think Perdido Street Station is a must-read for fans of fantasy, as well as Kraken.  Felix Gilman’s The Half-Made World also struck me as a brilliantly odd piece. My love, for literature at least, is an inconstant thing.

Currently, I think I am most strongly enamored with Josiah Bancroft’s Books of Babel, which begins with the brilliant Senlin Ascends. It’s my go-to recommendation to everyone I know who loves fantasy these days.

It’s not a fantasy that’s heavy on magic, or myth, or monsters, but rather an intricate world of strangeness. The plot is compelling, and feels like a familiar experience while also being unique and rendered alien by its setting. His prose is brilliantly poetic, and I often find I have to pause while reading to admire it – or sometime curse jealously at some seemingly perfect turn of phrase I wish I’d thought of myself.

There are three books in the series so far, and I think it’s planned for a total of four? I want more, and dread conclusions, so I’m happy to see the story take its time. Maybe Bancroft will get to volume four, end things and then keep going. I won’t object.

Excellent suggestions, William! Lovely to see Senlin Ascends on here as it is my go to recommendation for anyone who has not read it.

Remember, if you want to take part I’ll post your entry. Just drop me a line on Twitter or via email to dave@dpwoolliscroft.com and I’ll send you some simple instructions.