Joel Adamson

2.5 stars, marking it as 3 because this isn't a bad book, I just couldn't finish it, couldn't hold myself back from other titles. I usually don't review books that I haven't finished (and how many more times can I say that?), but I had such high hopes for this one that I'm disappointed I couldn't bring myself to keep going with it. The writing is excellent; Elliott is a fantastic fantasy writer and does manage to create characters that I really wanted to see through, and she puts them in interesting situations. The book starts with a man being left by the mother of his child, and the identity of that child is a fairly constant topic of the early part of the book. I really loved the story of Liath, and want to know if she matures and gets past the trauma that she suffers in the early part of her story, but then...

Two things were keeping me from continuing on. There's just not enough of Liath. The other POV is interesting, but what's irritating is that the two POVs are barely connected and I didn't want to wade through more, or skip ahead. Other POVs get introduced and they are even less interesting. I just didn't feel interested in these people and it was irritating to keep pretending.

The other thing that kept distracting me was that this world is basically medieval Europe with a few modifications. Let me be careful in how I say that, as you might think this is a made-up world that just superficially resembles Europe, as in much of fantasy: this is basically a world that has the same geography as Europe, with a feudal system much like Europe in the eleventh century, and a fully-functioning replica of the Roman Catholic Church with a few modifications to its theology. The church hierarchy only differs in its treatment of women, i.e. there are female bishops, deacons, and so on. This was REALLY distracting. I prefer a completely made-up world. I love medieval Europe, but if I want it, I read nonfiction.

So there you go. This is a good book, but these distracting elements made me put it down.

Like the movie, but without the bad makeup!

This is the simple story of two lovers in the early 1960s and how things don't work out for them. If you're a fan of Ian McEwan, you'll love this book, even if just for stylistic variety. It's very different from his other books, but still has his cerebral charm, irony, and his brilliant juxtaposition of the abstract and downright disgusting.

The only downside to this book is how short it is. It's not really a novel, and in style and subject matter, it reads like a short story. The story at the center of it takes place over the course of about an hour, and the rest is background. I finished it in 2 days, which was nice, but it just felt like it wasn't quite enough.

Exciting new world

Tim Akers has produced yet another exciting new fantasy world. In this story, a warrior-mage receives absolution from priests of memory, and as he tries to walk away, he runs into trouble. This is a nice, quick read but it isn't lacking for worldbuilding, characters, or fantasy action.

A fascinating read, as a reader and an author. This book is hard to put down and easy to read in long stretches, intense, and complex. There's a huge cast of characters of all ages, although it's about highborn characters. If you like The Wheel of Time, this is the closest thing I've read to that series. This book dates from 1985, was probably written in 1982 or so. If you're nostalgic for the decade and have had trouble finding something of real quality, this is a book for you.

Wow...ummm...hmmm. [a:Melanie Rawn 8661 Melanie Rawn https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1223871368p2/8661.jpg] is second only to Robert Jordan for me, at least among fantasy authors. She's undoubtedly one of the most influential, and possibly most underrated, authors of the hardcover fantasy boom of the 1990s. [b:Dragon Prince 185289 Dragon Prince (Dragon Prince, #1) Melanie Rawn https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1309210730l/185289.SY75.jpg 1298638] mixes romance, politics, magic, religion, and war for unbelievable turns of plot and unforgettable characters who are at once awesome, beautiful, charismatic and totally believable. Furthermore Rawn's style is straight-to-the-point in a way that doesn't have the excess internal dialogue of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, and while it isn't weighed down with descriptive prose, it manages to be as descriptive as it needs to be. And, of course, it needs to be said that this is not standard (at the time) Tolkien-clone fantasy: she mixes the best of the Mists of Avalon Celtic-inspired fantasy with Arab desert-inspired culture, and her own religious magic and the heroes and dragons of generalized heroic awesomeness. All of this means I had serious trouble putting down her first trilogy of the Dragon Prince world. I can't remember why I put down [b:The Ruins of Ambrai 185292 The Ruins of Ambrai (Exiles, #1) Melanie Rawn https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327903388l/185292.SY75.jpg 1298639], but it must have been a catastrophic life-event of some kind. I intend to pick it back up ASAP.Unfortunately, this unputdownability doesn't continue with the Dragon Star trilogy. We still have the same wonderful characters, although they are a little older and facing new challenges, and there's a greater focus on the younger generations. We also have the same wonderful setting: the dragons, the desert, the Sunrunners, and the diarmadhim sorcerers. Roelstra's leftover offspring are still kicking around, occasionally causing trouble for everyone. On top of that, however, are two problems that made getting through the first two books of this trilogy really hard.First, the main problem faced by High Prince Rohan and his family are a group of invaders from...where? These bearded fellows show up on dragon ships, indiscriminately setting fire to everywhere, taking nothing but horses, ruthlessly killing Sunrunners. It's bad, yes, but neither we nor the characters know anything about these invaders. We gradually learn a name, Vellant'im, for these formidable foes and a few fun facts. Despite [b:The Dragon Token 185294 The Dragon Token (Dragon Star, #2) Melanie Rawn https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1172524791l/185294.SY75.jpg 2156773] even granting us the POV of a few Vellanti characters, at the end of this book still no one knows anything about them. I found that this really sapped the motivation. Our favorite characters are just getting beaten mercilessly, despite their ingenuity in slowing down the Vellant'im, and they don't even know why. I find it confusing.What's even more confusing is that this book (and [b:Stronghold 257321 Stronghold (Dragon Star, #1) Melanie Rawn https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386922160l/257321.SY75.jpg 249398], the first book of the trilogy) skip around from one point of view to another throughout the whole conflict every few pages. I was genuinely surprised when I came to a sequence that lasted more than two pages. Quite often these shifts happen right when things are getting interesting. Huge battles are skipped over with fleurons, and we come back in the middle of a few of those battles, and by then I couldn't remember what happened before because there had been an intervening seven two-page sequences featuring characters I didn't care about. Characters are also named after each other. I couldn't keep track of who was who quite often, even forgetting who Sionell was, and what a critical role she played in [b:Sunrunner's Fire 123512 Sunrunner's Fire (Dragon Prince, #3) Melanie Rawn https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1309211296l/123512.SX50.jpg 3312939], the final book of the first trilogy.That was pretty disappointing, because, as I said, I love Melanie Rawn's writing usually, and she has things that no other author has. All of the above led to me not looking forward to this book, falling asleep reading, and trying desperately to finish it so I could move on to something else. I was going to give this book 2.5 stars, but then in the last ten pages things get very very interesting, and contain some of Rawn's best writing. It's that kind of conflict that is really inspiring to me as a writer, and I hope Skybowl has more of it, although honestly, I'm only looking forward to reading it if it is more like the last seventy or so pages of The Dragon Token.

I...I really wanted to like this. I am really glad I found out about this author and I might read some of her other stuff. It was really cool to find a book that was readable and had interesting world building just at the used bookstore. Unfortunately this book is sort of in a Lord Dunsany mode with a lot of summary and large swaths with no real conflict. Halfway through I discovered this is the first of a new trilogy in a world that has six previous books. The first came out in the seventies, so there's a lot behind this book. And therefore a lot that I just didn't understand the significance of.

It was hard to finish for those reasons, but you might like it. I'll be on the lookout for the earlier books by this author.

Juliet Marillier is an author who isn't shy, isn't afraid, doesn't hold back from horrible traumatic experiences and details when called for. And she's expert at this pseudo-historical old Ireland when Christianity is already there, druids are still there, but she doesn't lecture either side or idolize them, either.

This book is in the same vein as her others in terms of setting, but does everything new in technical terms. The story is told through three first person narrators in both past and present tense. What's also new is that this is a kind of buddy cop story but with all the fantasy trappings. It isn't Marillier at her best, but it is her work. It makes me want to go re-read her other books on my shelf. The plot is brilliant, and still surprised me up to the last page. Quite suspenseful.

That being said, some of the execution is a little off. Some is a bit on the nose, though I'd like to blame mystery-genre expectations. I was able to move past those parts pretty easily, despite thinking more could have been left to the reader. I can't wait to read more of her work.

Not giving this a star rating because I only read as much as I could to figure out that I didn't want to read it and why. I don't know if I just can't read historical novels about historical periods that I know a lot about and study in my spare time, or if this book is just written in a way that puts me off. The prose is really really REALLY lifeless and boring. For my own study purposes, I'm trying to figure out what makes the prose so uninspiring: it's not the content. Although little happens in the first few pages that I tried, it could have been written about in a way that was more interesting. It's not that the sentences don't have active verbs, because they do. I tend to think it's the word choices, wherein the author uses words that are totally unfamiliar to the reader (although not to me, who reads Old English daily) in ways that are not easy to guess from context. Authors often do this with characters who are from a different, non-English-speaking culture, for example a book about Germans during WWII (i.e. [b:The Keep 62571 The Keep (Adversary Cycle, #1) F. Paul Wilson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386925088l/62571.SY75.jpg 3354329]), wherein the author uses German exclamations or expressions to express a particular emotion that won't come across in English. Griffith tries to do this with Old English, but the words she chooses are so unfamiliar and so out of place, it's just weird. Think of it: no one would do this with Ancient Greek or Phoenician. Griffith's attempt comes off as just trying to create a particular atmosphere those words don't actually lend to the text. I skipped ahead to find some sex or fighting, and although I did, it was really weird and lifeless, the sex scenes just someone doing things to the POV character, as a favor after a long day. The author tells the reader that Hild enjoys having these things done to her, but she seems to react like a block of wood. I don't know why an author would want to have a formative experience like that basically a form of coercion and meaningless, momentary pleasure instead of bonding in a meaningful and intimate way with another person (and it's all totally fictional, so she could have chosen anyone and any situation she wanted). She could have been describing a character masturbating except for the phrase “it felt different from when she did it herself.” I didn't read the whole book, so I admit I can't really see how this scene fits into the wider context, but it looks shoehorned-in, as if the author wanted to assure us that Hild is queer, or just needed to have a sex scene in there for some reason. To the first point, the character in that scene could have been as straight as a ruler: it's not a scene of intimacy or emotional connection, and if it's meant as a characteristically lesbian scene it's not a particularly good representation of lesbians as people with feelings. To the second, there's no requirement that there be sex scenes in books, especially those about young teenagers. If Hild at this age is meant to have a particular sexual orientation, there are plenty of other ways of expressing it.It also may have been meant as an exposition of the character's view of the world, as in Hild becomes a nun because she has a deeper spiritual experience of the world and doesn't relate to people especially well, but then the question is why would I want to read a book about a person who can't relate to people in a meaningful and emotional way? Why would I want to read a boring book about a boring person? (the actual Abbess Hild was not a boring person from the little we know about her)I'm left with the impression that this book is sort of in the Mists of Avalon/Belgariad mode wherein the author is trying to create a particular mood or atmosphere about a bygone era instead of telling a compelling story. This book is for people who romanticise the interface between Celtic/post-Roman Britain and the coming of English to the isles. shrug I think Modern English speakers are just going to have a very hard time relating to the Early Anglo-Saxon period and any attempt to make it relatable is either going to substitute in a modern-ish romance or impose the current “motorcycle gang” motif onto a time it doesn't really belong in (a la Vikings). Or in this case portray a famous nun as a person without feelings. People just don't (often) understand the values of the people in this era, and since we have so few written records, it's hard for authors who want to set a story in this period to both set the mood and find a compelling story.

If you insist on having an “updated” version of Orson Scott Card's classic [b:How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy 11544539 How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy Orson Scott Card https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1307245914s/11544539.jpg 10966], then this is a fine book, but its value primarily depends on having that entire book as the first section. If this is the only copy you can get or you're interested in the perspectives of the co-authors, then again, this is an okay book. The added material does have a convenient glossary of arms and costume pieces, as well as other glossaries of medieval stuff. I hesitate to rate this book as high as the original because within that added material, there is little that you can't learn simply by getting invested in non-fiction about medieval living. There is plenty of research material out there, and learning about it holistically is way better than simply consulting a glossary. [b:Life in a Medieval City 100352 Life in a Medieval City Joseph Gies https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327349287s/100352.jpg 96760] is just one example of a book that will benefit any author writing in historical or pseudo-medieval settings. And of course, I have to ask, even though this book is a convenient reference: if all you're going to consult is a reference book like this, then do you really want to write about these settings? (I write fantasy because I've been a medieval history hobbyist for a long time, and I understand there are lots of motivations to write fantasy, but you can't hope to write something believable just by knowing the difference between a tunic and a doublet)There are, however, non-essential chapters that provide commentary and a little bit of history on witchcraft and magic, and I found these highly entertaining because once the principles are laid out and a few suggestions are made, writing about magic requires very little historical information. In other words, I don't care to dig deeper into the history of rosicrucianism or occultism; it's kind of interesting, but it's not that helpful when constructing a world or magic system to know the difference between Gardnerian Wicca and all the other neo-pagan sects. There was a some really interesting history about actual witchcraft and Satanism, but I don't particularly consider that relevant to my writing, so it was just fun.It's interesting to note that there is no cursory material about science in the added sections. Only stuff to do with medieval history and magic.I think this will make a good addition to any writer's library, but as I said above, it's mainly essential thanks to Card's original book making up half the pages. There is nothing particularly unique or essential about the supplemental material, and the essays on the “state of the field” were pretty useless to anybody who can go to a bookstore.Edit: by the way, there is nothing in this book about short stories or the current (in 2013) state of short stories. All of that is in the original book, and the new material appears to be completely novel-based (which I under$tand, that'$ where the buck$ are, but the title is a little misleading).

This is a first: a book that completely disappoints before the first line of narrative. I got excited about this book after seeing it mentioned in a Facebook group on Anglo-Saxon history. Sadly, this book is not good fare for anyone who already knows anything about Normandy or England in the 10-11th century.

Exhibit A: there's a glossary in the front of the book. Why not in the back like in every other book? I can't help but think it is to impress the reader with all the cool things either the author or some editor wants to show they've learned about medieval England. In support of that point, the glossary includes the word ague, which is still part of the common lexicon in many parts of the English-speaking world. What kind of condescending author needs to define such a word? None of the good ones.

The saddest thing is that the first entry in this glossary is the word “aetheling” (æþeling), which the author contends translates as “literally throne-worthy.” No, it doesn't. Not even non-literally. Æþel means “noble” and “ling” means ling as in duckling. The most common translation is “prince” or “noble one,” sometimes used to mean any good person, and sometimes applied to Christ. I feel like the author, editor or whoever was in charge there thought they could pull one over on the stupid readers.

Another thing that had me scratching my head were the deliberately over-dramatized entries from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that introduced the sections. I've read plenty of ASC entries in Old English and they are not novel material. They are the work of someone writing fast while still trying to get down all the important facts. The most embellished they get is in certain metaphors for death, as in “he forsook this world and joined our creator” and so on. There is mention of dragons in one entry but it's just that: “and there were dragons in the sky.” Everyone takes this to mean meteorites.

I just don't get why an author would try to make a very well-known and documented time period into fantasy like this. Bernard Cornwell didn't do that. Even Philippa Gregory knows where to draw the line. But they don't talk down to their readers. Neither does Pat Barker or Ken Follett, and he even gets away with plenty of “ooh check out this cool thing about medieval England.”

It's just really frustrating to pick up a book about interesting characters that are rarely written about or have movies made about them, to be greeted with condescension and BS. I don't recommend this if you're looking for something featuring Emma, Æþelred, Cnut, etc.

Argh. DNF at about page 420 of 500 (original mass market paperback, printed in 1988). I just can't bring myself to finish this book.

Bad stuff is always happening in Shannara. Dark Lords always seem to be resurfacing. Some teenagers are home alone for the weekend and when they should be partying, a dude in a cloak comes along and tells them (a) there's a dark lord resurfacing, (b) only you can stop him, and (c) your parents won't mind at all if you come with me and risk your lives using forbidden magic. He's kinda like the Cat in the Hat. I was willing to let that go, but after 400 pages it's just too much. This is the kind of wish fulfillment people are talking about when they say “eighties fantasy.” These teenagers are the only ones who can save this world that always seems to need saving.

Now, if I read this in 1988 or even 1992, that would be fine. We weren't drowning in fantasy then. Terry Brooks, Mercedes Lackey and Dragonlance were pretty much all you could find. I'm just telling you not to expect depth. Not even the depth of Elfstones of Shannara. I will still read Terry Brooks, but I don't know that I'll commit if it looks like this again.

An Irish fairy tale retold beautifully as historical fantasy, in eighth century Ireland and Northumbria. Sometimes disturbing but always poetically phrased, this is a coming-of-age story that kept me reading long into the night and had me thinking of its main characters long after I (forcibly) put it down. The plot is quite a bit more complex than the blurbs let on, but as a character-oriented story it is never hard to follow.

This book is fantasy in two senses: first, it's a book about people in cloaks and magical powers. Second, it is clearly someone's daydream. Our main character goes from a sexually repressive, religiously constricting polygamist society where women are abused all the time, to a magic school where not only is everyone nice to each other, but there's free love, music, running water, and birth control. Seriously, the MC daydreams and reads books about Herald Mages, and then just as her family is about to sell her into marriage...guess what? She gets picked up by a telepathic horse and taken to magic school where she finds out she's the most important person in the entire kingdom.

I'm not kidding. This is what people mean when they say “eighties fantasy.” Strangely enough, even though Mercedes Lackey was (arguably) the most popular fantasy author immediately pre-Wheel of Time, I don't think this kind of thing was typical, not even from the same publisher (DAW). It's certainly not the best. If you want good “eighties fantasy” I recommend Tiger and Del (Book 1: Sword Dancer) by Jennifer Roberson or The Dragon Prince by Melanie Rawn. No disrespect to Mercedes Lackey, but I have yet to find one of her books I could really get into; this one is just wish fulfillment.

I gave up on page 65, after two non-scenes, in which two characters ruminate on their situation while very little action happens around them. What action happens is barely narrated, and only serves as punctuation for the characters to ruminate about their crappy situation (which sounded interesting on the back jacket), mostly in first-person italics. It is repetitive, redundant, and repetitive, almost to the point of saying things twice, or three times. There is very little psychological depth.

I was disappointed because I wanted to get the idea of Mercedes Lackey's content, i.e. the “magic system” of Valdemar and I was excited to find book 1 of a series for free. But, this book spends 1.5 really long chapters on back-story and nothing happens. Chapter 1 is over forty pages long, and all that happens is a kid runs out on his master and cries in a tree. Don't waste your time.

This is a classic storytelling manual, and it certainly adds something unique to the storytelling world, but I had a lot of trouble telling what that was. If you are the sort of writer who devours writing books and collects advice, able to weigh it against everything else you've read, then this is a good book. Based on my reading of it, however, it is not a panacea. Not that it has to be, but I would advise against having expectations as high as the jacket copy suggests.My complaints follow.It's always bad when a book you've highly anticipated opens with a series of statements that run completely counter to your own experience. Or in the case of this book, just don't make sense. Truby starts in with the approach of many advice books, by saying what's wrong with most sources of advice and how his will be different. In contrast to many other authors making statements like this, his assessment of things is just plain wrong. For example, he says “Terms like ‘rising action,' ‘climax,' ‘progressive complication,' and ‘denouement' ...are so broad as to be almost meaningless.” Except that I know exactly what those words mean and I find them extremely helpful in structuring a story.He goes on to say that three act structure is meaningless, useless, and amateur, and that it results in rigid, unoriginal storytelling. But his replacement for three act structure is a 22 step story progression that requires rigidity, not to the extent that [b:Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need 49464 Save the Cat The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need Blake Snyder https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1411952887s/49464.jpg 48383] might, but it still appears constricting and unnecessarily complex. Similar to Blake Snyder, Truby points out that writers should be able to say what their story is about before they start writing, but his primary method of getting there is unclear. The “designing principle” is, I would say, Truby's really original contribution, something I haven't read about before, but he can't say what it is. He can never get to whether this is a method storytelling, a master plot, a narrative focus, or what. He puts a lot of importance on it, and says it will lead to “original and organic” storytelling, but can't say what it is. If I said I had something of enormous value, you'd probably want to know what it is, and get annoyed with me if I just told you over and over that it was really important.A few more pet peeves made me think this book wasn't really worth spending more time on, but you can judge for yourself. First, this is clearly a screenwriting book, written by a screenwriter, for screenwriters. But Truby promises his method can apply equally well to novels, short stories, plays and so on. As with other screenwriters and screenwriting coaches who make this claim, Truby doesn't really seem to understand these other forms very well at all. If you want this book for screenwriting purposes, then it should be fine, but I wouldn't write a novel based on its advice.My final pet peeve is when he talks about Westerns: “The vision of the Western is to conquer the land, kill or transform ‘lower' ‘barbarian' races, spread Christianity and civilization, turn nature into Wealth, and create the American nation.” This really pisses me off. I don't know where people get bizarre ideas like this, but it's not from watching Western movies. These factors play absolutely no role in great Westerns like Destry Rides Again, Gunfight at the OK Corral, or The Magnificent Seven (either the original or the reboot) and certainly are nowhere to be found in Sergio Leone's Westerns. They are peripheral in the revisionist Westerns of Kevin Costner and Clint Eastwood, far from the major concerns of the characters. Westerns are often about classic themes like revenge (Destry, Once Upon a Time in the West) and good versus evil (Magnificent Seven), or more existential themes like man's place in nature and society (The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly). Yes, my opinion is colored by the more modern Westerns I grew up on, but it looks like Truby's analysis is clouded by political or ideological preferences (i.e. this idea that Westerns are all about white men taking over the prairie from the natives). There are specific stories with the vision that he mentions, but it's far from all of them, or even a majority. High Noon and Rio Bravo are not about Christianity. When in 3:10 to Yuma do we see anybody dominating or killing Native Americans? I'm scratching my head trying to think of how these stories are not just about men fighting for good over evil in a particular setting. Yes, I agree with Truby that they incorporate specific symbols (the six-gun, the sheriff's badge) and that the characters fulfill particular symbolic roles which have an effect on the viewer. But I disagree that any of that adds up to an overall racist thesis.All of these things added up meant that I didn't spend too much time with this book, as good of a reputation as it has. Again, if you're eager to read every writing book out there, this is worth a look, but it's not worth more than a few hours.

This is my third Marillier book in a row and the fourth of hers I've read. I
This one is just as magical (in a literary sense) as the others and introduces new characters while bringing back old ones so you can see them moving on with their lives. I love the way these stories move generation by generation instead of picking up right where the last left off. This one is a bit different in that it's full on fantasy, albeit in a historical setting. The protag/narrator (protagnarator) is again a young woman struggling with her place in her family and the larger struggle of Sevenwatwers in the rapidly developing world of ninth century Britain and Ireland.

I did love this book, but I just didn't love it quite as much as the others. Around the last quarter I got the feeling I must have missed something. I couldn't quite figure out what everyone was fighting for at the end: it seemed like the conflict changed and then I wasn't sure what was going on. 4.5 stars.

This is not a bad book. I would have rated it three stars if I could have withstood finishing it, but I just can't keep going with a book I'm hoping to finish so I can read something more interesting. The last straw came when I realized that this isn't the whole story anyway, and the story will continue in the sequel, Lavondyss. For the purposes of recommendations on Goodreads then, I'm rating it as “didn't like it that much.”

The real problem is that despite winning the World Fantasy Award, this book is not really fantasy. It's somewhere to the left of magical realism. It's not even “portal fantasy” as the genre understands the term today. It thoroughly takes place in our world and never really leaves it. It's full of mythical stories and characters based on a fairly simple premise: there is a woodland in England that has never been penetrated and it interacts with the psyche of those nearby to produce heroic characters of myth like King Arthur and Robin Hood. shrug This is all presented in a psychoanalytic framework that I'm sure would mean more if I'd dug more into the symbolism, but I feel like I've kind of outgrown that and would just like to read something either fun or more interesting.

And it's not more interesting because it's written in a literary style that is quite distant and unengaging despite the simplicity of the story.

Basically, this is the kind of book that has been winning the World Fantasy Award since its inception in 1975. Look at the list of winners for best novel: hardly any of them are “fantasy fantasy,” except Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe, or perhaps one win by Michael Moorcock (which I haven't read). Almost every winner of the award is a book that takes place in our world with some minor supernatural elements. Technically fantasy, but not what most people think of as “fantasy.” It's just more of an indication that “Winner of the World Fantasy Award” on the cover means more that it's a particular kind of book, in a particular style, rather than indicating that it's a good book. I just can't keep reading when I've got good genre fiction scratching at my door.

Renowned sword fighter Tiger is approached by a woman looking to rescue her brother from a life of slavery. They set out across the desert and fantasy hijinx ensue.

A buddy cop sword and sorcery eighties fantasy. Not too long, but with plenty of magic, mystery, sexual tension, swords, sex, castration, sexual tension, sex, and swords. This author is not afraid of coming right out and saying what the characters are thinking and doing. Nor is she afraid of putting the characters into really dire straits.

They do get out of those situations a little too easily sometimes, and some of the writing is repetitive and a bit vague (rarely). However, this is a 5 star book on account of the characters. These are real people. I want to know what happens to them in the next book (more than just wanting to know if they sleep together).