✨ Old but Gold - welcome to our new recommendations thread!

These days, there's a lot of marketing around newly released books, so we wanted to shed some light on oldies that came out more than 20 years ago but aged like fine wine! Hopefully, the community enjoys them, too. ❤️

Each month, there'll be a post with a book released **before 2010 and before 1995**.  This month we are going way back to before 1980 for two famous, influential but very different books. 

And this month’s picks are **{The Princess Bride by William Goldman}** from 1973 and **{Biting the Sun by Tanith Lee}** from 1977/1979 (it contains two stories.)

The Princess Bride

(review by u/aristifer)

Everybody here has seen the movie, right? (If you haven’t, that’s what you’re doing next weekend. Get to it). But did you know that the movie was based on a book? 
Well, if you’ve seen the movie, you already have a good feel for the book, because it’s a very faithful adaptation—in fact, the author, who is primarily a screen writer, wrote the screenplay himself. The biggest difference is really in how the metafictional framing story was adapted to film. The conceit of the novel is that as a child, Goldman (or rather, a fictionalized version of him) had The Princess Bride by Florinese author S. Morgenstern read to him by his father when sick. Revisiting the story as an adult, he realizes that the book is actually a very dry, longwinded satire of Florinese politics, and his father had only been reading him the good bits. So he sets out to abridge the novel into the exciting story he remembers. The beloved tale of Westley and Buttercup’s adventures and romance is punctuated by fictional-Goldman’s commentary, including editorial notes about the material he has cut, complaints about his publisher and tangents about his career and personal life. 
(NB: there are several different editions of this book, and the later editions have additional content, including the first chapter of the (fictional, never-written) sequel, Buttercup’s Baby, so pay attention to which edition you’re reading). 

**Quality of writing**
This is a classic for a reason. The prose is exactly what it needs to be to suit its purpose, and it hits the mark brilliantly. That means a distinct difference in style and register between the “Morgenstern” narrative and the “Goldman” commentary. The former is playing with the traditional fairy tale mode in a similar way to how Douglas Adams plays with sci-fi in Hitchhiker’s Guide, while the latter is informal and meanders into tangential anecdotes about fictional-Goldman’s life. It’s all highly readable; you’re not getting any overwrought flowery prose except where used satirically, and you also aren’t getting any embarrassing grammatical faux pas or clunky constructions that aren’t part of intentional characterization. Goldman is an actual pro. 

**Characters**
The narrative in Westley and Buttercup’s story is third-person omniscient, which makes its approach to character read very differently to most modern fantasy romance. We get less character interiority, more distanced satirical commentary about the characters’ assumptions, motivations and abilities. This is a story about characters; it is not at all a vehicle to self-insert, and it is more comedic than emotionally involved. 
In Buttercup especially, we see how this book is a product of a time before fantasy began its interrogation of gender. Buttercup is mostly a passive object for Westley to rescue, with her most important characteristic being her beauty (and this is dwelt upon at length). The narrative drops a lot of hints that she is not very smart, and she unfortunately exercises pretty much zero agency in getting herself out of her situation, beyond clinging to her fervent belief that Westley will rescue her. 
Westley’s whole character is competence porn; he accomplishes a dozen impossible things before breakfast and defeats everyone who challenges him while also outsnarking them, which makes it impossible not to root for him. But the real gems in this story are actually the side characters, Inigo and Fezzik. The narrative gives us a lot of background info on their personal histories that didn’t make it into the movie, and they are flawed and lovable and have an absolutely delightful buddy bromance.
 
**Did it age well?**
As a product of the 1970s, there’s some stuff in here that definitely would not fly today, most of it in Goldman’s meta-narrative. Fictional-Goldman is kind of an ass, so it’s all in character; he criticizes his fictional son for being overweight, complains about his fictional wife, drops some racist and homophobic remarks, ogles women and puts the moves on them while traveling for work. But some of it does make it into the “Morgenstern” story, including Miracle Max referring to Inigo by an ethnic slur and Westley slapping Buttercup in anger when they are first reunited. The only major female character being dumb and useless and valued only for her beauty is not a great look. But if you can look past that stuff, the adventure and comedy really does hold up. 

**But aristifer, is this REALLY fantasy romance?**
I would consider it a proto-fanro. It is certainly fantasy, and the story-within-a-story certainly has a romance structure, and Westley is very much an archetypal MMC. The omniscient comedic voice is different from a lot of modern romantasy, though it does have echoes in novels like The Ornithologist’s Field Guide to Love by India Holton and Small Miracles by Olivia Atwater. But at the same time, the metafictional framing makes the romance feel smaller, sometimes quite literally, with Goldman using his editorial commentary to step back and distance the reader from moments of greater intimacy (look up the reunion scene passage for a very effective example of this). This is a narrative that is interested in using romance as a framework for adventure and satire, more so than in the romance for its own sake. It was also written by a man, and its perspective on gender is in the traditional male-gaze mold; Westley might be a typical MMC, but Buttercup is very different from our typical FMCs. But this is exactly the kind of story that the genre of fantasy romance arose in response to, when women writers began turning the traditional fantasy adventure around, giving agency to the heroines and writing from their perspective. 

Biting the Sun

(review by u/Purplelicious )

>DO NOT BITE THE SUN,
TRAVELER,
YOU WILL BURN YOUR MOUTH

For this iteration of “Old but Gold” I travelled way back to 1977 for {Biting the Sun by Tanith Lee}, her debut novel – this version released in 1979 has both books of the duology {Don’t Bite the Sun} and {Drinking Sapphire Wine}. Tanith Lee is a huge name in the origins of Fantasy Romance and I may pick a few novels written by her over the years. I think the first books I read of her were her reimaginings of Snow White in the 80s. But many romantasy writers will call her out as an early influence and she has a huge body of work that is loved by romantasy, SF, Fantasy and Horror fans.

Don’t Bite the Sun, the first book in the duology, is an excellent example of new wave SFF that came out of the late 60s to 70s, when women, queer and other marginalized groups used speculative fiction as a place to play with allegorical themes and examine ideas that were not found in mainstream literature. 

The immediate feeling when beginning the novel was delight in being able to immerse into a strange futuristic world. maybe another planet but maybe Earth several millenial in the future, but it doesn’t matter. Humans live on a desert world in 3 large domed worlds – four BEE, four BAA and four BOO. No one actually dies anymore, technology has evolved to the point where a human’s life force, or ‘soul’ can be plopped back into any body of your choice. It also means that you can change your body at will, switching genders and looks as to your preference. The community is managed by robots and humans have nothing to do but live a life of complete hedonistic leisure. 

Don’t Bite the Sun is a coming-of-age novel, but do not dismiss it as young adult. The themes of late adolescence, at least the questions I asked myself, are there – the ennui of life, the pressure of society to conform, the disillusionment of friend circles and cliques, the realization that love and adoration of others is not enough to sustain one’s mental health. 

Overall these books are excellent. For a reader not used to early SFF there may be a bit of a learning curve being dropped into the story without much explanation, but the edition I had includes a glossary that explains some of the more confusing aspects like time units and customs, but there are many things that are not explained. The best way to read is to just jump in and immerse yourself in the story.

**Does it translate well into modern life? **
 Which makes this era of SFF so groundbreaking for portraying same sex relationships, gender fluidity, identity and sexuality. But the reader should understand that there were still aspects of transgenderism and sexuality that were not well defined.  A character that would be considered Asexual today is labeled as ‘Frigid’, which even then had a negative connotation.  Lee was not using the term as a slur, but because she had no other context to describe the state of the character.  As a mother to a gen Z, I love the way Lee captures the experimentation as the adolescent characters move from one identity to another, recognizing they may be predom fem or masc, regardless of their childhood state. 

**but is it romantasy?** 

In the 70s there wasn’t as big a distinction between SF and F, so the question should be “is this a romance” .  It’s not a typical modern romance with a list of recognizable tropes, but finding love is a major theme and there is a HEA for our main protagonist with another character.  There is plenty of sex, with just about anyone in any body, but the sex is closed door.  Now we have less sex but with explicit detail and strict rules over consent, no appearance of cheating, and much less promiscuity.  

Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the audiobook producers for the opportunity to listen to {The Fake Divination Offense by Sara Raasch} in exchange for a fair and honest review

This is the second book in the connected but standalone romantic fantasy series “Magic and Romance”. Both books are mm romances that take place in a modern day earth – Philadelphia to be exact – where all things are the same except fantasy creatures and magic users are part of every day life. The first book {The Entanglement of Rival Wizards} is about two human wizards who manifest magic in different ways being forced to work with each other on a joint project. The reader is introduced to the world building on a need to know basis, so there is no end to what creatures or magic will show up. This allows the author to make up funny situations that the characters find themselves in, like dungeon monsters escaping and causing a rush hour traffic jam. Adventure parties are dispatched to keep life moving as normal as can be, when a magic user’s spell goes horribly wrong and sends city hall to another plane of existence. The focus is mostly on the romance with all this happening in the background, which creates the feeling of a contemporary rom com, but with a bit more of global conflict at stake, since sometimes Gods can’t help but meddle in everyday dealings of their worshippers.

There is demonic cults and kidnappings, recurring nightmares, cute outfits and things that can be done with sex toys when you have a tail.. Our two protagonists stumble and stutter around each other but are undeniably attracted to each other and can’t help but fall in love. One of the protagonists is a half giant pro “rawball” player, the other MMC is a manic pixie pink glitter and make up cheerleader. This is really a big boy protects cute smol bean boy story. It’s really not my kind of situation, but Raasch writes a cute love story with …compelling… spicy scenes. And she has a dropped in a few gags, like a repeating motif with a gossip tabloid show that covers pro athletes and their relationships.

What really shines here is the narration in the audiobook version. The book is told from the perspective of Orek, our half giant, and the narrator really captures the growly raspiness and possessive tone of the character but still able to portray his emotions in a believable way. Sometimes the more deep and gravelly a voice gets, the less emotional range the actor can portray but I really got the sense of Orek struggling with his feelings and also able to communicate meaningfully with his friends and boyfriend. Alexxo (awful name, but there is a reason it’s used) and some of the less masculine characters can run into a bit of a squeaky quality, which I didn’t quite like at first, but by the end of the story I wasn’t put off by it.

The romance is cute, the story has enough conflict and angst that we move away from ‘cozy’, although all this CR is pretty much cozy as even the conflict really only affects a select group of characters. I didn’t cry over the romance, which is my selling point for the best romance. But overall I enjoyed both the story and the narration and would easily recommend this book and this series to anyone looking for a cute and funny mm romance, with well written and just enough spicy scenes.

Technically the book is a standalone although the Orek is introduced in the first book, and the first books characters have major roles here. There are some major plot points from book one that are mentioned here, but this book takes place 5 yrs later, so the conflict here is completely different.

I gave this book 4.25/5 stars on Storygraph. The book is sweet like candy, fun to consume, no real nutritional or literary value, but also scores high with creative content and cute twee boys

Thank you to NetGalley, the Audiobook producer and author for giving me the opportunity to listen to this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This is the second book in the Time Of Iron trilogy. I remember there was a lot of buzz around the first book, Long Live Evil , when it was released but reviews were mixed with some readers really enjoying the comedic tone and other readers feeling it was trying too hard and that it was Young Adult. (YA). I don't enjoy reading YA so I bypassed reading the book as there are too many other books with adult themes that I will always choose first. When the sequel showed up as a NetGalley audiobook and I saw that the narrators were Moira Quirk AND Shane East, I was immediately sold and decided to request it. When it came through I also picked up the audiobook for the first book in order to cram both books so I could read and review as close to the release date as possible. Speed reading audiobooks is far more difficult than actual text as I read faster than a book at 2x speed, and I can't listen to a speed higher than 1.25x if I want to keep focused on the book. This becomes an issue for listening to this series, as I'll explain in a bit.

Firstly, a few notes on the first book, and the tone of the series in general. This is NOT a YA book. I think that there is a misguided school of thought that low to no spice in a romance or that characters in their teens (although the main characters here are 19 and 20) are what makes a book "Young Adult". And on sites like romance.io that allow users to tag books, many books are miscategorized as YA, when they are not. This series is NOT YA. I would say that the romance is not fully developed in book one as the author is coy about the FMC's final love interest. Without spoiling the ending of the first book, the FMC made assumptions about who her love interest would be and ended up messing things up.

The whole concept of the series is that our main protagonist has been portaled (literally walked through a magic doorway) into the world of her sister's favourite book series. A book that Rae, the FMC, is very familiar with, but thinks the hero and heroine are too perfect and the best character is the evil emperor. Evil characters have the most fun, after all. When Rae is given a chance for a miracle recovery in the real world all she needs to do is perform one simple task. And so she agrees to it, and wakes up as the evil stepsister on the eve of her execution, for crimes against the lovely and good heroine of the story. She must somehow not get executed. She manages to do this, while creating a small family of fellow evil doers who call themselves the 'Vipers' and prepare themselves to delight in evil in order to complete her task. Along the way, Rae is warned not to mess with the storyline and to treat these people as real, but all along Rae sees all of this as a means to an end, and delights in being evil, using her meta knowledge to bend the actions of the novel to her own will. Of course, it all goes spectacularly bad, partly because it's hard to be evil and partly because she kinda skipped a lot of the events in the first book and sort of winged it to the end. Oops.

So that's where book one leaves off - Rae messed up, lost her opportunity to save herself because she couldn't really do it at the expense of others in the story, and screwed up the narrative of the book in the real world because she assumed that it was the king who would be reborn as the Emperor, and then she messed up the timeline and the emperor has risen, but not the way it was supposed to be done.

So, Rae is given another shot at returning to her real life . This time it looks like an even more impossible task, but she is game to do it. Not only because she wants to return to her sister and her mother (although her life pretty much sucked in real life) but she also wants to set things right for the Emperor and give him a chance to redeem himself and become the hero he is supposed to grow into. This time, she tries to work with the book, to create the world back to where it should be... but it just isn't quite working out the way she expects. The more she tries to set the emperor up for success, the more the book narrative seems to fall apart around her. And she is not the only other worldly character messing about in the narrative. We met Eric the Golden Cobra in book one, another Viper, who is also trying to set things right for the NPCs and peasants, while leaving the main characters to do their things, except he's also been pulled into the main storyline. Marius was supposed to kill him, instead he loves him.

The second book has the original group of vipers set out in all different directions and multiple plotlines. And here is where things kind of fall apart for me, the listener. The books are very good, the writing is compelling and Moira Quirk is a fantastic voice actor. Which is a good thing because there are so many characters to keep track of. And I, as an advanced reader (tm), have no problem following multiple tracks with multiple characters. In fact, my favourite fantasy novels are incredibly dense with multiple POVs, plotlines that cross and recross and needs pages of glossary for characters name, country and faction. Delicious! Unfortunately this calls for a narrative that moves quickly and nimbly or the novel becomes bogged down in one story over another. No one likes to get to the next chapter and think "oh, no, not this storyline". Brennan spends too much time on inner dialogue and exposition. I just don't need that much hand wringing and worry. Then interspersed with POV of characters that I don't really care so much for - I don't think the Lady's maid multiple observations of Rae and Key's character is all that important. Or the Prime Minister's scheming to marry his niece. Or the long ceremony of the new lord only to be beheaded immediately after. It's just a lot and frankly, this 18 hr audiobook could have been easily a 13 hr audiobook and still hit all the right spots.

And finally, the worst part of the book. I selected the audiobook because Shane East is one of my favourite male narrators. I got all the way to the end and did not hear anything from him at all. Was this a mistake? How did I miss it? As I mentioned above, there was way too much exposition and monologuing and scenes that had no impact on the greater story. The thing is, I got to the end of the book and someone missed the ONE chapter that Shane East narrated. But I hadn't missed any major plot point. I did find the 6 minute chapter and relistened to it - maybe I drifted off because there was so much description with nothing important happening. And hey, he did a great job, but it was completely irrelevant to the overall story - he was bathing and thinking about how Rae loved to take baths. Thats about it. And that is what I mean about extraneous inner monologue. Meanwhile, there are several references to spicy bits and instead of spending some of this time, we get a very closed door and vague description of action.

I can only hope that book 3 has more Shane East and more physical interaction between our romantic couples. Come on, Marius, just TELL Eric how you feel, instead of thinking about him constantly.

In the end, despite the book being too long and the disappointment of not enough Shane, I actually really like the writing and character development of these books. The storyline is unique with plot twists that are still surprising. The writing is funny and the romance has so much potential if we could actually see more action and less thinking about it. Rae is a down to earth FMC who is not stupid, but still makes mistakes because of course she does.

Overall the book is 4/5.

German Expressionist, Insane actors and iconic opera singers.

Thank you to NetGalley, the Publisher and author(s) for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review of {The Eye of Leviathan by MA Carrick}

I am going to start this review with the afterword. I am not a reader who is typically interested in the motivations or background of the author. It means nothing to me that the author’s third grade teacher taught them the glory of the story, or that their family was instrumental in supporting the author during their all night writing sessions. Most of the time knowing about the author is a bit of a disappointment because they are just like me, and I’m nothing special.

However, the afterword of The Eye of Leviathan is as compelling as the story itself, as the authors (M.A. Carrick are actually two authors, both with backgrounds in archaeology) take the time to explain some of the historical facts and linguistic rules they chose to tell their story. Interesting side characters turn out to have actual counterparts, documented in historical artifacts. They carefully chose whether Spanish names or places should be Anglicized or left as to the language that would have likely been parsed by the main character at the time. These details do not affect the storytelling but they are fascinating and show the effort and detail that the authors have put into this novel. So, when you get there, read the afterword.

The Eye of the Leviathan takes place in Spain as the 16th century rolls over into the 17th, This is a hugely significant time in Europe. The conquistadors are looting the Americas in the name of God, and the The inquisition has murdered or exiled the Sephardim, the infidels, the antipapists and is now corrupt and greedy and will take payments in cash to hide your indiscretions or find your neighbour’s sins. Lutherism is spreading in the north and the virgin Queen rules Britannia. The Dutch East India Company is building fortunes in Asia. Corsairs rule the Barbary Coast. The Ottoman empire looms in Constantinople. And now we add some ancient legends and magical islands full of Fae and mysterious beasts. The lore and world building in this book goes deep. I can easily read 500 pages in a day, but this book took me at least 3 days or more to read the same amount. It’s so dense but not an info dump. I wanted to be in this lush world full of history and lore and I could not rush through it, although I was never bored. There is just so much to take in. This also means that there are not a lot of explanations to the historical aspects so a general idea of the history of the time will help the reader navigate through the politics as presented. As a reader I was fascinated by the university culture of Salamanca, impeccably researched and presented by the experience of our lead characters. As a Lit student who studied a fair share of Shakespeare and early playwrites, a scene at a theatre in Velencia was like stepping into the Globe at the time. (the authors hint that we will see more of the Queen Elizabeth and (I hope) Shakespeare as the timing is auspicious.

But enough of the history of the book, what of the story? It is also rich in fantastical world building. It starts with a legend – there are two sources of magic in the world. The Behemoth on the land and the Leviathan in the sea. The Behemoth is killed by Hercules, or maybe Samson depending on which myth you believe. There is no more magic source on land. The Leviathan, his sister, is distraught and closes off the sea and it’s magic from the humans who murdered the Behemoth. The Great horns of the Behemoth remain in the sea as the only gateway to seas beyond where magic still thrives. Alexander the Great discovers how to cross through the horns, and later the Spaniards and others discover the route, so there is always a little magic, being traded here and there, and a few lingering fae, cut off from the sea but not killed by the death of Behemoth. Of course in the Age of conquest and discovery and imperialism, Spain has decided to conquer the islands of the sea beyond, to convert the heathens and take the magical treasure all in the name of God, because that’s just what they do.

And in this world is where we find our story beginning. A woman gives birth to her seventh daughter and her abusive husband is furious she has produced no sons. To save the life of her newborn, she makes a trade with the tree spirits and takes home a changeling in the shape of a boy. Her infant daughter is given to the fae for her safety to ensure the changeling”s safety, the fae who will be raised as her son wants to learn the ways of the humans in order to stop the destruction of the fae and their magic.

The entire book is the parallel lives of Estevan, living in the human world and The Hungry Girl, a mortal without a true name, living in the world of Leviathan and the seas beyond. They are twins separated and grow into young adulthood never fitting in, hiding their true self, feeling alone and isolated. Which isn’t to say that they don’t gain friends and even love interests. The two main characters are not set up as FMC and MMC as one might expect in a typical fantasy romance, with the ‘separation’ working towards a slow burn romance. Instead they each gather a found family to themselves as they work their way towards each other. Estevan’s journey is more linear where he goes to school and university to learn about cosmological navigation, while The Hungry Girl’s story is more like an Alice in Wonderland or Little Prince story, where this island is made of storms and that island is ruled by fairy lords that sing the language of birds and create songs that seduce and this island is full of creatures with mouths on their stomachs with a taste for human flesh and that island will curse you to turn into a Harpy.

The book is the first book of a series so is mostly concerned with the journey towards meeting each other. Of course when that happens its clear that there is more to do, and the characters will all work together to make it happen. There may be some readers disappointed that there doesn’t appear to be much of an emphasis on the romance aspect and may question if this is pure fantasy with romantic sublot. But I say, it doesn’t matter. there is a great love story in here which has impact on the main character and more to come, so if that’s important to you, then it does exist.

But if you love a well researched, deep dive into one of the most significant historical eras mixed in with myth, legend and fairy lore, this is going to be as excited for you to read as it was for me.

5/5 stars, no notes.