Forgotten fantasy novels

[Kaijima]

So there's some minor but enjoyable fantasy novels I read when young and am a loss to remember the titles/authors of. Yes, Google has failed me, as I have but vague plot descriptions to go on. I can't even remember the names of the characters. Do these sound familiar to anyone?

- A series of novels set in a typical looking fantasy universe about a singular wizard dude with unusual power. The backstory of this universe has it that all the insane "dragon lords" where actually once wizards who tried to use the flesh of dragons to make magical bodies for themselves, then got cursed and turned into insane beasts.

- A standalone (?) urban fantasy novel about a cigar-smoking and street wise wizard hunting an evil cabal of wizards who sacrifice lives to maintain their magical power. The big gimmick is that the anti-wizard wizard maintained his own power without sacrificing other lives by committing suicide with an explosive phoenix spell and using his own life energy to reincarnate in a new body.

- A book about a strange little town in which fictional characters the world had forgotten about went to "retire" until they faded away entirely. Full of everything from 2nd rate super heroes to cartoon characters.


Any old books you can't remember the names of and never saw again?

 

[Rii]

A series of novels set in a typical looking fantasy universe about a singular wizard dude with unusual power. The backstory of this universe has it that all the insane "dragon lords" where actually once wizards who tried to use the flesh of dragons to make magical bodies for themselves, then got cursed and turned into insane beasts.

Was this wizard a villain in the series?

 

[Kaijima]

A series of novels set in a typical looking fantasy universe about a singular wizard dude with unusual power. The backstory of this universe has it that all the insane "dragon lords" where actually once wizards who tried to use the flesh of dragons to make magical bodies for themselves, then got cursed and turned into insane beasts.

Was this wizard a villain in the series?

No, he was just disliked for being a "renegade" and as other saw it, arrogant with is unique power. I believe he had a family and passed his power along to his daughter.

There were also descendants of the insane dragon lords who regained their sanity and tried to aid humanity, but were distrusted. The protagonist wizard was an occasional ally of them. The "good" dragons could shape shift into a partially human form but it looked fake and synthetic; you could tell they were not human.

The power hungry wizards who tried to make bodies out of dragons were refugees from a dying dimension where they had godlike power, but could not use their powers in the new world without a trick like creating bodies from magical creatures.

That's about all I remember.

 

[jadcox@mindspring.com]

The last book you mention is, I think, Shadow's Fall by Simon Green:

http://www.amazon.com/Shadows-Fall-...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282600201&sr=1-1

Does that ring a bell? It is one I read years ago because the blurb reminded me of one of my very favorites, John Myers Myers' Silverlock:
http://johnadcox.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/silverlock-by-john-myers-myers/

 

[Kaijima]

The last book you mention is, I think, Shadow's Fall by Simon Green:

http://www.amazon.com/Shadows-Fall-...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282600201&sr=1-1

Does that ring a bell? It is one I read years ago because the blurb reminded me of one of my very favorites, John Myers Myers' Silverlock:
http://johnadcox.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/silverlock-by-john-myers-myers/

Hey, that's it! I remember the cover art now. Thank you, 1 down!

 

[jadcox@mindspring.com]

Glad to be of service.

 

[Rii]

A series of novels set in a typical looking fantasy universe about a singular wizard dude with unusual power. The backstory of this universe has it that all the insane "dragon lords" where actually once wizards who tried to use the flesh of dragons to make magical bodies for themselves, then got cursed and turned into insane beasts.

Was this wizard a villain in the series?

*snip*

Nope, not the novels I was thinking of, sorry.

I did think of one of my own, though: a sci-fi short story, probably 1950s-60s, or possibly two distinct short stories, concerning a man stationed on the moon who takes a sledgehammer to the nuclear warheads stored there, rendering them useless whilst racking up lethal radiation exposure in the process. I think there's also a deadman's switch in there somewhere. And - possibly this is a separate story - another man is trapped in a compartment that's leaking air. He plays mental chess with someone (the warhead smashing guy?) and attempts to plug the leak with, I think, his ass.

 

[Silvercrest]

The sledgehammer story is "The Long Watch" by Robert Heinlein. I don't recognize the second part, so I assume that's a different story.

 

[Rii]

The sledgehammer story is "The Long Watch" by Robert Heinlein.

Awesome; thanks.

I don't recognize the second part, so I assume that's a different story.

Yeah, by the time I finished writing it out I was pretty sure they were different stories.

 

[DigificWriter]

A couple of years back, I read a fantasy trilogy that was very similar in a lot of respects to Ray Bradbury's "Something Wicked This Way Comes", but also involved elements of 'world-traveling' common to novel series such as L.E. Modesitt's Spellsong Cycle and Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionovar Tapestry, and the television series Sliders. However, I cannot for the life of me remember the title or author. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

 

[jadcox@mindspring.com]

But by the way, DO pick up Silverlock. You won't be sorry.

 

[Silvercrest]

I read Silverlock about 25 years ago and I remember being baffled by the fact that the title character didn't appear to recognize any of the people he was meeting. He seemed so totally clueless and kept having to be bailed out of all these situations. Am I remembering it wrong?

Although I did crib the name for a family of D&D characters with a white streak in their hair. Whence comes my username.

 

[Kaijima]

A couple of years back, I read a fantasy trilogy that was very similar in a lot of respects to Ray Bradbury's "Something Wicked This Way Comes", but also involved elements of 'world-traveling' common to novel series such as L.E. Modesitt's Spellsong Cycle and Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionovar Tapestry, and the television series Sliders. However, I cannot for the life of me remember the title or author. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Was one of the worlds traveled to a "sci fi" universe and another a magical universe?

 

[DigificWriter]

^ I don't entirely remember. All that I remember for sure about the trilogy is what I mentioned above, and that the two main characters were a man and a woman, which is something I'd forgotten to mention before.