Midchuck -- you and I are also of an age to remember that great Ballantine fantasy series in the mid-70s. Everything from "Orlando Furioso" to Lord Dunsany and some really obscure stuff like "A Voyage to Arcturus" by David Lindsay. The series was put together by Lin Carter, who wrote some fine stuff as well as collected the classics. More in the series was William Morris (Well at the World's End I & II) Eden Phillpotts "The Lavender Dragon," Ernest Bramah's "The Transmutation of Ling" and George MacDonald who wrote "Lilith" and "The Princess and the Goblin."

Fritz Leiber, Michael Moorcock, Peter Beagle, Evangeline Walton . . . and one of the finest, "The Circus of Dr. Lao" by Charles G. Finney.

I find myself disappointed in a lot of the modern stuff and Tolkien clones, but I really enjoy Anne McCaffrey, the humor of John DeChancey's "Castle" series and Terry Pratchett, and some of Charles de Lint's books.

I've gone on record before about Mervyn Peake and a few others.

Linn