RIP Tanith Lee

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

Tanith Lee died on the 24th of May at the age of 67 after 'a long illness'.
She was a prolific author, having in excess of 90 books and 300 short stories to her name, too many of which I haven't read (yet). She had a wonderful ear for language and wrote comfortably in that sparsely populated borderland of literature where poetry and prose are the same.
She was the best example of Goth literature you could find. Dark, imaginative, dangerous, sensual and sexual and wonderfully written. In the hands of a lesser author her themes and stories would be pretentious and ridiculous, but in her hands it was evocative.
She could be funny, she wrote good children's literature, she wrote fantasy, SF, horror, fairytales and more. She was my first introduction to the concept of anything beyond heteronormative love and sexuality and gender (I can't comment on how accurate or in/offensive her treatment of the subject is but I never felt it to be anything but respectful), and the first to show me that however much I liked the work of Tolkien and Lovecraft and Howard and their ilk, fantasy literature could be so much more.

She was one of my favorite authors and wrote some of the best fantasy you can find: The Flat Earth stories, which have very little in common with other masters like Tolkien, Leiber, Vance, Howard etc. being less about the success of protagonists and more about their failure and the world around them.
I could list dozens of good books here, along with a few not so good (though by no means bad). We've lost so many good authors in the last couple of years. I guess it's easier when they were already dead by the time you read them.

RIP

[DSXMachina]

Oh no, one of the best Sci-Fi & Fantasy authors of our time.

A very sad day indeed.

[Sharoth]

She will be missed.

[Freehold DM]

Damn! I loved her short stories.

May she rest peacefully.

[Tinkergoth]

Rest in peace, and thank you for all the joy you brought.

I was just discussing a game where I'm running a character who is somewhat of a tribute to Tanith Lee (imaginatively named Lee Tanith) with the GM shortly before hearing about this... a sad day. Going to dig out some of her books from the collection once I'm done with my current reviews.

[Scythia]

Author of the only novels I've re-read multiple times.

I had long hoped I might be able to find a way to ask her about intended pronunciation of a couple names, too late now.

[MannyGoblin]

Dark Castle, White Horse was a great book.

[Snorter]

Here's a tribute by Mrs Snorter, though you'd best check it out at home, because it's NSFW.

I found out very soon after meeting her, that she was a fan of Ms Lee, and I would take great delight, when browsing the bookstores, and finding one I knew she hadn't yet got. Finding treasures for others is more rewarding than shopping for oneself.

[limsk]

I stumbled across this post looking for something else and just realized that while I have seen her books many, many times in libraries and bookshops for decades I do not have a single one in my collection.

Would any fans of Tanith Lee recommend some of her work so that I may address my failings soonest?

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

She had an eclectic body of work, so it really depends on what you want to read. She tends towards dark and sensual stories, often with a strong sexual element, but she has also written children's literature. Under the name of Esther Garber she wrote lesbian fiction.
Though I detest the concept of trigger warnings, I suppose I should put one in here. She is fond of putting sex into her books and some of it is a bit explicit and not all of it is consensual (though the exact amounts vary from story to story).

My personal favorites are the Flat Earth stories, starting with "Night's Master". They are basically fairy tales and myths, written large and with some of the most poetic and evocative prose you will ever come across.

The Secret Books of Paradys are four books (The Book of the Mad/Beast/Dead/Damned) are stories about the fictional city of Paradise set in various alternate universes of Earth and in different times. Dark, Goth stories and weird tales. The same concept is used in The Secret Books of Venus, set in various versions of Venice.

The Blood Opera ("Dark dance", "Personal Darkness", "Darkness, I") trilogy is modern day vampires done right.

The Birthgrave trilogy is perhaps her closest work to 'standard' fantasy.

Kill the Dead is a great little book which in many ways was the direct precursor to (and far better than) a certain famous movie. I will not say which because that might spoil things.

White As Snow is a retelling of Snow White, darker and grimmer than anything the brothers Grimm gave us. She did similar things in "Red as Blood: Tales from the Sisters Grimmer".

[DSXMachina]

Yeah, I'd second Night's Master and the follow-ups, there's a bunch of mythological ideas that work really well.

The Paradys books I found a bit tricky to get into, but once I did it was very interesting.

My personal favourites is the Birthgrave trilogy. And I'd second Bjørn's assessment that her work is a bit 'weird'.

[limsk]

Bjørn & DSXMachina - many thanks for the help.

I browsed around Abebooks and found plenty of Tanith Lee titles. This is what I ended up ordering for a start:
- Tales from the Flat Earth: The Lords of Darkness (Compilation of Night's Master, Death's Master, Delusion's Master)
- Dark Dance (want to see if this one will overcome my indifference for vampire books!)
- The Book of the Mad
- White As Snow

[Scythia]

I agree with the Blood Opera Sequence, although only the first two. Dark Dance and Personal Darkness were both really good reads. Darkness, I was more forgettable.

The short story anthology Dreams of Darkness and Light has done great stories.

Sabella is another look at a vampire story done differently.

Black Unicorn was alright.

Heart beast was nothing special, I thought.

[Set]

I only read Night's Master, Death's Master, Delusion's Master and Delerium's Mistress, of her books, but they were cool. My mom collected sci-fi by female authors, so I grew up with lots of Anne McCaffery, Andre Norton, Patricia McKillip, Linda Bushyager, etc. on the shelves, and Tanith Lee was interesting because her style was so much more fantastical in nature than the others. Her books felt less like science-fantasy, and more like some sort of allegorical myth-cycle.

I'll have to check out some of her more recent works.