So when I was at NADWcon last weekend, I was on a panel titled: “What To Read When You’re Not Reading Pratchett.”

My co-panelists were Marian Crane and Kristine Smith. And we spent a pleasant hour discussing books we loved with the audience.

Rather than slow the panel down to a crawl by spelling out all the author’s names and/or the titles of the books. I offered to post up the list of books we compiled here on my blog.

However, I was moderating the panel, and when I moderate, I’m usually too busy abusing my power to take notes. Luckily, Marian was nice enough to jot down the books recommended by both the panelists and the helpful, clever members of the audience. Then she mailed them to me so I could post them up here for everyone to see.

I feel I should mention that we made no attempt to make this list comprehensive. These were just the books that came up in our discussion:

Our main criteria selection were books that were strong in: Worldbuilding, Characterization, and Language. (As those are areas where Pratchett excels).

We tried with somewhat less success to bring up titles that focused on other things we liked about Prattchett’s writing: the inclusion of humor, careful handling of ethical issues, and a “feel-good” quality to the books themselves. This was somewhat less successful, as these are more ephemeral things, and harder to point at in a book.

What to read after you’ve read all available Pratchett books:

Douglas Adams: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, science fiction comedy

Neil Gaiman: fantasy and horror novels and graphic novels

Peter S. Beagle: The Last Unicorn, A Fine and Private Place, The Innkeeper’s Song. fantasy

Steven Brust: Vlad Taltos/Dragaera novels, fantasy

Glen Cook: Garrett, P.I. novels, fantasy mystery

Brandon Sanderson: Mistworld novels, Warbreaker, Elantris, fantasy

Jim Butcher: Dresden Chronicles, urban fantasy

Robert Jordan/ Brandon Sanderson: Wheel of Time series, fantasy

Lyndon Hardy: Master of the Five Magics series, fantasy

Walter Jon Williams: Drake Maijstral series, sf

Robert Zelazny: The Chronicles of Amber & many more, fantasy and sf

C.J. Cherryh: nearly anything, fantasy and sf

Barbara Hambly: nearly anything, fantasy and sf

Patricia McKillip: nearly anything, fantasy

Lois Bujold: the Miles Vorkosigan series, sf

P.C. Hodgell: the Kencyr novels, fantasy

Robin Hobb: the Assassin series, the Liveship Series, fantasy. Look also for her books as Megan Lindholm

David Weber: Honor Harrington series, sf

Diane Duane: ‘Wizard’ series and ‘Middle Kingdoms’ Series, fantasy

David Brin: the Uplift War series, sf

Ellen Kushner: Swordspoint and sequels, fantasy

Melissa Scott & Lisa A. Barnett: Point of Hopes, Point of Dreams, fantasy

Ursula K. Le Guin: Earthsea books, Left Hand of Darkness, The Lathe of Heaven, many others, fantasy and sf.

Orson Scott Card & Kathryn H. Kidd: Lovelock (The Mayflower Trilogy), sf

Peter David: Sir Apropos of Nothing trilogy, fantasy

Martha Wells: The Element of Fire, the Cloud Roads, many others, fantasy

Angela Carter: novels and short stories, magic realism

Tanith Lee: fantasy novels and short stories

Liz Williams: Inspector Chen novels science fantasy, mystery. Also see Inspector Chen series from Xiaolong Qiu, modern mysteries

Michael Marshall: The Straw Man and other novels, horror/sf

Georgette Heyer: comedy of manners

P.G. Wodehouse: comedy of manners

E.F. Benson: Mapp & Lucia novels, comedy of manners

Galen Beckett: The Magicians and Mrs. Quent, historical fantasy/alternate universe

Jacqueline Carey: Terre d’Ange novels, historical fantasy, alternate universe

Dorothy Dunnett: The Lymond Chronicles, House of Niccolo Series, historical fiction

Mary Stewart: The Merlin Chronicles, historical Fiction

Ray Bradbury: Something Wicked This Way Comes, fantasy/horror

Christopher Fry: ‘The Lady’s Not for Burning’, play, historical romantic comedy

Tom Stoppard: ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead’, play, historical comedy/drama

Jasper Fforde: Shades of Grey and other novels, sf

William Goldman: The Princess Bride, fantasy

C.S. Lewis: The Screwtape Letters, Christian satire

Mark Twain: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, alternate history

Daniel Keyes: ‘Flowers for Algernon’ short story, sf

Lloyd Alexander: The Chronicles of Prydain, children’s Fantasy

Lee Martinez: The Automatic Detective, sf comedy/ Mystery

Barry Hughart: The Master Li books, Chinese historical fantasy

E. Hoffmann Price: The Devil Wives of Li Fong, The Jade Enchantress, Chinese historical fantasy

Fritz Leiber: ‘Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser’ fantasy series, other fantasy and horror novels

Vernor Vinge: ‘A Fire Upon the Deep’ and other sf novels

Phil and Kaja Foglio: Girl Genius graphic novels, steampunk fantasy

Hiromu Arakawa: Fullmetal Alchemist manga and anime Series, steampunk fantasy

There’s a fair amount of overlap between this list and my personal list of Must Read fantasy that I posted a while back. Some of that’s because I was on the panel, but another big piece of it is because some books are simply great reads. Classics become classics for a reason.

It goes without saying that if you were there at the panel and remember a book that didn’t get added here, you should feel free to mention it in the comments below.

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