What is the single best science fiction or fantasy franchise?

[nevin]

Counterpoint
Lesson Learned: Don't trust George Lucas or Disney.

or anyone with an agenda. lets just make it easy. ( and for the inevitable pushback. making money can be an agenda)

 

[Scribe Ineti]

Star Trek, for me. Hits everything that's important and what shaped my life. Team work, sense of wonder, diversity and inclusion, the hope for a better future, self-improvement, no chasing the dollar. Almost 60 years of incredible sci-fi storytelling across multiple media--comic books, fiction, video games, tabletop games, television, movies, etc.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

George Lucas tried to do something radically different in the prequels, and the nerds turned on him because it wasn’t derivative enough. Lesson learned: don’t trust nerds.

George Lucas tried to do a prequel series without any of the collaborators he refused to admit made the original trilogy great.

Lesson learned: No one's success is a solo effort.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Fritz Lieber would like a word

Fritz Lieber's last two Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser collections were bad and then awful and they couldn't get published for the first time today except by sketchy outfits doing so to outrage people for political points. And I say that as someone who thinks the first three collections in particular are works of staggering greatness that every fantasy fan, and every D&D fan especially, should read.

In contrast, even the weakest links of Pratchett's Discworld content, from when he first started and when Alzheimer's was stealing his ability to create interesting, layered stories, are at worst, B-grade novels. Pratchett effortlessly runs rings around nearly every other fantasy author, before or since.

 

[overgeeked]

Fritz Lieber's last two Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser collections were bad and then awful and they couldn't get published for the first time today except by sketchy outfits doing so to outrage people for political points. And I say that as someone who thinks the first three collections in particular are works of staggering greatness that every fantasy fan, and every D&D fan especially, should read.

Which three Lieber collections do you recommend? Every time I've tried to read his stuff I've bounced off hard.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Which three Lieber collections do you recommend? Every time I've tried to read his stuff I've bounced off hard.

Swords & Deviltry is the first collection, but I'd say that the second one, Swords Against Death, is probably the best one and the one that, as a D&D player, you're going to freak out at how much Gygax flat out lifted from Lieber. If you are having trouble clicking with Swords Against Death, the stories just aren't for you.

The three collections that I recommend generally are Swords & Deviltry, Swords Against Death and Swords in the Midst.

Swords Against Wizardry and Swords of Lankhmar are fine, but a definite winding down.

Swords and Ice Magic and The Knight and Knave of Swords are terrible, and suggest that Lieber needed people in his life to help him address personal crises he was apparently experiencing.

 

[Zaukrie]

Everything Brandon Sanderson touches.....(only partially kidding).

LotR or Star Trek or Star Wars I'd guess, unless Mickey Mouse counts....

 

[overgeeked]

Swords & Deviltry is the first collection, but I'd say that the second one, Swords Against Death, is probably the best one and the one that, as a D&D player, you're going to freak out at how much Gygax flat out lifted from Lieber. If you are having trouble clicking with Swords Against Death, the stories just aren't for you.

The three collections that I recommend generally are Swords & Deviltry, Swords Against Death and Swords in the Midst.

Swords Against Wizardry and Swords of Lankhmar are fine, but a definite winding down.

Swords and Ice Magic and The Knight and Knave of Swords are terrible, and suggest that Lieber needed people in his life to help him address personal crises he was apparently experiencing.

Cool. Thanks. I've tried Swords & Deviltry a few times but keep bouncing off The Snow Women. The initial set up just bores me to tears. I literally couldn't care less about anything he's writing about in the start of that one. But I've had the same issue with Moorcock's first Elric story. The one where you start with Elric on the throne being bored at a boring party. I guess I'm spoiled with the go-go-go action of Howard's Conan stories. Maybe I should skip Deviltry altogether and try Death.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Cool. Thanks. I've tried Swords & Deviltry a few times but keep bouncing off The Snow Women. The initial set up just bores me to tears. I literally couldn't care less about anything he's writing about in the start of that one. But I've had the same issue with Moorcock's first Elric story. The one where you start with Elric on the throne being bored at a boring party. I guess I'm spoiled with the go-go-go action of Howard's Conan stories. Maybe I should skip Deviltry altogether and try Death.

Yeah, once they're in Lankhmar getting into shenanigans with the Thieves Guild and their wizard patrons and trying to impress their girlfriends, it's firing on all cylinders.

 

[Mannahnin]

Swords & Deviltry is the first collection, but I'd say that the second one, Swords Against Death, is probably the best one and the one that, as a D&D player, you're going to freak out at how much Gygax flat out lifted from Lieber. If you are having trouble clicking with Swords Against Death, the stories just aren't for you.

The three collections that I recommend generally are Swords & Deviltry, Swords Against Death and Swords in the Mist.

Swords Against Wizardry and Swords of Lankhmar are fine, but a definite winding down.

Swords and Ice Magic and The Knight and Knave of Swords are terrible, and suggest that Lieber needed people in his life to help him address personal crises he was apparently experiencing.

Co-signed on all of that.

Cool. Thanks. I've tried Swords & Deviltry a few times but keep bouncing off The Snow Women. The initial set up just bores me to tears. I literally couldn't care less about anything he's writing about in the start of that one. But I've had the same issue with Moorcock's first Elric story. The one where you start with Elric on the throne being bored at a boring party. I guess I'm spoiled with the go-go-go action of Howard's Conan stories. Maybe I should skip Deviltry altogether and try Death.

That's not his first Elric story. I've seen this issue crop up before. Did you start with the in-world chronological order? If so, that's your issue. Moorcock went back years later and filled in all kinds of boring and slow backstory for Elric. The original stories, starting in publication order, have much more of that Howardian pulp pacing and punchiness.

Elric of Melniboné - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Publishing history[edit]​

See also: Michael Moorcock bibliography
Elric first appeared in print in a series of six novelettes published in Science Fantasy magazine:

• "The Dreaming City" (Science Fantasy No. 47, June 1961)
• "While the Gods Laugh" (Science Fantasy No. 49, October 1961)
• "The Stealer of Souls" (Science Fantasy No. 51, February 1962)
• "Kings in Darkness" (Science Fantasy No. 54, August 1962)
• "The Flame Bringers" (Science Fantasy No. 55, October 1962); retitled "The Caravan of Forgotten Dreams" in some later collections.
• "To Rescue Tanelorn ..." (Science Fantasy No. 56, December 1962)

After this came four novellas:

• "Dead God's Homecoming" (Science Fantasy No. 59, June 1963)
• "Black Sword's Brothers" (Science Fantasy No. 61, October 1963)
• "Sad Giant's Shield" (Science Fantasy No. 63, February 1964)
• "Doomed Lord's Passing" (Science Fantasy No. 64, April 1964)

The last of these terminated the sequence with the close of Elric's life.

After these initial Elric tales, Moorcock periodically published short tales throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, such as 1967's "The Singing Citadel" and 1973's "The Jade Man's Eyes". Meant to be placed in between the initial stories but before the conclusion of "Doomed Lord's Passing", these later stories would frequently be edited, retitled, and combined together with other material to form fix-ups as part of later republication campaigns.

The first original Elric novel, 1972's Elric of Melniboné, is a prequel detailing Elric's origin and how he came to possess Stormbringer. In 1989 came the second original Elric novel, The Fortress of the Pearl, followed in 1991 with The Revenge of the Rose. A decade later Moorcock began an original Elric trilogy, beginning with The Dreamthief's Daughter (2001), followed by The Skrayling Tree (2003) and The White Wolf's Son (2005). In 2022, Moorcock published The Citadel of Forgotten Myths, a new Elric novel set between "Kings in Darkness" and "The Flame Bringers".[citation needed]