In my head I don't classify Norrell and Strange as fantasy though; more like magical unrealism.
Blade runner was a great movie right up to the end - the last scene had me thinking I must have got off on the wrong platform and really, really disappointed me because I was so INTO it up to that point.
Speaking of recommendations...
My son, aged 8 (please don't groan! yes, I do manage to sneak the topic of my kids into just about every conversation) has just this week made the big leap from reading little books to reading, like, novels. He's a terrific reader with quite the vocabulary (it's all the Charlie Browns he's read
I worship Charles Shultz) but those bigger books were just too looooong for him up to now.
Well, anyway, his selections at the library on Tuesday were all fantasy/science fiction (not surprising; he has my genes
) and he has devoured all three books he borrowed (and today is only Thursday!
He came home from school yesterday, threw down his bag, picked up a book and lay on his bed engrossed right til dinner - he didn't even ask if he could go on the computer!
)
Do I have a point or am I going to enthuse about my boy the whole post? Yes, I have a point. Can anyone recommend SF (or fantasy, for that matter) for his age? I'd like to strike while the iron's hot and I don't want him to run into stuff that's too advanced for him and lose interest, nor do I want him to get lost in the pulp fiction (like all those Dragonlance books
which are okay, I guess, but I wouldn't want him to define the genre by
those)
So, um, yes. Recommendations for beginning readers. I hope it's not considered too tangential to this discussion.