Vampires. Love 'em.

Do the Dragonsinger books count as magical singing?

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*edits original post to reflect such*

They ABSOLUTELY do.

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The Spellsong Cycle by L.E. Modesitt Jr.

5 books of awesome Magical Singing. This is the author's website: http://www.lemodesittjr.com/spellsong_cycle/index.html
(The books are listed 1-5, bottom to top, btw.)

I have read and fell madly in love with the Crystal Singer trilogy as well. I didn't know there were others like me who went for the Magical Singing book genre, but I am very glad there are!

Edited at 2008-04-11 06:14 pm (UTC)

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Mercedes Lackey's Bardic Voices series sounds like just what you're looking for.

Alan Dean Foster has a series of novels about a Spellsinger - although your tolerance for 70s and 80s pop music must be high.

I like strong female characters who don't fall apart upon finding romance.

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And the Beach Boys. The scene where Jon-Tom conjures the Sloop John B into existence is permanently etched into my memory.

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I think I blotted Jon-Tom's name out of my memory.

But, oh, that scene!

(And didn't he play Rick Springfield's "The Human Touch" at least once per book?)

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My 14 year old self may have thought Jon-Tom was the bee's knees.

I've managed to forget a lot of the specific song references, in part because until about 1987 or so, most of the music I listened to on the radio was what my parents liked--so a lot of "lite rock".

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I *still* think Sloop John B should be the name of a rapper.

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I was totally going to mention Mercedes Lackey's Bardic Voices series.

Additionally, might I suggest License Invoked by Robert Asprin and Jody Lynn Nye?

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I held off on mentioning The Last Herald Mage et al. because they're, well, angst-ridden fluff (which is MY plot kink, but an embarassing one), but yeah. If one is into magical singing, one might find Mercedes Lackey the mother-lode.

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I have loved some otherwise horrid books because they featured crows or ravens prominently. Though there are also a whole bunch of books where they're just thrown in for color (like, the title is 'tribe of the raven' or something) and don't actually relate to anything whatsoever, and that annoys me.

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Alan Dean Foster wrote a craptacular series of books that started with _Spellsinger_. They are shove-a-potato-peeler-in-your-eye bad. I will be interested to hear your reaction to them.

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Sing the Four Quaters by Tanya Huff, plus its three sequels. Bon appetite!

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Seconded.

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Thirded! Also, Gate of Darkness, Circle of Light by the same author.

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Vampires, were-things, and witches/sorcerors. Can't get enough of the supernatural.

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I just started reading the Nightside series, by Simon Green, about a half-demon detective in London. Very cool.

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Simon Green is probably the exception to the rule. The first book (in the Nightside) in that series (in the Nightside) was so very bad (in the Nightside) and repetitive (in the Nightside) I felt compelled (in the Nightside) to write an Amazon review (in the Nightside) about how very bad it was (in the Nightside).

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He does sort of beat you over the head with the Nightside stuff (in the Nightside), doesn't he?

I read really fast, though. I tend to skim over the badness, unless it's really execrable, which is, of course, purely objective.

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samurai detective stories. those are my brain candy.

for along time I couldn't get enough of immigrant stories. I eflt like I needed to hear differing versions of coming of age in a new country.

magical singing intrigues me though.. thanks for the recommendations!

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Sarcasm & humor. Both Spenser & Anita Blake appeal to me because of their sarcastic / wiseass commentary; MaryJanice Davidson and Donna Andrews because of the fun / silly humor.

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I think we need to find the trilogy that this is a follow-up to.

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I've read that trilogy--used to own it, in fact. But it's more Magical Flute-Playing than Magical Singing. ;)

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Huh, even though it's called "Singers of Nevya?" False advertising! Based of the blurb, the follow-up appears to definitely be magical singing, though.

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I don't actually own the books in question anymore so I can't check, but the thing I do remember from the blurbs is that the heroine played a filla, which was that world's version of a flute. This is not to say that there weren't also singers, but. ;)

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The Silmarillion has magical singing. Deadly, even!

I have on plot weakness; a female main-character and magic involved. Now, I'm kind of picky, but I really do enjoy stuff like that. A lot. More than is reasonable for a 21 year old.

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Footnotes in fiction (that's not plot, exactly, but it is A Thing I Love Beyond Reason). Scientists that resemble real scientists. Descriptions of food.

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Damn. 'Twas me.

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David Foster Wallace?

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War for the Oaks. Emma Bull.

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Oh yeah, I read that! Indeed, 'tis pretty good!

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Telepathy, and worse still, telepathic animals - though preferably not the very fluffy versions of same, and Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette's recent take on the theme, A Companion to Wolves was delicious.

Also a sucker for singing but everyone else has recommended the ones I would have done.

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My Dreadful Weakness: amnesia plots, baby! ;)

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Charles de Lint has some lovely singers in his books.

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David Eddings wrote two trilogies with magical singing, mixed in among knights and drunks and stuff. The magical singer, in this case, is not a knight, though.

The Diamond Throne, The Ruby Knight, and The Sapphire Rose are the first three books.

The second three are Domes of Fire, The Shining Ones, and The Hidden City. By the time you get to the last book, it's a little contrived and rushed. But I like the trolls.

These are def. "get from the library because they border on drek" books.

I don't have a falling-down plot weakeness yet, although I seem to read books the say way just_laura does, associating them with particular times of my life and re-reading things out of fondness for that time of my life.

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ooooooh I just picked up Killashandra to read again. For the hundredth time (almost literally).

I think my favorite of the DragonSinger series is Dragonsinger. Second favorite... ummm White Dragon I think.

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If I remember right, _Split Infinity_, by Piers Anthony, (and some of its sequels) has a Savior of Everything whose magical power is singing. Each song can only be used once. All the "songs" are four lines of doggerel.

In addition to the expected Mercedes Lackey books, check out _Jinx High_. Magical Singing from humans and from possessed guitars!

I have Weaknesses for certain sorts of talking about gender, I think. I used to have the standard teenage Weakness for poor misunderstood person who is secretly the coolest person ever and will show them all how wrong they were, but I think I've grown out of it.

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My 2003 stab at NaNoWriMo was just shy of three thousand words, 6% of the 50,000-word official goal. I stopped dead after two days, frightened by the possibility of success, or something.

Anyway. I write "blind", as you may know if you've read any of my endless maundering on the subject, so I can't know for sure where this story was headed, but it sure looks like it might have turned into a Magical Singing yarn. If asked very nicely, I might email a sample. I don't think it's any better than a potato-peeler in the eye, though.

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Oh, and I forgot to mention ozarque's Native Tongue series, whose third volume prominently features Singing of the Magical variety.

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Also, for the love of God, can anyone recommend some more Magical Singing books to me?

Okay, if you REALLY want us to. I mean it's ONLY because you asked. If you're sure...

A friend of mine loaned me a book called The Soprano Sorceress. But I have to warn you-- it's bad. Really bad. AMAZINGLY GODAWFUL BAD. It reads like it's the long form of the *worst* kind of Mary-Sue fanfic (the author's supposedly male but I don't believe it for a second) and it's just... oh god it was so bad.

I only finished it out of sheer bloody stubbornness... and apparently it's the first in a trilogy.

So there you go.

My obsession is period murder mysteries. If it happened not in my own time period (and preferably not in my own country), I'm all over it.

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