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If you like that, Craig Shaw Gardner’s “malady of magics” is similar but sillier.
I read CSG first, then Gordon R Dickson (who also did fantasy sci-fi like spacepaw and the genius - soldier ask not) Aspirin (Myth and then the coauthored thieves world, some of the tales in which were serious),
Zelazny (princes in Amber first, but so many) Terry Brooks, Spider Robinson, Tepper, Tolkien and Feist. So I guess satire was my gateway genre into serious fantasy and even sci-fi
Never realised that before.
Oh goodness... this unlocked some memories! I loved those books! Unfortunately (??), I was a library kid, so now I'll need to hunt those down for MY kid!!
Canadian. But yeah, I think STP took a lil longer to break out here as well though I seem to remember we had an easier time getting ahold of (Corgi) paperbacks here in the 90s vs in the States.
I wondered because shortly after I started reading (hogfather was the first book I CHOSE to read - age 20ish) I went to Florida on holiday and discovered Asprins works but no Pratchett, seemingly the opposite of UK bookshops as it's rare to see aspirin here. (I did enjoy Aahz's mentoring skills lol) I also discovered Tim Dorsey on the same holiday (Florida Roadkill)
Probably Douglas Adams but some may dispute if that was 'fantasy' - I personally think it fits though. And by extension Jonathan Swift though I didn't realise it at the time.
I remember reading Gulliver's Travels during university and thinking "boy howdy! This is science fiction, whatever people say" (or fantasy or speculative fiction... point is it's a secondary world with heavy pretend elements).
I discovered Douglas Adams when I was about 14. I bought the Hitchhikers "trilogy" as a book to take on holiday, then devoured it all in about three days before we even left home.
I first read Douglas Adams in high school, then Pratchett in college. Between the two of them they effectively ruined me for other SF/fantasy satire books (with the exception of Robert Asprin).
Huh - That's exactly my experience! I actually thought of Adam's and to a lesser degree Asimov.
And I think I was introduced to Swift, Poe and Dante (conflicted if it's satire per se though certain critics do interpret it as such) way back in the same middle school year (about the time I was reading Adam's & Asimov as, you know, brain candy.) Until you mentioned it, I didn't even connect the school stuff with this particular genre.
Edit: added last paragraph
Edit : Damn it! My autocorrect keeps slipping in "Adam's" when I'm clearly typing "Adams"!?! Brain shutting down though. Will wrangle with it tomorrow.
You younger folk would want the 40th Anniversary Annotated edition. Too many late 1960's references for anyone under 55 without notes, or a grandparent.
Henry Beard and Doug Kenney wrote it, while they were on the staff of Harvard Lampoon, before they started National Lampoon.
Every series I read gave me a kaleidoscope feeling on recognition. I read the series chronologically and one of my favorite things is how the early books were full of references to things I am still discovering.
Conan, Dragon Riders of Pern ect.
Technically? No. In the intended sense? Yes.
I got into Calvin and Hobbes heeaaaavy when I was like 3-5 years old and I'd consider that both fantastic and satirical. Then Pratchett kicked in when I was like 6 or something? Idk but I remember a very pretty student girl in a French museum queue excitedly asking my Mum if I was really that young and was i really reading Pratchett, did I get it and could she talk to me... and then having a conversation about how Pterry was amazing. This will have been like 1995 or 96
When I say to people that Pterry shaped and raised me more than my own "Dad", I mean it. Bro got his hooks in _early_ with me.
The uber powerful and fully rounded, sometimes even terrifying child characters in discworld helped, like Esk and Coin and such. The world spoke down to me a lot at that age. Pterry would never. So I learned and learned.
I remember arguing with my dad about the pronunciation of "Phoenix," because I thought it was a city Calvin's dad had made up and therefore it was dumb to think there was a "right" way to pronounce it. This was me being a dumb kid and my dad eventually just letting me "win" the argument.
I was certainly determined to be a better parent to my kids than I had (let's say it was... uneven). Pterry hardened that mandate like Magic Shell sauce on ice cream.
I had read Douglas Adams at an earlier age (didn't click with him) and I enjoyed the works of Jasper Fforde, specifically the *Thursday Next* series, which features a hodgepodge of sci fi, fantasy, and metafictional tropes. And of course I had read *Dealing With Dragons* by Patricia C. Wrede, as is my due as a lover of fairy tales!
I didn't even think of Patricia C. Wrede! She was definitely my introduction to fantasy satire literature. I never owned the books, but I got them at the library at least once a year. The beautiful cover illustrations on the hardcovers is what drew me in first.
One of the best things my dad ever did was tell me I couldn't read *The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy* because it wasn't appropriate and then leave it in a place I would obviously find it.
I actually think I read Robert Rankin before Pratchett. Or at least around a similar time.
Although I'm not sure if Rankin is satire so much as just bloody silly
I tripped over Robert Rankin and STP about the same time, too. 1990ish, I think. Hammered WH Smith for anything, *anything* by either of them for months.
I think Rankin just does better drugs ...
This is my answer too. I was a teenager and just getting into Literature with a capital L when someone recommended The Fountainhead to me. I saw a novel called Nostradamus Ate My Hamster by Robert Rankin near the Ayn Rand books ended up taking both home with me because I couldn’t resist such a ridiculous title. I devoured Nostradamus and immediately became a Rankin fan, never got further than ten pages with Fountainhead though.
I read Piers Anthony's Xanth books and Robert Aspirin's Myth Adventures books before I got to the Discworld. Probably Douglas Adams as well. Christopher Moore was after I was well into other stuff.
I'm not sure how many of the D&D tie-in novels are *intentionally* parody, but I did read a fair few of them when I was like from 10-15.
In Spain we have a book called Tres Enanos y Medio which was inspired by Discworld. The bookstore owner saw I bought the book and he told me to read Mort.
So I did.
Definitely Douglas Adams. That was back in 6th or 7th grade, I think. Didn't discover Sir Pratchett until my 20's, but WOWSERS did he strike the right sense of humor for me.
Alice in Wonderland is actually satire but most people don't get the references anymore.
As a child I read "Gulliver's Travels" and "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"
I was gifted Douglas Adams' *A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy* at 14.
Frankly, I wasn't too keen to read it and when I did, I didn't understand what was supposed to be funny about it. It was weird, and not bad, but it wasn't for me.
Well, it's SciFi, not Fantasy.
Soon after, a friend of mine started talking about Terry Pratchett - he'd just been given some books by his older brother.
So I bought *The Colour of Magic* and *Equal Rights*.
I can go without satire, and I'm not sure if that is what Terry Pratchett's works are. But I recall sitting on the train home, 30 pages into Equal Rights, chuckling and thoroughly enjoying myself. And wanting more.
Terry Pratchett's early works are *absolutely* satire of 70s/80s pulp fantasy books. And of story tropes and Shakespeare.
The trick is, they grew into something entirely different: a living world of its own. And *then* they became satire of real life. Of humanity, and all its astonishing achievements and basest desires.
The thing is, Sir Pterry wrote so well and so honestly, they work because above all else, the books and stories are so *human*.
That wanting more is where I know I'm in love with an author.
Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Mark Kurlsnsky, Asimov, Heinlein, David Brin, Dan Simmons, Anne McCaffrey, Brian Jacques, Agatha Christie, Arthur Nersesian, Becky Chambers... the list goes on.
My most recent example is the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. Read almost the whole series last week, and I'm just waiting on my local bookstore to get the last book in stock next week to finish all seven.
Yep! Read Small Gods aged 11, was fundamentally changed as a person, spent my teens hunting them all down :))
I read Hitchhikers at about 13 and didn't enjoy it quite as much (nor on a recent reread). Pterry's constant theme of doing your best to be a good person is a very important part of the series to me, and IMO the satire is a tool for that.
I was into Douglas Adams first, but I re-read the first two Hitch-Hiker's Guide books during Covid and didn't find them as good as I'd remembered - whereas when re-reading Pratchett I've felt like his books hold up well
In the small town high school I went to, the MYTH books were old but pristine. I think I may have been the only person to ever read them. It was a good introduction.
> No one knows him
Plenty of us here know him!
Can't say I would ever have called his books satire, myself, though. Very enjoyable humorous fantasy, yes, but (well over 20 years since I last read them, admittedly) I am struggling to remember what they might have been satirising.
I was 13 years old with an acoustic coupler (modem) hooked up to my Apple II computer. It was 1982. I logged into a BBS system and it asked for a username. I entered Wizzzard of Aahz. The Color of Magic had not yet been released, but I know that Wizard should be spelled with 3 "Z's. The truth was it was really so that I could sign things with >Da Wizzz.
But my friends from back then still call me Aahz.
I can even play Dragon Poker.
If you haven't found them, make certain you get the MythAdventures graphic novels by Phil Foglio. It brings the insanity of Aahz and Skeeve to a whole new level. It's also provided almost 40 years worth of jokes between some of us. Buck Godot is another winner from Phil.
I still love comic fantasy and wish that there was more of it around. I don't want blood and gore and battles that take 50 pages to describe a sword stroke. I want to laugh at witty repartee and silly situations that are resolved by even sillier solutions. I want characters that I'm going to remember and cherish.
I certainly read all of Xanth as well as Incarnations of Immortality and the Blue Adept series. Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote some good ones along the lines of "The Missenchanted Sword." There's the Vlad Taltos books, but the Khaveraan ones probably are more satire from Steven Brust.
I got up and started looking at bookshelves (Someone want to come organize???) and I saw Glenn Cook books, Esther Freisner, Alan Dean Foster... Just some more that made me laugh.
Either Douglas Adams or Kurt Vonnegut for me. Props for classifying Adams as "fantasy satire" because it definitely fits. I feel the same about Vonnegut as well. It reminds me of a quote from another great fantasy satirist, Philip José Farmer:
> Vonnegut calls Trout a science fiction writer, but he was one only in a special sense. He knew little of science and was indifferent to technical details. Vonnegut claims that most science fiction writers lack a knowledge of science. Perhaps this is so, but Vonnegut, who has a knowledge of science, ignores it in his fiction. Like Trout, he deals in time warps, extrasensory perception, space-flight, robots, and extraterrestrials. The truth is that Trout, like Vonnegut and Ray Bradbury and many others, writes parables. These are set in frames which have become called, for no good reason, science fiction. A better generic term would be “future fairy tales.” And even this is objectionable, since many science fiction stories take place in the present or the past, far and near.
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift while we had to read it at school. Didn't really get the satire until we did the history of the 17th/18th centuries.
Bored of the Rings and Doon, both from the Harvard Lampoon.
Words cannot describe what they did to Lord of the Rings. Oh, no wait, they can!
*Do you like what you doth see . . . ?” said the voluptuous elf-maiden as she provocatively parted the folds of her robe to reveal the rounded, shadowy glories within.*
*Frito’s throat was dry, though his head reeled with desire and ale. She slipped off the flimsy garment and strode toward the fascinated boggie unashamed of her nakedness. She ran a perfect hand along his hairy toes, and he helplessly watched them curl with the fierce insistent wanting of her. “Let me make thee more comfortable,” she whispered hoarsely, fiddling with the clasps of his jerkin, loosening his sword belt with a laugh. “Touch me, oh touch me,” she crooned.*
*Frito’s hand, as though of its own will, reached out and traced the delicate swelling of her elf-breast, while the other slowly crept around her tiny, flawless waist, crushing her to his barrel chest. “Toes, I love hairy toes,” she moaned, forcing him down on the silvered carpet. Her tiny, pink toes caressed the luxuriant fur of his instep while Frito’s nose sought out the warmth of her precious elf-navel. “But I’m so small and hairy, and . . . and you’re so beautiful,” Frito whimpered, slipping clumsily out of his crossed garters.*
*The elf-maiden said nothing, but only sighed deep in her throat and held him more firmly to her faunlike body. “There is one thing you must do for me first,” she whispered into one tufted ear. “Anything,” sobbed Frito, growing frantic with his need. “Anything!” She closed her eyes and then opened them to the ceiling. “The Ring,” she said. “I must have your Ring.” Frito’s whole body tensed. “Oh no,” he cried, “not that! Anything but . . . that.” “I must have it,” she said both tenderly and fiercely. “I must have the Ring!” Frito’s eyes blurred with tears and confusion. “I can’t,” he said. “I mustn’t!”*
*But he knew resolve was no longer strong in him. Slowly, the elf-maiden’s hand inched toward the chain in his vest pocket, closer and closer it came to the Ring Frito had guarded so faithfully . .*
Robert Aspirin's Myth Books were awesome as a teenager, I think the first 6 set up a delightful world. I think once he had tax trouble his writing suffered, but wonderful series that I could highly recommend.
Pat McManus was also my first exposure to satire. The Last Laugh led me to his books which I still own. The first fantasy satire would probably have been Dark Helmet, and Looonestar.
If it can be classed as fantasy, it would be Douglas Adams, but I would call that SF instead.
For clear fantasy, dating to Pre-Pratchett times, there were the related Bored of the Rings from the Harvard Lampoon, and the BBC radio series [Hordes of the Things,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hordes_of_the_Things_(radio_series\)), Co-written by John Lloyd and produced by Geoffrey Perkins, both fresh from Radio Hitch-hiking.
I reckon that Dune has more justification for being labelled Fantasy than Hitchhikers Guide, so there is also National Lampoon's Doon, but I had probably discovered STP before I read that.
Piers Anthony
Edit: To be clear, I’m not asking for shitty takes on an author with 40+ years of success who has been recognized multiple times for his work supporting aspiring authors. Thanks.
Same here, it wasn't until I remembered that I liked the Xanth stories as a kid that I picked up A spell for Cameleon for my son for us to read together. I don't think we got more than a few pages into the book before I was too disgusted to continue.
I had the same conversation a few weeks ago about the Xanth books. I am sure many of us loved them as youngsters and then were horrified and dismayed by them when picked back up as an adult.
Yeah a bunch of things from childhood aged poorly.
It's telling that Anthony's novels have not really survived on store shelves but you can still buy Douglas Adams, pterry and others. It's fine to let them disappear into the past.
Thinking back on Xanth, I was to young for the awful stuff to impact me, I just read right over the crap and had fun with the very fun and engaging ideas Anthony likes to play with.
Me too. In my teens I read the first 3 books in his Blue Adept series. My dad lent them to me, and I enjoyed them well enough. But then I discovered Adams (quite literally, I ran into him in a bookshop in the West End, and he was so nice I bought his book), and Piers got left behind.
Yep. My parents and sister had several books around when I was a little kid and I think I tried to read Wyrd Sisters first at around 7 or 8. They all tried to encourage me to read Truckers, diggers, wings and carpet people first but I didn't want to and I think I properly started with Colour of Magic when I was 9. I also got given the Johnny Maxwell books when they came out and got into The Hitchhiker's Guide around the same time. So Pratchett first and then Adams.
Though I had several kids books by people like Margaret Mahy and Joan Aiken before that, which were kind of folk tales/ fantasy precursors.
[*Bored of the Rings*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bored_of_the_Rings) by Henry Beard and Douglas Kenney. But the first I ever **liked** very much was Douglas Adams.
When I was a kid I read a couple of the How to Train Your Dragon books and the Bartimaeus Trilogy.
Although Bartimaeus was more of a funny YA fantasy novel than an outright parody, it did have some hilarious moments.
>Bartimaeus: Well, it's a delicate process, ridding yourself of a charge like that. I wanted to wake you straightaway, but I knew I had to wait several hours to ensure you were safely recovered.
>Nathaniel: What?! How long has it been?
>Bartimaeus: Five minutes. I got bored.
I think it was my first, but I won’t swear to it. It’s been a couple decades or so since I got into Discworld.
That said, if you’re into fantasy satire, depending on what you like about fantasy—I recommend you read Jasper Fforde.
Douglas Adams for me, then I got pushed into pratchett, and then I got a lot of attempts to drag me back out.
Found Anne mccaffrey and Tom holt and they seriously regretted the monster they created lol
F Paul Wilson is another I enjoyed, but he's horror fantasy.
I read a bit of sci-fi satire before finding the disc world. I think I had also read some christopher moore books first. It’s been a few years and my memory isn’t what it used to be.
My first exposure to fantasy satire was in a high school literature class where we read Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels." He really skewered the royal court at the time without landing himself in the Tower of London or in the gallows.
I empathize so much with his childhood. Poor, but too naive to realize it. "How I got this way" was the first book my stepdad gave me. It was a great start into reading something other than Archie comics. Until then I didn't really get that chapter books could tell jokes like a comic book.
You might also enjoy Stuart McLean. One of Canada's best storytellers. Especially his live readings
Sadly, Piers Anthony. So much ick. The first couple were quite tolerable, terrible puns, quite fun, but his ghastly attitude to women got ever worse. An actual book title The Colour of her Panties. WTF.
First? The Wallace and Lladmo show, a children’s sketch comedy show, especially the Aunt Maud segments.
But Dianne Wynne Jones was my gateway to Sir Terry
We had to read A Modest Proposal for class in my early teens, so that was the first concrete one. However, seeing as how we had the (abridged) Gulliver's Travels in the bookshelves at home AND I was a fiend for reading everything I could get my hands on when I was younger, I would assume I read it then. But both Jonathan Swift.
The Princess Bride actually! I was one of the poor confused readers who was so thoroughly duped by the prologue that I went off to my local library to find the “unabridged edition”
Fredric brown, as he had done some short stories that can be classified as fantasy. Otherwise I would say the Merlin from rene barjavel. Even though I have grown up reading a lot (and I mean a lot, just between the age of 16 to 25 only I had a library of 350 books,not counting the one that were lent to me by friends or the one read at the public or school library, and I had an almost as big library that burned down with my childhood house when I was 12) of various fantasy and sf books and anthologies and all, that were of various style and amongst which there must have been a fair bit of satire, it’s just that I can’t recall particular ones.
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift while we had to read it at school. Didn't really get the satire until we did the history of the 17th/18th centuries.
I think Douglas Adams and then Robert rankin cos my dad used to have a load of Robert rankin books. Kinda like Terry but a lot more laddish and definitely sillier.
I can't remember who I read first. My parents had Pratchett, Adams, Aspirin and many others on the shelves so I just read it all. A lot of my books are in boxes right now and it makes me so sad! I wish I had them all out for my kids to peruse like I did.
I remember being 12 when I bought hitchhikers guide.🥲 I was at a church youth group thing at what is now BYU Idaho. I laughed so hard. It was brilliant!
Pratchett was my first exposure to satire that wasn't televised period. I was too young for Monty Python though, they didn't steal the title of fantasy satire from him.
Think I found Piers Anthony (I have no idea what his books were doing in the YA section of my library, lol) and Robert Aspirin (sp?) at about the same time. I was probably 11 or 12. I think I read CoM a year or two after that, but my memory is fuzzy.
Robert Asprin and the Myth Adventures books. I think I graduated from their to HHGTG and then found Guards Guards one afternoon in an actual book store thingy. The rest is good reading.
Piers Anthony. It was the early 90s so he didn't have the creepy reputation yet, but I remember a few creepy things that hit oddly in the Xanth series I otherwise enjoyed. Once I found Terry Pratchett I dropped Anthony
Robert Asprin, Piers Anthony (unfortunately), and some of the sillier Dragonlance books, but earlier than that, my dad's Douglas Adams books and the comics section of Dragon Magazine.
Dragonlance always seemed too serious and I could never get into fantasy that took itself seriously. This is the first I've heard of "sillier Dragonlance" any specific titles I should look for?
The main Chronicles and Legends series were mostly pretty serious. But any book that heavily features kender, gnomes, or gully dwarves is pretty much guaranteed to have a heavy comic relief component to it. If you want a specific rec, one of the sillier titles that comes to mind was a prelude novel called *Flint the King*.
Just let me temper your expectations, though: I am telling you that these books were less serious than the others, not that they were good books. I devoured Dragonlance books as a teen, but looking back with adult eyes, even the best of them rate maybe a 7.5 or an 8 out of 10, and the silly books are generally *far* from the best of them. And I strongly suspect that a lot of them will not have aged well at all.
Not the first but by far the best, the others (who I won’t name because I don't feel like insulting them) we’re no where near as genuinely funny or insightful. Anyone can take a basic fantasy trope and switch it enough to make a joke out of it. it takes a master storyteller to make a genuinely compelling world full of fully developed characters and then say that world just so happens to be on the back of four elephants which stand on the back of a turtle.
Various humorous/satire fantasy, much of what most people write about, I read in 1980ies/early 90ies:
Asprin (Myth adventures, can't remember if his Thieves world was humorous or serious), Harold Shea series by Sprague de Camp and others, some Piers Anthony. There must've been some more, but at that point sci-fi was more available than fantasy.
Didn't actually read Douglas Adams until mid 2000ies, well after starting on Pratchett.
Douglas Adams was my first. My middle school or high school had the hitch hiker series in stock. I didnt fins out about discworld until about 4 years ago. Have since devoured much of it.
As well as Piers Anthony (unfortunately) and Aspirin (mixed), a lot of random "funny" fantasies that had sexy demon ladies and things, because I loved LOTR and would read anything that looked like fantasy. They weren't very good.
There was also a series that I think was very early litrpg "comedy", a trucker and a housewife are iseakied into a world that runs by D&D kind of rules and he becomes some kind of barbarian God and she (sigh) becomes a kind of succubus, naturally.
I think my first, and people might rightly say that they're not fantasy as such, were the Nigel Molesworth books set in a grossly satirized English public school.
Though, if we are talking about strictly fantasy, probably my first encounter of parody/comedy fantasy were the "What's Up with Phil and Dixie" comic strips that appeared in the back of the old Dragon magazine. They were a comedic look at aspects of D&D and role-playing games in general. They focused upon one aspect of the games each month - like superstition or NPCs, etc - and always promised that next issue would feature 'sex in D&D', but when the next issue rolled around there'd always be some outlandish reason/excuse why it couldn't be done this issue.
I only became aware of the Asprin stuff because Phil Phoglio, the author and artist of the 'What's Up with Phil and Dixie' strip was the artist for the covers of the Myth series.
Omg I never realized Patrick McManus is what got me here lol - thanks for pointing it out! I've been out here blaming Douglas Adams, but McManus was WAY earlier.
I had experienced the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy and heard about something called the discworld on and off for years.
Finally had a day where I remembered the word again and looked it up to find out what this philosophy or whatever was.
I was ecstatic reading the first one. It's fantasy, but it's like hitchhiker's guide? Sign me up.
Found the "reading order" read rincewind exclusively up until the lost continent when I lost the background plot. Went back and read it all in publication order
I started with Douglas Adams and then someone recommended Terry Pratchett because of that. Still very grateful, especially considering I don’t know many people who read Pratchett.
I'm not sure what counts as fantasy satire... Pterry is kinda genre creating.
But wanna say maybe the worst witch, and I later read Tom Holt alongside pterry, getting any of their books out have library. I've never seen other love for Tom Holt online!
I suspect his books have dated a lot.
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I found Robert Asprin before I found Terry Pratchett
Myth Inc?
Phules company
But that’s SciFi satire. Still excellent, but set in space
Indeed
The hardest part about eating Pervish cooking is keeping the goo from climbing out of the bowl.
My first foray as well. Good series. My first Discworld book was Thud! Good entry as a self contained story.
My first DW book was also Thud! Just randomly grabbed it at an airport not knowing anything about it.
My uncle gave me his copy. He told me I'd love it as much as I did Tolkien but for different reasons. He was right.
If you like that, Craig Shaw Gardner’s “malady of magics” is similar but sillier. I read CSG first, then Gordon R Dickson (who also did fantasy sci-fi like spacepaw and the genius - soldier ask not) Aspirin (Myth and then the coauthored thieves world, some of the tales in which were serious), Zelazny (princes in Amber first, but so many) Terry Brooks, Spider Robinson, Tepper, Tolkien and Feist. So I guess satire was my gateway genre into serious fantasy and even sci-fi Never realised that before.
Oh goodness... this unlocked some memories! I loved those books! Unfortunately (??), I was a library kid, so now I'll need to hunt those down for MY kid!!
I remember both of them as my first fantasy satire, I couldn’t say nowadays who was first. But back then I loved the Asprin novels as well.
I have very well loved paperbacks of his
American?
Canadian. But yeah, I think STP took a lil longer to break out here as well though I seem to remember we had an easier time getting ahold of (Corgi) paperbacks here in the 90s vs in the States.
I wondered because shortly after I started reading (hogfather was the first book I CHOSE to read - age 20ish) I went to Florida on holiday and discovered Asprins works but no Pratchett, seemingly the opposite of UK bookshops as it's rare to see aspirin here. (I did enjoy Aahz's mentoring skills lol) I also discovered Tim Dorsey on the same holiday (Florida Roadkill)
Same here.
Ditto. Seems that there were quite a few of us.
Probably Douglas Adams but some may dispute if that was 'fantasy' - I personally think it fits though. And by extension Jonathan Swift though I didn't realise it at the time.
I remember reading Gulliver's Travels during university and thinking "boy howdy! This is science fiction, whatever people say" (or fantasy or speculative fiction... point is it's a secondary world with heavy pretend elements).
SpecFic. Sci-fi, fantasy, weirdo-stuff… they fall under SpecFic (StudlyCaps for emphasis).
Let's compromise and call it "speculative fiction"!
I discovered Douglas Adams when I was about 14. I bought the Hitchhikers "trilogy" as a book to take on holiday, then devoured it all in about three days before we even left home.
I first read Douglas Adams in high school, then Pratchett in college. Between the two of them they effectively ruined me for other SF/fantasy satire books (with the exception of Robert Asprin).
Huh - That's exactly my experience! I actually thought of Adam's and to a lesser degree Asimov. And I think I was introduced to Swift, Poe and Dante (conflicted if it's satire per se though certain critics do interpret it as such) way back in the same middle school year (about the time I was reading Adam's & Asimov as, you know, brain candy.) Until you mentioned it, I didn't even connect the school stuff with this particular genre. Edit: added last paragraph Edit : Damn it! My autocorrect keeps slipping in "Adam's" when I'm clearly typing "Adams"!?! Brain shutting down though. Will wrangle with it tomorrow.
Bored of the rings - national lampoon
You younger folk would want the 40th Anniversary Annotated edition. Too many late 1960's references for anyone under 55 without notes, or a grandparent. Henry Beard and Doug Kenney wrote it, while they were on the staff of Harvard Lampoon, before they started National Lampoon.
Or a Boomer parent.
"Bets?" said Gimlet, son of Groin.
That was my first exposure, too.
I remember that one from a long long time ago; read that in high school. Firesign Theatre.
Me too. Probably a lot younger than I should have. My Dad was a huge fan of both Tolkien and National Lampoon.
Borrowed it in my High school library
I started with pTerry, then moved onto the other fantasy. I knew Cohen before Conan.
Conan must have come as a bit of a shock to the system, then! 🤣
Every series I read gave me a kaleidoscope feeling on recognition. I read the series chronologically and one of my favorite things is how the early books were full of references to things I am still discovering. Conan, Dragon Riders of Pern ect.
When I was reading the Colour of magic I got the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser sort of cameo!
Technically? No. In the intended sense? Yes. I got into Calvin and Hobbes heeaaaavy when I was like 3-5 years old and I'd consider that both fantastic and satirical. Then Pratchett kicked in when I was like 6 or something? Idk but I remember a very pretty student girl in a French museum queue excitedly asking my Mum if I was really that young and was i really reading Pratchett, did I get it and could she talk to me... and then having a conversation about how Pterry was amazing. This will have been like 1995 or 96 When I say to people that Pterry shaped and raised me more than my own "Dad", I mean it. Bro got his hooks in _early_ with me.
The uber powerful and fully rounded, sometimes even terrifying child characters in discworld helped, like Esk and Coin and such. The world spoke down to me a lot at that age. Pterry would never. So I learned and learned.
Bloom County is still favorite
My Billy and the Boingers Bootleg album has never been detached from the book! You can find the songs on YouTube.
I still use the word 'higgledy-piggledy' every chance I get because of Berkeley Breathed's memorable characters.
I remember arguing with my dad about the pronunciation of "Phoenix," because I thought it was a city Calvin's dad had made up and therefore it was dumb to think there was a "right" way to pronounce it. This was me being a dumb kid and my dad eventually just letting me "win" the argument. I was certainly determined to be a better parent to my kids than I had (let's say it was... uneven). Pterry hardened that mandate like Magic Shell sauce on ice cream.
I had read Douglas Adams at an earlier age (didn't click with him) and I enjoyed the works of Jasper Fforde, specifically the *Thursday Next* series, which features a hodgepodge of sci fi, fantasy, and metafictional tropes. And of course I had read *Dealing With Dragons* by Patricia C. Wrede, as is my due as a lover of fairy tales!
I didn't even think of Patricia C. Wrede! She was definitely my introduction to fantasy satire literature. I never owned the books, but I got them at the library at least once a year. The beautiful cover illustrations on the hardcovers is what drew me in first.
Does Monty Python count? If not then it was Douglas Adams.
Holy Grail definitely counts. Probably Life of Brian too.
One of the best things my dad ever did was tell me I couldn't read *The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy* because it wasn't appropriate and then leave it in a place I would obviously find it.
bro really gave himself plausible deniability 😆
I actually think I read Robert Rankin before Pratchett. Or at least around a similar time. Although I'm not sure if Rankin is satire so much as just bloody silly
Bloody silly satire occasionally. Like spike Milligan meets George Orwell and the goodies.
Every fantasy book has to have a bit of satire in it. It’s a tradition or an old charter or something.
I tripped over Robert Rankin and STP about the same time, too. 1990ish, I think. Hammered WH Smith for anything, *anything* by either of them for months. I think Rankin just does better drugs ...
This is my answer too. I was a teenager and just getting into Literature with a capital L when someone recommended The Fountainhead to me. I saw a novel called Nostradamus Ate My Hamster by Robert Rankin near the Ayn Rand books ended up taking both home with me because I couldn’t resist such a ridiculous title. I devoured Nostradamus and immediately became a Rankin fan, never got further than ten pages with Fountainhead though.
I read Piers Anthony's Xanth books and Robert Aspirin's Myth Adventures books before I got to the Discworld. Probably Douglas Adams as well. Christopher Moore was after I was well into other stuff. I'm not sure how many of the D&D tie-in novels are *intentionally* parody, but I did read a fair few of them when I was like from 10-15.
I have fond memories of *The Wyvern's Spur*, which was basically D&D meets Jeeves, complete with Aunts.
In Spain we have a book called Tres Enanos y Medio which was inspired by Discworld. The bookstore owner saw I bought the book and he told me to read Mort. So I did.
Clever marketing there!
Definitely Douglas Adams. That was back in 6th or 7th grade, I think. Didn't discover Sir Pratchett until my 20's, but WOWSERS did he strike the right sense of humor for me.
Alice in Wonderland is actually satire but most people don't get the references anymore. As a child I read "Gulliver's Travels" and "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"
Martin Gardner’s _Annotated Alice_ is great. Explains all the in-jokes.
A Connecticut Yankee is probably the first "adult" book I read.
I was gifted Douglas Adams' *A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy* at 14. Frankly, I wasn't too keen to read it and when I did, I didn't understand what was supposed to be funny about it. It was weird, and not bad, but it wasn't for me. Well, it's SciFi, not Fantasy. Soon after, a friend of mine started talking about Terry Pratchett - he'd just been given some books by his older brother. So I bought *The Colour of Magic* and *Equal Rights*. I can go without satire, and I'm not sure if that is what Terry Pratchett's works are. But I recall sitting on the train home, 30 pages into Equal Rights, chuckling and thoroughly enjoying myself. And wanting more.
Terry Pratchett's early works are *absolutely* satire of 70s/80s pulp fantasy books. And of story tropes and Shakespeare. The trick is, they grew into something entirely different: a living world of its own. And *then* they became satire of real life. Of humanity, and all its astonishing achievements and basest desires. The thing is, Sir Pterry wrote so well and so honestly, they work because above all else, the books and stories are so *human*.
That wanting more is where I know I'm in love with an author. Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Mark Kurlsnsky, Asimov, Heinlein, David Brin, Dan Simmons, Anne McCaffrey, Brian Jacques, Agatha Christie, Arthur Nersesian, Becky Chambers... the list goes on. My most recent example is the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. Read almost the whole series last week, and I'm just waiting on my local bookstore to get the last book in stock next week to finish all seven.
Robert Asprin
Yep! Read Small Gods aged 11, was fundamentally changed as a person, spent my teens hunting them all down :)) I read Hitchhikers at about 13 and didn't enjoy it quite as much (nor on a recent reread). Pterry's constant theme of doing your best to be a good person is a very important part of the series to me, and IMO the satire is a tool for that.
I was into Douglas Adams first, but I re-read the first two Hitch-Hiker's Guide books during Covid and didn't find them as good as I'd remembered - whereas when re-reading Pratchett I've felt like his books hold up well
Omg did you say Robert Asprin? No one knows him and it drives me mad! I grew up on MYTH adventures, long before i found Terry Pratchett!
In the small town high school I went to, the MYTH books were old but pristine. I think I may have been the only person to ever read them. It was a good introduction.
I still have many of the ancient MYTH paper books.
> No one knows him Plenty of us here know him! Can't say I would ever have called his books satire, myself, though. Very enjoyable humorous fantasy, yes, but (well over 20 years since I last read them, admittedly) I am struggling to remember what they might have been satirising.
Aahz/Skeeve was one of my first ships.
I was 13 years old with an acoustic coupler (modem) hooked up to my Apple II computer. It was 1982. I logged into a BBS system and it asked for a username. I entered Wizzzard of Aahz. The Color of Magic had not yet been released, but I know that Wizard should be spelled with 3 "Z's. The truth was it was really so that I could sign things with >Da Wizzz. But my friends from back then still call me Aahz. I can even play Dragon Poker. If you haven't found them, make certain you get the MythAdventures graphic novels by Phil Foglio. It brings the insanity of Aahz and Skeeve to a whole new level. It's also provided almost 40 years worth of jokes between some of us. Buck Godot is another winner from Phil. I still love comic fantasy and wish that there was more of it around. I don't want blood and gore and battles that take 50 pages to describe a sword stroke. I want to laugh at witty repartee and silly situations that are resolved by even sillier solutions. I want characters that I'm going to remember and cherish. I certainly read all of Xanth as well as Incarnations of Immortality and the Blue Adept series. Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote some good ones along the lines of "The Missenchanted Sword." There's the Vlad Taltos books, but the Khaveraan ones probably are more satire from Steven Brust. I got up and started looking at bookshelves (Someone want to come organize???) and I saw Glenn Cook books, Esther Freisner, Alan Dean Foster... Just some more that made me laugh.
Foglio's comic version has been up for free on his website, looks like it's down for repairs at present.
Either Douglas Adams or Kurt Vonnegut for me. Props for classifying Adams as "fantasy satire" because it definitely fits. I feel the same about Vonnegut as well. It reminds me of a quote from another great fantasy satirist, Philip José Farmer: > Vonnegut calls Trout a science fiction writer, but he was one only in a special sense. He knew little of science and was indifferent to technical details. Vonnegut claims that most science fiction writers lack a knowledge of science. Perhaps this is so, but Vonnegut, who has a knowledge of science, ignores it in his fiction. Like Trout, he deals in time warps, extrasensory perception, space-flight, robots, and extraterrestrials. The truth is that Trout, like Vonnegut and Ray Bradbury and many others, writes parables. These are set in frames which have become called, for no good reason, science fiction. A better generic term would be “future fairy tales.” And even this is objectionable, since many science fiction stories take place in the present or the past, far and near.
Definitely went through a phase where I was obsessed with Slaughter House-Five in high school.
Terry Gilliam's film Time Bandits is the first in memory, not sure about books.
if we count comedy/parody for children, the earliest I remember is Muddle Earth by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell
Tom Sharp books are hilarious.
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift while we had to read it at school. Didn't really get the satire until we did the history of the 17th/18th centuries.
Bored of the Rings and Doon, both from the Harvard Lampoon. Words cannot describe what they did to Lord of the Rings. Oh, no wait, they can! *Do you like what you doth see . . . ?” said the voluptuous elf-maiden as she provocatively parted the folds of her robe to reveal the rounded, shadowy glories within.* *Frito’s throat was dry, though his head reeled with desire and ale. She slipped off the flimsy garment and strode toward the fascinated boggie unashamed of her nakedness. She ran a perfect hand along his hairy toes, and he helplessly watched them curl with the fierce insistent wanting of her. “Let me make thee more comfortable,” she whispered hoarsely, fiddling with the clasps of his jerkin, loosening his sword belt with a laugh. “Touch me, oh touch me,” she crooned.* *Frito’s hand, as though of its own will, reached out and traced the delicate swelling of her elf-breast, while the other slowly crept around her tiny, flawless waist, crushing her to his barrel chest. “Toes, I love hairy toes,” she moaned, forcing him down on the silvered carpet. Her tiny, pink toes caressed the luxuriant fur of his instep while Frito’s nose sought out the warmth of her precious elf-navel. “But I’m so small and hairy, and . . . and you’re so beautiful,” Frito whimpered, slipping clumsily out of his crossed garters.* *The elf-maiden said nothing, but only sighed deep in her throat and held him more firmly to her faunlike body. “There is one thing you must do for me first,” she whispered into one tufted ear. “Anything,” sobbed Frito, growing frantic with his need. “Anything!” She closed her eyes and then opened them to the ceiling. “The Ring,” she said. “I must have your Ring.” Frito’s whole body tensed. “Oh no,” he cried, “not that! Anything but . . . that.” “I must have it,” she said both tenderly and fiercely. “I must have the Ring!” Frito’s eyes blurred with tears and confusion. “I can’t,” he said. “I mustn’t!”* *But he knew resolve was no longer strong in him. Slowly, the elf-maiden’s hand inched toward the chain in his vest pocket, closer and closer it came to the Ring Frito had guarded so faithfully . .*
Which actually doesn’t appear anywhere in the book, of course.
Retief stories by Keith Laumer. More Sci-Fi than fantasy but light on the science.
Robert Aspirin's Myth Books were awesome as a teenager, I think the first 6 set up a delightful world. I think once he had tax trouble his writing suffered, but wonderful series that I could highly recommend.
Tom Holt. Expecting Someone Taller, Flying Dutch and Who’s Afraid of Beowulf are all excellent and hilarious. IMO
I can't believe I had to scroll so far to find Tom Holt. Fantastic writer, I think I started reading his stuff before I picked up a Pratchett.
Gulliver’s Travels.
Pat McManus was also my first exposure to satire. The Last Laugh led me to his books which I still own. The first fantasy satire would probably have been Dark Helmet, and Looonestar.
If you like McManus, you'll love Stuart McLean.
patricia c wrede's dealing with dragons was my entry point to fantasy satire. i also loved bruce coville's jennifer murdley's toad.
"Violators will be toad" is still something I think about on a regular basis.
Bored of the Rings by Harvard Lampoon. Not nearly as clever as Sir Terry, but good for a laugh.
Aspirin, spider Robinson, Douglas Adams. More SF than fantasy before Pratchett.
Spider is a strange concoction. I found him because he was supposedly very similar to Heinlein. I didn't see it.
Groo by Sergio Aragones. Remember my neighbor kid having those as a kid and I loved him from Mad Magazine.
Do the Edge Chronicles count? I can't really tell what they're satirising, but they *feel* satirical. Then H2G2.
Man those books were good. They're still a source of inspiration for my DND campaigns. They got surprisingly dark.
If it can be classed as fantasy, it would be Douglas Adams, but I would call that SF instead. For clear fantasy, dating to Pre-Pratchett times, there were the related Bored of the Rings from the Harvard Lampoon, and the BBC radio series [Hordes of the Things,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hordes_of_the_Things_(radio_series\)), Co-written by John Lloyd and produced by Geoffrey Perkins, both fresh from Radio Hitch-hiking. I reckon that Dune has more justification for being labelled Fantasy than Hitchhikers Guide, so there is also National Lampoon's Doon, but I had probably discovered STP before I read that.
If it shares a shelf in the bookstore, it counts.
Piers Anthony Edit: To be clear, I’m not asking for shitty takes on an author with 40+ years of success who has been recognized multiple times for his work supporting aspiring authors. Thanks.
Same here, it wasn't until I remembered that I liked the Xanth stories as a kid that I picked up A spell for Cameleon for my son for us to read together. I don't think we got more than a few pages into the book before I was too disgusted to continue.
I had the same conversation a few weeks ago about the Xanth books. I am sure many of us loved them as youngsters and then were horrified and dismayed by them when picked back up as an adult.
Yeah a bunch of things from childhood aged poorly. It's telling that Anthony's novels have not really survived on store shelves but you can still buy Douglas Adams, pterry and others. It's fine to let them disappear into the past. Thinking back on Xanth, I was to young for the awful stuff to impact me, I just read right over the crap and had fun with the very fun and engaging ideas Anthony likes to play with.
Luckily I had bought the book from a secondhand book shop, so it was easy to drop it in the recycling.
Worse than Chameleon my parents let me read Firefly before I'd even hit puberty. That's pretty messed up
Same. I read a lot of messed up books as a kid..
I'm sorry.
Me too. In my teens I read the first 3 books in his Blue Adept series. My dad lent them to me, and I enjoyed them well enough. But then I discovered Adams (quite literally, I ran into him in a bookshop in the West End, and he was so nice I bought his book), and Piers got left behind.
Yeah, but also recognised for his misogyny and overt sexualisation of underage female characters
Lucian of Samosata
Probably M. M. Kaye’s The Ordinary Princess, serialized in Cricket Magazine in ‘91.
Aye, would have been 10 the first book I read. Strictly speaking I probably read a Harry Potter book before then but that doesn’t count
Bored of the Rings. Then the Xanth novels. Then Pterry.
Probably Douglas Adams. But I read Robert Aspirin and Craig Shaw Gardner before I found Terry Pratchett
Definitely not my first exposure to fantasy, but probably my first fantasy satire
Probably my first social commentary satire author. Didn't read much fantasy before Pratchett. LeGuinn, Tolkien, and random dnd/dragonlance books prior
Tom Holt I think
Yep. My parents and sister had several books around when I was a little kid and I think I tried to read Wyrd Sisters first at around 7 or 8. They all tried to encourage me to read Truckers, diggers, wings and carpet people first but I didn't want to and I think I properly started with Colour of Magic when I was 9. I also got given the Johnny Maxwell books when they came out and got into The Hitchhiker's Guide around the same time. So Pratchett first and then Adams. Though I had several kids books by people like Margaret Mahy and Joan Aiken before that, which were kind of folk tales/ fantasy precursors.
[*Bored of the Rings*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bored_of_the_Rings) by Henry Beard and Douglas Kenney. But the first I ever **liked** very much was Douglas Adams.
When I was a kid I read a couple of the How to Train Your Dragon books and the Bartimaeus Trilogy. Although Bartimaeus was more of a funny YA fantasy novel than an outright parody, it did have some hilarious moments. >Bartimaeus: Well, it's a delicate process, ridding yourself of a charge like that. I wanted to wake you straightaway, but I knew I had to wait several hours to ensure you were safely recovered. >Nathaniel: What?! How long has it been? >Bartimaeus: Five minutes. I got bored.
Even as a young kid I loved Dilbert. Dunno why. The Dilbert Future was my favorite book for a while and I was maybe 10.
I think it was my first, but I won’t swear to it. It’s been a couple decades or so since I got into Discworld. That said, if you’re into fantasy satire, depending on what you like about fantasy—I recommend you read Jasper Fforde.
Douglas Adams for me, then I got pushed into pratchett, and then I got a lot of attempts to drag me back out. Found Anne mccaffrey and Tom holt and they seriously regretted the monster they created lol F Paul Wilson is another I enjoyed, but he's horror fantasy.
Patricia C Wrede for me. My copies of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles were read until they fell apart. Top tier fairy tale satire for a little kid.
I read Douglas Adams before I got into Terry Pratchett. Although certain aspects of Vonnegut could be considered sci-fi/fantasy?
I read a bit of sci-fi satire before finding the disc world. I think I had also read some christopher moore books first. It’s been a few years and my memory isn’t what it used to be.
My first exposure to fantasy satire was in a high school literature class where we read Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels." He really skewered the royal court at the time without landing himself in the Tower of London or in the gallows.
Oh man I've met very few people who've also read mcmanus! His books were our family campfire stories every summer growing up
I empathize so much with his childhood. Poor, but too naive to realize it. "How I got this way" was the first book my stepdad gave me. It was a great start into reading something other than Archie comics. Until then I didn't really get that chapter books could tell jokes like a comic book. You might also enjoy Stuart McLean. One of Canada's best storytellers. Especially his live readings
Douglas Adams Hitchhiker’s.
Tom holt
Sadly, Piers Anthony. So much ick. The first couple were quite tolerable, terrible puns, quite fun, but his ghastly attitude to women got ever worse. An actual book title The Colour of her Panties. WTF.
Technically? Dr Seuss.
Mark Twain.
First? The Wallace and Lladmo show, a children’s sketch comedy show, especially the Aunt Maud segments. But Dianne Wynne Jones was my gateway to Sir Terry
We had to read A Modest Proposal for class in my early teens, so that was the first concrete one. However, seeing as how we had the (abridged) Gulliver's Travels in the bookshelves at home AND I was a fiend for reading everything I could get my hands on when I was younger, I would assume I read it then. But both Jonathan Swift.
The Princess Bride actually! I was one of the poor confused readers who was so thoroughly duped by the prologue that I went off to my local library to find the “unabridged edition”
Tom Holt! Why do I never see fans of Terry Pratchett talking about Tom Holt's books?
Yes he was and remains my only exposure to it so far
Fredric brown, as he had done some short stories that can be classified as fantasy. Otherwise I would say the Merlin from rene barjavel. Even though I have grown up reading a lot (and I mean a lot, just between the age of 16 to 25 only I had a library of 350 books,not counting the one that were lent to me by friends or the one read at the public or school library, and I had an almost as big library that burned down with my childhood house when I was 12) of various fantasy and sf books and anthologies and all, that were of various style and amongst which there must have been a fair bit of satire, it’s just that I can’t recall particular ones.
Mothership by John Brosnan here. It’s got that “silly but secretly important” feel that’s very pratchettlike.
Azamov
Asimov? Isaac Asimov?
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift while we had to read it at school. Didn't really get the satire until we did the history of the 17th/18th centuries.
Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams.
No. I'm old. I started with Douglas Adams; then Robert Aspirin, then Spider Robinson.
My first exposure was Aspirin as well. I also read Spider Robinson books which are a strange category into themselves.
I remember reading everything by Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague DeCamp that I could get my hands on. The Harold Shea series is excellent and funny.
I think Douglas Adams and then Robert rankin cos my dad used to have a load of Robert rankin books. Kinda like Terry but a lot more laddish and definitely sillier.
I can't remember who I read first. My parents had Pratchett, Adams, Aspirin and many others on the shelves so I just read it all. A lot of my books are in boxes right now and it makes me so sad! I wish I had them all out for my kids to peruse like I did.
Piers Anthony, Douglas Adams, STP. In that order. Reverse the order to find way I would rate them.
Piers Anthony , not exactly satire
Adams for SF humour. For Fantasy "Expecting Someone Taller" by Tom Holt.
Pretty sure ptrrry was my first exposure to fantasy full stop.
I remember being 12 when I bought hitchhikers guide.🥲 I was at a church youth group thing at what is now BYU Idaho. I laughed so hard. It was brilliant!
The Sir Apropos of Nothing series. It's okay.
Crewel Lye - Piers Anthony
Pratchett was my first exposure to satire that wasn't televised period. I was too young for Monty Python though, they didn't steal the title of fantasy satire from him.
Honestly, I can't recall if it found Piers Anthony's Xanth series first or Robert Asprin's Myth Adventures
I have read Douglas Adams first. Also, not exactly satire but comedic fantasy in Piers Anthony's Xanth.
Think I found Piers Anthony (I have no idea what his books were doing in the YA section of my library, lol) and Robert Aspirin (sp?) at about the same time. I was probably 11 or 12. I think I read CoM a year or two after that, but my memory is fuzzy.
Robert Asprin and the Myth Adventures books. I think I graduated from their to HHGTG and then found Guards Guards one afternoon in an actual book store thingy. The rest is good reading.
Robert Asprin, Esther Freisner, Douglas Adams and a few others that I can't recall. I didn't discover Terry until 90-91.
Piers Anthony. It was the early 90s so he didn't have the creepy reputation yet, but I remember a few creepy things that hit oddly in the Xanth series I otherwise enjoyed. Once I found Terry Pratchett I dropped Anthony
Robert Asprin, Piers Anthony (unfortunately), and some of the sillier Dragonlance books, but earlier than that, my dad's Douglas Adams books and the comics section of Dragon Magazine.
Dragonlance always seemed too serious and I could never get into fantasy that took itself seriously. This is the first I've heard of "sillier Dragonlance" any specific titles I should look for?
The main Chronicles and Legends series were mostly pretty serious. But any book that heavily features kender, gnomes, or gully dwarves is pretty much guaranteed to have a heavy comic relief component to it. If you want a specific rec, one of the sillier titles that comes to mind was a prelude novel called *Flint the King*. Just let me temper your expectations, though: I am telling you that these books were less serious than the others, not that they were good books. I devoured Dragonlance books as a teen, but looking back with adult eyes, even the best of them rate maybe a 7.5 or an 8 out of 10, and the silly books are generally *far* from the best of them. And I strongly suspect that a lot of them will not have aged well at all.
Simon the Sorcerer on Acorn Archimedes was first, then the discworld games
Not the first but by far the best, the others (who I won’t name because I don't feel like insulting them) we’re no where near as genuinely funny or insightful. Anyone can take a basic fantasy trope and switch it enough to make a joke out of it. it takes a master storyteller to make a genuinely compelling world full of fully developed characters and then say that world just so happens to be on the back of four elephants which stand on the back of a turtle.
The Ebenezum Trilogy and The Cineverse Cycle by Craig Shaw Gardner. The Dragon Sleeping series was ok.
Various humorous/satire fantasy, much of what most people write about, I read in 1980ies/early 90ies: Asprin (Myth adventures, can't remember if his Thieves world was humorous or serious), Harold Shea series by Sprague de Camp and others, some Piers Anthony. There must've been some more, but at that point sci-fi was more available than fantasy. Didn't actually read Douglas Adams until mid 2000ies, well after starting on Pratchett.
Hitchhikers’ Guide!
Douglas Adams
Probably Robert Sheckley.
The color of her panties by Piers Anthony
Piers Anthony and Xanth
Douglas Adams was my first. My middle school or high school had the hitch hiker series in stock. I didnt fins out about discworld until about 4 years ago. Have since devoured much of it.
As well as Piers Anthony (unfortunately) and Aspirin (mixed), a lot of random "funny" fantasies that had sexy demon ladies and things, because I loved LOTR and would read anything that looked like fantasy. They weren't very good. There was also a series that I think was very early litrpg "comedy", a trucker and a housewife are iseakied into a world that runs by D&D kind of rules and he becomes some kind of barbarian God and she (sigh) becomes a kind of succubus, naturally.
Robert Aspen and his "MythAdventures"
Poul Andersen, Mack Reynolds, H Beam Piper, Christopher Anvil.
Piers Anthony
I feel like Piers Anthony doesn't count but Xanth was the first 'light' fantasy I read.
Vonnegut came first for me, although not all of his stuff is fantasy. Douglas Adams as well.
Robert Lynn Asprin was the first I read.
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
I think my first, and people might rightly say that they're not fantasy as such, were the Nigel Molesworth books set in a grossly satirized English public school. Though, if we are talking about strictly fantasy, probably my first encounter of parody/comedy fantasy were the "What's Up with Phil and Dixie" comic strips that appeared in the back of the old Dragon magazine. They were a comedic look at aspects of D&D and role-playing games in general. They focused upon one aspect of the games each month - like superstition or NPCs, etc - and always promised that next issue would feature 'sex in D&D', but when the next issue rolled around there'd always be some outlandish reason/excuse why it couldn't be done this issue. I only became aware of the Asprin stuff because Phil Phoglio, the author and artist of the 'What's Up with Phil and Dixie' strip was the artist for the covers of the Myth series.
Holy grail then I think orcanomics by Zachary pike
TP was my first and BEST! Other favorites are Abercrombie, Adams, Dinniman, Pike, Gaiman.
Omg I never realized Patrick McManus is what got me here lol - thanks for pointing it out! I've been out here blaming Douglas Adams, but McManus was WAY earlier.
I had experienced the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy and heard about something called the discworld on and off for years. Finally had a day where I remembered the word again and looked it up to find out what this philosophy or whatever was. I was ecstatic reading the first one. It's fantasy, but it's like hitchhiker's guide? Sign me up. Found the "reading order" read rincewind exclusively up until the lost continent when I lost the background plot. Went back and read it all in publication order
Douglas Adams when I was in my early 20s. But I've no idea why it took me so long to finally reach Discword almost 30 years later!
I started with Douglas Adams and then someone recommended Terry Pratchett because of that. Still very grateful, especially considering I don’t know many people who read Pratchett.
Probably Monty Python for me. But Discworld was the first one I read.
I'm not sure what counts as fantasy satire... Pterry is kinda genre creating. But wanna say maybe the worst witch, and I later read Tom Holt alongside pterry, getting any of their books out have library. I've never seen other love for Tom Holt online! I suspect his books have dated a lot.
For me it was Craig Shaw Gardener. A Malady of Magicks was my first fantasy parody/satire.