Tanith Lee, 1947-2015

[chomiji]

This has been a very bad year for deaths in SF&F, and the year is not even half over.

My all-out favorite Lee is Kill the Dead: something about the combo of lush spookiness and mordant humor. Parl Dro is one of my favorite characters ever.

Comments

[theskywasblue]

I remember being quite taken with her short stories as a teenager. They were some of my favourites. She will be missed.

[auburn]

Aw, crap. Thank you, stranger, for marking her passing. Tanith Lee had a unique, gorgeous style that threaded jeweled tones and mysterious shadows through her words. Her Cyrion stores are still my favorites, and I have used copy of The Blood of Roses sitting in my To Read pile still.

[the_rck]

I seem to have missed out on Tanith Lee, for the most part. I read (and loved) The Dragon Hoard when I was in elementary school, and I came upon Red as Blood when I was in high school and my grandmother took me to a used book store, but I never saw her books in other, local to me, stores, and my small town library didn't own any. I think, while we still lived in a larger town with a much larger library, that I did try to read-- what was it? Birthgrave, I believe it was. I was ten or eleven, and I just couldn't handle it.

I haven't seen her stuff on the shelves of my current library, either, so there wasn't much opportunity to pick her stuff up as an adult. These days, I almost never read anything but what I get at the library (when I buy books, they sit and don't get read because library books have actual due dates and all). Maybe I should see if I can interlibrary loan something. What would you recommend? (I can't promise to finish it because it's very easy to set off my anxiety so that I can't go on.)

[chomiji]

Errrrgh, Tanith Lee is known mainly for dark fantasy, so I am not really sure what to suggest given that anxiety is a problem when reading. Maybe Silver Metal Lover, which is romantic and sweet and melancholy. There's a handsome graphic novel edition of it too. Or the Claidi Journals, which are YA.

Yeah, that age would have been much too young for Birthgrave.