I liked "The Double Eagle" although it's not fantasy and in modern times .
it has more than a few thief moments ; especially at the end , the hero is being very thiefy!
http://www.abc.net.au/widebay/stories/s1319938.htm
Semi-on-topic, I just found out about an obscure literary genre that made me think of Thief.
Excerpt from the link above;
"The picaresque novel (Spanish: "picaresca", from "pícaro", for "rogue" or "rascal") is a popular subgenre of prose fiction which is usually satirical and depicts in realistic and often humorous detail the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who lives by his or her wits in a corrupt society"
Sound familiar, anybody?
'The Arabian Nightmare' by Robert Irwin has all of the winding labyrinth of ancient streets and passageways, the strange sciences, sinister characters- some of whom may be stranger entities than people, clandestine societies whose agendas are unknown and whose actions seem to operate outside of the contenxt of right/wrong, not mention a main character who is either truly insane, or for whatever reason, upon entering Mediaeval Cairo, finds himself randomly walking between worlds invisible to either the insensitive or the sane and balanced.
Some of Gustav Meyrinks books have a similar flair.
Uh, obscure or popular?Originally Posted by Nitocris
"Pícaro" is apparently thought to originally mean a bandit armed with a crude spear or a pike, and it only became a taffer-like word since.
When I first encountered the adjective picaresque, I entertained the thought that the Pica pica species might be involved in its etymology, but it seems that the genus name most likely refers to the pike-shaped beak.
"Which species?", I hear you ask.
My species.
--
L, the M.
Thief is very unique, I have not quite found something that gets it spot on. Certain elements of the original Robert E Howard stuff is evocative of thief - namely the cloistered, paranoid, feel. A lot of Rob's stuff is Public Domain now, but they have started releasing anthologies of the pure stuff. The Conan franchise is so screwed up because of what other authors have done to it. I'll come back with a short reading list.
I've read Robin Hobb's stuff, and that only now that it is mentioned has some thiefy parts - but very few. It's a good read anyway.
Jack Vance - and the Dying Earth, is magnificient, though hardly thiefish imo. There are more echos of mage's guild type stuff, really. Like encountered in Morrowind, though a significant part is a crafty loner rogueing around, always with the back-drop of what I mentioned before, though Keepers feel like they would be right at home in Jack Vance.
Last edited by piano-sam; 3rd Mar 2008 at 02:43. Reason: "not quite" what the fook sense was I making before?
I have read some (and would definitely recommend Grimmelhausen's Simplex Simplicissimus and Courage), but they didn't really resemble Thief - the thing about picaresque heroes is that they are very much "unprofessonal", get into trouble for it and survive as much by luck as the ineptitude of their opponents. Unless we consider Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar tales picaresque (a bit of a stretch), I don't see the similarity.Semi-on-topic, I just found out about an obscure literary genre that made me think of Thief.
Excerpt from the link above;
"The picaresque novel (Spanish: "picaresca", from "pícaro", for "rogue" or "rascal") is a popular subgenre of prose fiction which is usually satirical and depicts in realistic and often humorous detail the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who lives by his or her wits in a corrupt society"
Sound familiar, anybody?
Very interesting thread. Have you come across some new books or not mentioned here which have Thief atmosphere?
From the other thread, At Day's Close
Not yet read it myself, but heard good things of some Thief fanfic being put together by a writer. Ok, they're not Umberto Eco but they've had some interest from some people that know the Thief universe well.
Here's a link to a Reddit post - I'll let them advertise it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Thief/comme...fic_novel_new/
beware the books with kevel in the title
nice one azaran
It’s just 500 pages of “Is that you, Kevel?” over and over.
Incidentally I bought the first and second books of Lankhmar over a year ago and haven’t read them yet. Someone posted somewhere in these forums that the lost city was inspired from a chapter in one of the two books that I believe is titled the Lost City. That’s why I bought the pair. I’m probably hesitant to read them for the same reason I’m always hesitant to revisit the Lost City missions.
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