Tanith Lee's "Flat Earth" Series
Back in the mid 1970s through the 1980s, and to a lesser extent in the 1990s I would buy any book Tanith Lee published, but I had a special affection for the "Flat Earth" series, consisting of four episodic novels, and a story collection. There is a fifth book containing some Flat Earth stories along with some others.
- Night's Master
- Death's Master
- Delusion's Master
- Delirium's Mistress
- Night's Sorceries
- The Earth is Flat
I've recently re-read them for reasons I will get into below. They still hold up, though some language is a bit dated.
These books have a sort of "Arabian Nights" feel, with dark fantastic elements, complex characters, and people driven by fate, or by conflicts between powerful beings, the Lords of Darkness. They are set in an alternate Earth which is flat, with four corners. Demons live in the "Underearth", some of the dead live in the "Innerearth", and the gods (who are supremely uninterested in the Earth, and consider creating humans to have been a mistake) live in the "Upperearth".
The main character running through all the books is Azhrarn, Prince of Demons, the lord of wickedness. He gets enjoyment by playing tricks on hapless humans, exploiting their inherent weaknesses. He has conflicts to a greater or lesser extent with Uhlume, Lord Death, and Chuz, Lord of Madness. A fourth Lord of Darkness, Kessmet, Lord Fate, appears occasionally. Azhrarn's daughter, Azhriaz/Sovaz is the main character in Delirium's Mistress.
The stories play off of standard fairy tale and mythological themes, such as the Tower of Babel, the Quest for Immortality, and others, but do not slavishly copy the originals. Lee has a talent for finely crafted folk-tale style narrative, and she uses it well in service to her stories. They are a dark delight to read. I highly recommend them.
I also recommend her first novel, The Birthgrave, and to a lesser extent its two sequels. I love her book, Kill the Dead, set in a sort of medieval world, whose main character is a ghost killer. I think I wasn't the right age or sexual orientation to like The Silver Metal Lover, but I have friends who really liked it. And she has a vampire novel, Sabella, which I had minor issues with, but enjoyed.
For further reading, her collection Red as Blood - Tales from the Sisters Grimmer is excellent. These are twists on old fairy tales, where the evil person in the standard tale turns out to be the good person.
I think people who like gothic fiction will enjoy a lot of her work.
The reason I re-read these was because of a post I saw passed around claiming that Neil Gaiman had ripped off Sandman from the Flat Earth stories. He did not. There are some slight similarities in description between Azhrarn and Dream, but the characters are really nothing alike, the stories are nothing alike, there may be a few similarities in roles, but the treatments are entirely different. I can't speak to Gaiman's character, but he did not plagiarize Tanith Lee.