#azhrarn

[retroscifiart]

Art by David Schleinkofer for Death's Master (Tales of the Flat Earth) by Tanith Lee (1979)

[howifeltabouthim]

He bent down on one knee in front of her. 'Then what is your pleasure? If it's in my power to grant it, it's yours. Tell me your heart's desire and I will make it real.' She drew away from him as if his proximity might burn. 'Don't make such offers. You sound too much like a demon with such pretty words.'

Jenn Lyons, from The Ruin of Kings

[nyxshadowhawk]

Algol by Develv

[dandeliondee]

does a flip, more, with @fluffernauto's azhrarn getting condemned

[bellaroles]

Reading about a selfish demon prince and the various ways he made life hell for other people calm my soul lol.

[darkhawk1126]

@omgsweetunlikelycollector-me

Azhrarn by azhrarn

[fox-bright]

Today I'm working myself into a proper tizzy because all of a sudden that everyone hates him, people have Realized that Gaiman badly ripped much of The Sandman off of Tanith Lee's glorious Tales From the Flat Earth.

She's dead now and it's too late to give her justice.

Twenty-year-old Gen, reading Sandman for the first time, knew that he was just a poor copy of Azhrarn the Beautiful, Lord of Wickedness, and that Death was Azhriaz, and Delirium was very like Chuuz, Lord of Delusion, and that Destiny was nearly a one-to-one copy of Lee's Destiny, and that aesthetically and structurally the Sandman just...stole, hand over hand, from Lee's masterwork. It was obvious.

I just figured nobody cared.

I have loved a lot of Gaiman's work. I won't pretend I always hated him, even if for the last fifteen or twenty years I've thought he was largely up his own butt. I'll probably have some of his poetry memorized for the rest of my life. But it galls me that now that everyone is taking up pitchforks and torches, NOW he's being called out for stealing from a woman who deserved much better, when it was obvious to me when I was barely out of childhood, more than twenty years ago.

[omgshiftercat]

I have a friend whose ex, a minor celebrity in some circles, was abusive.

Shortly after she and some other women went public about it, there were some people who chimed in talking about other misdeeds of his.

Her ex was, and is, a loathsome waste of oxygen, and the words, "...who deserves every accusation leveled at him" would almost escape my lips...

...Except that some of the accusations people began throwing around because they (understandably) hated this guy weren't true.

This did not help my friend at all! It muddied the waters, and gave her awful ex ammunition for his claims that people were just out to get him, and were willing to make stuff up to smear him.

Switching gears: there's been a lot of discussion recently about how some brilliant and influential art has been created by objectively terrible people. Part of that discussion has been calling out people who say, "Their work always sucked," or "I never liked it." Not only are statements like this unhelpful, they provide cover for predators. If you insist that your tastes reflect your morality, you're giving yourself a huge blind spot, and making it easy to dismiss evidence of harm done by creators you happen to like.

This is one reason why I think exhibits like this one are important: they help teach that lesson.

Three notes on this: 1. by the time of that exhibition, Gill was long dead and therefore unable to profit from it.

2. This kind of thing isn't necessary for every artist, because not every creator does heinous things.

3. My friend's ex is nowhere near the artistic league of Eric Gill or any of the other creators I'll discuss.

Switching gears again...

If someone mentions a bespectacled British boy wizard with an owl familiar, in a modern setting with "secret world" magic, the name that springs to mind is most likely "Harry Potter", right?

But Timothy Hunter, from The Books of Magic, was published a full seven years before that. I was working in a bookstore when the novelizations for the BoM comics came out, and had to tell kids that no, this was not a HP rip-off.

I don't think the reverse was true, either: for one thing, The Books of Magic is set in the DC Universe, and I've never heard of JKR reading superhero comics. But also... sometimes completely separate creators will come up with strikingly similar ideas, utterly by coincidence. It's one reason why most authors tell fans NOT to send them ideas or fanfiction based on their work: there is rarely any good way to prove that you didn't steal a concept.

Now, obviously every creator is influenced by other people's works, and I completely agree that it's good to acknowledge that and to point fans towards your influences!

When Rowling began channeling her resources into making life worse for trans folk, I saw a lot of people saying, "Well, Harry Potter was just a mediocre rip-off of The Worst Witch anyway."

While I haven't read that series, I strongly doubt this claim. The idea of magic schools is older and more widespread than either of those series, and "British boarding school hijinks, but it's a magic school" was bound to be written more than once.

Now, some of you already know, and others have looked up, who originally wrote Tim Hunter. And... yeah, it's Neil Gaiman. *sigh*

In the last few days, I've seen some people saying, "The Sandman ripped off Tanith Lee's Tales from the Flat Earth." They cite a number of similarities: Azhrarn, the Lord of Darkness, is a pale-skinned, raven-haired Byronic figure with a sibling-like relationship to the Lord of Death and the Lord of Madness. Like the Endless, these beings are god-like, but specifically not gods. Apparently some people have mistaken fanart of Azhrarn for Morpheus. And Chuz, Prince Madness, has a bisected appearance, half his face horribly messed up, like the demoness Mazikeen.

But speaking as someone who was a fan of the late Tanith Lee years before I picked up an issue of The Sandman: I don't believe the latter was stolen from the former. Are there similarities? Yes, but they're superficial. If you've read both series, as I have, you'll know that the stories, settings, and characters are very different!

It's possible Gaiman was influenced by Lee's writing, and if so, I agree he should have acknowledged that. He did promote the work of other female creators, which is one reason why many of us thought he was "one of the good ones". But it's also entirely possible that these two authors independently came up with similar ideas.

When it comes right down to it, I think that statements like this -- "their best work was just a rip-off of something else" -- are just another variant of "their work always sucked".

It's often an easier accusation than "they've always been crap", because, as I said, writers come up with strikingly similar concepts all the time, and it's very hard to prove you didn't steal an idea. But it has the same problems, so -- barring the kind of case you could make with a college-level plagiarism-catching program -- I think it's best avoided.

Now, telling people, "Hey, are you sad about this creator turning out to be an awful person to whom you don't want to give any more money? Try this other person's work instead!" This is good! Let's have more of it!

Addendum 1: I think "separate the art from the artist" should mean, "you don't have to treat books already on your shelf as if they're suddenly coated in poison", not "I'm going to ignore this creator's actions and keep buying their products anyway."

Addendum 2: I just posted a version of this to Bluesky.

[mask131]

Another little post about the Sandman/Flat-Earth situation. I have seen this recent post relaying the idea that Gaiman's Sandman is an entire rip-off of Lee's Flat-Earth. I spoke about this idea before - pointing out that people seem to be overblowing it a bit and trying to turn a "strongly inspired by" into a "it's a plagiarim case" thing. You know how it goes with the Internet - as soon as someone turns out to be a bad person, every new "trivia" that pops up is spreading like wildfire without people checking their sources (again, to stay on a Gaiman adjacent thing, see how people were deeply convinced Rowling had plagiarized Gaiman's Books of Magic, despite her not doing it and Gaiman himself not feeling plagiarized at all - especially since a lot of the Books of Magic series wasn't his per se, he just created the original mini-series and the rest was grown out by other artists).

Anyway I want to specifically talk about one point made in the post I linked: that Destiny of the Endless (Sandman) is supposedly a plagiarism of Flat-Earth's Destiny. I guess the character they are referring to is Kheshmet, Master of Fortune, embodiment of fate. Now, I have to be fair: I have not reached the part of the Flat-Earth series where Kheshmet appears. So far I am about to finish "Death's Master", and without this post I would have never been aware of the existence of an embodiment of fate in the Flat Earth (since the Lords of Darkness are usually talked about in terms of the trinity of Azhrarn, Uhlume and Chuz).

However I have, again, to point out that despite the feeling maybe being right... to call Destiny of the Endless a "proof" of Gaiman's plagiarism of Lee falls flat (no pun intended). Because Gaiman did not create Destiny of the Endless. Again, this is something that most Sandman fans know about - unless they are fans of the show exclusively - but the very first issues of Sandman, the first arcs, were about creating a new series part of the DC Universe (it was only later that Sandman strayed away into its own thing, and the series adaptation removed most of the DC Universe references to avoid being too obscure to newcomers).

Sandman wasn't just about creating another part of the DC Universe (well, multiverse) but it was also entirely dedicated to bringing back under the light obscure, secondary or forgotten DC characters. That was Neil Gaiman's goal, and it was because these characters were unused and forgotten that he was allowed to go crazy with them.

The Dreaming's inhabitants, when we first see it, are all old EC Comics/ DC Comics horror hosts that were forgotten. Eve, Cain and Abel, Lucien, the gargoyles... They were all part of a shared universe before, the vast network of the old DC horror-universe. Gaiman took it back and simply decided that this universe would be the Dreaming's nightmare part in its ruined state.

The Three-in-One, the Three, the Triple Goddess, however you call them... start out as Neil Gaiman not just playing on the "Wyrd Sisters" like Pratchett himself did (Norns/Macbeth witches crossover), but actually reinventing the Three Witches that were old DC horror-hosts of the "Witching Hour" series.

Hence also why Constantine appears, why Dream fights Doctor Destiny, why Batman's Scarecrow appears, why one of the first "alternate Dreams" we see is the Martian god of Manhunter, why Dream has his Ruby (it was the Materioptkon), etc etc... In fact the first arc of Sandman lost MANY present many people trying to get in the series due to how heavy it was with old DC lore.

And Destiny of the Endless... he is not exception to the rule. Destiny is in fact the ONLY Endless that Gaiman did NOT create - when he started Sandman (again, we have his manuscripts, propositions and drafts in various companion books) he only had three Endless in mind, clearly designed, Dream, Death and Destiny - and the reason Destiny appears so early on in the series is precisely because he was pre-existing in the DC Universe.

He was another DC horror host, who had "canonically" interacted with characters like Lucien or Cain & Abel. Not only that, but he also appeared as a proper character in other DC titles before Sandman was created.

What did Gaiman do with the character? Give him a family and an exact position in the DC Universe. Change his purple robes to gray. Make him blind. And of course, let's not forget giving him a domain... The Garden of Forking Ways. Which Neil Gaiman has been very open (on his very Tumblr he said it two or three different times) about being a nod to Jorge Luis Borges' own Garden of Forking Paths.

As I said in my previous post, yes Gaiman is very derivative, borrows a lot, plays a lot of homages, makes a lot of Easter eggs and nods and winks to other works, resulting in his works being these sort of cultural Frankenstein Monsters... But when you want to point out where a character comes from, get it right please.

Yes, Gaiman was inspired by Tanith Lee when creating the Endless and Sandman. The Lords of Darkness are very similar to the Endless in many ways (personifications of abstract concepts tied to humanity ; top dogs of the supernatural hierarchy who play around with people's fates for their personal amusement ; have their personal world-domains, there's a certain D- motif recurring with Death, Delirium, Delusion...). But they are also very dissimilar in many ways (the Lords of Darkness are under the Gods, who are separate and stronger entities, while the Endless are "above and beyon gods" ; the Endless are a dysfunctional family whereas the Lords of Darkness laugh out loud when humanity imagines them as "cousins" or "brothers" ; and the D- motif is not recurring since among the Masters are the Master of Night and the Master of Fortune).

It is not because Sandman was influenced by Lee's Flat-Earth that EVERYTHING in it is a Flat-Earth rip-off. You have Ovid rip-off, Shakespeare rip-off, Zelazny rip-off, Brian Froud rip-off, The Golden Ass-rip-off, Eddas rip-off, Angela Carter rip-off and much, much more.

Maybe my point of view about the origins of Destiny will change once I get to read Lee's depiction of her Master of Fortune... But for now, if you want to accuse someone of plagiarizing Lee, accuse the artist who created Destiny for hosting EC Comics.

[pepperf]

Tanith Lee was why I decided to go to art college! Not even joking! She studied art, and I wanted to write like someone who had studied art, not like someone with an English degree.

(And I stand by that decision, although my particular art college sucked balls and I don't write like Tanith Lee, it's simply not my style, in the end. But it broadened my horizons.)

My favourites are Eva Fairdeath - which would kill many tumblr users - and Tales from the Flat Earth, which are like the best kind of fucked-up mythology. I used to know which second hand book shops in London were the best sources for Tanith Lee books, of which there were a seemingly inexhaustible variety, but were sadly rare, even then. There was a particularly great place on the end of Holloway Road that specialised in scifi and fantasy, I wonder if it's still there...

How the heck is there not more talk about Tanith Lee??

Like my gosh, the woman wrote, according to her wiki, 90 books, over 300 short stories, two World Fantasy Awards, and was the first woman to win the British Fantasy Award/Augus Derleth Award and wrote for tv shows.

Like, it's not like she just wrote a heck ton but wasn't very good! She was clearly very good she won awards, and i've read a swath of her stuff across different genres and really enjoyed most of it. I mean that even if not each one has been my cup of tea I can at least appreciate the skill and quite a lot I have truly enjoyed. She's got great prose and style and imagination. Not everything obviously was a banger, but they've all been at least well written, which is harder to come by in writing than you might think.

But nobody ever seems to talk about her?? And I feel like the fantasy crowd on here would really enjoy her stuff. The woman has done stuff in pretty much every genre from what I can see, but I never see her listed on fantasy authors like Clive Barker or Diana Wynne Jones or Neil Gaiman or Terry Pratchett or Diane Duane even though she was writing at the same time and has a similar sort of '80s Doing Cool Stuff with Fantasy vibe' I feel like people who like those authors would enjoy though she's very much her own style of author.

Anyway this was really just me putting out a rant that such a prolific and talented author seems to have fallen by the wayside and I think it's really a shame

Heck she even did a witch-queen fighting againt vampire Snow White a whole decade before Neil Gaiman did his phenomenal Snow Glass Apples and it's also excellent, give a look here:

[deinemuddalutscht]

Dark Rise Book recommendations 

Just finished Dark Heir again. Do you guys have any book suggestions for books with similar themes? I love the protagonist being the villain or villain reborn trope. Here a few of my recommendations: (Warning! Spoilers!)

Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan

The female protagonist is an Isekai character who ends up as the villain in a fantasy world. While she isn’t truly evil, she doesn’t see the other characters as real people, allowing her to manipulate their emotions without guilt. Her love interest is a delightfully unhinged psychopath. The book also features a male, bisexual Isekai character playing a villainous role. He falls for one of the hero characters, who has one of the most suppressed sexualities I’ve ever seen. Without giving away too much, what’s great about their dynamic is that the male villain is actually a "good" guy pretending to be evil, while the hero is the truly unhinged murderer. The female and male protagonists pretend to be a couple for a while but have fantastic platonic chemistry. The premise revolves around two Isekai characters being trapped in a grim, "Song of Ice and Fire"-style fantasy book, surviving by playing the villains. The two of them have essentially to retell the origin story of the cruel God Emperor who later becomes the Antagonist of the book world in which they are trapped in.

Time Master Universe Series by Louise Cooper

The male protagonist is the reincarnated god of chaos. In this world, gods of order and chaos are locked in eternal battle. There’s a heterosexual romance, but some aspects of it haven’t aged well.

The Sundering by Jacqueline Carey

This series explores the war between light and dark from the perspective of the Dark Lord and his loyal generals. Imagine if Morgoth, Sauron, and Saruman were misunderstood figures with morally gray motivations, making them more relatable than the "light side." While there’s no queer romance, the story includes queer themes: for instance, the Saruman-like character is an evil bisexual, and the Morgoth-like character was once the god responsible for sex and reproduction. Funnily enough that started to conflict between him and his purist brother and elves. Despite parallels to Tolkien, this series introduces its own ideas and world-building, far from being a mere retelling. It's a dark and tragic narrative, though not overly graphic in terms of violence or sex. While there is a hint of romance, it’s far less prominent than the book description suggests. The series is brilliant but also deeply tragic

The Licanius Trilogy by James Islington

One male character is the "reborn" villain who tries to stop his past self's evil plans. The world-building is excellent, but the romance feels lackluster, largely due to the author’s weak portrayal of female characters. There's a female villain whose entire goal is to seduce the villain by pretending to be one of his lovers three separate times and somehow he falls for her act every time.

Tales from the Flat Earth by Tanith Lee

A rich fantasy world with an exotic writing style, though not everyone’s cup of tea. The books consist of interconnected short stories, with Azhrarn, "Night's Master" and "Prince of Demons," as the recurring character. Azhrarn is the ruler of the Underworld and the most powerful of the Lords of Darkness, embodying pure wickedness. Azhrarn and most of the other chactars are bisexual.The romances in the series haven’t aged well, but Azhrarns unpredictable cruelty and power make for an intriguing mix of protagonist and antagonist.

Witch King by Martha Wells

The main male character is a gay, shapeshifting demon prince. The world-building is expansive but requires close attention to follow.

Magisterium by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare

A reimagining of Harry Potter, but from the perspective of the sidekick of the prophesied hero—who happens to be the villain reborn. Though aimed at younger readers, the first book is surprisingly dark, especially the prologue, where the villain kills a baby to take over its body. The series lacks world-building and dramatically declines after the third book. The finale, The Golden Tower, is one of the worst conclusions I’ve ever read, with a protagonist who never faces real consequences for being the reincarnated villain.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

Set in a world where three elder gods (light, darkness, and twilight) exist alongside their many incestuous godlings. The god of light kills the goddess of twilight out of jealousy after the God of Dark falls on love with her, sparking a divine war—aka a chaotic custody battle. The god of darkness and the children who remained loyal to him are defeated and imprisoned in mortal bodies as playthings for the human race. The protagonist is the reincarnation of the goddess of twilight, and the story features a messy, toxic polyamorous love triangle that's utterly captivating.

A Chorus of Dragons Series by Jenn Lyons

The male protagonist is reborn and bisexual, eventually ending up in a polyamorous relationship.

Empires of Dust by Anna Smith Spark

One of the main protagonists is a reborn villain and an overall despicable human being. I couldn’t warm up to him at all. He’s bisexual but ends up with an equally detestable female character. The series is dark and graphic, so be prepared.

Furyborn by Claire Legrand

The story revolves around two prophesied queens—one of light and one of darkness—separated by centuries. Both are point-of-view characters. The Blood Queen has a villainous love interest but comes across as a frustrating, indecisive character. She betrays her family, husband, and kingdom, all for her attraction to the villain. She’s bisexual, but the character lacks agency, making her deeply unlikable. It wasn't for me, but others may enjoy it.

Master of Sorrows by Justin Travis Call

The male protagonist is believed to be the prophesied hero but is actually the Dark Lord/God reborn. No queer themes here. It's pretty dark but not graphic. disabledMC grows up in an ableist religious cult, so potential trigger warning here

I also really love Keos's youngest sibling's energy: Can we please talk about the fact that his villain origin story is being pissed about not getting what he wished for Christmas. I love petty gods lol. Still better than cutting your brothers hand off and declaring him the enemy of all humankind just because he did not like your shitty Christmas present

[howifeltabouthim]

He's fallen, you know, fell from Heaven to here below, to keep us low, to build our ruin . . .

Siri Hustvedt, from The Blazing World

[nyxshadowhawk]

Temptation by Nodens Art

[dandeliondee]

lotsa guys featuring @fluffernauto's azhrarn and freya

[thefreelanceangel]

Tagged (Repeatedly!) 10 Fandoms/10 Characters

Well gee golly whiz, I'd better get on this before more people tag me and then impatiently tap their feet for an answer! :D I'm not entirely sure if my list will be all actual "fandoms" but you know what, the characters compel me so I'm not changing my list.

#1: TOP CHARACTER EVER: Azhrarn, Night's Master from Tanith Lee's Tales from the Flat Earth book series.

#2: REALLY LIKE YOU KNOW LIKE-LIKE: Gideon Nav from Tamsyn Muir's Locked Tomb series.

#3: IDENTIFY WITH AND LOVE: Aziraphale from Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett's Good Omens, including the TV adaptation

#4: STILL FIND COMPELLING: Angaharad (Hari or Harimad-sol) from RobinMcKinley's The Blue Sword

#5: ENJOY SEEING EVERY TIME: Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander from Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth book series

#6: LOVE TO HATE AND STILL LOVE: Cersei Lannister from George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, as well as the TV adaptation "Game of Thrones"

#7: WILL LOVE AND STAN FOREVER: Sir Haurchefant Greystone from Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward

#8: WANT ONLY THE BEST FOR: Stolas from Viziepop's "Helluva Boss" animated YouTube series

#9: FIND FASCINATING IN ALL FORMS: Lucifer Morningstar from Christian mythology, including Paradise Lost by John Milton

#10: HAVE LOVED FOR DECADES: Batman (originally) from Detective Comics #27 but specifically from "Batman: the Animated Series" and the Tim Burton films

BONUS ANSWERS: (because I was tagged in this four times)

--Four (ish) Top Faves from the FFXIV Fandom: OCs Edition

Kirke, Corpse Dancer -- @sealrock

Kikyo Takahashi -- @shroudkeeper / @regalblossom

Blink Vaniro -- @riftdancing / Z -- @gatheredfates

Malika Bajihri -- @luck-and-larceny / Evander Winsome -- @dumb-hat

(Okay I cheated a little...)

Tagged by: @sealrock; @jigschosai; @iron-sparrow; @otherworldseekers

Tagging: @luck-and-larceny; @dumb-hat; @shroudkeeper; @airis-ray; @miqojak; @raulin-gage; @roxinova; @gatheredfates; @riftdancing and I'm sure I'm insanely late to this so count yourself tagged!

[doctorcolubra]

Lee, Night's Master

Tanith Lee was already on my TBR list, but when I saw the reblogged post about a certain famous spec-fic rapist having plagiarised her, I sought out Night's Master right away. The influence of her writing style on that writer is immediately obvious, and in the introduction she also shouts out Oscar Wilde and the Arabian Nights as influences on her. The book is composed of interlocking short stories featuring the character of Azhrarn, the titular Night's Master, Prince of Demons, who plays with human lives.

Compliment sandwich: this is some really beautiful fairy tale/fantasy writing. I read it eagerly and highlighted a bunch of fabulous sentences. I absolutely recommend it to anyone who wants to write in this genre. The worldbuilding is complex without seeming mechanistic. There's magic everywhere but it doesn't feel commonplace, and it's not poisoned by the imagery and attitudes of video games and RPGs, where magic is about as special as electricity; it inspires the wonder I'm always looking for from this genre.

But. I gotta say it. The Arabic/Persian influence is especially clear in the names: Zorayas, Bisuneh, Sivesh, and so on. This starts to feel a little weird as the book progresses and you start to realise that almost all the good (or, particularly, the innocent) characters are blond and white. One good character, Mirrash, is "smoky and stern," that's it. While that's common enough in European fairy tales and books influenced by them, it's very pervasive here, to the point that Lee has to either repeat herself or invent stranger similes for regular old Caucasity:

His skin was white as alabaster, his fine hair the color of amber… Her hair is the yellow of wheat, her breasts white pomegranates, her loins honeydew. His hair was pale as barley under white spring sun. …white skinned, her mother's hair of pale primroses yet paler still—the ghosts of primroses… Her skin was like the white heart of an apple, her hair a fountain of primroses. … Like a white moth at dusk, a night-blooming lily. Like music played by the reflection of a swan as it passes over the strings of a moonlit lake. And that hair of his, so fair that it was like the color of the silver-gray bark of particular trees… His flesh is like alabaster and his hair like spilled white wine. "Your magnolia flesh would look far better in a gown of silk…"

Another critique I want to make is the way that the rage and bitterness of victims is portrayed as being more damaging than the violence of their oppressors. There is a scene of sexual assault which is described in heavily metaphorical language, and with a lot of compassion, but the rapist is portrayed as basically inconsequential while the vindictive fury of the victim leads to mass devastation and death. This is repeated later when a man is similarly cheated of love and of his own bodily autonomy—his hate eventually becomes a personified force that threatens the world. (Oh, and what colour is this personified hate described as being? Brown, of course!) Trying not to spoil too much here, but the cause of the original violence is punished in the first case but redeemed in the second, and I really disliked the idea that suffering too much makes you more evil than the person who hurt you. (Shades of Nietzsche's ressentiment.)

So you have to keep your third eye 👁️ open as you read this and be on your guard against the reactionary tendencies that fantasy unfortunately has. (She's not the worst on gender, although she does define femininity as pure passivity and masculinity as unthinking violence, which sucks.) The sex scenes are never graphic but often, uh, odd. Some things go down that would be very illegal on Earth. Even from the quotes above you can see how good Lee is at constructing dreamy fantasy sentences, which just makes the problematic stuff go down easier, so one has to stay sharp.

That said, there's something wonderful in every story here, and I did like this book on the whole; I would definitely read more from Lee and it also made me want to take another look at the 1001 Nights (never read it cover to cover!) and the Wilde stories that I haven't read yet. Much juicier and richer than Neil G*iman, in my own opinion, and reading it carefully will make you a better fantasy writer.