Book Meme Part II - Fantasy Category

I didn't think this one through thoroughly.  There's a lot of things I read that are fantasy that I don't usually think of as Fantasy.  Harry Potter.  The Magician King by Grossman (recommended by Larry, loved both books). Illearth Series. Pratchett (I put off reading some of the Discworld books so I always have some to go back to.  It's the reverse of worrying about whether an author will die before he completes a series.  I almost died before I completed what was available of Pratchett).  Bradbury.  And I had to go back and update for Bull, Mieville, and Gaiman, which is inexcusable.  I'm not sure why I don't think of them as fantasy...apparently I have a prejudice where I stereotype fantasy as elves, dwarves, Terry Goodkind, and Tad Williams Green Angel Tower trilogy (see the bottom - you can slot this into never read, even though I pawned it off on Kevin).

The last fantasy book I read was:
Elfstones of Shannara.  Read it out loud to Eryn.  I had some criticisms, but he uses Awesome much less often in the Sword of Shannara.

The fantasy book I am reading right now is: 
Wishsong of Shannara.  Reading it out loud to Eryn.  She's annoyed that one of the characters says "For Cat's Sake" so often.  Not nearly as good as Frack! or the Firefly swear words:

The next fantasy book I will read is: 
Maybe I'll just celebrate being done with 1150 pages of the Shannara trilogy.  Once again, I don't have anything queued up.  I'm moving to Law 101 and PMP studying.  A bit of nonfiction.  Wait..that's a lie.  I'm going to finish reading Felix Palma's Map of the Sky.  I ordered it from the library yesterday.  Could be construed as science fiction, but it's more fantasy than scifi in my opinion.

I also have a copy of Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things sitting on the table that I checked out yesterday, although it'll have to wait until after PMP.  And I'm way past due for a Jasper Fforde book and a Discworld book.

The last fantasy book I didn’t finish was:
Palma's Map of the Sky.

I didn’t finish it because:
Library requested it back, and I've been reading it slowly, partially because I had to finish The Map of Time before I started it.

The last fantasy I recommended to a friend was:
The Rook - recommended it to Kevin.

The last fantasy book someone recommended to me was: (Did you enjoy it?)
Larry recommended The Leviathan Trilogy, which is steampunk, which I categorize as fantasy.  I liked it enough that Eryn and I read it together again for evening reading time.  NPR recommended Robopocalypse: A Novel, which is likely classified as scifi, but feels like out and out fantasy or a horror-related zombie riff to me.  NPR is dumb.  It sucked.  Hard. Kevin said that whole Hunger Games thing was good when he saw me with the book in St. Peter.  Once again, border line between scifi and fantasy.  I didn't enjoy it - I'm still sort of mad I read it from a literary perspective, although from a modern cultural perspective, at least I have something to complain about when someone tells me how great it is.

My favorite fantasy novel is:
I came back to this question!  I do have an absolute favorite, War for the Oaks by Emma Bull.  Magic Realism in Prince's Minnesota.  Ananasi Boys and American Gods - e.g. anything by Gaiman.  And ALMOST anything by China Mieville.  The Scar, Perdido Street Station, and Iron Council, but NOT Kraken.

[Old Answer: Lord of the Rings.  It's got historical/english professor undertones...or overtones.  And although I'm older now and I know it's not as good as I remember at the time, the Song of Albion trilogy by Stephen Lawhead was my favorite for a long time.]

An underrated fantasy author is:
I'd rather state I think George R. R. Martin and Robert Jordon are overrated, and there's almost nothing I'd read in top 20 authors on the Amazon fantasy list.

I think Emma Bull has always been underrated.  She's wonderful.  That whole circle of authors she's involved with (Gaiman, Shetterly, et al) is excellent.

My favorite sub-genre of fantasy is:
If I use this list, probably Alternate World followed by Arthurian followed by Juvenile.

Should add two questions...don't ever read... and favorite fantasy film:
Per above, stay away from that damn Tad Williams trilogy.  It's boring, and a LOT of boring.  As for movies, Princess Bride and Spirited Away (anyone ever say anything different unless they're LoTR uber fans?) are at the top of my list.  I don't think Grave of the Fireflies is fantasy, or I'd rank it higher than either.  Are superhero movies fantasy movies?  This all gets very grey...