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One of my favourite books is Ursula le Guin’s Earthsea. I love the way she uses prose to give everything a mythical, other-worldly feel. Like this:

Once more the Archmage looked at him, and this time, for all his training, Arren looked away. He did not know why, for there was nothing unkind in the gaze of those dark eyes. They were impartial, calm, compassionate.

All in Enlad looked up to his father, and he was his father’s son. No man ever looked at him thus, not as Arren Prince of Enlad, son of the Ruling Prince, but as Arren alone. He did not like to think that he feared the Archmage’s gaze, but he could not meet it. It seemed to enlarge the world yet again around him, and now not only Enlad sank into insignificance, but he himself, so that in the eyes of the Archmage he was only a small figure, very small, in a vast scene of sea-girt lands over which hung darkness.

Completely different than that is C.G. Drews’ A Thousand Perfect Notes, which is very down-to-earth and gives the MC a unique voice.

Beck isn’t sure how dinner at the Freys’ will unfold. Do they pray to a tree? Do they even sit at a table? Is the lasagne actual real lasagne? He’s never seen August eat meat, so is the lasagne pinned together with dreams of animal freedom and air?

I like the way these two styles immediately tell you what kind of world you’re in.