[Books] Fantasy Recommendations

[Noctua]

David Eddings.
Belgariad, Malorean, Elenium, Tamuli, Redemption of Althalus.

Wouldn't recommend the Dreamers series though; its definitely not his best.

[Neonic]

Sword of Truth series, I finished all of them and stayed up very late because I want to know what happens next!!

[Jakexe]

I'm not the biggest book reader but the 2 series I've enjoyed recently that may fit your preferences

The Last Wish/Blood of Elves - Andrzej Sapkowski
The Dark Tower series - Stephen King

[obdigore]

Sword of Truth series, I finished all of them and stayed up very late because I want to know what happens next!!

Sure if you love Ayn Rand and enjoy kicking little girls in the face, I guess you can enjoy the SoT series. Did you really like Goodkind shoving his political opinions down your throat for 90% of the series? Or how about the parts where the more important a woman is to the plot of the book the closer she is to getting raped? That was awesome too...

[Deleted]

Fritz Leiber - Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser starting with "Swords and Deviltry" collection and moving on.

Jack Vance - "Dying Earth" series (Look for the "The Compleat Dying Earth" tome if you can find it 'compleat' is not a typo :P )

[Zoma]

Or how about the parts where the more important a woman is to the plot of the book the closer she is to getting raped? That was awesome too...

Oh, c'mon, she was only almost raped once... per book.

[Neonic]

I started reading the books after the show was cancelled, and I wanted to continue with Richard, Kahlan, Cara, and Zed on their adventures. You might not like the books, but there are many people who did.

[obdigore]

Oh, c'mon, she was only almost raped once... per book.

It wasn't just Kahlan. You want to read some rape scenes that make understand how terrible the author thinks of the situation instead of almost as a fantasy like in the SoT series? Read The Cold Commands by Morgan and then Forge of Darkness by Erikson.

[s_bushido]

I enjoyed what I read of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - Stephen R. Donaldson. I only got through about 5 books (I think there are 10ish) before I fell out of the reading phases I go through. :P

If you haven't already, you should give Harry Potter a shot. Reading them as an adult, I enjoyed them as much as (if not more than) I did reading Weiss/Hickman and R.A. Salvatore as a teen.

[obdigore]

I started reading the books after the show was cancelled, and I wanted to continue with Richard, Kahlan, Cara, and Zed on their adventures. You might not like the books, but there are many people who did.

And since when has popularity been a guide to what is good?

PS -> The show had almost nothing to do with the books, and the people who like the books generally hated the show.

[Gilgemesh]

The Kingkiller Chronicles are great so far...and I've heard whispers that they might announce the release date for the doors of stone after the new year.
The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud. Its aimed at a younger audience, but still great.
The Book of deacon, The Great Convergence, And the Battle of Verril, by Joseph Lallo. Good stories, not well edited imo, but I loved the world and storyline.
The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King.
The Inheritence Cycle by Christopher Paolini.

[Stormcall]

Most of Michael Moorcock's work, particularly the Elric, Corum, and Hawkmoon series.

[Neonic]

And since when has popularity been a guide to what is good?

PS -> The show had almost nothing to do with the books, and the people who like the books generally hated the show.

And since when has obdigore's opinion been a guide to what is good?

PS -> Each episode has to stand on it's own. If the series followed the books then the characters would be apart from each other for the majority of the show. For someone who hated the book you sure know a lot about it and the show. If you thought that Goodkind was "shoving his political opinions down your throat for 90% of the series" then how did you manage to get past the first chapter to read the series?

[obdigore]

And since when has obdigore's opinion been a guide to what is good?

PS -> Each episode has to stand on it's own. If the series followed the books then the characters would be apart from each other for the majority of the show. For someone who hated the book you sure know a lot about it and the show. If you thought that Goodkind was "shoving his political opinions down your throat for 90% of the series" then how did you manage to get past the first chapter to read the series?

/snicker.

It is foolish to have an opinion of something you have not experienced. Acting like I didn't push my way through numerous of the books was an assumption that wont work out for you.

[Deleted]

The Warlord Chronicles, is a trilogy of books about Arthurian Britain written by Bernard Cornwell. Not it is more blood and mud then high fantasy, one example a witch "enchant" a army to make it invisible to the enemy. Then army "know" it is invisible and sneak up and ambush the opponents army, afterwards the witch is celebrated for here spell.

[Xenogeist]

A Trial of Blood and Steel series by Joel Shepherd.

[Muzjhath]

I have to call out for the works of Erikson, Ambercrombie, Rothfuss and Robin Hobb. Great authors all four.

Then I'll throw in a recommendation for the Cronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny, if you're a quick reader the first 5 books shouldn't take you much more than a week, they're fairly short but very high quality. Not read them all myself but devouring them quite quickly.

Glen Cook's Black Company is also a good read, even if he does loose his touch after book 3/4 somewhere. The next 4 are fairly good, the last books you can just skip over unless you have a lot of time.

As for unrecommendatons:
I also have to mirror Sword of Truth. I've only read the first five or six books. And while they were very easy to read. They weren't all that good. However, if you're around fifteen/sixteen I think you'll find them very entertaining.

And joining obdigore in the line of not praising Wheel of Time.
Yes, it has a fairly intresting world, if not that deep. Most of it is far from as good as it's fan's will proclaim.
The first three books, his original "trillogy". They are actually worth the praise. They keep a good pacing, stuff happens. The books after that are decent enough, he doesn't get stuck in minuta. It's somewhere in book six or seven that Jordan loses himself. He get's stuck writing about things that's better left out, get's clamped with undeveloped and fairly boring characters. As well as a huge amount of steriotypical characters that easily could get thrown together so there'd be a smaller amount.
During this time the writing and the pacing are both thrown out the window, with the pinacle being in book ten.
In book eleven he did pick up some slack and it was moving in the propper direction, then he died. Sanderson later get's the series moving again, yet I can't tell if that's al due to him, or if RJ got a bit to his senses.

As for Eddings, read the Belgrad, then you don't really need to read anything else.

[Kasierith]

And since when has popularity been a guide to what is good?

PS -> The show had almost nothing to do with the books, and the people who like the books generally hated the show.

I actually liked the show more than the books. But then, I generally watched the show in the background while doing other things..

---------- Post added 2012-12-29 at 12:16 AM ----------

And since when has obdigore's opinion been a guide to what is good?

To be fair, popularity is often a poor indicator for how "good" a book is; you'll be very hard pressed to find a single book keyed towards every available audience. All that popularity means is that it is keyed for a large part of the population, which means absolutely nothing to individuals who do not share that more commonly held trait that drew many people to the book.

I point to Twilight as the epitome of this.

[bayushisan]

If you like urban fantasy then I'd recommend the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. Other than that I'd also recommend the October Daye series by Seanan McGuire, and the Nightside series by Simon R Green.

[obdigore]

If you like urban fantasy then I'd recommend the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. Other than that I'd also recommend the October Daye series by Seanan McGuire, and the Nightside series by Simon R Green.

Not read October Daye, but Nightside by Simon Green is the Sword of Truth of urban fantasy, if you will. Try the Alex Verus stuff by Benedict Jacka, Mike Carey's Felix Caster stuff, or The Atrocity Archives by Charlie Stross (although I've not read those myself) and you can try the Garrett P.I. files by Glen Cook if you like the noir-ish mystery genre in a fantasy setting. Some people like Kate Harrison, although I've not read any of her stuff myself.