[Books] Recommend me a book or book series!

[Ezrail]

Stephen King's The Dark Tower series are outstanding. A true epic with mixture of sci-fi, fantasy, and western by the greatest fiction author/story teller of the past 40+ years. Book one is a little slow at first but the rest of the series leaves nothing behind.

King can be a little difficult to read at times because he is so detailed and many of his books are the size of the bible. But you read/listened to GoT so length shouldn't be an issue. His books are well written, you'll never have a Mary Sue character, and he is unpredictable and real (in terms of his character development). I have difficulty reading most fantasy due to the quality of writing.

Anyway, my 2 cents. I hope you give it a shot.

http://www.stephenking.com/darktower/book/

[Dieulo]

Hainish Cycle, specifically The Left Hand of Darkness
The Book of the Dun Cow (Fable, but it's just an awesome read)
Or something more common and if you didn't read it in School, The Trial, Kafka.

[lawow74]

The original Dune novel is very strong. The sequels, IMO at least, rapidly go downhill to dreck. Other sci-fi works I recommend include David Drake's Hammer's Slammers stories, Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein, and Old Man's War and other works by John Scalzi. For a more parodic work, try Harry Harrison's Bill the Galactic Hero. If you like Adams and Pratchett, you may enjoy that.

On the subject of fantasy, early Robert Salvatore D&D stories like the Crystal Shard trilogy and Dark Elf trilogy are excellent. Latter novels vary in quality, I personally got tired of them by the time they started to transition into the 4e era of the Forgotten Realms. Also recommend Glen Cook's Black Company stories, mostly the original trilogy plus the Silver Spike. The others rapidly descend in quality, IMO.

Stephen King's Dark Tower magnum opus is very good up until around book 6, then it loses something and kind of falls flat in book 7. If you've never read much King, I highly recommend Eyes of the Dragon and Different Seasons. Other things I recommend in no particular order include Harry Turtledove's Alternate History stories, Michael Crichton's sci-thrillers, about the first four books of the Earth's Children series by Jean Auel and numerous books by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.

[Asotcha]

It isnt a science fiction by any means, but i recommend Watership Down to anybody. Its imagery and characters make it second to none.

[AceofHarts]

Well, yeah, Mistborn: The Final Empire is a fantasy setting heist novel. Of course it has gentlemen thieves; that's like complaining that a fantasy novel has magic.

How about Elantris? It's a stand-alone book rather than a trilogy, and has an interesting premise and some very cool plot twists of its own.

which is what he is doing. i don't understand at all, but if he doesn't want "Standard Fantasy" than about the only option he has is Song of Ice and Fire, and even that is pretty standard.

[Spl4sh3r]

I will suggest Deverry Cycle even though you said you don't like elves and dwarves. I would say that anything in the fantasy genre is a tired old cliché so I don't really see why you want to remove stuff that is in the majority of the fantasy genre. The Deverry Cycle is really unique according to me since it spans across generations of characters instead of only the same group of people. Ofcourse Deverry Cycle has this system of rebirth where souls are reborn after their death. Though the person won't remember the earlier life.

[obdigore]

which is what he is doing. i don't understand at all, but if he doesn't want "Standard Fantasy" than about the only option he has is Song of Ice and Fire, and even that is pretty standard.

Oh that is horseshit. Everyone is suggesting 'standard fantasy'. The Salvatore, the Eddings, the Weeks is all pretty 'standard' stuff. Most of it follows the genre conventions and does most stuff well, but not exceptionally well.

If you want the 'new' wave of people messing with Genre conventions and different stuff, try some of these:

The Scar or Kraken by China Mieville is pretty out there. His characters are fantastic as is his imagination.
The Steel Remains is the beginning of 'A Land Fit for Heroes' by Richard K Morgan, and he enjoys twisting genre conventions.
Anything by Gene Wolfe that isn't the Wizard/Knight duo. I would suggest either Land of the New Sun or the 'Soldier' stuff.
Joe Abercrombie likes to twist genre conventions quite a bit, I would suggest you give his 'First Law' series a look.
The 'Thorns' series by Mark Lawrence is really about an bloody anti-hero who doesn't give a shit about anyone standing in the way of what he wants.
Scott Bakkers' 'Second Apocalypse' stuff, although I dislike it, is pretty genre-twisting.
Hell if you want something really odd, Try Warren Eillis' ' Crooked Little Vein'.