I finished reading the Wheel of Time a while back, and I'm out of Stephen King. Let's hear your favorite fantasy series and books so I've got a good database to burn through. A sentence or two of description to avoid spoilers.
Let me have it.
Contemporary fantasy series by Piers Anthony, noted pervert: "The Incarnations of Immortality."
On a Pale Horse, Bearing an Hourglass, With a Tangled Skein, Wielding a Red Sword, Being a Green Mother, For Love of Evil, And Eternity, Under a Velvet Cloak.
I found the first book in paperback with its covers falling off in my middle-school library, after talking my way into a free spot in my schedule for reading (I had issues with authority, can you guess?)
It deals with a rather depressed bloke who decides to take his own life, but in a moment of panic he turns the gun on the Grim Reaper who comes for his soul. Apparently, that's all you have to do in order to become Death Incarnate. It explores a universe where concepts like Time, Fate, and Nature are positions held by regular people. War, for example, starts off as an Arabian prince with a speech impediment. The man who would be Time is born in the future, long after the other characters, and lives backwards (mostly). The overarching plot deals with a contest between the Incarnations and Satan (the Incarnation of Evil and a really nice bloke) to determine the fate of one person's soul, and from that, determine the fate of the Incarnation of Good (aka God) who has gone silent.
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But better than that, if you don't mind sci-fi, is "Tuf Voyaging." It's a series of short stories in a compilation by a little-known author named George R. R. Martin. It's the precise opposite of Game of Thrones, and my second favourite piece of written fiction next to "Illusions".
The Second Apocalypse series, Scott Bakker.
The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch.
My reading of the former: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2xPolcBca8
Tad William's Otherland series was alright.
Anthony Horowitz's Power of Five. Five kids, ten thousand years reincarnation separation and a dark overlord from another dimension.
Drizzt series? :P A drow escapes Menzoberranzen or whatever to find his place in the world.
Artemis Fowl - Boy genius finds out faeries are real and tries to steal their gold.
Deltora Quest -A boy named Lief goes on a journey to collect 7 gems to save his country
The Belgariad - Boy finds out he's a mage
Memory, Sorrow & Thorn - (didn't realise that was Tad Williams till now as well lol) Three swords and a prophecy, also kind of centres around another boy from time to time..
Cirque du Freak & Demonata series by Darren Shan
The Black Company, Glen Cook. It follows the story of a mercenary company hired by the bad guys of the setting.
The Lies of Locke Lamora (the Gentleman Bastard series) by Scott Lynch. A group of thieves get caught up in a criminal power struggle while carrying out their own heists.
The Name of the Wind (the Kingkiller chronicle) by Patrick Rothfuss. Young bard sets out to discover the truth about those who wronged him.
The Prince of Thorns (the Broken Empire trilogy) by Mark Lawrence. Young prince sets out to carve his rulership using his own ruthless cunning.
Mistborn (the Final Empire) by Brandon Sanderson. Recommend the first book in the series but the two others are also okay. A group of thieves plan their greatest heist against the tyrant of the land.
The Alloy of Law (and the rest of the series) by Brandon Sanderson. Steampunk cowboy must return to the capital to inherit and save his failing noble house.
Theft of Swords (Riyria Chronicles) by Michael J. Sullivan. Framed for something they did not commit the two mercenaries must find a way to solve the situation before they get killed.
Not necessarily fantasy, in the general sense, but still a great series with some 'fantasy' elements.
The Warlord Chronicles (The Winter King, Enemy of God, Excalibur), a 'historical' retelling of Arthurian legends. EFUM was inspired a lot by the world of The Warlord Chronicles, in parts, and it is still my favourite book series, I highly recommend.
The author says of the books: "Once upon a time, in a land that was called Britain, these things happened ... well, maybe. The Warlord Trilogy is my attempt to tell the story of Arthur, 'Rex Quondam Rexque Futurus', the Once and Future King, although I doubt he ever was a king. I suspect he was a great warlord of the sixth century. Nennius, who was one of the earliest historians to mention Arthur, calls him the 'dux bellorum' - leader of battles or warlord."
Jonathan Strange & Mister Norrell is enjoyable - set in an alternate Victorian reality where magic has returned.
Although a bit older now and you've probably read them but Neil Gaiman books are good fun especially Neverwhere, Stardust and American Gods.
The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie if you like well rounded, complex characters that develop beautifully over time, set in a world very similar to EFUs in tone and atmosphere.
Raymond E. Feist
From the very begninning wow lots of sub books focusing on sub characters
When I was younger I read so many of them still think they are being released.
these are mostly trash suggestions. Here's the real deal
The VORRH series by Brian Catling. A surrealist fantasy that begins with a dude butchering the corpse of his wife and turning her into a bow. Journey into the Vorrh, a forest in the heart of Africa that definitely exists. The very best.
The Etched City, Kirsten Bishop. A weird, dreamy interlude about a city where art becomes real with a backdrop of the seedy underworld
Viriconium, M. John Harrison. Arthuriana by way of Dying Earth, see the earth all screwed and its people small minded. Is Viriconium even real
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Follow the fortunes of the renegade Colonel Aureliano Buendia as he and his trusty companions gather together to fight an ancient evil, deep in the jungles of Latin America
Just read Borges.
I've been an avid fan of The Malazan series by the two creator-authors, Steven Erikson and Ian Cameron Esslemont.
The Malazan Books of the Fallen are the main series, written by Erikson, while Esslemont's books fall in between the main story, filling up certain gaps and telling stories of characters that appear less or more frequently in Erikson's main series.
There are also two other series taking place in the same world, by both authors. Erikson's Forge of Darkness, followed by Fall of Light and a yet-to-be-published third installment kind of begin from the very beginning, telling the story of the world.
Esslemont's Dancer's Lament and Deadhouse Landing are part of another series, sort of an origin story set about two mainstay characters appearing in the main Malazan series.
All in all, it's a very heavy series to get into, but I found it fun because there is no huge backstory section you're supposed to read first. The readers learns of all the magic stuff, weird precursor races, geography and whatnot, along with the characters who come across them.
Though very heavy with magic, the series still manages to focus on characters and their interactions. Every character seems fleshed out with a personality, no matter how brief their time in the books is.
The overall plot is huge, spanning across ALL of the books, but reading through every book still sort of closes its own story, so you're not left with a cliffhanger at the end (save for the second-last Malazan book, which was unavoidable since the remaining story was so long it HAD to be two books and there was just no way of splitting it neatly).
There's humor, tragedy, casual light moments and extremely brutal, dark stuff best left for adult audiences.
Honestly, I never thought I'd find any fantasy books that'd top Lord of the Rings by vision and scope, but... this stuff really does. Of course there are some typical fantasy tropes, but there's a lot of unique stuff too, and the general tropes usually have a unique spin on them, too.
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Fantasy
Lord of the Rings, 1984, Animal Farm, Song of Ice and fire. The Bible King James Version, Shakespere, The Quaran, The Talmud.
Non Fantasy
"The Autobiography of Malcolm X"
"The Communist Manifesto"
"Young Stalin"
"An Amercian Life Ronald Reagan's Memoir"
An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy By Gunnar Mydral
Philosophy
The Republic By Plato
A Confession by Tolstoy
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality among men by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
boycott ayn rand
I've been meaning to read Malazan but given the length and number of books I don't have the time :( The Expanse series is worth checking out; there is already a TV series which is on its 4th season. Think Battlestar Galactica and a Song of Fire and Ice in one.
The Expanse series is definitely good. It is very Arthur C. Clarksian in it's realistic approach to space fiction. That being said you should read Childhood's End (Ignore the moronic book jacket that describes the book as scary. The human race should be so lucky. Also admittedly this is my favorite book ever.), 2001, 2010, 2050, and 3001. I admit that at least two and perhaps three of those are outdated but they are still fascinating reading. While not nearly as realistic as Clark, Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles is a classic as well.
I concur with the Malazan Book of the Fallen.
It has been a source of inspiration for me for many things over many years..
I would highly recommend everyone to go through Dan Simmons' works, though.
His Hyperion Cantos was one of those rare books that REALLY hit the spot for me. There's a ton of intertextuality in those books (4) - the way Simmons' blends classic literature and poetry with sci-fi/fantasy is just mind-boggling, to me.
Can't recommend it enough. One of those truly special books on my shelf.
Same with Dan Simmons'Illium/Olympos - it tickled me on so many levels. Shakespeare, Homer & Proust meet nanotechnology, string and quantum theories and take those where it has not been taken before, IMHO, by this magnificent blend of classical and (soft) science.
Both series above are very easy to spoil, so I wouldn't recommend looking up much about them. Just trust me , instead ;)
The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant.
Quote from: Pup on October 13, 2018, 05:44:14 AM
The Expanse series is definitely good. It is very Arthur C. Clarksian in it's realistic approach to space fiction.
Ditto
SC knows whats up, double recommend on all of his. Black company hands down one of the best reads. Steven kings the dark tower series is also amazing for a blend of magic, unique mysticism, and outer planar elements while maintaining a modern feel and connection to the modern world, can be a bit of a drag for a bit, but getting through is amazingly good.
Also, the inheritance series, all four books, amazing series, but depressing end. Amazing, my favorite series
The dune series, all of them, i particularly recommend the house series written by the OG authors son, and the butlerian jihad series, amazing science fantasy in every element of the word
Mortal engines is pretty good.
I churn through plenty of Audible books and if you're looking for light reading that's a step above airport paperback, then I have a few recommendations.
Maisie Dobbs mysteries by Jacqueline Winspear
Maisie is a British former-nurse from WW1 who becomes an investigative-psychologist. The books' strength is the POV character and the time period, though the romance and mystery itself were fair enough.
Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
A murderbot is a cyborg slave that is rented out as an insurance markup to humans exploring dangerous alien worlds. The subtext is humane treatment of AI, and Murderbot itself is a proxy for people with autism.
Bobiverse series by Dennis E. Taylor
Bob is a bit of a weird one. In the future, idiot countries plant AI in self-replicating rockets then launch them into space to claim distant resources, and war with each other. Bob struggles with the ennui of being immortal.
Grimnoir series by Larry Correia
Fresh out of magic jail for bad boys, Jake Sullivan, private eye, is on orders from top slimeball J. Edger Hoover with one mission: Capture rogue magicals rampaging 1930's America! But when Jake becomes embroiled with a secret society of good boys called the Grimnoire will he risk crossing the FBI to help them with their one mission: Stop the Japanese Empire from takingovertheworld?
Quote from: SN on November 21, 2018, 12:36:27 AM
I would highly recommend everyone to go through Dan Simmons' works, though.
His Hyperion Cantos was one of those rare books that REALLY hit the spot for me. There's a ton of intertextuality in those books (4) - the way Simmons' blends classic literature and poetry with sci-fi/fantasy is just mind-boggling, to me.
Can't recommend it enough. One of those truly special books on my shelf.
Yes! Hyperion is such an amazing series. I personally liked the first duology better than Endymion, I found Paul rather boring and passive as a protagonist. He was a passive observer but an integral part of the story at the same time, it just didn't work for me.