Fantasy? (1 Viewer)

[Grey Council]

ehehe. Some good books mentioned here. I'll just say which books that have already been mentioned deserve a special mention:

Raymond Fiest's Magician/Silverthorn/Darkness at Sethanon n see below
Elizabeth Haydon's Rhapsody trilogy (4 books now, so quadlogy/whatever)
Eddings Any
Jordan guh, what do you think?
Terry Goodkind Sword of Truth series
Margaret Weis nad Traci Hickman Death Gate cycle
Janny Wurts Daughter of Empire series is awesome. Wars of light and shadow is awesome. all of her books are good, but only if you like to think while your reading. If you liked daughter of empire, you'll love the rest of her books.

Some that have not been mentioned:

The Ill-Made Mute - Cecilia Dart-Thornton (AWESOME! Best fantasy of 2001 by amazon.com i think. Only if you dont mind heaps and heaps of description)

The Black Gryphon - Mercedes Lackey. This is the first one in the timeline, but all of Lackey's books are good. I dunno why she isnt more famous. :S

David Gemmell. How the hell has no one mentioned Gemmell? Im not a BIG fan (i reckon he is allright), but HEAPS of people I know are avid fans. Try him, if you like action, you'll love Gemmell.

Terry Brooks - lol, again, how come no one has mentioned him? this guy started the whole fantasy trend in modern times. yeah yeah, lotr was first, but this guy's book was the first to make the new york times best seller list, and it stayed there for like 8 months (i think). Trust me, this guy is STUNNING! he was chosen to write the first star wars episode one book, so you can see that he is held in great esteem.

R.A. Salvatore - That reminds me, this guy was chosen to write the second star wars book. Reason? His description of sword scenes is unequalled. Even David Gemmell doesnt come close. and since there is a bit of lightsaber fighting in episode two, this was the man. Anyway, his other series is why im recommending him.

Guh. I gotta go now, if i check here again, i'll post some more authors. PM me if you like a particular style of fantasy, i'll most prolly be able to recommend you a book you'll like. trust me, i've read heaps.

 

[Xayma]

My favourite fantasy book, LOTR of course it does go into a good depth describing things but the story is great.

 

[Macross]

I am currently reading Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series ~!

It has been a week since and im up to the third book (out of who knows how many) ~ so you can guess how i feel about them

 

[Constip8edSkunk]

there'll be 75.63 books when he dies... leaving it unfinished of course

 

[Grey Council]

nah, me thinks it will end after 13 books (from the top of my memory.) But rest assured, Jordan is not planning to go over 13 books. Its either 12 or 13. hehe, you should read tWoT for the first 5 books, and then you just kinda idle your way through the rest of them.

 

[tempco]

Originally posted by mweep
Elizabeth Haydon's Rhapsody trilogy (4 books now, so quadlogy/whatever)

No Way.

AAAAHH I'm gonna go to the library now k thnx bye.



BTW, what's it called?

 

[pigs_can_fly]

oh yeah, gemmings is really good too, though some of his books seem pretty similar, plot-wise. otherwise, they're really good

 

[eveajac]

I agree...Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' trilogy was awesome, even though i'm not usually an avid reader of fantasy.

 

[anti]

I'm half way through the last book in Eddings' Elenian trilogy (or something like that) - it was the only complete trilogy with nice covers I could find at one shop It's not bad, although I liked the Belgariad better...

There was an interesting Scottish series by Kate Forsyth about witches and dragons a while ago, I'm not sure if she finished it (I have the first three books?). Dragonclaw was the first one IIRC. I did like them, even if the language was a bit tedious.

Hmm... I bought The Princess Bride (Goldman) too, if that counts as fantasy!

The Merlin series, by some fellow or other. Friend told me they were a bit dusty.

I think most authors lose it by the third book. Holds true for the Pullman Dark Materials trilogy, in my opinion

Pretty much all the good fantasy is published by Voyager, by the way (http://www.voyageronline.com.au/). It's an arm of HarperCollins.

 

[pigs_can_fly]

has eddings stopped writing or something

his last book, rivan codex was pretty disappointing, basically a condensed version of his other works i felt

 

[Inhuman]

err, he's got 2 new books out now, The redemption of Althalus, and The elder gods.

personally i didn't like the elder gods because i'm getting sick of the way he always uses the same plot devices over and over again (sweet little girl who has ultimate control over most events, overly-intelligent boy who she falls in love with, etc)

Redemption was decent though, quite a good change from the Belgariad and the Elenium

 

[Kos]

Originally posted by mckezz
Yeah I've read Robin Hobb's Assassin Trilogy. I thought it was great, lots of believable characters. Her Liveship Trilogy is pretty awsome aswell although the last book is a bit tedious.
I recommend them to anyone!!!!!!!

Robin Hobb's a damn good author and her books are great, but her latest series (the Tawny Man) is really emotionally indulgent to the point of losing the reader, especially the last book.

I think that fantasy now-days is all pretty generic and alot fantasy books work very much off a formula, but there are some really stellar books like the Farseer Trilogy and the Liveship Traders.

I like alot of Raymond Feist's stuff too. JV Jones had a good series called the Book of Words (as oppose to a picture book I guess) which was very cliche, but still good.

 

[Kos]

Originally posted by Macross
I am currently reading Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series ~!

It has been a week since and im up to the third book (out of who knows how many) ~ so you can guess how i feel about them

WoT is pretty good, but the series really slows down. I planned to read it through a second time, but I couldnt bring myself to get past the 5th book.

 

[Aaron1911]

I enjoyed the Dark Elf trilogy by R.A Salvatore

 

[anti]

I have to say that the Farseer books (Hobb) annoyed me to no end.. I forget why now. Something about being self-indulgent :S I do own the first three though.. I got them for $2 at a library sale

 

[Grey Council]

lol, i seem to have forgotten a fair few books. I'll list some more authors.

Kate Forsyth: She is good. Her series now has SIX books, not 3 as anti said. Anti, you might like to read em all.

The Robin Hobb, I liked the first three. I agree, though, the tawny man ones just go on and on about nothing in particular. or thats what i remember. Livehsip traders is quite good.

JV Jones. I can't believe i forgot to mention him. or is it a she? anyway, she wrote a book called "The barbed coil", which was decent. She also has "cave of black ice" or something like that, which was really good too.

As Kos said:

I think that fantasy now-days is all pretty generic and alot fantasy books work very much off a formula, but there are some really stellar books...

VERY VERY true. The bulk of fantasy books are just crap. There are good ones though. Hmph, if you only want to read good ones, check out the top 10 fantasy books as rated by Amazon.com, or just check which books won the aurealis award for each year. Also check which books win the Hugo and Nebula awards every year, and don't forget to find out which books were shortlisted for each of these awards.

This holds for pretty much every genre. Just check which books win the prestige awards, and you have yourself an awesome book.

And once again, I'd like to mention "The Ill-made mute", and "The wars of light and shadow". Also "The Black Gryphon" and "Firestarter" (or something like that, by Mercedes Lackey"). These books are DIFFERENT, VERY well written, have an awesome plot, etc etc.

The wars of light and shadow, by janny wurts, has astonishingly vivid characters, the best i've seen in any fantasy book.

Mercedes Lackey books just have a very good plot, and the characters are cheeky and interesting. no other way to put it.

The Ill-made Mute, by Cecilia-Dart Thornton, is surprisingly a book with sophisticated diction. Some of the words found in this book you will never have heard anywhere else, guaranteed. And a few you won't even find in a normal dictionary. ^__^ Tintinabulation, anyone? ANYWAY, i know the diciton doesnt make a book good, but this book is good too. It won the amazon best book of 2001 award, and prolly a few other awards which i can't remember at the moment. Its an awesome read.

BTW, one last thing, go and read "a fable in blue" by Saul. It can prolly be found in the extension 2 english forum. I like it cause it is simple, sweet, has a good moral, and a nice ending. Very nice ending. ^__^

 

[Barbie_Bitch]

ok...let me recommend the robin hobb books because they were great....im reading tawny man now and its cool but i absolutely adored the assassins trilogy!!!

next up is the traci harding trilogies- BOTH OF THEM!!! this is my second time reading them and i love it!!!

finally get into the discworld novels if you're into the EXTREMELY ODD!!! its a cross between comedy and fantasy and features some really cool things like Death and his daughter, trolls, the Librarian (who happens to be an ape- do not say monkey...never say monkey) and the Luggage which is extremely magical and vicious...alone in a dark alley at night is not a great time to run into the Luggage!!!

 

[mayhemily]

fantasy is way cool.

My favourite fantasy author would have to be eddings because his books are really easy to read so its all a bit of enjoyable escapism!

Hobb and Feist aren't too shabby either... what is sara douglas like? i've heard good things...

 

[grumps]

if you like the axis trilogy and the wayfarer redemption you really have to read the sword of truth series by terry goodkind..its really long..but trust me it's worth it

 

[Belle]

Originally posted by Barbie_Bitch
next up is the traci harding trilogies- BOTH OF THEM!!! this is my second time reading them and i love it!!!

The first trilogy was definitely brilliant, but only got through half of the second trilogy. I thought it was nowhere near as good as the first one.

As for my other favourites, Ian Irvine is great - I'm halfway through his Well of Echoes series and I love it! His first series was good too, can't remember the name off the top of my head.

The Belgariad by David Eddings has been a long time favourite too, I read it ages ago and loved it

But you just can't go past Lord of the Rings!