A Song of Ice and Fire

[Arryn]

Originally posted by alexti:
But does anybody know another author of similar quality?

Robin Hobb, David Gemmel, David Drake, Raymond Feist. All quite good, and their stories are not always predictable. But GRRM, unlike any other author I know, truly isn't attached to his characters. heh

[Saber Cherry]

I have a lot of trouble finding good fantasy books, but I may try out some of those. Recently, the only one I liked enough to buy a sequel was Terry Goodkind (Wizard's First Rule) but I didn't finish the second book... Other than that, and Feist's first two books... The Last Unicorn (Peter Beagle) is exceptional.

SF, on the other hand, is another matter. I really liked David Brin's first Uplift trilogy (and more recently, Kiln People), and Vernor Vinge's "A Fire Upon The Deep". Joe Haldeman's "Forever War" is excellent as well. And we mustn't forget Niven, but I expect most people here would have read Ringworld... at least the ones who came from the SEIV forum=)

Does the Riftwar series stay high quality after the initial two books?

The 3rd Book is more emphasis on the lesser characters in Arutha and Jimmy the Hand and has alot of connectivity to why things happened in the way they happened. The 4th book is excellent and has massive battles and fantastic richness to it. I enjoyed the entire series.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Does the Riftwar series stay high quality after the initial two books?

In a word: yes!

[Arryn]

By the way, a SF book by G.R.R. Martin called Tuf Voyaging, a set of short stories about the character Tuf, is memorable.

As for other fantasy works that are good, try the David Eddings single novel The Redemption of Athalus. Arguably his best work, and one of the finest pieces of fantasy lit I have ever read. It distills the best of Eddings' wit, what normally takes him 3-5 books to accomplish (such as the Belgariad, Mallorien, or Sparhawk novels), into a single most-pleasant book to read.

Of course, no list of fantasy would be complete without mention of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by S. Donaldson.

David Eddings left me a little cold. Especially the trivial 'boys and girls' talk along with stereotypes that he portrayed. Though I did like Athalus quite a bit, before the woman got a hold of him.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Zen:
David Eddings left me a little cold. Especially the trivial 'boys and girls' talk along with stereotypes that he portrayed. Though I did like Athalus quite a bit, before the woman got a hold of him.

The trivial 'talk' is trademark Eddings. (I also think that's the influence of Leigh Edddings, his writing partner.) He specializes in the byplay between his characters. He does it to death in the Belgariad (Silk, Polgara, anyone?) and his other 3-5 volume sets. The Athalus novel is short enough (700+ pages), and has enough action, that you don't get sick of it as you do with his other works. However, since major characters in his works are gods, or demigods, his stories bear a slight resemblence to Dominions (if you look at it from a certain perspective).

I do highly recommend David Gemmell though. You won't be disappointed with any of his books. Deep characters, background, et cetera. And they are fast-paced.

Raymond Feist's stories are even deeper, but by the same token not 'casual reads'.

The series by David Drake that I recommend begins with the book Lord of the Isles. Good stuff. Not quite George Martin-caliber, but then only Feist comes close to that, IMHO.

Another set of books you can't go wrong with is L.E. Modesitt's "fantasy" books dealing with Recluce. I put fantasy in quotes because the deep backdrop of the story (without giving anything away) is actually science fiction. But you have to read about 5-7 books into the series, to a set of prequel novels, before you discover that the fantasy world he's set up isn't fantasy at all. But it reads and feels like fantasy, which is all that really matters. Also, unlike many other authors, the characters in his series change as the series takes you through different times and places on the world. Half the series is even from the point of view of the "enemy" (white) wizards, given that the series begins with the black (aka good) wizards. Just goes to show that perspective makes a huge difference. There's a lesson in there, somewhere. heh

My fantasy/SF library numbers over 3000 books, so I can give an opinion on most anything.