OT: good fantasy books

[Actuarian]

Here some books that haven't been mentioned yet.

Robin Hobb is a wonderful author. All of her book are really good, but her Assassin Trilogy is a must read.

Kate Elliott - Crown of Stars series (this definately has a Dominions feel to it)

Stephen R. Donaldson - Thomas Covenant/Illearth series

Raymond E Feist - The Riftwar Saga

Marion Zimmer Bradley - The Mists of Avalon
Guy Gavrial Kay - Fionavar Tapestry trilogy

John Varley - Gaea Trilogy (Wizard, Titan, Demon) - this is clothed as science fiction, but it's really fantasy.

Ursula Le Guin - The Earthsea Trilogy

[crumply]

Jack Vance--The Dying Earth

[Velusion]

crumply said:
Jack Vance--The Dying Earth

Yes, yes, yes.

[Actuarian]

Teraswaerto, I agree with your points regarding Martin, but I wouldn't want any of my kids reading him. You should try Robin Hobb if you haven't already. She and Martin both write darkly, and convey a similar feeling of desperation and a sense of fatalism.

[Actuarian]

Xeitor, I heard that the reason that Jon Snow and the cripple aren't in the latest book is that he made the book way too long and had to divide it into two books. Snow should feature in the next book.

[Teraswaerto]

Actuarian said:
You should try Robin Hobb if you haven't already. She and Martin both write darkly, and convey a similar feeling of desperation and a sense of fatalism.

I've read Hobb's Farseer trilogy once, but it's been a while. I hear Liveship Traders and Tawny Man are good too, haven't read them yet. They take place in the same world, Liveship Traders being only peripherally related to Farseer while Tawny Man continues Fitz's story 15 years after the end of Assassin's Quest.

[Deimos_tw]

I was unfair to robert jordan in that post, the first few were immersive, excellent stuff, i mean, years on and i still remember lots of it, I guess the trouble was he wrote so much pedantic tripe inbetween the bits of interest as the series progressed it became a slog.

J.V. Jones..bakers boy to master and fool, it wasn't a scratch on the pawn of prophecy et al imo, but each to their own.

Not sure Brian Lumley could be defined Fantasy in the strict sense, but the necroscope books were entertaining nonetheless.

I hit reply and some guy steals most of the meat, eh - Feist and Donaldson were awesome, yay.. Donaldson though, like Jordan seemed to write for chapters on end at a time with no objective other than to get words on the page. Feist is like Eddings, but with more than half a plot

C.S. Lewis - ja, well, not read him since I was a kiddle, but then they were wonderful, avoided going back to them incase they aren't as good as I remember - why spoil a good memory eh ;-)

A few others that are struggling to raise their heads out of this foggy swamp of a mind.

[Cor]

Most everything by HP Lovecraft

the problem, he is a bleeding racist. I wish someone would go back and modernize his work, take out all those refrences to eugenics.

[Salamander8]

Cor said:
Most everything by HP Lovecraft

the problem, he is a bleeding racist. I wish someone would go back and modernize his work, take out all those refrences to eugenics.

I'm a big Lovecraft fan myself, and it's 1 reason I do love R'Leyh and Atlantis is this game, but I have to concur on the racial problems as well.

[Nick_K]

Cor said:
Most everything by HP Lovecraft

the problem, he is a bleeding racist. I wish someone would go back and modernize his work, take out all those refrences to eugenics.

While he was definitely prejudiced I don't think that Lovecraft's work is all that bad here. It's important to remember that racism was the general way of thinking in his time. I can generally shrug off this sort of thing in a book from the 20s where I wouldn't accept it from a modern author. Also, most of his stories don't have racist elements in them, due to lacking characters from any minorities.

Lovecraft is far from unique here as well. I remember a socialist friend of mine getting a tad irate about classist elements in Lord of the Rings, for instance.

With the exception of a few digs at the Chinese, I think that most of Lovecraft's more obviously prejudiced elements are targeted at groups that I believe are now well assimilated in the states - immigrants from southern Europe and whatnot. That takes quite a bit of the sting out of things.


Oh, I'm not sure you're using the term 'Eugenics' correctly here... Eugenics is essentially the idea that one can 'selectively breed' humans. It's not necessarily racist, although it is generally considered to be immoral. Eugenics was embraced by the nazis and this effectively destroyed its credibility.
I don't remember references to it in Lovecraft - his prejudices are mainly displayed by descriptions of immigrants as inferior.