OT: good fantasy books

[Xietor]

As my 1st post alluded, Feist, Jordan, and Tolkien were not included on my list because they are so well known, i thought it redundant.

But, of course, Feist is excellent, Jordan's 1st few books were 10/10, then became dribble, and Tolkien is what other Fantasy novels are measured against.

[HoneyBadger]

I didn't find Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn to be nearly as boring as the Wheel of Time, the Lord of the Rings, Terry Goodkind's stuff (I didn't make it all the way through the first book, and I don't think I'll bother going back) and the crowning achievement of Accountants in Chainmail/Fantasy Economics 101/The Great Gatsby with Swords that was Feist's Merchant Prince.

M,S, and T was very lengthy and densely written, but not as I recall in a bad way.

[MaxWilson]

Steven Erikson--I really like the Malazan Book of the Fallen, although I hate the first book in the series (many people do). Erikson's writing vastly improved in the ten-year gap between writing Gardens of the Moon and Deadhouse Gates. If anyone is interested, I'd recommend starting with Memories of Ice, especially because of the Seguleh. A nation of Nietzsche supermen sends a punitive army of THREE MEN to punish a neigboring Evil Empire for bothering them. Now that's style! (They probably would have gotten obliterated if they hadn't acquired allies, an ancient sorceress and a T'lan Imass, but they would have given it a good try.)

I enjoyed Martin for a couple of books, but eventually the grinding unpleasantness of the world got through to me and I said the Eight Deadly Words: "I don't care what happens to these people." I haven't gone back. Martin admitted in an interview that, of the characters in SoIaF, he identified most closely with Tyrion because of his sexual obsessions, which made a disturbing amount of sense given the gratuitousness of some of the material. The thing that got me interested in Martin in the first place was someone's comment that Martin examines "real evil," which is to say not some evil overlord in a tower who wants to Take Over The World, but rather the plausible kinds of evil that actually occur. It's true, and he delivered on that promise. I guess I just got turned off by, among other things, the fact that there aren't enough GOOD people in the stories to counterbalance the evils. Or if there are, they get far too little screen time. YMMV.

I second the recommendations for Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber, and Brust's Vlad Taltos books. I started with /Issola/, of which you can read the first chapter here: http://www.tor-forge.com/Excerpt.asp...589177#Excerpt

-Max

[Blofeld]

China Mieville is my favourite amongst the contemporary writers. His Bas-Lag series is certaintly not run-of-the-mill Tolkienesque cliche, it's more in weird fiction vein, the books bristle with original ideas, races/cultures and takes on magic and ot technology.
The first book, 'Perdido Street Station' suffers a bit towards the end in plot and coherence departments, but he gets better in later books, 'The Scar' and 'Iron Council'

[Velusion]

Blofeld said:
China Mieville is my favourite amongst the contemporary writers. His Bas-Lag series is certaintly not run-of-the-mill Tolkienesque cliche, it's more in weird fiction vein, the books bristle with original ideas, races/cultures and takes on magic and ot technology.
The first book, 'Perdido Street Station' suffers a bit towards the end in plot and coherence departments, but he gets better in later books, 'The Scar' and 'Iron Council'

Another Yes, Yes, yes.

[Edi]

Michael Scott Rohan's Winter of the World trilogy is great. It's built on a mix of Finnish and Celtic mythology and quite a few original ideas on the author's part.

[Xietor]

I am ordering the 1st 3 black company books, and the 1st trilogy of jv jones by edi.

If they suck, you will have to answer to Pangaea in a small map blitz duel!

[quantum_mechani]

Something that has not been mentioned that I've seen: The Waterborn by Greg Keyes. A great fantasy book that also has something of dominionsesque flavor. I've even thought about making a map/mod based on it, might look something like a small map duel between Pangaea with a lord of the wild and T'ien Ch'i with an oracle.

There is also a sequal to it called Blackgod that is about as good.

[WraithLord]

This is a great thread that holds for me the promise of reading many new marvelous books, so thanks all for your recommendations here.

I would like to add some names not mentioned here,
1. Forgotten realms books. Some may take them as childish or shallow, but to my taste they have a nice "action" feel to them, they make for a nice casual reading. Noteworthy series are: The dark elf trilogy; Legacy of the drow; Icewind Dale trilogy; The cleric quintet; The paths of darkness; The Avatar series; Return of the Archwizards; War of the spider queen;

2. Robert Jordan's wheel of time series. Mentioned before. I'd just like to say that IMO the books are good so long as you fast forward reading all the detailed descriptions of every minute thing that's going on.

3. Roger Zealazny, not only Amber, also his pseudo mythology books are great.

4. Dan Simmons. Hyperion series is top notch sci-fi. Carrion comfort and song of Kali are great dunno exactly how to classify them.

5. Terry Goodkind, Wizard's first rule, only first three books are good, the rest are abysmal.

6. G. Martin, Already mentioned. Just like to say that I loved his ice and fire series.

[HoneyBadger]

The first book in Song of Ice and Fire was, I think, such an excellent read, so complex of a book and so popular, and pushed so hard for sequils, that it would be almost impossible for any writer to live up to it, and consequently, the next books just aren't that good, because how could they be? If you only take into account the pressure Martin's under to churn out sequils, it's going to affect the writing, and just possibly that pressure and stress is bringing out his worse qualities.