OT: good fantasy books

[Edi]

I'm going to put a word of warning (based on my personal opinion, so take with appropriate amount of salt) about Memory, Sorrow and Thorn:

It is, without doubt, the most terminally boring series of fantasy I've ever read. Your mileage may vary, but if you are bored halfway through the first book and finding your attention wandering, do yourself a favor and leave it at that. It is NOT going to change in style or pace of events for the rest of the series and you will not get those hours back. I wish I could.

If, on the other hand, you find yourself immersed and blown away, that is quite fine and I hope you enjoy the books fully. I also hope that whatever it is you have isn't contagious.

[Edi]

Teraswaerto said:
Edi,
I don't remember the descriptions as "feasting", not any more than in Prince of Nothing certainly, and I found Bakker's alien flesh-lovers and their rape-driven creations far more disturbing than anything in A Song of Ice and Fire.

I will amend my earlier posts: With the exception of THOSE creatures, Prince of Nothing is less offensive in the regard I spoke of earlier. The No-God's creatures, yes, they were very, very disturbing indeed.

As for the word "feasting", well, wallowing is better, but the Finnish translation we're looking for is "hekumoida", though it would be impolite toward the others here to talk all in Finnish.

[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'

[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.

[djo]

To start with, I'll second the votes for Roger Zelazny, China Mieville, Patricia McKillip, Neil Gaiman, and John Crowley. They are all well above the pale, extraordinary writers. You can't go wrong with almost anything they've ever written.

The Malazan books could be Erikson's ticket into their company, if he keeps up the quality for the full series. Ditto Brust and his Vlad series.

Here are some choices from a bit off the traditional epic fantasy track:

Ash: A Secret History, by Mary Gentle--looks like, feels like, but isn't quite historical fantasy; it's a tricky book, but keep with it. This woman knows her medieval warfare! Ash is a female mercenary captain in the middle ages, fighting against a Carthage that never fell. Depending on what edition you get, it is sometimes broken up into multiple volumes.

Declare or Last Call, by Tim Powers--fantasy set in the 20th century, with conspiracies, deep magic, and convoluted connections through myth and history. Declare is a Cold War spy novel, the East and West rushing to secure a magical power on Mt. Ararat. Last Call is a Las Vegas novel about, among other things, the dangers of playing poker with a Tarot deck.

The Dragon Waiting, by John Ford--the War of the Roses, but with magic; Ford is another extraordinary writer who unfortunately didn't produce at a high rate.

The Death of the Necromancer or The Element of Fire, by Martha Wells--two well-written, character-oriented, not-epic, stand-alone fantasies, set in a country looking a lot like France. The latter is Renaissance-ish, the former is set later, in a time where magic co-exists with trains, guns, and gaslights.