Getting back into novels - recommend me some good fantasy lit

[Spectrum_Prez]

Having taken a looooooong break from reading novels in general while I was at college, I've been trying to get back into some fantasy stuff. As a kid, really liked LOTR (Silmarillion even more) and Philip Pullman's series. The impetus was HBO's upcoming Game of Thrones series and wanting to check out the source material before watching the show. George Martin's series was pretty good, just the right balance between trashy and epic.

During high school, read a lot of Terry Brooks and came to enjoy his work less and less as time went along. A friend recommended me a series the name of which I no longer remember - the main theme was about how black was good while white was bad. White was used as an analogy for chaos, raw energy, black was the opposite. Alright, but got boring.

Read some David Eddings but that was a bit too pulpy for my liking. Was he the guy who wrote the Redemption of Althalus? Bought that at Heathrow, lasted me for 6-7 hours of my flight, then I never read it again. I also really liked Ian Irvine's books but I can't find them anywhere.

Before you ask why no sci-fi, it's been ruined for me because of the tv show Party Down. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go watch the show. It's worth it anyways. Also, nothing will ever be as great as HHGTTG, so I don't see any point in trying

 

[ThatLankyBastard]

Have you ever read the Nightangel Trilogy by Brent Weeks?
You will not be disappointed...

 

[IrradiatedFish]

I highly recommend The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan for a long, epic fantasy.

'The Eye of the World' is the first novel in the series if you're interested.

 

[Spectrum_Prez]

Have you ever read the Nightangel Trilogy by Brent Weeks?
You will not be disappointed...

Will make a note to look for it.

Oh yeah, also recently read China Mieville's 'The Scar'. Very cool, but kind of underwhelming near the end.

 

[Spectrum_Prez]

I highly recommend The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan for a long, epic fantasy.

'The Eye of the World' is the first novel in the series if you're interested.

See, I've heard good things and bad things about that series, so I've never really jumped in. The fact that it's quite long is neither good nor bad in itself.... But what I've heard is that Jordan is extremely long-winded. I'll give one a try, though.

 

[Verp]

I recommend Robin Hobb's The Farseer trilogy. It and The Tawny Man trilogy from the same author were the last fantasy novels I could properly stomach and the ones I remember most fondly. They're pretty subdued compared to something like, I dunno, Dragonlance, but that's what I consider so great about them. It's strange how a genre designed for escapism can get so formulaic that you need a dash of boring old realism to escape from it.

 

[Zedayen]

Anything from R. A. Salvatore's collection, I remember enjoying the Ender's Game (written by Orosn Scott Card)series as a kid. And then there's King's magnum opus, The Dark Tower series.

 

[CognitiveDissonance]

Hi.

Try:
The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind - first book is "Wizard's First Rule"
Farseer books by Robin Hobb
Cecilia Dart Thornton's novels
The Shannara Series by Terry Brooks
The Quickening series by Fiona Macintosh
The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan

Enjoy

 

[Tartarga]

I recommend The Wizard Knight series the first book of which being The Knight by Gene Wolf. The amount of detail that went into writing these books is amazing. Seriously, go find them and read them, you will not be disappointed.

 

[Spectrum_Prez]

I recommend Robin Hobb's The Farseer trilogy. It and The Tawny Man trilogy from the same author were the last fantasy novels I could properly stomach and the ones I remember most fondly. They're pretty subdued compared to something like, I dunno, Dragonlance, but that's what I consider so great about them. It's strange how a genre designed for escapism can get so formulaic that you need a dash of boring old realism to escape from it.

Oh wow, so well said. I've seen Hobb's books in stores but never picked one up.

And then there's King's magnum opus, The Dark Tower series.

I've browsed through some of King's non-fantasy work and really didn't like it all. I think it was Dreamcatcher(?) that I looked through, the dialogue was way too forced. I swear all the damn time, but I thought his use of curses was downright comical.

So basically, how different is the Dark Tower? I hear neverending streams of good things about it all the time...

 

[IrradiatedFish]

I highly recommend The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan for a long, epic fantasy.

'The Eye of the World' is the first novel in the series if you're interested.

See, I've heard good things and bad things about that series, so I've never really jumped in. The fact that it's quite long is neither good nor bad in itself.... But what I've heard is that Jordan is extremely long-winded. I'll give one a try, though.

Yes, I will admit that he is, which can turn some people off. But it also depends on what kind of writing you like. I personally like the superfluous amounts of description ^^. It comes down to personal preference though I think. But if you like extremely detailed writing, you won't be let down in that regard.

 

[Lilani]

If you don't mind female leads, I recommend the works of Tamora Pierce, Maria Snyder, and Dawn Cook.

Of Tamora Pierce's works, I've read three of her quartets: The Song of the Lioness, The Immortals, and Protector of the Small. If you do pursue them I recommend reading them in that order. They all three exist in the same world and same general time period, so you'll see characters overlapping and meeting each other as you get into the second and third quartets. Her work is considered to be "teen fiction," however, so you might find it a bit juvenile.

I do warn you though, the books extensively explore the issues of sexism and feminism, so be prepared for a lot of estrogen-fueled conflict. I enjoyed them quite a bit, the characters, the stories, the lore and all. That could just be my vagina talking, though.

Maria Snyder has a trilogy I'm almost finished with, the books are Poison Study, Magic Study, and Fire study. These books are much less "juvenile" and much less feminist than Tamora Pierce's books. Again the characters and setting are very interesting, and they only get deeper as you go. Everything weaves together very well and it never gets boring.

Dawn Cook only has one set of works under this particular pseudonym, and that is the "Truth" series. It is a quartet, and the books are First Truth, Hidden Truth, Forbidden Truth, and Lost Truth. I'm about to start Lost Truth, so I'm not totally done yet. My local library categorizes this series as teen fiction, however the local Borders saw it as standard Fantasy/Romance. I've been having a lot of fun with the characters and lore of this series, plus the story is just getting better and better. Again, a female lead and romance, but if that's no problem then I think you'll have fun with this one, too. There's plenty of action, some very interesting magic, dragon-like creatures and time-travel, so you won't have much time to be bored.

Another one I've been working on lately is called Eyes like Leaves. This one has a male lead and sort of has more of that "high fantasy" feel over the others I listed. So if you don't find those others to be up your alley, try that one. The author is Charles de Lint.

OH! And Artemis Fowl. Check him out, written by Eoin Colfer. Those books are so amazing...just when you think you know what's going on...BAM! A plot twist so severe you might just get whiplash. Absolutely brilliant.

 

[spartan231490]

Have you ever read the Nightangel Trilogy by Brent Weeks?
You will not be disappointed...

This was good. I also liked Wheel of time a lot. But in my opinion, the best fantasy series I've ever read was the "Sword of Truth" series, by Terry Goodkind. The first one is "Wizard's First Rule" and it's an amazing series. I can't describe how awesome of a series it was, it literally made reading other books harder when I was done, because they couldn't compare.

 

[Crayzor]

Read Gardens of The Moon by Steven Erikson. It's a really good book, and also the first in a ten book series that is absolutely brilliant.

Have you ever read the Nightangel Trilogy by Brent Weeks?
You will not be disappointed...

This was good. I also liked Wheel of time a lot. But in my opinion, the best fantasy series I've ever read was the "Sword of Truth" series, by Terry Goodkind. The first one is "Wizard's First Rule" and it's an amazing series. I can't describe how awesome of a series it was, it literally made reading other books harder when I was done, because they couldn't compare.

That series really peaked with Faith of The Fallen (which is one of my favourite books). After that, there was the awful Pillars of Creation and the Chainfire plotline was dragged out too long.

 

[spartan231490]

Read Gardens of The Moon by Steven Erikson. It's a really good book, and also the first in a ten book series that is absolutely brilliant.

Have you ever read the Nightangel Trilogy by Brent Weeks?
You will not be disappointed...

This was good. I also liked Wheel of time a lot. But in my opinion, the best fantasy series I've ever read was the "Sword of Truth" series, by Terry Goodkind. The first one is "Wizard's First Rule" and it's an amazing series. I can't describe how awesome of a series it was, it literally made reading other books harder when I was done, because they couldn't compare.

That series really peaked with Faith of The Fallen (which is one of my favourite books). After that, there was the awful Pillars of Creation and the Chainfire plotline was dragged out too long.

I sorta agree, it did go downhill after faith, but i think the chainfire phantom confessor "trilogy" was even better, it was so artfully written that I lost sleep waiting for "Confessor" to be published. He tied it all together, even tiny little facts from as far back as book one, that it just astonished me. Also, pillars of creation is a fine book in it's own right, It's just really hard to read cuz richard doesn't show up until the very end. Naked empire was also well written, it just focused on richard's philosophy more than the others, but i think both were necessary to the overall plot of the series as a whole.

 

[Zedayen]

And then there's King's magnum opus, The Dark Tower series.

I've browsed through some of King's non-fantasy work and really didn't like it all. I think it was Dreamcatcher(?) that I looked through, the dialogue was way too forced. I swear all the damn time, but I thought his use of curses was downright comical.

So basically, how different is the Dark Tower? I hear neverending streams of good things about it all the time...

The language is....colourful. You can read the first book, The Gunslinger, in a single sitting without any trouble, so you can judge from there. Of course it just gets better with The Drawing of the Three, and then again from there.

 

[Shisk]

I recommend The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny. Its not a traditional fantasy with mages, elves, and dwarves but it comes close enough. I guess it has a bit of sci-fi mixed in as well but not much.

The Sword of Truth started out great then slowly went downhill. The first book was amazing. All the later books had wasted paragraphs that explained something from a previous book. Those paragraphs really seemed to break the flow of the writing for me. Must have still been really good as fast as I read through the series.

 

[blind_dead_mcjones]

the discworld series by terry pratchett, not really much else to say apart from that as its difficult to describe them

 

[Ekonk]

I always liked Robin Hobb's stuff, it really gets the mood across.

Alternatively, I always liked the realistic medieval settings Karen Maitland uses, even though there is always a touch of profoundly unrealistic sorcery.

 

[Cogwheel]

Terry Pratchett, Discworld series.

Also, the Bartimaeus trilogy, by Jonathan Stroud. Not QUITE as excellent as Discworld, but few things are.