Psykoma said:
DeeWiz said:
The Sword of Truth seres - can't really pick only one book out of it. A close second would be Sword Art Online, not the anime but the books, which are much better.
Would it be better to read the sword of truth series chronologically, or the order the books came out?
Do yourself a favor and don't read the Sword of Truth series at all. I've read the entire thing, and I can tell you it is the series I've most regretted reading. I continued to read it mostly because I kept getting them for my birthday from people who didn't know better, so I felt semi-obligated to continue.
If you must read it, read only the first 3 or 4 books. I'd hesitate at that, because the first few books might convince you that I'm wrong and that maybe the series is worth reading after all. After that, it turns into an extremely thinly veiled rant against socialism / communism, in which the socialists are an endless faceless army of serial rapists. Speaking of which, you'd better like reading rape and torture scenes, because rarely do a few chapters go by without some village or caravan being raped to death.
Anyway, the author's political motivations are ridiculously transparent. Just as an example, he has the main character drop what he's doing and get yanked, through plot construct, to the heart of the socialist empire, where he takes up a trade and then builds up an enormously successful business while showing everyone the limitless power of capitalism. This is an actual part of a book series that was previously all about beheading villains and using magic to fight satanists.
The last book of the series is literally just a bunch of pseudo discussions about socialism being a soul-crushing system, with the socialists essentially throwing up strawman arguments for the capitalists to demolish. The ending is a ridiculous hole to sweep the remainder of the plot into. At this point, it's not even offensive. Just lazy and uninspired.
Also, the socialists enslave and demonstratably out-evil the satanists.
Just WTF.
TL;DR Don't read it.
On topic, for fantasy, most recently I enjoyed Tigana, Way of Kings, and Book of the Long Sun. For more science-fiction stuff, I loved Neuromancer and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. These are just the books I've read most recently, I'm sure I could dredge up more favorites.