women's boobs or valid literature?

Shabadu

I have always been a strictly Si-fi girl, the mother gave me her Dune series when i was 11 and have been hooked since, but mainly to olde-tyme stuff like Wyndham etc.. Iain M. Banks is as modern as i get, apart from the hideous Dune prequels by Frank's son, Brian, and the other dude. But what i want to know is, how do you get into fantasy? you can't just pick up a book and read it, you have to track down all 14 books that went before it, all of which have to keep reminding you of what happened in the previous books. And they all seem to be about women's boobs. Before you all get angry and shout at me i would actually be interested in reading fantasy but don't know where to start. Also, am obviously not talking about Tolkien so please no yelling about the house of Tom Bombadil. Any advice?

Tree

if you wanna try the funny fantasy, try tom holt or terry pratchett. other than that i'd stick w/ sci fi. Dan simmon's hyperion cantos is an excellent sf series.

ixoy

All fantasy books seem to be about woman's boobs? Are you sure you're not looking at a different sort of fantasy book?

roar_ie

Try David Gemmell. i am a hugh fan of his work. Waylander is a good book to start with or Legend is another good one.

Woden

George R.R martin's a song of fire and ice is recommended i've picked up the first book but haven't got round to reading it. for some cool sci-fi read ender's game by orson scott card and try some stuff by Iain M. Banks namely the player of games and excession

Shabadu

Did the whole Discworld thing as a teenager, still read the occasional new one if someone i know gets it. Have read all Iain M.Banks, whom i personally consider more sci-fi than fantasy, you can tell he's read Godmakers by Herbert. Like his straight up fition minus an M as well. Think i read Mostly Human by Holt. Something about Jebus and God's computer and Jebus' brother? Can't remember. Was a bit underwhelmed by it. Thanks though. Will try some of the suggestions.

valen

To be fair, there is a lot to be said for boobs. But boobs in books are just wierd. I still haven't forgiven Jean M. Auel for embedding hard core porn in otherwise good fantasy/history books about the struggle between neanderthals and their successors. I read then when I was 12, and at that age, you really don't need to read that.

But, to get into fantasy, you need to tap that desire to hear about the uncomplicated raw need for a hero, so you can cheer and roar. I'd start on something like Heaney's Beowulf translation. It pulls no punches. You have a superhero that kicks evil ass, and has no problem wearing a dress and giving his sword a name. ( I wear a dress on occassion, and have three swords, but none have names, maybe that's the difference between modern man and the ancient heros. OK, like Hardrada, one of my maille shirts is called Emma - but I draw the line there).

Get a hold of Joyce's Irish Legends. More heros that overcome massive odds to kick ass. And they are Irish, which is always a plus.

You can also get hooked by merging scifi and fantasy; Dan Simmons was already mentioned. Neverness and the trilogy that followed it would be another. If you have the blissful naivety of a teenager, the Pern series might tickle your fancy. The author (Ann McCaffrey) insist's it's scifi. But it's got dragons in it. Formula-boy Gemmel had another crossover "The Jerusalam man", in the same "mindless but fun" teenage area.

Have a look for a book of fantasy short stories. This is the best way to find a good author. If someone can't write a good story in 20 pages, why would you read a larger book by that author ? One of my favourite short stories of all time, "Interview with a Lemming" can still be found on the web after pretty much fourty years, and the thing isn't even a page long. HGWells has a huge number of short stories, and some make wonderful reading.

One of the big differences between Fantasy and SciFi is that there is a huge amount of massive crappy fantasy books. Be picky. If a series has more than three books, or a book is over 400 pages, take it as a really bad sign, unless told otherwise by someone you trust. It means an author can't end a story, or is into sado-masochistic necrophilial beastiality (beating a dead horse).

John

Mantel

The Discworld books are highly recommended, great books, I've usually read through them fairly fast. When I was looking for more books to read I seen the discworld books a like the art on the cover, pick it up, flicked through it and it didn't seem too bad.

I like the Farseer trilogy by Robin Hob, once again it was the cover that caught my eye and a flick through the book reading a bit here and there. The liveship books where intresting up to a point but I just got bored with them,

Sci-fi wise I love the books by Alister Reynolds. In all honesty I just bought it because it had a very shiney cover and just shouted 'buy me! buy me!' whenever I got near it so i just had to

Woden

cant resist the never judge a book by its cover comment

Fence

Try Mary Gentle's work. Her Ash: A Secret History is one of my fav books of all time. She also has more of a sci-fi style, but this book is fantasy/historical. It is a big book though, released in 4 parts in the US, don't let that put you off.

Commissar

Originally posted by Fence
Try Mary Gentle's work. Her Ash: A Secret History is one of my fav books of all time.

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhh. Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo. BURN, Fence BURN, and take that book with you:mad: :mad:
In all honesty there is no book I regret buying more than that which shall not be named.
( On the other hand Grunts by Mary Gentle is well worth reading; orks with m16's- what more could you ask for:D ).

LoLth

I would highly recommend Song of Ice and Fire, 4 part series so far with 3 more on the way. Not much magic being thrown around so it makes for a good transition from Sci-fi.

For another low magic setting, try Robin Hobbs Assassain Trilogy , The Liveship series is a bit more magical fantasy but still good, and the current series The Tawny Man trilogy is very good.

For a decent high-magic book try Raymond E. Feist's Magician (the first of a trilogy but works well as a stand alone). If at all possible go for the rewritten version (he added bits edited out in the original and rewrote a few passages to help with continuity).

for boobs, go check the Gor series of books

Generally its the Fantasy novels that have decent artwork on the front that tend to be good reads. Normally these will be authors with money to spend on the artwork from a series of novels or some bestsellers.

It really depends on the type of fantasy you want. For me i love magic. Any form of magic whether it being traditional or technomage type. For others its grand battles involving millions, and some others like small groups of adventurers. I've been reading pure fantasy for over 17 years, and below are a few that i've purchased and not regretted buying.

I'd lean towards the following for a taste, and then go from there:

David Gemmell - All his books are evry easy to read. A wee bit on the slim side, but riveting reading. Lion of macedon (two book series) is superb if you like ancient greece mixed with pure fantasy. Waylander series, is very dark but entralling to read.

Michael Moorcock - Very good reads, but very very weird. I wouldn't advise anyone to buy these, however you can pick them up easily at any second hand bookshop for peanuts. Will be some sex in them, but mostly very moralistic theories and such. Alot of Magic and odd adventuring.

Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman - very good to start off on. I'd recommend them to anybody. If you like Dungeons and dragons, you'll love these. Very simple to read. I gave a set to my cousin for her 13 th birthday and she loves them. Adventures + some very nice magic ideas.

Robert Jordan - wheel of time series - very good for some books, others are very plain. Its a very long series. I wouldn't recommend these to anyone. Started off as a trilogy, now on the 12th (?) book. He's beginning to loose the thread of the story himself.

Robin Hobb - Any series - very good writer. Adult fantasy. Not sexual at all. I'd recommend all his books.

Raymond E. Feist's - My favourite Writer of Fantasy. Brilliant.

Terry Goodkind - almost as good as Raymond E. Feist except he can get too involved with telling us abt his morals thru the series. Great Series atm. Loved all the books without exception.

steven erikson - brilliant also. Very good flow of storyline. Speadds story throughout a number of empires. A ver good buy.

L.E Modesitt - quite nice. Writing style is a bit odd. And after a while he sounds like he's repeating a concept in a few books. Good read though.

Elizabeth Moon - My pet hatred. Ugh! I bought her fantasy series and found it one of the worst i've read. Not my type. Over-hyped heroine. However many females do like that sort of storyline.

If you have questions drop me a line

magick

hold on, go back to the part about boobs again...........:D

but likewise on a lot of fantasy art work the woman depicted on them are usually super slim cute ass big boobs ,kinda a sterotype there, one i insist keeps going

ixoy

Originally posted by LoLth
I would highly recommend Song of Ice and Fire, 4 part series so far with 3 more on the way. Not much magic being thrown around so it makes for a good transition from Sci-fi.

Actually, 3 books so far. They split one of the books into two when they reissued it, but it's still just three books. Also only meant to be five in the series, possibly six as Martin has repeatedly said he doesn't want to go on forever (ARE YOU LISTENING ROBERT!)

Also check out Janny Wurts' The Wars of Light and Shadow. Long, dark, but very involving and still plenty of books to go (1 book in the current arc, and then 2 more arcs).

moridin

Originally posted by klaz
Robin Hobb - Any series - very good writer. Adult fantasy. Not sexual at all. I'd recommend all his books.

Aha, someone had to get one of them wrong eventually... Robin is a she

bonkey

First thing that occurred to me reading that list as well.

second thing was that Stephen Donaldson and Tad Williams are notably missing.

For someone making a transition from SciFi to fantasy (or the other way round) I would tend to pick an author who has done notable work in both areas.

For earlier work, I'd recommend CS Lewis in this respect. For someone more modern, I'd go with either of the two I mentioned above.

Making the "transition" is so much easier when reading an author who's style you're already familiar with. Its also usually a good indication that you won't get dumped in the middle of a thousand years of history which you have to piece together.....

jc

ixoy

For authors straddling both genres, why not also add David Zindell? Admittedly, he's not as well known but his Neverness novel and his "A Requiem for Homo Sapiens" trilogy is a great slice of hardcore sci-fi mixed with philosophy and spirituality.

He's recently moved into the fantasy market with his Cycle of Ea series. Now I wasn't a fan of the first one (disappointed, to be honest) but there are certainly interesting concepts in there. Book two of said series is currently on sale.

ixoy

Originally posted by moridin
Aha, someone had to get one of them wrong eventually... Robin is a she

To be fair, it should be pointed out that this is a pseudynom. She's actually Megan Lindholm, I believe. She chose an adrogynous name to be purposely confusing and to allow her a fresh start in the fantasy market.

Shabadu

Thanks all for the helpful advice, going book shopping this afternoon! Also learnt that i've alredy read a bit of fantasy from what some of you were suggesting, notably Banks, Joyce & C.S. Lewis (Not gone on the overt sexism in Sylvie and Bruno though). Am definitely going to look up Lion of Macedon by Gemmell as I presume from the title it's based on Alexander the Great and presumbably his mum if it's to do with magic? Am a huge classics fan. Studied it in college for a while but then switched degrees as i hate Latin. Or rather it hates me. I'm waffling, please excuse me.
You were all so nice and no-one yelled at me!!!!! Yay.

moridin

Originally posted by ixoy
To be fair, it should be pointed out that this is a pseudynom. She's actually Megan Lindholm, I believe. She chose an adrogynous name to be purposely confusing and to allow her a fresh start in the fantasy market.

From the writing she's noticably female I would have thought...

And FYI her name is Margaret Ogden, she's written other books under the name Megan Lindholm though.

From her FAQ...

Why do you write as both Megan Lindholm and Robin Hobb?
It isn't that uncommon in the writing world to have more than one pseudonym, especially if you write in more than one genre. In my case, Megan Lindholm and Robin Hobb both write fantasy, but in very different styles and in different 'slices' of the genre. By using two different pseudonyms, I am able to let the reader know which voice they are getting in a book. Some readers like both styles. Others most emphatically do not

I win again, Lews Therin

TheSonOfBattles

Originally posted by moridin
I win again, Lews Therin

You forgot the Telamon.

Also, Stephen Donaldson makes the baby Jebus cry. Worst books i've ever read in my life! Bar none. The Thomas Covenant books were as boring as hell, and the whole rape thing makes me shudder. I forced my way through the six books in that series, and then promised i'd never look at them again. I kept hoping that they'd get better as I forced myself to keep reading, cause I'd heard loads of people rave about them, but no, they just kept on sucking.

Someday I may reread them, and see if it was just the fact that I was 11 or so when I read them that made them bad to my young eyes, that a certain level of maturity or something is needed to appreciate them, but then again, I've been promising myself to do the same with the Lord of the Rings trilogy for years now, and I just can't. I get as far as Tom Bombadil, and throw the book in a closet for another year and a half in disgust.

jerenaugrim

Re getting into fantasy:
Try Paul Kearney. His first three are a kind of loose trilogy-
The Way to Babylon,
A Different Kingdom,
Riding the Unicorn.
All three feature mostly reality, but the characters keep slipping into fantasy worlds...the third one, especially, is pretty good, as the main character thinks he's going mad...
after these three, Kearney started writing 'straight' fantasy. I haven't read any of that stuff tho'...

moridin

Originally posted by TheSonOfBattles
You forgot the Telamon.

If I remember correctly there's a scene where ishmael is appearing in al Thor's dream and showing him a load of possible futures in which he dies... and each time he calls him just Lews Therin :P

Then again it's been a while since I read them.

Also, Stephen Donaldson makes the baby Jebus cry. Worst books i've ever read in my life! Bar none. The Thomas Covenant books were as boring as hell, and the whole rape thing makes me shudder. I forced my way through the six books in that series, and then promised i'd never look at them again. I kept hoping that they'd get better as I forced myself to keep reading, cause I'd heard loads of people rave about them, but no, they just kept on sucking.

Uh uh, have to disagree here, those books are excellent and break the mould of conventional fantasy because you have a hero so filled with self loathing it makes the story all the more interesting.

Also, Donaldson has written the best Sci-Fi series I've ever read - the Gap series - which is quite literally a masterpiece of storytelling

Someday I may reread them, and see if it was just the fact that I was 11 or so when I read them that made them bad to my young eyes, that a certain level of maturity or something is needed to appreciate them, but then again, I've been promising myself to do the same with the Lord of the Rings trilogy for years now, and I just can't. I get as far as Tom Bombadil, and throw the book in a closet for another year and a half in disgust.

Heh, yea, you're just too immature dammit... go read some David Eddings

Commissar

Speaking of Donaldson, I prefered his Mordant's Need story. It's two books; Mirror of Her Dreams and A man Rides Through. I thought they were much easier to get through than the Covenant books although I have to warn you there might be a few boobies in them if I recall correctly:)

TheSonOfBattles

Originally posted by moridin
If I remember correctly there's a scene where ishmael is appearing in al Thor's dream and showing him a load of possible futures in which he dies... and each time he calls him just Lews Therin :P

Then again it's been a while since I read them.

Lews Therin is the name he's born with, in the Age of Legends recognition of great deeds/works was proved by having another piece to your name. In this case it was Telamon. Maybe Jordan was getting across that Ishmael doesn't think Lews Therin deserved the Telamon name, and so never used it when talking to him, whereas everyone else would have. Dunno meself, haven't read any Jordan in about a year now, so can't remember tbh.

Originally posted by moridin
Uh uh, have to disagree here, those books are excellent and break the mould of conventional fantasy because you have a hero so filled with self loathing it makes the story all the more interesting.

IIRC he's so filled with self loathing, God basically offers him anything he wants, and he decides he's quite happy dying from leprosy, and so won't ask for a cure. Go him :dunno:

Originally posted by moridin
Also, Donaldson has written the best Sci-Fi series I've ever read - the Gap series - which is quite literally a masterpiece of storytelling

Have no comment on this series, as like I said, straight after i'd finished the Thomas Covenant books, I decided to never read anything by the author again.

Originally posted by moridin
Heh, yea, you're just too immature dammit... go read some David Eddings

Always do like to go back and read a few of me fav passages from his books every now and again. Cheesy as hell, but they're the first books I read in the fantasy bracket, and it brings back nice memories.

Anyways, like I said I was 11 or so when I read it, and my tastes have changed considerably in many areas since those heady days of youth, and I may go back and read the series again someday. ww)

Tenshot

LoLth and Klaz already mentioned most of my favourites; here are a few other authors worth checking out:

Guy Gavriel Kay - Sailing to Sarantium / Lord of Emperors; fantasy, but with a feeling of set in ancient Europe. If you like these, you'll enjoy most of his other works as well.

J.V.Jones - Book of Words trilogy; classic fantasy, pretty entertaining, though not quite as good as some of the others mentioned. Her new series, the Sword of Shadows trilogy, is quite different and shaping up very nicely (but only two books published so far). Intrigue and politics, with a bit of magic thrown in.

Philip Pullman - Northern Lights trilogy. Marketed as a kids series, but very readable and covers plenty of ground that's not remotely kiddy in nature. The first novel stands quite well on its own; it changes tone a bit after that.

K.J. Parker - The Fencer Trilogy, The Scavenger Trilogy; not to everyone's taste, but I like them a lot. (Apparently K.J.Parker is a pseudonym for a well-known writer; anyone know who it is?). Lots of excellent descriptions of how to do things like forge a sword, make a battle catapult, design a bow, etc.

R.A. McEvoy - hard to find now, but I recently re-read her Lens of the World trilogy and really enjoyed it. Tea with the Black Dragon is also good fun.

Tad Williams was already mentioned, but worth mentioning again; Memory, Sorrow and Thorne is his four-part series and well worth tracking down.

If you're looking for something quick, The Princess Bride by William Goldman is a great read, and it's not even part of a huge series.

moridin

Originally posted by Tenshot
Guy Gavriel Kay - Sailing to Sarantium / Lord of Emperors; fantasy, but with a feeling of set in ancient Europe. If you like these, you'll enjoy most of his other works as well.

Kay is excellent, and writes plenty of standalone fantasy books. (yes, one book, one story, shock!) I'd recommend Tigana or the Lions of al-Rassan as great examples of how good he can be

jerenaugrim

I second that above about Philip Pulman. Extraordinary stuff.