best fantasy books

Cardinal Richelieu

Whiskey Jack wrote: »

New poster here, so hi to all!

Been reading fantasy since I was about 7 years old (The Hobbit got me hooked) and I can say, without a shadow of a doubt that Stephen Ericksons Malazan Book of the Fallen series is the finest fantasy series and also contains some of the finest individual novels I have ever had the please to read. His friend and co inventor of this fascinating world, Ian Claire Esslemont has also triumphed with his two side Novels, I have read plenty of very good posts dealing with this series of books and I cannot stress enough how amazing they are - if you are suffering from Robert Jordon stress or are just sick of where Terry Goodkind is going, then jump on, I can safely say there isnt one page of 'filler' in the entire series, every page is a classic, every character believable.

For a darker, more horrific look at fantasy, the Prince of Nothing series, by R Scott Bakker, is on a par with Erickson in terms of its sheer readability and in many ways they both ask some pretty deep (for a fantasy series of books at any rate) philosophical questions and even go so far as to pose some ideas as to the answers and for those who have yet to read either, dont worry if philosophy isnt your thing, in the Malazans Books a 10ft Humanoid known as a Tarthenol Posing these philosphical questions to a witch he is trying to bed just after hacking apart 30 'grey elves' with a massive flint sword might put it in the context its in!

The Characters in both series are fascination and there are two of note, one being the huge Anomander Rake, who might be described as a 'dark elf' in other series of books although beyond the eyes, features and ears, there isnt anything vaguely 'elven' about him, he's a massively complex character, too complex too discuss in my first post!

The main character in the Prince of Nothing series, Anasurimbor Kelhus, is more written about as he is somewhat of a mysterious figure - all I can say is think Derren Browne in a fantasy setting and what he could achieve and you are halfway there.

By other favourite authors include:

Alastair Reynolds

China Mieville

David Gemmel: RIP

Brian Keane (technically horror, but some of his books are as much fantasy as horror)

Iain M Banks

Will update when I can post again - thanks for having me!

:pac:

As a Erikson fan I tried the Bakker recommendation, I gave up after 200 pages which I rarely do. It seemed like a poor rip off of Byzantium History and the Crusades. Maybe I will go back someday to give him another chance.

Paddy Samurai

Ordin73 wrote: »

I quite liked Prince of Thorns the debut novel of Mark Lawrence..
The story is told from the prespective of the young prince who is genuinely disturbed in the mind and is clearly aware of it, as he smashs his way through the country in a quest for lethal retribution. The magic system is unusual too..The action is fast and constant and then

its revealed that this world is a post post-apocalyptic version of our world.

Great debut. One of my favourite reads last year.Lots of LOL moments for me.Part two out this year.I will be following Lawerence with interest ,from now on.

oeb

I recently read "The Painted Man" and "The Desert Spear" by Peter V. Brett, the third part of the trilogy will be out this year.

I highly recomend them.

Paddy Samurai

oeb wrote: »

I recently read "The Painted Man" and "The Desert Spear" by Peter V. Brett, the third part of the trilogy will be out this year.

I highly recomend them.

Yeah both are well worth reading.Brett has created a unique world.He has also written two novellas .I have read Brayan's Gold which is pretty good,read it in a night.The Great Bazaar and Other Stories I would love to read,but because it is a limited edition it is going for mad money.Seen a second hand copy for sale @ €2000 at one stage.:eek:
Some copies are now available @ $300.

ixoy

Paddy Samurai wrote: »

The Great Bazaar and Other Stories I would love to read,but because it is a limited edition it is going for mad money.Seen a second hand copy for sale @ €2000 at one stage.:eek:
Some copies are now available @ $300.

Get the Kindle edition. It's $3.87. Even if you don't have a Kindle itself, you can still read it on a smart phone or your PC.

OwaynOTT

I've only read the first. Interesting idea but I thought the world was lightly sketched and at times the book just felt shallow.
Still a really good book. Have the second one and one of the novellas, I'll let ye guess which one, but just haven't got around to them.
So many books and life keeps getting in the way.

OwaynOTT

I've only read the first. Interesting idea but I thought the world was lightly sketched and at times the book just felt shallow.
Still a really good book. Have the second one and one of the novellas, I'll let ye guess which one, but just haven't got around to them.
So many books and life keeps getting in the way.

lestat21

Ordin73 wrote: »

I quite liked Prince of Thorns the debut novel of Mark Lawrence..
The story is told from the prespective of the young prince who is genuinely disturbed in the mind and is clearly aware of it, as he smashs his way through the country in a quest for lethal retribution. The magic system is unusual too..The action is fast and constant and then

its revealed that this world is a post post-apocalyptic version of our world.

I read a review for this book and decided to buy it on amazon last nite, Thanks for been an ignorant and inconsiderate jerk for revealing the twist at the end :mad:

BlaasForRafa

lestat21 wrote: »

I read a review for this book and decided to buy it on amazon last nite, Thanks for been an ignorant and inconsiderate jerk for revealing the twist at the end :mad:

And when replying to him why didn't you spoiler space the spoiler, because now you ruined it for me too by replying.

I probably wasn't going to buy it anyway but still the principle stands

lestat21

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

And when replying to him why didn't you spoiler space the spoiler, because now you ruined it for me too by replying.

I probably wasn't going to buy it anyway but still the principle stands

I didnt know I could spoiler someone elses comments when reposting... neat trick... prince of thorns should be arriving dis week and im still looking forward to reading it !!!

AnCapaillMor

Listening to feists stuff on audio format at the moment and must say i enjoy them. The plots are pretty tame after finishing up erikssons stuff but highly enjoyable none the less.

Temptamperu

I just read the stormlight archive by sanderson, that shít blew me away. Great characters and an amazing world I would highly recommend it.

Started mistborn today and what little ive read already has me hooked.

OwaynOTT

Temptamperu wrote: »

I just read the stormlight archive by sanderson, that shít blew me away. Great characters and an amazing world I would highly recommend it.

Started mistborn today and what little ive read already has me hooked.

Way of Kings is really good. One word cosmere.

Xevkin

OwaynOTT wrote: »

Way of Kings is really good. One word cosmere.

Having read the rest of Brandon's novels, I've left WoK for a rainy day. Don't want to get be left pining for the next book when it's the only one of 10 or so series. With Mistborn is was perfect - finish one, and motor into the next.

Saying that, I have my apprehensions about WoK. How it does it compare to the rest of his works?

oeb

Xevkin wrote: »

Saying that, I have my apprehensions about WoK. How it does it compare to the rest of his works?

It's fantastic, easily on par with the rest of his stuff. Sucks having to wait for the rest of it though.

petery

Marion Zimmer Bradley's Avalon Series

Robert Jordan's Wheel Of Time series

David Edding's The Belgariad series

George R.R. Martin's A song of Fire and Ice

Steven Erikson's The Malazan book of the Fallen Series

Temptamperu

Xevkin wrote: »

Having read the rest of Brandon's novels, I've left WoK for a rainy day. Don't want to get be left pining for the next book when it's the only one of 10 or so series. With Mistborn is was perfect - finish one, and motor into the next.

Saying that, I have my apprehensions about WoK. How it does it compare to the rest of his works?

I found WoK to be far more addictive than the rest of Sandersons works, but that might just be me. Im upset I got to wait so long until the second book.

808SOS

If you are setting out reading any robin hobb books,

you have to start with the farseer trilogy because the following trilogies are related but stand alone books also [if that makes sense]

hobb is a serious writer and the style of writing is hard to read at first.
she writes in the first person and puts so much detail into the tales.

failing that you could start the soldiers son trilogy, its not linked to any of her current series.

another couple of books to read are:

the reindeer people and wolf's brother by megan lindholm [robin hobb]

I have read Corsair by tim severn which was not too bad!

night of knives by ian c esslemont was very hard to read imo.

Dr. Fell

Pulmann's
Northern Lights
The Subtle Knife
The Amber Spyglass

Pratchet's
Small Gods
Men at Arms
Soul Music

Goodkind's
Wizards First Rule

Heinlen's
Glory Road

Barkers
Weaveworld
Imajica
The Great and Secret Show
Everville

Feist's
Well, everything really.

United States Senate Commission
Warren Commission Report
911 Commission Report

Dr. Fell

Dr. Fell wrote: »

Goodkind's
Wizards First Rule

no

Playboy

Temptamperu wrote: »

I found WoK to be far more addictive than the rest of Sandersons works, but that might just be me. Im upset I got to wait so long until the second book.

Ive reads the Mistborn trilogy and Way of Kings was on another level. Massive step up for me. One of the best Fantasy books of the last decade imo

AnCapaillMor

Yeah it was a step up alright, same with the alloy of law, mistborn was good but alloy of law was better, he hit the way of kings out of the park. He's getting better.

Good interview here. Found it while looking at a rothfuss interview.

Raif Severance

Liveship Traders by Robin Hobb

Chalion Series by Lois McMaster Bujold

The Warrior King Trilogy by Chris Bunch

looksee

I am just coming to the end of the Tawny Man trilogy by Robin Hobb. I can see how she might not be to everyone's taste, but I think she is an amazing writer, her breadth of imagination is quite extraordinary. If you like loads of action and fighting then you might not like them, but for character development, writing style and imagination she is superb.

Soldiers son is a bit off on its own, I enjoyed it, but it is different from the other series. I would suggest the Farseer trilogy or the Liveship Traders to start, then the Rainwild, then the Tawny Man. Tawny Man follows directly from the Farseers and Rainwild from the Liveship Traders, then the Dragon series, but they all overlap somewhat. any series can be read on its own though.

old hippy

This is one of my faves. It's an adventure in London but set in abandoned places, sewers, dumps, squats and so on. There's also some nasty creatures who live in Wimbledon Common and they're called "Rumbles" who make ill use of the things that they find...



Great fun!

Splainc

On book 13 of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. Lull in the middle of the collection but otherwise incredible books.

Mr. Incognito

I have read and reread David Gemmell.

Legend is far and away my favourite.

Did you know it was based around him being diagnosed with Cancer and if it was terminal then then Dros Delnoch was due to fall.

SepTomBer

Legend is one of my favorites too

Paddy Samurai

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

I have read and reread David Gemmell.

Although a long time back ,it's one of only four books that I have ever reread. I used to read most of Gemmells books in 2 or 3 days at the time. I also though his Troy trilogy was top notch at the time I read it. His wife stella did a great job of finishing it ,with his notes.
I often wonder if he was still alive today how the new fantasy writers/ideas would influence his work.

Starokan

I loved all the David Gemmell books, the characters just seem to drag you in. Really easy reads too.

Of recent years the books that have captivated me most have been from The Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss

-The Name of the Wind
-The Wise Man's Fear

Definitely up there with the very best fantasy books I think, cannot wait for the next in series

Ave Sodalis

Splainc wrote: »

On book 13 of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. Lull in the middle of the collection but otherwise incredible books.

I don't think these books get the recognition they deserve. Yeah, they drag on a bit but there's few books that leave you feeling as though you've lost something when you finish them. I wonder how how they would be as a TV series...

keane2097

sup_dude wrote: »

I don't think these books get the recognition they deserve. Yeah, they drag on a bit but there's few books that leave you feeling as though you've lost something when you finish them. I wonder how how they would be as a TV series...

Vaunted as one of the all time great fantasy series I think these books get a lot more recognition than they deserve.

Terribly edited, repetitive, with verbal, mental even physical ticks in place of character building *tugs braid*, stomach churning portrayals of women in general and relationships in particular and characters that lose the very basics of rationality whenever the author needs to get them to a place he can't figure out how to write them to cogently, these books are pretty awful.

The high points are undoubtedly the magical conflagrations which Jordan writes superbly. The last section of one of the books in particular has

an enormous mage battle set across some huge valley or similar which is just fantastic

.

Ave Sodalis

keane2097 wrote:

Vaunted as one of the all time great fantasy series I think these books get a lot more recognition than they deserve.

Maybe amongst fantasy fans but not in the wider public. The likes of Tolkien, Martin and Rowling etc are and I think Wheel of Time should be among them.

fizzypish

I think the hardest part of putting WoT on the tv screen would be convincing the public that jordans Myrddraal were not the same as Tolkiens Nasgoul. Its been a while since I read them but the Myrddraal description always brought me an image of the nasgoul. Well.... maybe thats not the hardest part......

keane2097

sup_dude wrote: »

Maybe amongst fantasy fans but not in the wider public. The likes of Tolkien, Martin and Rowling etc are...

That should probably tell you something.

Ave Sodalis

fizzypish wrote:

I think the hardest part of putting WoT on the tv screen would be convincing the public that jordans Myrddraal were not the same as Tolkiens Nasgoul. Its been a while since I read them but the Myrddraal description always brought me an image of the nasgoul. Well.... maybe thats not the hardest part......

Or Trolloc as stupid Ork. I guess they'll just have to reimage them. The Myrddraal are common at least, unlike Nazgul so there's a distinction to work off already.

keane2097 wrote:

That should probably tell you something.

Yeah, that it hasn't been made into a film or TV programme which is usually what boosts a books wider popularity.

Mickeroo

keane2097 wrote: »

Vaunted as one of the all time great fantasy series I think these books get a lot more recognition than they deserve.

Terribly edited, repetitive, with verbal, mental even physical ticks in place of character building *tugs braid*, stomach churning portrayals of women in general and relationships in particular and characters that lose the very basics of rationality whenever the author needs to get them to a place he can't figure out how to write them to cogently, these books are pretty awful.

The high points are undoubtedly the magical conflagrations which Jordan writes superbly. The last section of one of the books in particular has

an enormous mage battle set across some huge valley or similar which is just fantastic

.

Hah, not read any WoT but that's similar to something I noticed a lot of in Steven Erikson's writing too. There seemed to be two or three "wry smile" instances a page in Deadhouse Gates!

ixoy

keane2097 wrote: »

Vaunted as one of the all time great fantasy series I think these books get a lot more recognition than they deserve.

I'd agree. Sure I felt a bit of something when I polished off Book 14 but that was a lot to do with the time committed over decades to reading the series and not the quality.

Terribly edited, repetitive, with verbal, mental even physical ticks in place of character building *tugs braid*, stomach churning portrayals of women in general and relationships in particular and characters

Blood and ashes! Tough but I agree. Also the "I'll never understand women like XXX" piece gets very very old.

The high points are undoubtedly the magical conflagrations which Jordan writes superbly. The last section of one of the books in particular has

an enormous mage battle set across some huge valley or similar which is just fantastic

.

He does it well but are you referring to the final battle? That was Sanderson who I think has a far superior grasp on using the mechanics of magic.

Trojan

ixoy wrote: »

He does it well but are you referring to the final battle? That was Sanderson who I think has a far superior grasp on using the mechanics of magic.

I much prefer Sanderson's treatment of the series, but the final battle was pretty awful. I think the OP is referring to the fantastic battle at Dumai's Wells.

Fat Christy

The mistborn series by Brandon Saunderson. Epic trilogy.

OwaynOTT

There's actually a really good write up in The Wertzone about Wheel of Time. Says what I want a lot more effectively than I could.
In my view despite it's flaws, WoT should be viewed as one of the best. It genuinely attempted to tackle the mismatch of gender in fantasy (mostly failed), the world building is great, and it popularised the move away from trilogies opening up epic fantasy to allow for longer story arcs.
Would there be a Game of Thrones, Malazan etc if Jordan hadn't of done the heavy lifting.

There's also just some great entertaining parts to WoT. It's unfortunately begins to pale when one starts to read other fantasy that has came out since.

I think the phrase -'you either die a hero or you live long enough to become a villian', applies to WoT.
And I'm aware that that could be taken in bad taste but I'm not referring to Jirdans death, more so, if he could ha e wrapped it up in under ten books it would have been excellent.

I thi

keane2097

Mickeroo wrote: »

Hah, not read any WoT but that's similar to something I noticed a lot of in Steven Erikson's writing too. There seemed to be two or three "wry smile" instances a page in Deadhouse Gates!

If you had read the books you might make a distinction as I do.

A wry smile is a common human expression, if you think about how many times a day you make one yourself you'll probably agree. I remember noticing the words 'wry smile' appearing a lot in Erikson's books, but I couldn't tell you which character it was associated with, probably because as humans they were all smiling wryly quite often.

In WoT, character development is sacrificed at the alter of physical and verbal ticks. Nynaeve is a constantly irrational and angry character whose anger is constantly portrayed by tugging her braid, a habit she never notices and nobody else in the book has (even people from the same village as her).

Siuan Sanche gets the admirable back story that she was born in a fishing village, which is rammed down your throat for 14 books by the fact that every sentence she utters is some tortured fishing analogy.

The Aiel as a group have this honour system they all follow which is irrational to the point of extreme stupidity but it's an easy way to say 'this character is an Aiel, look at him talking about jietoh'.

There are a lot of others, as far as I remember Rand spends most of the books in an internal monologue about his need to be standoffish and emotionless, Mat is an artful dodger, Perrin is big but careful.

All the people in the books have shticks rather than fleshed out characters.

I'm sure anyone who has read the books knew immediately who I meant with *tugs braid* because that's what her character does over and over and over for 14 books, 'wry smile' in the Malazan books could probably be anyone.

There are 'wry smile' issues ad nauseum in WoT as well, the aforementioned 'I wish I was as good with women as Rand/Perrin/Mat' depending on which of them is having the four page monologue on the subject. The incessant smoothing of skirts by everyone, all the time. The how many more detailed descriptions of dresses do I have to sit through (this will appeal to the women readers no doubt :rolleyes:). The 'I have toes' Aiel shtick. Ugh, the whole thing is such a mess.

Last one, I actually forget about this but it just popped into my head and made my involuntarily roll my eyes. There is one character - one of Elayne's brothers - whose 'character' consists of an unwavering commitment to 'do the right thing' no matter what the cost to himself or anyone he cares about which he has always had since he was an infant. FFS - what a cop-out to writing a book about humans!

strelok

ixoy wrote: »

He does it well but are you referring to the final battle? That was Sanderson who I think has a far superior grasp on using the mechanics of magic.

wasn't there a similar sort of thing going on at the end of book 9 when

they cleansed saidin?

keane2097

strelok wrote: »

wasn't there a similar sort of thing going on at the end of book 9 when

they cleansed saidin?

I think that's the one I was specifically thinking of but there are a few brilliant set pieces along similar lines iirc

Trojan

What's Janny Wurt's stuff like? Recommendations?

Heffoman

Trojan wrote: »

I much prefer Sanderson's treatment of the series, but the final battle was . I think the OP is referring to the fantastic battle at Dumai's Wells.

I dont like Sandersons take on magic at all. He has a compulsion to explain everything to an nth degree.

He also still cant write a good battle scene.

Sleepy

I thought his description of some of the battles in The Way of Kings from the perspective of the bridge men were excellent...

Brasros

Remond E fest, keep going back to these books.

seagull

Brasros wrote: »

Remond E fest, keep going back to these books.

The early books are really good. I thought it drops off towards the end of the series.

Plopsu

Over a decade of posts and no mention of Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel books.
Also (not sure if it qualifies as fantasy but it does have magic) The Enterprise Of Death by Jesse Bullington is one of the most enjoyable books I've ever read.