Fantasy Novel Recommendations

[Latinandgreek]

Originally Posted by Exer

I'm the exact opposite, I think. I'm one of those people who, no matter how a book ends, I'm wanting more. I'm serious, I don't care if the book ended with all the characters growing up and having kids and living happily ever after -- my brain just says, "Well then, write a book telling me about the lives and adventures of the kids!".

I just can't help myself. Every time I read a stand-alone book, I wish it was a series. Every time I read a series, I wish it was a longer series, or had a follow up series.

I'm so glad I don't treat food the way I treat books.

I'm the same way, always have been.

[Nyssa]

I'd say 8 of 10 times I feel the same way. Some series I'm okay seeing come to an end, but others I'd love to follow as long as possible.

[Kindle Worm]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I put them both under the same umbrella. ZZZZZzzzzzz.

Robert Jordan the man, was much easier to tolerate than Goodkind the self-proclaimed deity...err, I mean man, for sure.

Bwhahaha... sorry for the late reply, just saw this. So true... Goodkind is not my favorite.

[Keryl Raist]

Originally Posted by Nyssa

I'd say 8 of 10 times I feel the same way. Some series I'm okay seeing come to an end, but others I'd love to follow as long as possible.

That used to be me. Now I'm often very glad when writers have the good sense to stop.

I'm sure there are other examples out there, but this one is near and dear to my heart. I loved the DragonLance books as a kid. Hickman and Weis wrote two very good trilogies. Then, for some perverse reason, they went back and added a final book to end the series up. And they just nuked the world they were in, killed off most of the characters, horribly mutilated the characters of the others, and more or less took their original plot, warmed it back up again, and gave it to us one more time.

Until I read that book I had never found myself thinking, 'Gosh, I'm glad that author had the good sense not to go any further.' These days, if the end of the series has wrapped up all the major plots, most of the minor ones, and the characters seem to be where they need to be, I'm happy with letting the fan fic writers take the characters beyond the sunset.

[Fayth]

I'll recommend some:

Lord of the Rings and all the works relating to Middle-Earth
Malazan Book of the Fallen (book 10 coming as an ebook March 1st)
Kingkiller Chronicles (Wise Man's Fear coming out March 1st)
Wheel of Time
Song of Ice and Fire
Tigana
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell
Any of Brandon Sanderson's books
Dark Tower series

I'm genuinely sad though. As much as I am excited for both the ending to the Malazan Book of the Fallen and the Wheel of Time, I'm equally sad that they will be over.

[natasha_fawn]

Originally Posted by Fayth

Malazan Book of the Fallen (book 10 coming as an ebook March 1st)

[Exer]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I put them both under the same umbrella. ZZZZZzzzzzz.

Robert Jordan the man, was much easier to tolerate than Goodkind the self-proclaimed deity...err, I mean man, for sure.

The funny thing is, you could actually see the transformation of Goodkind happening in the pages of his own books. As he started to think so highly of himself, so too did the characters become almost unbearably self-important. It was amazing to witness.

When he said this quote in an interview, I knew the series was in major trouble: First of all, I don't write fantasy. I write stories that have important human themes. ... My primary interest is in telling stories that are fun to read and make people think. That puts my books in a genre all their own. Wow. A whole genre of his own. I'm as stunned reading that now as I was all those years ago.

It was sad too, because the original SoT book was one of the very first fantasy books I had ever read. I was obsessed with it. In fact I had one of the first SoT fan pages. This was way before there was an official page. The guy who has been running the official site was simply one of us amateur fans back then, who had a site just for the love of the books.

Then the books started going downhill.

It wasn't really the story though, I still enjoy the story and the world. It was the dialog. Oh my lord, the dialog. NOBODY talks like that (in the later books especially). The characters don't just converse with each other, they ramble on with these epic 1-sided conversations that literally stretch for pages and pages, and pages. I've never seen another book even come close to that. It mostly went like this:

Him: I now know what to do. I have the solution.
Her: It probably won't work.
Him: Your objection is noted, but I have to do it my way, and here is why:

**6 pages of explanation why the idea will work**

Her: You've made many good points, but you're still wrong.
Him: You just don't understand the complexity of my plan, let me explain why nobody yet grasps my lofty idea:

**4 more pages of explanation**

Her: I still think you are wrong, and you'll probably get most of us killed ... but I'll trust you, because you are the only hope of the world. Even though I plan to nag you about it constantly until we get separated. Again.

The couple times I've reread them over time, I've learned to skip through most of that stuff. It makes the books a lot better. Sad to say.

[Fayth]

Originally Posted by Exer

snip

Yah, I grew sick of having morality shoved down my throat every chapter for pages and pages. I'll agree with you that the story was quite good though, and it had some very epic moments.

[Peake]

The Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe.
The Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold

Regards,
Peake

[Lirael]

Dragon Bones and its sequel, Dragon's Blood by Patricia Briggs. They were surprisingly good!

Agreeing with Exer and Fayth on Goodkind. SoT was the first fantasy novel I ever read, and I thought it was so excellent mainly because someone was writing about magic! and swords! and Dragons!OMG! Rereading, it's just...not so great. The first one is all right, though predictable, but the subsequent ones get worse and worse. When your main character is regularly giving multipage monologues on the evils of Communism, it's time to step away from the keyboard...

[ccowie]

Frankly I was really tired of fantasy for a long time. Read a lot in my early years and enjoyed LeGuin, Donaldson and the Alvin Maker series by Card quite a bit. But, then just got bored.
Then along came China Mieville and I absolutely fell in love with his stuff. I've just completed his latest - "Kraken" and it's brilliant like all his former books.

[EvilNuff]

I like many books by Dave Duncan. He has several series that I've enjoyed, "A Man of His Word" series, "Seventh Sword" series, etc.

Anything by David Gemmell is fantastic, I recommend starting with Legend.

[jaxx6166]

Sigh. I'm late to the game as always. It's getting harder and harder to keep up with the forum.

I'll throw in "The Horns of Ruin" by Tim Akers, more steampunk noir fantasy than straight S/S fantasy, but it's still damn good.

Also another "fantasy/historical" that doesn't seem to get much credit is Stephen Lawhead's retelling of the Robin Hood myth, I'd put him in the same boat as Guy Gavriel Kay.

Also, the Psalms of Isaac by Ken Scholes, even though the poor guy doesn't even seem to be selling to his mother at this point

Joe Abercrombie's gritty, messed up world, is always an excellent read. If you still read paper and like the whole D&D thing, check out a couple Dark Sun novels, they just reissued one of the best selling sets, and I hear KJA is even doing a Dark Sun story now. Runelords by Farland is another epic worthy of praise.

If you like indie authors, I'd check anything by Dan Arenson or Dave Dalglish, for dark fantasy I'd go with The Second Coming by David Burton, for Sword/Sorcery, you can't go wrong with Kinshield Legacy by KC May, and for those of you who like a whole lot of classic mythology, I'd check out my friend Moses' novella, Black God's War, last I spoke with him, the whole book would be done by May.

Think I'll go back to writing now. Good luck with your choices!

[graff_king]

Lawhead does a great job with the retelling of robin hood. One of my favorite trilogies in recent years

[MosesSiregarIII]

Originally Posted by jaxx6166

Runelords by Farland is another epic worthy of praise.

If you like indie authors, I'd check anything by Dan Arenson or Dave Dalglish, for dark fantasy I'd go with The Second Coming by David Burton, for Sword/Sorcery, you can't go wrong with Kinshield Legacy by KC May, and for those of you who like a whole lot of classic mythology, I'd check out my friend Moses' novella, Black God's War, last I spoke with him, the whole book would be done by May.

Thanks for the shout-out, jaxx. Yep, the novel-length version is on track for release at the beginning of May. My working title for it is:

The Black God's War: The Epic Novel

Though I have also considered:

The Black God's War: Much More Than Just Classic Mythology

Just kiddin'!

Did you get a Nook Color? I played with its web browser the other day. Not too shabby. Not ideal, but definitely not bad.