Quote:
Originally Posted by Waylander
Please could someone recommend me some good military type fantasy? I didn't get on with Paksenarrion, giving up about 100 pages in. I also can't get on with Steven Erikson or George R.R. Martin. Yes, I know this is practically heresy, but Erikson's plots are too convoluted and Martin's works are too violent for no particular reason. I do like authors like David Gemmell, just to start things off.
|
Can you identify what it is you like about, say, David Gemmell?
Is it the presence of a practical fighting man with a strong personal moral code? Kind of like Bernard Cornwell's
Sharpe series in historical fiction (or probably any Bernard Cornwell, to be honest)?
The most Gemmell-like thing I've read lately was
Gallow: The Crimson Shield by Nathan Hawke. The hero, Gallow, is a fantasy version of a viking. I liked it, but I think I should say that I got it for free, so you might feel I was bribed to say nice things about it. I have paid for the second and third ones, but not read them yet. There are some excerpts and shorts at the website
http://www.nathanhawke.com/ if you can find them on the weird interactive map thing.
Joe Abercrombie's
The Heroes is about one large battle, but you really need to have read the preceding four books in the same world to get the most out of it, and the "moral code" part is decidedly lacking. If you didn't like GRRM you might struggle with the First Law trilogy, although it does feature the world's greatest barbarian, in Logen Ninefingers (with the possible exception of Abercrombie's other Northmen, such as the great Whirrun of Bligh, in The Heroes. I don't think anyone does better barbarians).
My favourite recent mainstream fantasy novel was Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson, but that's not very military at all. It's basically a heist featuring a female mage.