Your Favourite SF & Fantasy Series

[Basqueman]

The Vatta series by Elizabeth Moon

I've just discovered Elizabeth Moon and devoured the Vatta Series. A total of 5 books starting with Trading in Danger

All Star Wars books written by Timothy Zahn

The Ringworld books and Tales of Known Space by Larry Niven.

All books written as a collaboration by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.

For those who like speculative fiction, Earth by David Brin is very good.

[M0zza]

Definitely the Vatta series. And the Deeds of Paksennarion, and the Serrano Legacy.

The Wheel of Time
The Belgariad and the Mallorean (not that keen on his others)
The Drenai Saga
The Riftwar Saga (and all the others)
Honor Harrington
The Phule series
Stainless Steel Rat
Harry Potter
His Dark Materials

I really could go on and on...

[BlackVoid]

I posted before, but really have to add this.
The New Sun books by Gene Wolfe. The first book is a bit slow, but the pace really picks up int he 2nd. It is really a book where you have no idea what will happen in the next 50 pages. The world Wolfe has created is FASCINATING. And the good thing is, that there are many, many surprises, you will not understand how the world works just after a few pages.

[JSWolf]

One series I've recently gotten into that I really like is the Rachel Morgan series by Kim Harrison.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

One series I've recently gotten into that I really like is the Rachel Morgan series by Kim Harrison.

That's a new one on me - what are they about, Jon?

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by M0zza

The Belgariad and the Mallorean (not that keen on his others)

Stainless Steel Rat

I really could go on and on...

Both of those are series that I liked in the beginning but did not wear well.

I read the Belgariad with pleasure. Eddings has a smooth prose style and a flair for dialog. I read the Mallorean with far less pleasure. The strings were too obvious, as Eddings carefully dragged his characters to every not already visited part of his world. And the characters and settings became a little too pat. The whole thing got to feel like "paint by numbers" fantasy. Folks back then raved about the Belgariad, and wished it would go on forever. By the time I finished the Malloreon, I felt like it had.

And agreed about the other Eddings books. The problem is that Eddings has essentially one story to tell and one set of characters. New series get the names changed and the serial numbers filed off, but don't differ in essence from the older ones.

Harrison's original _The Stainless Steel Rat_ was a minor classic, and a long time favorite. I wish he'd stopped there. But Harrison (or his publisher, or both) decided there was series material there, and more Rat books appeared. The last couple I read read like Harry had essentially copied and pasted chunks of story from earlier books into later manuscripts, changing bits here and there.

My SO has met Harry and likes him (as I have and do), and defended him because the books made money and were easy for him to write. Perhaps so, but they aren't easy for me to read. I have higher expectations, especially from writers I've been reading for years and respect.
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Dennis

[seajewel]

I'm surprised so few here have mentioned George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. (First book: A Game of Thrones). These books are my favorite books of all time (for now, anyways). My biggest regret were I to die tomorrow in regard to unread books is not having been able to finish the series because he hasn't written it all yet.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by BlackVoid

I posted before, but really have to add this.
The New Sun books by Gene Wolfe. The first book is a bit slow, but the pace really picks up int he 2nd. It is really a book where you have no idea what will happen in the next 50 pages. The world Wolfe has created is FASCINATING. And the good thing is, that there are many, many surprises, you will not understand how the world works just after a few pages.

I concur. These are classics, and Wolfe is simply one of the best writers I know, in any genre.

Note that the books have a deeply religious underpinning, though you have to dig into The Urth of the New Sun to have it made explicit. (Wolfe is a devout Roman Catholic, and Christian themes and concepts underlie the story. But Wolfe is too subtle a writer to bludgeon you with it. Like the Narnia books of C.S. Lewis, they can be read with pleasure whether you get the religion or not.)

Wolfe's protagonist Severian is a torturer, working for the Autarch who rules a portion of a far future Earth. The sun is dying, and there are legends about a savior who will travel to the stars and convince the powers that dwell there to kindle a new sun and cause a rebirth of the Earth.

Wolfe is working in territory similar to Jack Vance's _The Dying Earth_, but with deeper concerns. Severian's journeys through the four books as as much spiritual as physical, as his experiences change him and prepare him to be the one who might just bring about the New Sun.

Just wonderful.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Fiacha

For SF, I keep rereading

Glen Cook - The Dragon Never Sleeps

One of my favorites as well.

I also liked the Starfishers trilogy, and _Passage at Arms_, which is set earlier in the Starfishers universe.

For middle ground

Melissa Scott - Empress of Earth trilogy

Another favorite, and "middle ground" is a good description. I was tickled by Scott's idea that alchemy and science were both valid but antithetical models of the universe. If you used one, you couldn't use the other.
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Dennis

[radius]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Harrison's original _The Stainless Steel Rat_ was a minor classic, and a long time favorite. I wish he'd stopped there. But Harrison (or his publisher, or both) decided there was series material there, and more Rat books appeared. The last couple I read read like Harry had essentially copied and pasted chunks of story from earlier books into later manuscripts, changing bits here and there.
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Dennis

Really? I think the first three (I think of them as "the slim ones") are all very good, and maybe A Stainless Steel Rat Is Born as well.

The first one introduces Slippery Jim and Angela as well as the Corps and is a fun, mile-a-minute adventure.

In The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge the twist is that he is actually married to Angela! This is a peek at what happens after the "happily ever after" that you rarely got to see (although this device is more common now). It is also the first appearance of the grey men and they are suitably chilling.

For The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World we meet "He" (loosely based on She/Ayesha one assumes) and have the first appearance of time travel. The social commentary gets a bit more pointed as Jim actually travels back to the Earth of our time. And the part when Jim tries to kill "He" with a bomb that will burn him with flame, burn him with acid, coagulate his proteins and so on is described hilariously in the book.

It is only after this that the series can start to become repetitive (ie: more time trips, ever more super-secret Corps, return of the grey men and so on).

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by radius

Really? I think the first three (I think of them as "the slim ones") are all very good, and maybe A Stainless Steel Rat Is Born as well.

Yes, I'll agree with that, and endorse the first three as worth reading. (Memory is foggy on _A Stainless Steel Rat Is Born_, but it may well qualify, too.)

But some series drag on long past when they should, because there is a perceived demand for more, and really should have been stopped earlier. Books after the ones you mention in the Rat series fall into that category for me.
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Dennis

[rhadin]

Lots of great material in the posts in this thread, but I would like to change direction a wee bit and ask these questions:

1. What is your favorite scifi/fantasy series or book that is available as a free ebook?

2. What is your favorite scifi/fantasy series or book that is available as an ebook and is either self-published or published by a small press?

3. What is your favorite scifi/fantasy series that is a complete series available in ebook form?

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by rhadin

Lots of great material in the posts in this thread, but I would like to change direction a wee bit and ask these questions:

1. What is your favorite scifi/fantasy series or book that is available as a free ebook?

There's a fair bit of choices there, especially when you have the Baen Free Library to draw from.

Off the top of my head, I'd list David Weber's "Honor Harrington" series (BFL), James H. Schmitz's "Federation of the Hub" stories (BFL and PG), and H. Beam Piper's "Paratime Police" and "Terran Federation" stories (PG, save for _Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen_ in the Paratime universe, whose rights Ace still holds.)

And for fantasy, E.R. Eddison's _The Worm Ouroborous_. (Here, among other places.)

2. What is your favorite scifi/fantasy series or book that is available as an ebook and is either self-published or published by a small press?

Not sure off hand.

3. What is your favorite scifi/fantasy series that is a complete series available in ebook form?

See the answer to question 1.
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Dennis

[nekokami]

Wouldn't the Fuzzy books count as Terran Federation stories? I think one of them, at least, is not yet PD. (Probably Fuzzies and Other People, as that was published posthumously....)

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by nekokami

Wouldn't the Fuzzy books count as Terran Federation stories? I think one of them, at least, is not yet PD. (Probably Fuzzies and Other People, as that was published posthumously....)

They are indeed part of the Federation universe, about mid-period when the Federation was still in full flower. _The Cosmic Computer_ predicts the fall of the Federation, as the war with the break-away System States Alliance emphasized the fault lines along which the Federation will fracture. _Space Viking_ is set after the fall, as raiding parties from colonies on the fringes of the former Federation raid back into what had been Federation space, and inadvertently provide the foundation of a new interstellar civilization.

I have Little Fuzzy in e-format, as well as a good deal of other Piper material. I haven't seen _The Other Human Race_ or _Fuzzies and Other People_ in e-form yet, but that may be a matter of folks just not being finished with the conversion. Ace had the rights to Piper's work, and inexplicably let all of it save _Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen_ lapse.

A friend is a small press publisher, busy returning Edgar Pangborn and E. E. Smith's "Lensman" series to print. He had been talking to Ace about the rights to do limited edition trade hardcover editions of Piper. Ace was willing, as his books weren't aimed at their market, but their rights and permissions folks were tied up with other things and hadn't gotten around the the paperwork for him. He was quite boggled when they let the rights lapse. Given some of the stories I've heard about publishing, I can't help wondering whether they let the rights lapse because they'd forgotten they had them.
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Dennis