Your Favourite SF & Fantasy Series

[Laine]

Lois McMaster Bujold is doing a new Fantasy series "The Sharing Knfe". Book 3 of 4 has just been released. I have hardcovers and eversions.

[Fiacha]

For SF, I keep rereading

Glen Cook - The Dragon Never Sleeps

For Fantasy

Sean Russel - The Swans War Trilogy

For middle ground

Melissa Scott - Empress of Earth trilogy

Naturally there are many more and it is hard to justify recommending something that is hard to find but those are at the top of my lists.

Fiacha

[Catire]

Fantasy

- A song of ice and fire
- Wheel of Time
- Lord of the rings
- DragonRiders of pern
- Prince of Nothing
- The First Law


Science Fiction

- Vorkisigan Saga
- Night's Dawn Trillogy
- Commonwealth Saga
- Hyperion Cantos
- Dune
- Ringworld

[nekokami]

I tend not to like long series, as I feel the authors often run out of ideas after a couple of books. I understand the appeal-- people want to hear more about their favorite characters, or find out "what happens next" in their favorite world, but often the author has already told the most interesting or original story in that setting or with those characters, so once the original book or trilogy or whatever is done, everything after that feels like a real stretch.

Sometimes authors do find new life in old books later, though. In particular, I liked Ursula Le Guin's The Other Wind, and felt that in many ways it was stronger than the original Earthsea Trilogy. And I got tired of the later Pern books, but then I read The Masterharper of Pern and it was like old times again.

Most of the authors I read and re-read have been mentioned here (classics like Heinlein & older McCaffrey, e.g., plus many of Ian Banks' Culture novels), but I'd mention Garth Nix, Charles de Lint, Shannon Hale, and Tamora Pierce as more current authors that I follow closely. I don't draw so much of a line between science fiction and fantasy in my preferences, but I tend to avoid "high fantasy" as so much of it tends to be Tolkein knock-offs. I know a lot of people like that sort of thing, but most of the time I'd rather just read Tolkein, or read something really different and original. I tend the feel the same way about "space opera" or even "military sf."

I think it's like music -- tastes are very personal, and if you really like a genre, it's easy to tell, say, Mozart from Vivaldi, but to some people it all just sounds the same.

[Timoleon]

In addition to all the great reads mentioned above, I'll point out one of my favorites --- The Helliconia Trilogy by Brian Aldiss:
Helliconia Spring
Helliconia Summer
Helliconia Winter

I don't know quite how to describe it --- SF? Fantasy? Most of the trilogy is about hunter-gatherer shenanigans, but then there is a sudden disconnect as Aldiss talks about a space station of observers revolving the planet and reporting back to earth. I personally thought that this angle didn't add much to the storyline --- any other opinions on this?

[Timoleon]

Oh yeah, forgot to ask:

I'm thinking about getting Gene Wolfe's "Book of the New Sun" quadrilogy, but I'm a little gun-shy. Is it about some guy seeking redemption because he didn't torture someone enough? Sounds like a tough read...

Are the books worth getting?

[LeserattePD]

You're right, they aren't pure fantasy, but they aren't Sci-Fi either...

Just because there's a computer and they colonized the world in starships doesn't mean it's Sci-Fi. The main plot point are still the Dragons which firmly belong into Fantasy (even if they are gene-engineered).

Talents I rate as Fantasy becuase the main plot point are the "Talents", but I guess you could argue it's Sci-Fi because there's an interstellar civilization and the talents supposedly are genetic mutations.


But really, let's not argue what is Sci-Fi and what is Fantasy - let's just say we love it!

Originally Posted by HarryT

You'd classify these as fantasy?

The early Pern books may give the appearance of fantasy, but I think that the later books in the series bring the whole thing firmly into the SF "camp".

The "Talent" books are (IMHO) unquestionably SF.

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by LeserattePD

You're right, they aren't pure fantasy, but they aren't Sci-Fi either...

Just because there's a computer and they colonized the world in starships doesn't mean it's Sci-Fi. The main plot point are still the Dragons which firmly belong into Fantasy (even if they are gene-engineered).

Talents I rate as Fantasy becuase the main plot point are the "Talents", but I guess you could argue it's Sci-Fi because there's an interstellar civilization and the talents supposedly are genetic mutations.


But really, let's not argue what is Sci-Fi and what is Fantasy - let's just say we love it!

Makes for good conversation, though !

Let's have

Science Fiction,
Fantasy and
Science Fantasy

[nekokami]

Is Star Wars "Science Fantasy"? That's what I've always called it. "Science" for the space ships and "Fantasy" for the utter disregard for physics.

More seriously, I tend to think in terms of types of obstacles, characters, goals, etc. rather than wondering if it's Science Fiction or Fantasy. In the Pern books, there are some references to computers and genetic engineering, but those elements aren't really what the stories are about. And McCaffrey is not a scientist, nor does she claim to be, so the details of the "science" elements of her stories tend to be quite sketchy. Her stories are more about the interactions between people. (Madeline L'Engle was the same way.)

On the other hand, the Lord Darcy books are about figuring things out in a very science fiction kind of way, even though "magic" is used.

I like the term "Speculative Fiction" to cover both, but it's not in common use.

[BlackVoid]

SF
Isaac Asimov - Foundation series
Alastair Reynolds - Revelation Space series
Frederik Pohl - Gateway series
Douglas Adams - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series
Vernor Vinge - Deepness series (not really a series with only 2 books in the same universe)
William Gibson - Neuromancer series

Fantasy
Anne Bishop - Black Jewels series
Ursula K Le Guin - Earthsea series (except Tehanu)

[Illyriel]

Hi, I agree with all above (Eddings, Pratchett, Hobb, Maccaffrey), but I''m missing some of my favourites here!!
Mercedes Lackey, Patricia Briggs, Tanya Huff, the "Dark Tower" series by Stephen King, just to name some!

I read them all, and some of them I refound in e-book format.
(I don't have my Iliad yet, but I got about 110 e-books lined up on my pc already!!)

[Arek_W]

I could only suggest everything by Asimov, Harry Harrisson & Frederick Pohl (Heechee Series). On the fantasy side Roger Zelazny is the best one in my book.

[TantricWarrior]

Originally Posted by Darqref

In addition to many of the previous recommendations, I like a category mostly known as Alternate History. In general, books from this category take a real historical setting and tweak it with something else - aliens, a bigger natural disaster, magic, or even just the proverbial one little thing different - and then write about how stuff expands from there.

A great example of this style is the Kage Baker "Mendoza, the botanist" series (but I see that most of her stuff is unavailable... pity...it's an hysterically funny look at immortality, humanity (& human nature), greed, and time-travel.

Others I love:

Lynn Flewelling - Nightrunner & Bone Doll (Tamir) Trilogies
C.S. Friedman - pretty much anything (PMA) esp. Coldfire trilogy
Raymond Feist - Magician series
Harry Harrison - Eden series
Dian Duane - Door into... series
Mercedes Lackey - Last Herald Mage series, or Valdemar series - PMA
John Varley - Titan series (and Millennium tho' not a series)
Vonda N. McIntyre - Dreamsnake series
Piers Anthony - the first oh-dozen or so of the Xanth series
- Double Exposure series

Oh, an of course
Madeleine L'Engle - Time Series (although the first "Wrinkle in Time" was IMHO her very best - *and* the first book I ever read on my own... my Mom was tired of reading to me one night and when asked for "one more chapter" she tossed me the book and she that if I wanted more, I could read it for myself, so I did, and she never read to me again or needed to... I think I was 6 or 7 so it holds a very special place in my heart.)

I, too, have always had my bedroom walls covered with paperback SF/F books (usually used), but I usually only have one or two of any series actually present at any one time... one of the things I'm looking forward to in my eReader is to have *all* members of series in one place at the same time... I notice that for several mentioned here, Amazon, so far, has only a couple of members of series available in Kindlebook format... hmmmm. *That* could get frustrating!

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Illyriel

Hi, I agree with all above (Eddings, Pratchett, Hobb, Maccaffrey), but I''m missing some of my favourites here!!
Mercedes Lackey, Patricia Briggs, Tanya Huff, the "Dark Tower" series by Stephen King, just to name some!

One nice thing that LibraryThing does for you, if you enter all the books you have read (I am working on it) there is an "Author Cloud" which is pretty cool to look at. I'm learning things about my read collection that I never realized before.

BOb

[TantricWarrior]

Originally Posted by nekokami

I tend not to like long series, as I feel the authors often run out of ideas after a couple of books.

I totally agree (vis a vis Robert Asprin & Piers Anthony), plus, I remember in High School starting Stephen R. Donaldson's Unbeliever series only to discover that I had to wait *years* before getting satisfaction (the next four books!!!)- made a vow then and there to never start a series unless it was all written... a vow I seem to frequently break

I also, found Asimov's Foundation series, almost unreadable. The older I get, the harder I find it is to read S.R.D. as well.

Other I forgot above:
Robert Silverberg - Majipoor Chronicles
Harlan Ellison - PMA

To echo/reinforce others' choices:
Anne McAffrey - Dragons!!
Robin Hobb (*9* books, a trilogy of trilogies, worth every word!)
Frank Herbert - of course
Tolkien - of course (isn't it required reading)
Orson Scott Card - PMA ("Songbird" was the first book to make me weep)