[vader100]

Now we have this sparkly new topic I think this may be a good idea to have a thread to recommend or discuss all things fantasy orientated.

Whether you are an Eddings,Feist,Jordan,Pratchett,Goodkind or Gemmill fan post your thoughts and recommendations here and help fans of the genre discover a new or previously hidden gem and discuss any points.

[Toasty]

I've always felt Stephen Lawhead is underrated and if you have any interest in Celtic mythology then the Songs of Albion is a superb series. And again, if you like the Arthur / Merlin legends then his Pendragon Cycles series is excellent.

Another hidden gem for me was Dave Duncans The Great game series. I enjoyed Vardeman & Milans War of Powers, albeit a tad bawdy.

[Codehead]

My favorite fantasy books are:

Raymond E Feist

The RiftWar Trilogy
Magician, Silverthorn, Darkness at Sethanon

The Empire Trilogy (with Janny Wurts)
Daughter of the Empire, Servant of the Empire, Mistress of the Empire

These two are trilogies are Feist's best work IMO. The SerpentWar Saga is good, but not on the same level and the Conclave of Shadows/DarkWar storyline is getting silly now. It jumped the shark when (spoiler)

 

Tal re-grew his sword arm with no-ill effects

(/spoiler) that was as bad as one of those old Flash Gordon cliffhangers that get glossed over in the next episode. I'm still reading any Feist I can get, but I don't think he'll better his early work.



Trudi Canavan

The Black Magician Trilogy
(The Magician's Guild, Novice, High Lord)

Similar feel to Feist's RiftWar, but a little slower paced and without a war going on. Canavan has released a prequel and another trilogy that I haven't looked at yet. Anyone else read those?



JV Jones

The Book of Words
(The Baker's Boy, A Man Betrayed, Master and Fool)

Again, a similar theme to the RiftWar and Black Magician, but a little darker IMO.



Stan Nicholls

Orcs - Omnibus
(Bodyguard of Lightening, Legion of Thunder, Warriors of the Tempest)

An odd read, the usual bad guys get to tell their story. Not a masterwork, but entertaining and quite funny in places.

[kav]

Does George RR Martin count as fantasy? If so, I highly recommend him. Song of Ice and Fire series is amazing...I just hope he finishes it before he dies!

[UnGreat]

I second Feist.

Technically kids books but I really enjoyed the Abhorsen books by Garth Nix. I also picked up the Keys to the Kingdom books by the same author, and while I thought the first (Mister Monday) was a little sparse the rest have been amazing.

If anyone is a fan of genre TV and wants a great series to read then I can recommend the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. It is fantastic in the way that as well as having stories unique to each book it also has an overarching plot carrying through that develops the characters and reveals small parts of a larger mystery. Read them in order though.

[leeb-1977]

Originally Posted by kavanf1

Does George RR Martin count as fantasy? If so, I highly recommend him. Song of Ice and Fire series is amazing...I just hope he finishes it before he dies!

second here for RR Martin. Song Of fire and Ice is amazing!!!

Cant wait to see what happens with Jon Snow and Jamie Lannister next, as well as tyrion etc.... superb series.

as for my other recommendations.... im a lover of The sword of truth series by Terry Goodkind - although im disgusted with the 'legend of the seeker' tv series.

[Stream62]

Another vote for George RR Martin here, would be dissapointed if they didn't get finished.. i think the 5th one is coming out in October sometime?

I'm also a big fan of David Eddings (great easy to read fantasy) and Steven Erikson (admitidly a bit harder to read at first, i found the first half of the first one a bit of a trial but once they have clicked they are fantastic).

[vader100]

I started with Eddings (R.I.P) and progressed with Terry Brooks' Shannara series, Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit and then moved on to Feist's Riftwar. I must say I actually enjoyed the SerpentWar more.

Terry Pratchett has always been a pleasure to read.

Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series were very enjoyable,meandered a bit towards the end,but, ultimately finished very well.

Also enjoyed Robin Hobb's Assassin trilogy, but not the Fool trilogy that followed as much.

I have read the first Wheel of Time book but it was a couple of years ago but think I'll need to read it again before progressing.

The Song of Fire and Ice recommendations I have heard elsewhere and are on my list of future must reads.

[PaulieBeef]

Originally Posted by Stream62

Another vote for George RR Martin here, would be dissapointed if they didn't get finished.. i think the 5th one is coming out in October sometime?

Not a chance! I don't think we'll see it this year at all. He's still rewriting chapters according to his blog - I think the man must be an absolute perfectionist...
I'm a big fan of fantasy as well. I've read most of the Dragonlance series, Sword of Truth and about half of Feist's books, but all of them pale in comparison to George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. Not only are they the best fantasy books I've ever read, they're probably some of the best books I've read in any genre. Slightly off topic, the casting for HBO's A Game of Thrones (1st ASOIAF book) is looking very promising!

[Codehead]

Originally Posted by PaulieBeef

I've read most of the Dragonlance series,

Oh! I forgot about those. They were like the medieval A-Team, none of the good guys ever died. Great stories though.

[PaulieBeef]

Originally Posted by Codehead

Oh! I forgot about those. They were like the medieval A-Team, none of the good guys ever died. Great stories though.

They died eventually, but only after they lived until they were about 150!

[Theydon Bois]

Lol! Good old Dragonlance books. Drizzit was also good to start, until he bacme indestructable and also liked by everyone who was supposed to hate him.

Just checked one of my books cases - Robert E Vardeman's Keys to Paradise and the War of Powers are utterly brilliant as well.

[Gossops]

Originally Posted by vader100

I started with Eddings (R.I.P) and progressed with Terry Brooks' Shannara series, Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit and then moved on to Feist's Riftwar. I must say I actually enjoyed the SerpentWar more.

Terry Pratchett has always been a pleasure to read.

Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series were very enjoyable,meandered a bit towards the end,but, ultimately finished very well.

Also enjoyed Robin Hobb's Assassin trilogy, but not the Fool trilogy that followed as much.

I have read the first Wheel of Time book but it was a couple of years ago but think I'll need to read it again before progressing.

The Song of Fire and Ice recommendations I have heard elsewhere and are on my list of future must reads.

I liked Eddings when I was far too old to be reading them (the two belgarath series at least), but now think my 14 year old would find them a bit naive.

I quite like Barbara Hambly's Darwath series (the first 3 anyway - not read the 'hangers on'), and Dark thoughts move me on towards Susan Cooper "The dark is rising" books (again, I'm far too old for these, and please don't make any more films if you're going to massacre them like "The dark is rising"...)

Other Barbara Hambly faves are the Darkmage trilogy and "Immortal blood", as an interesting peek into vampire society

Dragonlance never really did it for me, but has anyone read any Patricia McKillop or Robin McKinley? Interested to hear opinions.

[Stream62]

Remember dragonlance being good at the tome butnot readthem for years... Tanis, raistlin etc all ring a bell. Think I still have some on a shelf somewhere.

[leeb-1977]

Originally Posted by PaulieBeef

Slightly off topic, the casting for HBO's A Game of Thrones (1st ASOIAF book) is looking very promising!

I had no idea that game of thrones was being made into a series!! That's made my day! Just hope that it stays true to the book and doesn't end up being like abomination 'legend of the seeker'. With that one you couldn't gave got more off with the casting if you'd have picked names from the phone book!! Story is appauling too, why not simply follow the book? Had the potential to be great, ended up being just another warrior princess type program.

[vader100]

Originally Posted by leeb-1977

I had no idea that game of thrones was being made into a series!! That's made my day! Just hope that it stays true to the book and doesn't end up being like abomination 'legend of the seeker'. With that one you couldn't gave got more off with the casting if you'd have picked names from the phone book!! Story is appauling too, why not simply follow the book? Had the potential to be great, ended up being just another warrior princess type program.

Talk about disappointing. Take a story with depth and subtlety, then strip all that away and turn it into a generic hack and slash video game style series.The fight scenes got so tedious. It was like watching Fantasy Strictly Come Dancing, slow,slow,quick quick,slow.

They even managed to cast Zed brilliantly (Bruce Spence) and still ballsed it up.

[Rorifett]

Another +1 for Feist's Riftwar saga, need to get more of his stuff read but I always worry that when I love one set of books by an author that the rest will just not seem good if they fail to live up to previous standards.

Terry Pratchett's stuff has always kept me going when I can't be bothered reading anything new, I find his approach to writing to be easy on the mind and generally his books just flow, wouldn't say they changed me in any way but still pass the time which is as good a reason to read as any other

Stephen King's Dark Tower series (up to and including book 5, Wizard & Glass) are really good, I especially like the paradox which is created in the third book (if memory serves me correctly) but I felt that the series tailed off as S.K. tried to finish it off before he paps it. The introduction of 'fantasy' things from our world spoiler:

 

those little ball things from Harry Potter, which are used to play that broomstick game, used as weapons in the Dark Tower lands and the introduction of Father Callahan from 'Salems Lot in particular

just destroyed any sense of 'almost real' which I thought had been built up so well in the previous books.

The Dragonlance chronicles were a good read too, very much in the stereotypical fantasy vein but I enjoyed them very much nonetheless. As a side note, has anyone seen the Dungeons & Dragons film (the first one) - I thought the story of this echoed the Dragonlance Chronicles, if you've not seen the D&D film (lucky you!!!!) then check out the Sci Fi channel, sometimes they're on there, not great film by any standards like but if you've read the chronicles it would be good to hear your views on the film

[PaulieBeef]

Originally Posted by vader100

Talk about disappointing. Take a story with depth and subtlety, then strip all that away and turn it into a generic hack and slash video game style series.The fight scenes got so tedious. It was like watching Fantasy Strictly Come Dancing, slow,slow,quick quick,slow.

They even managed to cast Zed brilliantly (Bruce Spence) and still ballsed it up.

I've just started watching Legend of the Seeker recently. My God it's so corny - it's the type of drivel that gives the fantasy genre a bad name. They took out all the edginess and darkness that was in the books (the first five or so anyway - when Goodkind kept repeating the same Objectivist spiel over and over again in slightly different ways I kind of lost respect for the series) and replaced it with a Hercules/Xena rehash for the whole family to watch. Same creators incidentally! Richard is horribly cast (although the girl who plays Kahlan is a bit of alright).
I'm confident that GRRM won't let the same thing happen to A Game of Thrones though. It is being made by HBO after all; it has a much better chance of being good and staying true to the series.

[vader100]

When you look at it, even after the success of Lord of the Rings, the fantasy genre is still not generally accepted as filmable.

There are many books out there crying out for adaptions into film or,preferably with most, TV series. I think it just takes a little bit of courage to spend the money and stay faithful to the book. Legend of the Seeker is the lesson in how not to do it. Now I know it was the same creators as Xena it all starts to make sense.

[Theydon Bois]

I think that LoR has opened some doors for the Fantasy genre and films - take Legend by David Gemmell, that would be a classic film, fantasy, but with no monsters so could be (very) loosely like a 300 kind of film - an impentatrable pass held by a huge castle and walls, held by 10000 being attacked by 1,000,000 Nadir.

Before LoR, this would have been a mess, budget of nothing, or poor cgi to make up the numbers and close shots rather than sweeping landscapes to ensure the castle looked realistic.

Now with the enhanced CGI of mass battles, and the believable castle and landscapes, it could be possible. Fingers crossed....

[Kelltic]

Best fantasy by a mile is Steven Erikson's Malazan Empire books. Utterly stunning fantasy, nothing comes close to it imo.

Old favourites of mine include Gemmel, Feist, Moorcock, Guy Gavriel Kay, Barclay and RR Martin. Some of the newer writers I would recommend are Joe Abercrombie, Scott Lynch and Brain Ruckley.

[Stream62]

Heard about the abercrombie ones before (on this forum ) picked up three of them recently and they are on my 'to read' pile.

[Battle]

Originally Posted by Stream62

Heard about the abercrombie ones before (on this forum ) picked up three of them recently and they are on my 'to read' pile.

I thought they were a bit "Mehh" - Read the first two then gave up after that, just couldnt get into them, they have all the usual suspects in fantasy but it just didnt gell together for me.

[Theydon Bois]

His books have been a different take on the fantasy genre to me - at first the excessive swearing just did not ring true - but then something clicked. Glokta is just an excellent character, and poor old whassname the Berserker is supurb as well.

I met Joe Abercrombie at a recent signing, and his blog is very funny as well - really reccommend it.

[nheather]

I liked Feist's riftwar.

I preferred the Recluce stuff by Modesitt (because it has engineers!)

Listening to Wheel of Time by Jordan (not Katie Price!!!) on audiobook in the car (on book 4 at the moment).

Loved Orcs - desperately want Orcs sequals

And I actually really enjoyed His Dark Materials trilogy (Pullman) when I read it to my son as bedtime story.

Got a bit annoyed by the Eragon (Inheritence Cycle) saga (Paolini) because it was meant to be a trilogy, I invested a lot of my time reading them, and whilst I enjoyed them the saga just didn't seem to make much progress and as I was reading the third book it was clear that the ending was either going to be very rushed or not happen. Of course it didn't happen, nowhere near and it looks like Paolini may have given up on it because there is no sign of a fourth book.

Cheers,

Nigel

[IRobot]

Mostly read sci-fi but I'm reading George R.R. Martins "A Song of Ice and Fire" series at the moment, it's very good.

Out of the other fantasy I've read, I thought "Perdido Street Station" by China Mieville was excellent. Also Mary Gentles "Ash: A Secret History" was one of the most amazing books I've ever read.

[IronGiant]

Originally Posted by nheather

Got a bit annoyed by the Eragon (Inheritence Cycle) saga (Paolini) because it was meant to be a trilogy, I invested a lot of my time reading them, and whilst I enjoyed them the saga just didn't seem to make much progress and as I was reading the third book it was clear that the ending was either going to be very rushed or not happen. Of course it didn't happen, nowhere near and it looks like Paolini may have given up on it because there is no sign of a fourth book.

Cheers,

Nigel

Some News on book 4...

In a March newsletter sent out by Alagaesia.com, Paolini stated that he is hard at work on the book

Beginning June, 2009, Paolini started exclusive monthly interviews with Shurtugal.com to answer fan proposed questions and discuss the future of the Inheritance Cycle.

In July 2009, Paolini stated that a recent chapter he wrote is called "Brains!", but clarified by saying that "No there aren't any zombies in the book, unfortunately."

In August 2009, Paolini mentioned that the cover of the book would have a green dragon on it.

[nheather]

@IronGiant

Thanks for the info. I'll wait to here the reviews before I commit any more time and money to this though.

I read a report that statement when Paolini was writing Brisingr, he got half way through and released that the book would be too big to finish as a trilogy so would need to be split into two. And then it went on to say that he had no timesacle for writing the fourth book.

My opinion is that there is no way the story can be completed in one more book - unless it sacrifaces the style so far and goes for a very hammy ending.

Cheers,

Nigel

[pmdf]

I used to read a lot of Eddings and other similar stuff when I was a kid, but for some reason gave up on fantasy for a almost a couple of decades after that.

A couple of years ago I picked up Joe Abercrombie's 'The Blade Itself' after reading a review, and since then I've been on a bit of a roll. The authors I've enjoyed most this time around would be George R. R. Martin, Joe Abercrombie, Scott Lynch and R. Scott Bakker. All fantastic stuff.

[dieeasysteve]

I've been reading Fiest and Eddings for years!

but have move on a bit in the last couple of years.

I read The quickening Series of books by Fiona McIntosh last christmas and thought they were exellent! I really would recomend them.

I also love the James Clements books a bit darker than Feist or Edding! but he taking a break from fantasy for the last couple of years to work on his other adventure books written under the james Rollins, which are alos great and what have been getting most of my reading time! (way better than dan brown)