Best Fantasy Novels

[Zoid]

Originally posted by Snapcase
Oh, and chalk me down with the "Read the first book of Thomas Covenant until the Rape Scene, which was disturbing, so I stopped soon afterwards" crowd.

That did the trick for me also. Stupid leper

I did read "Mordants Need" though, not quite as awful as the stupid leper books. But still, I think Donaldson has self esteem issues...

[Tuberski]

The Darkwar Saga by Raymond Fiest
Taltos books by Stephen Brust
Ariel by Steven Boyett
The Sunset Warrior Trilogy by Eric Van Lustbader

and of course

LOTR

[- Groucho -]

The Sunset Warrior books were ruined for me by the author's name. "Van Lustbader" sounds like a porn pseudonym.

[reds4ever]

Originally posted by Ming


Chalk me down for another I should have stopped after the rape scene, but still read the entire series anyway.... ouch...

are you a masochist? i bought all three, got half way through the second, realized it wasn't going to get any better and gave up!



rah, your wife is right to a degree, how else do explain the emormous audience crossover between the two genres?

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Echinda
The Sunset Warrior books were ruined for me by the author's name. "Van Lustbader" sounds like a porn pseudonym.

Now he goes by Eric V. Lustbader

He has written quite a few books, but these and a book called Beneath An Opal Moon, which is a sequel to SW tril., are his only fantasy novels.

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by reds4ever



are you a masochist? i bought all three, got half way through the second, realized it wasn't going to get any better and gave up!



rah, your wife is right to a degree, how else do explain the emormous audience crossover between the two genres?

Hell, in High School I read BOTH of the Thomas Covenant series!
That would be 6 books. And the second series was a little better than the first.

[Ramo]

Another recommendation for George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series....

[Wraith]

--"I'll start it off with The wheel of time"

Decent series, but he's not doing so well in the end stages. I think his determination to write a really long series (he wants more books than L. Ron Hubbard's Mission: Earth series) is his main problem at the moment.

--"Tad Williams' Memory Sorrow and Thorn."

These are pretty decent.

--"I also liked Moorcock's Corum series a lot."

Haven't read these, but if they're anything like his Elric series I'm going to need to do it sooner or later.

--"R.A. Salvatore's Drow series can remember the name."

I've read those, and wasn't impressed. They're not bad, just... not good either. If we're talking AD&D, I'll have to stick with Chronicles and Legends from Dragonlance.

--"Terry Brooks's original Shannara series."

Eh. Those were good, upon a time. I've reread them fairly recently and didn't enjoy them near as much.

--"David Eddings' Belgariad was very good"

He tends to repeat himself rather too often. It's like he's written the same trilogy four or five times.

--"the best ='Swords' series by Fritz Lieber"

Cool, someone else has read The Book of Swords. Those are pretty good, and at one time I had the poem about the swords memorized.

--"the worst = the guy with leprosy"

Thomas Covenant, the White Gold Wielder books. Those are pretty boring.

--"I didn't like Earthsea very much"

I really enjoyed that trilogy. Le Guinn does some excellent work in them.

--"Discworld"

Best comic fantasy around. Not the only, but the best.
Although if you like a darker touch to your comedy, Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser series has it beat.

--"the George RR Martin series (song of ice and fire or something)"

A Song of Ice and Fire is correct. Excellent series.

--"The Amber series (first) by Zelanzie"

Those are pretty good. Haven't read them in a while. I think I'll have to agree that the first series is better than the second.

--"Oh and I remember really liking Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy"

Those are very good, too. The Hunter is one of the better villans, and I love the magic system.

--"I really enjoyed the DeathsGate Cycle (Weiss/Hickman)."

Those are okay, but I really wish they hadn't done all that Zifnab crud. Once they started bringing him in the series went way downhill.

--"My wife always jokes that the there's only two differences between Fantasy and Science fiction"

Depends whose definitions you're using, but the one I've seen that I like goes more or less as follows:
Science-Fiction takes a set of rules and works out the consequences from there. Fantasy makes up the rules as it goes along.

--"Magic's Pawn by Mercedes Lackey. Damn good book."

Good, but not great. The rest of that trilogy doesn't improve, either.

Well, most of the things I would recommend have been covered. The major exception is The Wars of Light and Shadow by Janny Wurts. Epic fantasy that's got Wheel of Time beat hands-down, and is right up there with A Song of Ice and Fire.

Wraith
Fantasy isn't our crutch -- its arcane

[CyberGnu]

Feist & Wurts Empire Series, by a wide margin.

Distanc seconds, Wurts 'wars of light and shadow' series, and Feists Magician series (up to the Krondor crap).

[CyberGnu]

Wraith, you beat me by a minute with Wurts

[Boris Godunov]

Lord of the Rings - Never been beat. Still the most complete, epic fantasy story-telling around.

Other than that, most fantasy books are just kinda okay for me...although, I will sheepishly admit to really enjoying the Pool of Radiance series. But I was 13 or 14 when I read those, so I could view it as crap now.

As for Wheel of Time--you folks are being waaay too nice. This series is garbage. The characters are about as deep as a puddle, and I've never seen such an obvious case of an author making it up as he goes along. Hence the endless tedium (not even Jordan has a clue what he's doing). And don't get me started on the brain-dead magic, ugh. Jordan's writing style makes me ill.

Ok, that's out of my system...

[SpencerH]

I own about 600 fantasy (with a few sf in there) so far. Based on number of re-reads I'd have to say LOTR.

[Bosh]

Feist & Wurts Empire Series, by a wide margin

Hmmmmm, what's it like. I really hated Wurts characters in Curse of the Mistwraith and couldn't finish it and Feist's Maginian was fairly cute but more D & Dish than I like.

but I really wish they hadn't done all that Zifnab crud. Once they started bringing him in the series went way downhill.

Yeah, and the horrible "whoosh good dragons appear and make everything better" ending. Liked the setting though.

--"Oh and I remember really liking Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy"

Those are very good, too.

Good to hear I had some taste as a kid, will have to track them down again.

He tends to repeat himself rather too often.

And Eddings likes his heroes waaay too much, the poor bad guys never stand a chance.

Eh. Those were good, upon a time.

I remember Elf Queen of Shannara being better than the others, much darker...

--"Tad Williams' Memory Sorrow and Thorn."

These are pretty decent.

Decent, but the length of the third book got pretty insane...

Oh, and chalk me down with the "Read the first book of Thomas Covenant until the Rape Scene, which was disturbing, so I stopped soon afterwards" crowd.

Its a good crowd to be in.

The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay

What's it like? I'm a 150 pages from the end of Tigara now by Kay and its pretty decent.

I'm not 100% sure, but doesn't that scene happen in like the first 100 pages of the trilogy?

Yes thank god. I actually did this twice, once in early HS and once about a year ago

I'll take the original Conan stuff by Robert E. Howard (not the crap re-edited or written by other authors

RJ's Conan-crap is especially funny No braid-tugging at least though

Oh and for sci-fi anyone read A.A. Attanasio's Last Legends of Earth of Wingrave's Chung Kuo series? Both're excellent.

Oh and Ming I know you're a fan of Poul Anderson, I've read a lot of his short stories and loved the Polesitechnic (SP!) League ones but didn't much care for the handful of his novels I've read, are there any really good ones I've missed?




Anyone like Rawn's series with the dragons and whatnot? I read them a looong time ago, barely remember them now...

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Zhu Yuanzhang

Hmmmmm, what's it like. I really hated Wurts characters in Curse of the Mistwraith and couldn't finish it and Feist's Maginian was fairly cute but more D & Dish than I like.

I'd say there more Feist than Wurts. So if you like Feist, you should like them.

[CyberGnu]

You think?

I think the characters feel a lot more like Wurts... But regardless, I definetly think the result of both of the collaborating is a lot better than each on their own. Just like Niven&Pournelle in Sci-fi