Best Fantasy Novels

[Zoid]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
Does Robert Rankin count as fantasy, or just wierd twisted sh.. er.. stuff?

I think that would fall under the "weird ****" category. I´ve read some of his books; "Nostradamus ate my hamster", The dance of the voodoo handbag" and The greatest show of Earth". Rankin´s one totally bonkers writer...

Have you read anything by Jeff Noon? A writer who´s residing in the grey zone between fiction and cyberpunk.

[Athene Miranda]

Rankin isn't good enough to get on the fantasy map, really. He's just an infantile sub-comic who tries and miserably fails to compete with Discworld.

Harry Potter is too easy. It's not fantasy, it's elongated Enid Blyton. I read two of them and was completely unispired. I haven't seen a truly original concept come out of there at all. Its only bonus is that it's ridiculous patronising ease of reading might get more people into reading true fantasy.

If you think HP qualifies as fantasy, read the Gormenghast trilogy, and you will learn.

[Zoid]

Rankin isn´t that bad, true he gets repetetive after a while, but who doesn´t (apart from Pratchett)? Rankin´s like Douglas Adams on drugs, gotta love that...

I tried to read the Ghormengast trilogy, but I´m not sure that I finished it. It was too...detatched (for loss of a better word). The same happened with Gene Wolfes "Books of the new sun"-series.

[Clear Skies]

Did I already mention Ian Irvine's The Mirror of Aachan quadrilogy?

[Immortal Wombat]

Thing is, Rankin gets funnier the more you read of him. The first book you read will be ok, but you'll miss half the jokes. The second book you read will be like "oh, he was in that other book" and "wow, same catchphrase" and in books after that, the same characters, places, phrases, etc just come back and make you laugh for no good reason.
And then it gets repetative. But the wierdness always manages to distract from that by being so damn wierd!

[LDiCesare]

I had limited myself in my post, but since others haven't and I have forgotten a few:
Le Guin's Earthsea is excellent. My favourite is the second book. I also enjoyed Rocannon's World a lot, though it is in between fantasy and SF.
Kay's Fionavar tapestry is good. I really liked the Al-Rassan story, although I understand that there is little or no magic in it and, if you are not a little familiar with Spain history, you just can't understand anything to it.
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are great characters.

[ranskaldan]

So many books, so little time!~

Can someone recommend something that i should start reading immediately, right now? This way I can at least narrow down my choices.

[Jon Miller]

Re: Re: Best Fantasy Novels

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Ethelred

Originally posted by Kaak

The one I am now rereading for the Umpteenth time.

Roger Zelazny's first Amber Series. Consisting of

Nine Princes in Amber
The Guns of Avalon
The Sign of the Unicorn
The Hand of Oberon
The Courts of Chaos


For a single novel

Roger Zelazny's The Lord of Light.


There are LOTS of really good fantasy novels but those ones stand out on many fronts. Even Piers Anthony managed to write one good Xanth novel. The first one. They went downhill fast after that.

I am not sure if I regard Lord of Light as Fantasy

although I will agree that it borders the genres

Jon Miller

[Eli]

LOTR was boooring and Amber was pretty good. This sums up the fantasy books I read.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by ranskaldan
So many books, so little time!~

Can someone recommend something that i should start reading immediately, right now? This way I can at least narrow down my choices.

The father of modern fantasy is J.R.R. Tolkien, and, as you can see from the above posts, he's still considered to be among the best, if not the best. Most people like his Lord of the Rings trilogy, but I perfer The Hobbit.

The Harry Potter stories are the current rage. Rowling mixes traditional fantasy, with a lot of whimsy. A lot of people are put off by the youthful characters, but the series is so well written, they are the most popular books in the world today.

Prachett's Diskworld series is halarious. But as Athene points out, there's a lot of satirical philosophy snuck in there too. Don't start with either The Color of Magic or The Last Continent. There okay, but not up to his usual quality. Instead, I recommend to you: Hogfather, Thief of Time, Feet of Clay and Moving Pictures.

[LDiCesare]

Originally posted by ranskaldan
So many books, so little time!~

Can someone recommend something that i should start reading immediately, right now? This way I can at least narrow down my choices.

If you liked Eddings, you can probably try the first books of the Feist's series, or the first Shannara books.
The Lord Of The Rings you should definitely read, since, after all, Eddings owes much to Tolkien.
I'd like to point out a few classics, Homer's Odyssey (the Iliad is more difficult) and Chretien de Troyes' Yvain le Chevalier au Lion, which must have been translated since it is the first complete romance Arthurian novel. It is quite short, too.

[SnowFire]

If you think HP qualifies as fantasy,

Not all things have to be up to some bizarre standard of "depth." No, it's not the Lord of the Rings (which is a good thing in my mind), but it has its own unique style that makes it great. If you didn't like it, fine, but it's defininitely fantasy.

Prachett's Diskworld series is halarious. But as Athene points out, there's a lot of satirical philosophy snuck in there too. Don't start with either The Color of Magic or The Last Continent. There okay, but not up to his usual quality.

Belay that! Well, just as a differing opinion, when I started Prattchet about a year and a half ago, I decided to go through the Rincewind series first, and in order for that. Yes, The Color of Magic isn't my favorite Discworld book, but it is good, and reading the Rincewind series through in order makes a bit more sense, plus you get to see the evolution of the world kind of (being that the books are scattered all across the real-world timeline). This would be TCOM- Light Fantastic-Sourcery-Eric-Interesting Times-The Last Continent. Of these, Eric is by far the worst, but it's short, so no big deal. Interesting Times is a classic, and Sourcery is really great as well. And I think The Last Continent definitely wins the award for most bizarre Prattchet book I've read so far, so I'd say it's pretty good.

I will say that if you don't want to do Rincewind (I picked him because I like the character type and because he was the first), then I'd recommend Reaper Man as a great stand-alone book. In fact, that one just might be my favorite. A truly hillarious book, with a Mr. Death as the main character. (The sequel, Soul Music, is half-good and half-bad, depending on who you ask. I liked the Death/Susan plotline and hated the rockumentary style half. My roommate, whom I've borrowed these all from, liked the stupid rock stuff and didn't like Susan for some reason.). Guards, Guards is also a darn fine Prattchet book aside from the Rincewind series.

Zkribbler's other list might be good as well, but I haven't read any of them yet. Just wanted to stand by and defend TCOM and TLC.

[SpencerH]

Heres a few authors and works that havent been mentioned but are worth a look:

Barbara Hambley The Darwaith series

Elizabeth Moon The "Gird" series Moon is ex-army, its the only series in the genre (that comes to mind) with realistic problems associated with an army.

Katherine Kerr Days of ...... series

Katherine Kurtz The Deryni series The best series I ever stopped reading (too tragic after about book 6 or so).

Michael Scott Magicians Law and Demons Law Very unusual based on Celtic mythos. Unfortunately (for those that dont have them ) very rare. I bought mine in SF bokhandln in Stockholm. Hopefully there might be new printings for those who are interested.

Edgar Rice Burroughs
Tarzan
First 3 Mars novels

Robert E Howard - A hard drinkin texan who blew his head off with a shotgun before he was thirty.
Read the Conan (mostly short stories) actually written and completed by Howard instead of the mostly shlock that was re-written by others. My favorite is "Red Nails"

[Fiera]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
I really liked the Al-Rassan story, although I understand that there is little or no magic in it and, if you are not a little familiar with Spain history, you just can't understand anything to it.

Why? What's it like? Something to do with the Reconquista, perhaps?

[Boris Godunov]

Silmarillion:

Bo-ring. I love LoTR, but this one is just a snooze-fest. He wrote a bunch of background history and minutae for himself in writing LoTR. A good book it doesn't make.