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dusted off in read-only
dusted off in read-only
Hey Hey, Im new here, just stumbled upon this little peace of heaven while lookin for information on TTT. Anyway, Im lookin for some new reading while I wait for TTT, whats everones favorite books/series? I apologize in advance if there are already a million of these posts, im to tired to look though all those posts =) And one other thing I was just a little curious about, I noticed all my books are published by either Tor, Bantam, or Overlook. Whats the difference, I mean do they focus on different genre, anything like that, was just curious. The more I think about it the dumber this question seems, but whatever. Also if you where to punlish a peace of writing and could choose who would do it which would you choose =) view post
I would get Christopher Walken to keel-haul "A Jest of God" by Margaret Laurence. Or maybe you meant 'publish'... If you're looking for a great book, try "The River God" by Wilbur Smith. If I recall, it's the first in his Taita series. You see, Taita is a eunich slave who rises through the ranks of aristocracy in ancient Egypt and...well...you'll have to read it. Ex. view post
Erikson. Just read it. He gives me the shivery feeling I get when reading some of the Bakker/White Lord dialogue in the Q&A forum... that guy has [i:2w2pir32]plans[/i:2w2pir32]. view post
Steven Erikson. Steve, sweet Steve, you are the light at the end of the tunnel, we praise thy name, for thou art king and does not totally suck ass like some authors I could mention. view post
Yep, Erikson. Also Goerge R.R. Martin, Raymond Feist and any of the Riftworld books, Glen Cook's Garret P.I., Parke Godwin and anything by Neil Gaiman. And even though it's not fantasy I read a lot of Chuck Palahniuk. And I swear, one day, if Robert Jordan ever finishes the WOT I may just read the whole series. Maybe. view post
'The Dark Tower' by Stephen King is a must read, My favorite series of books by far. 
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I second the Dark Tower books, but be warned, it's going to hurt. Personally, most of my impression of the Dark Tower is in my head... the way it should have (perhaps could have) been. Poor old King. I think his problem is that he's so good at building up suspense and anticipation that there was nothing he could have done to end it properly. Of course, even then, the last two books could have been a bit better... On the other hand, the Dark Tower is going to haunt me for a long, long time. view post
Just finished it last week. I'm still a little bitter. And it's not the resolution, it's the execution of it... just left a bad taste in my mouth. The last couple of books were just off. view post
You want a good read? Read the "pure" Robert E. Howard stories. The man was a brilliant yarn spinner. Tim view post
Besides Scott, you can read James Clemens, Steven Erikson, Robert Newcomb & David Gemmell view post
I've read several sets of fantasy/science fiction books, and I have enjoyed the following two sets the best:
C.S. Lewis - Ransom trilogy: Out of the Silent Planet; Perelandra; That Hideous Strength
Stephen R. Donaldson - The Gap saga: The Real Story; Forbidden Knowledge; A Dark and Hungry God Arises; Chaos and Order; This Day All Gods Die
Enjoy.
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[url=http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060937262/:2hx68ery]Imajica[/url:2hx68ery], by Clive Barker. Dark fantasy à la Lovecraft. view post
[quote="Fell":24cp7zdo][url=http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060937262/:24cp7zdo]Imajica[/url:24cp7zdo], by Clive Barker. Dark fantasy à la Lovecraft.[/quote:24cp7zdo] What is this about? I've heard a tad about it. view post
I love reading the WoT, though Robert Jordan needs to finish it, but he will hopefully end it in the next book! hopefully... George R. R. Martin's series 'A Song of Ice and Fire' is good.. David Gemmel, I love the Rigante series. Raymond E. Feist, though he is in my opinion worse than Robert Jordan on ending something. His Riftwar Saga is good, and so is his Serpentwar Saga, but the new conclave of shadows series is very dissappointing. J.V. Jones 'Book of Words' Series was really good, her new one 'Sword of Shadows' series is shaping up to be really good too....if she ever finishes it. Piers Anthony - 'The Apprentice Adept' series, kind of an old series, but awesome. Stephen R. Donaldson's 'Thomas Covenant' Books are good. Neil Gaiman books - love this author. Christopher Moore - I love this guys books. He's not fantasy but he is funny as hell. view post
I suggest this very unusual series (2 books published out of 3): [b:2ty2hauy]The Stone Dance of the Chameleon[/b:2ty2hauy] - by [i:2ty2hauy]Ricardo Pinto[/i:2ty2hauy] [url:2ty2hauy]http://www.ricardopinto.com/index.html[/url:2ty2hauy] A fantasy series set in a bronze age era. Be warned though, if such things make you freak out: the main character is homosexual (the author too). G. view post
Ricardo Pinto is one of my favourite authors. I can't wait for the next book to come out... view post
Hi all, I'm another Erikson fan. He's by far my favourite writer of fantasy, mainly because of the scope of the world and complexity of the story. His works just amaze me, and often move me as well. Incredible stuff. I also really like GRRM's ASOIAF series, and Bakker's PON series as well, they're very good. LeGuin's Earthsea books started me off on fantasy fiction about 2 decades ago, when I was 12, and I still find them highly enjoyable as an adult. Amazing stuff considering the brevity of the novels. I also really enjoyed The Silmarillion by Tolkien, a great deal more than I did LOTR, and was a big fan of Narnia in my teenage years as well. I'm continuing to trudge through Jordan's WOT series because Iwant to see how it ends, and I found the first 6 books highly enjoyable. Seemed to go downhill from there, though. When it comes to sci-fi, my favourite series is Dune, the whole lot. I prefer books 4-6 over books 2 & 3, which isn't common, from what I've seen. Great books though. Simmons' Hyperion cantos were also very, very good, and I'm a fan of Jack Womack's Dryco series of cyberpunk novels, too. The first s-f series I read would have been Asimov's foundation series, way back when, which I enjoyed at the time. view post
Just wanted to throw this out since I didn't see it on the list - anything by Matthew Woodring Stover just oozes with awesomeness, even though there are some very gory times.
Start out w/Heroes Die or his Star Wars books [even had one in the New Jedi Order which completely changed Star Wars for me in a great way!] and you'll be hooked!
-Mike
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My essential fantasy authors- Jack Vance - Totally unique and beautiful style, almost always pitch perfect. A delightful distraction from the world. Most of his novels have lasers and spaceships, but are fantasy. Ursula K. LeGuin - Like Bakker a keen student of humanity, but such a completely different author. The Earthsea books (well, the earlier ones anyway) are simple, beautiful, and as deep as you want to dig. Avram Davidson - A crazy mother****er, and I mean that in the best possible way. Fantastic short stories and a wide range of novels, some very good. His best is "The Phoenix and the Mirror", which is probably the best fantasy novel I've read for pure enjoyment. John Crowley - Not a pure fantasy author, but he sneaks in due to having written Little, Big. Which I find difficult to describe, but I do think it's sort of the keystone in terms of understanding what's possible in the genre. Also, his short novels (collected in Otherwise) are excellent. Jeff Vandermeer - A new guy, but everything he's written so far (City of Saints and Madmen, Veniss Underground) has totally blown me away. Kinda like Bakker! view post
currently, Martin and Erikson are my faves. also David Gemmel's books have some kind of "pull" on me. view post
Dune view post
currently, i love Erikson. just pure action.
i also like Gemmel and his "sacrificial heroism" stories.
of course, Martin is on top of my list.
and Bakker.
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Bakker (obviously) and Erickson are number one on my list with Martin running a close second. Gemmels books are good in that classic pulp sword and sorcery style so they are always a good afternoon read. I've always loved the Wheel of Time, even the books that were slow. The world he created is just too good to not enjoy every little tidbit I get revealed to me. view post
WoT also has a soft spot in my heart. it's one of the first fantasy series i've read, and i do hope that in would end as well as it started. view post
It definitly wasn't the first I read, but was one of the earlier ones anyway. (I read The Hobbit and LoTR when I was in grade 4 or something. What can I say I started early, I was ripping through adult novels about the same time) And I think it will finish strong, after all the last book, Knife of Dreams was probably the best since book 7 or so, it was actually quite good with lots of stuff happening. We'll see what Memories of Light, the final installment, shall bring. Although it is of course going to be delayed somewhat with RJ's health. view post
yeah, i've read (and bought, actually) book11 when it came out, and it does have a lot of promise. but do you really think it will be over in just one more book? i mean, there's still a lot of storyline threads not closed... view post
Yes, he's said on the record that there is only one book left to finish off the main story. Personally I don't think there is that much left to resolve. Of course he's also said the book will be as long as it needs to be, so it could get hefty. Book 11 I think made a nice job of setting up a few things in very neat domino like style, I can see how a few events will actually end up resolving multiple plot arcs in a single blow, and done in a very nice and satisfying manner as well. I also think there are more minor plotlines and arcs that may be left unresolved on purpose as well, to have some mystery still around the whole thing and I'm fine with that. view post
Jordan, Tolkien, Bakker, Rawn, Terry Brooks. view post
anything by robert rankin. i've only read 'the hollow chocolate bunnies of the apocalypse' and 'the witches of chiswick' so far, and working my way through 'the brightonomicon' as i type.. but he is awesome. provided you like twisted british humour. view post
[quote="gierra":n0gu77pk]anything by robert rankin. i've only read 'the hollow chocolate bunnies of the apocalypse' and 'the witches of chiswick' so far, and working my way through 'the brightonomicon' as i type.. but he is awesome. provided you like twisted british humour.[/quote:n0gu77pk] I'll have to check it out, I generally prefer british humour above anything grown in North America. It's always so much more cerebral and witty. view post
i just finished the brightonomicon this afternoon and i'm sad. it was so much fun to read! my credit card is gonna see bad days as i track down the rest of his books.. and he's got a lot. ya, if you liked hitchikers guide even a little bit, you will LOVE rankin. and i find that a bold statment to make. view post
i'm truly amazed nobody (i must've missed it:) mentioned Neal Stephenson, his The Diamond Age is really thoughtprovokingly good. Also Roger Zelazny; the Amber-series and Lord of Light. and Tad Williams: the Otherland series (although his ending is nearly as bad as King's) for space adventure en gore Simon Green's Deathstalker series are a lot of fun. his ending is worse than King's though. .Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot. ~ Groucho Marx view post
Princess Bride. view post
i ran out of books, so i'm re-reading one childhood favorite, island of the blue dolphins by scott o'dell. fortunately, i went to see my dad last night and brought home 5 boxes of books that i had stored there. now i need more shelves. view post
Besides Bakker: Fantasy/sci fi: A Song of Ice and Fire- George R.R. Martin Malazan Book of the Fallen- Steven Erikson The Coldfire Trilogy- C.S. Friedman Hyperion- Dan Simmons The Dark Tower- Steven King The Foundation Trilogy- Isaac Asimov The Wheel of Time- Robert Jordan Lord of the Rings/The Silmarillion- JRRT Non Fantasy Fiction: War and Peace- Leo Tolstoy Lord of the Flies- William Golding Heart of Darkness- Joseph Conrad A Clockwork Orange- Anthony Burgess 1984- George Orwell Classics/Philosophy/History: The Iliad- Homer The Aenid- Virgil History of the Peloponnesian War- Thucydides The Annals of Imperial Rome- Tacitus Alexander- Theodore Ayrault Dodge Ethics- Spinoza The Republic- Plato The Nicomachean Ethics- Aristotle Beyond Good and Evil- Nietzsche view post
I suggest... Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire is the best fantasy being written today. William Browning Spencer...read it all. Jonathan Lethem is my favorite author. Michelle West is a great fantasy writer. Robin Hobb...read all her work but the Liveship Traders is my favorite. Jordan as mentioned already. John Connolly...if you like serial killers and crime sort of stuff. Jeffrey Deaver...serial killers/crime procedural John Lescroart...legal thriller sort of stuff. Danielewski's House of Leaves...worth your time. Hmmm... view post
In classic fantasy: Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake (if it isn't considered classic, then I don't know what can deserve that accolade) In epic fantasy: Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson In Swords+Sorcery fantasy: Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser by Fritz Leiber In science fiction: Flowers for Algernon In magical realism: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez In "New Weird": Perdido Street Station by China Mieville I don't know where this fits in, but it has to be mentioned: The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks. view post
G.R.R Martin definitely comes on the first place. view post
Well, the Wheel of Time will always be my favourite as it was what got me into reading fantasy. However, I'm a massive Ian Irvine fan as well. I know a lot of people don't particularly like his books for their own various reasons, but I think that his approach to fantasy is a much needed breath of fresh air, as most fantasy writers seem to have an 'art and humanities' background. Irvine is a scientist, and his outlook on fantasy is somewhat different from most writers, and IMHO the genre needs more authors like him. fiction: Bram Stokers Dracula Anything by HP Lovecraft Paradise Lost (dear god, that is one hard, yet rewarding read, took me half a year to finish the damn thing) Hitch Hikers Guide to the Universe The Ulster Cycle non fiction: The Golden Bough by James Frazer The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene Oh, I almost forgot; all those wonderful poems by Lord Byron. view post
The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold is one of the most well written stories I've ever read, in any genre. Paladin of Souls follows along in the same setting. Very low magic, very character-centric writing. view post
Greenman, I agree. I enjoyed both of those books a lot. They are books that I kept to read again. view post
I know Bujold is most known for Sci-Fi, but her fantasy is deep and very well thought out. I wish there were more writers with her style in Fantasy. I find the descriptive styles tedious now, though I liked them more when I was younger. Now I lean heavily toward character-centric writing. view post
Bujold=yes 
Her science fiction is marvellous. It's possibly the best light read in any genre I've ever come across, and her fantasy is just plain satisfying.
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Ummmm Martin's 'a song of ice and fire' Tolkien- The sillmarillion, tLotR, unfinished tales and History of middle earth if u like the others Adams' Hitchikers guide series up to book 4 Hobbs' farseer and tawny man series (fools erand was the first book i really cried in!!!!!!!!!) and prob liveship series, but i haven't read it. Arthur c. Clarke's spaces oddysy and rama series, plus childhoods end. george orwell's 1984 view post
Ok. I know maybe about a third of the books you guys are speaking about, but one thing really makes me sad. Out of all of the posts on this thread, I see only one person mention Terry Brooks, and even then, it was only his name. Havent any of you read the Shannara books.? those are some pretty amazing books. I myself especially like the High Druid of shannara series, when Grianna Ohmsford becomes High Druid of Paranor... those books are totally awesome. view post
I thoroughly enjoyed The Shannara series. I haven't read them in a while, but I found they were not as epic as Tolkien. They were easy to read, but I think my reading has matured a little. Call me an elite reader snob!!! view post
The Shannara books are great. They get better and better. The Sword of Shannara seemed like a total rip off of LOTR, and it was still great to read. High Druid is a really original series. view post
Thank you. Im glad we got some people who know about the Shannara books. Well, anyone read Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake novels? view post
I have been watching the Anita Blake novels in a sci-fi book club mailing I get. They sound decadently evil. So many books.....so little time 
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a song of ice and fire, the prince of nothing view post
Ive read all of the anita blake books, and they are seductively dark, erotic and frightening. view post
My Escapist Favorites: Kushiel's Dart by Jacquiline Carrey? I like that series. Phedre is an interesting heroine. I really think PoN, and The song of Ice and Fire had me from the first couple chapters. I have read all of Bujold's stuff, the Sci-Fi and Fantasy. She's a fun read. Robin Hobb's stuff is good. I liked the Assassin series with Chade and Fitz. and...I just got Simmons' Illium out from the library, is it any good? Most of my other reading is Non-Fiction: History, Psychology and Autobiographies primarily. Also Saveur , National Geographic and the New Yorker for periodicals. Oh and travel. I travel a lot. I love just GOING. The first fantasy series I read was Tolkein though, my Dad had the books from when he read them so they were "older" and I have to say I am glad that I read that one first. view post
i would say my favorite is martin's a song of ice and fire awesome books that leave you wishing for so much more. simply brilliant and i also like stephen king's the dark tower they were good and original. i am currently reading the deadhouse gates by steven erikson its the second book of malazan book of the fallen and thus far immensely interesiting so those are three that i would gladly recomend. the wheel of time by robert jordan is good if you have patience so that about sums it up. good luck. view post
LOTR, The Silmarillion, The lost Tales, The Unfinished Tales, His Dark Materials, A Song of Ice and Fire. view post
More Shannara Books coming out! And theyre gonna be about the events that occured at the end of the Great War and the Founding of Shannara view post
All time favourites: Ernest Hemingway - The Sun Also Rises Charles Dickens - Great Expectations & David Copperfield Tolstoy - War & Peace Homer - The Iliad Steven Pressfield - Gates of Fire George R. R. Martin - Song of Ice and Fire Nabokov - Pale Fire Tolkien view post
I love the Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erikson. They're the books that got me into the fantasy genre as a whole and I still have yet to find a series that can move me as much as they did (I was very nearly reduced to tears after finishing book 7). Also been reading the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. Pretty solid series. Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay is also really well written, as is the Fionavr Tapestry series (or however it's spelt). If people are into the gritty fantasy, Glen Cook's The Black Company was a really good read. view post
[quote="Mats":2fjf6rse]All time favourites: Tolstoy - War & Peace Homer - The Iliad Nabokov - Pale Fire [/quote:2fjf6rse] Been meaning to read Tolstoy for so long. The Iliad is great, but I prefer the Odyssey, mainly because it is reflected in so many modern works. And if you enjoyed Pale Fire you should defenatly read House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewki, has some of the same themes. Great read. view post