Fantasy Aficionados discussion

Recently, my bud Mark asked me to compile a list of my favorite novels and another list of novels that I thought were underappreciated. I did so and realized that I'd really love to know what Fantasy novels/series our other members would recommend. Lol...I bet I could quote almost verbatim MrsJoseph, Clay and Mike the Paladin's recommendations but there's so many more of you who I'd be at a loss to predict! I'd love to change that. Also, I would imagine that it might be a little easier for our newer members to pick up on our tastes and perhaps even add to their TBR's in a single, easy-bake thread rather than having to sift through our ever expanding older threads. ;)

As I said, I've already posted my favs in another thread but for the sake of continuity I'll repost my top three here ;)

1. The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb. Her characterization is just a thing of beauty. I'm always left in awe at how deeply I connect to her characters.

2. The Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss. The Name of the Wind is my single favorite fantasy novel written to date. The second novel wasn't as good but was still a wonderful addition and while this author is still in his infancy, it's clear that he's a force to be reckoned with within the genre.

3. Now, in the other thread I'm pretty sure I'd have listed Dresden Files by Jim Butcher as my third choice but I think ole Jim has been bumped down a notch by Guy Gavriel Kay. The Fionavar Tapestry is a wonder to behold. I find myself greedily wishing that Mr. Kay were a more prolific author. However, what he does write, he writes beautifully. He's always a no questions asked, instant purchase for me.

Alright, off the top of my head, here's my 3 recommendations:

1) Dresden Files - funny, quirky, action-packed, and the setting is the here-and-now so it's easy to get into.

2) First Law Trilogy/Universe - Gritty, bloody, sometimes funny. Wonderfully built world with great characters.

3) A Song of Ice and Fire - Partly because it's just a great series with amazing characters and storytelling. Partly because I want to share the hell of waiting for the next one.

I probably would've had Kingkiller in there, but figured my other self already covered it so it's all good.

Just like I knew you'd pick up Dresden for me. It's almost cheating that we had six picks between us but we'll allow it ;)

Cheating, perhaps. But I'm going to go one step further and pick three that you two didn't list. I'd definitely without question have ASOIAF at the top and Kingkiller not far behind. Farseer and First Law are on the list too, though I'm still in progress with those. I'll also vouch for Guy Gavriel Kay, though I haven't read Fionavar yet. The Lions of Al-Rassan was just about the most amazing book ever.

So yeah, it's cheating. But really, it's for a good cause. Who wants to come in here and get the same recommendations on every post?

1) Stephen King's Dark Tower series. It's amazing and holds up very well to multiple readings. A combination of fantasy, western, horror, and weird.

2) Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. OK, someone had to say it. It does get rather inflated with later books, but as a whole the series is simply brilliant fun. Worldbuilding and intrigue. I love this series.

3) Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy. This series is pretty amazing. Plenty of intrigue and action scenes that reminded me of something produced by Marvel Comics. The characters are well drawn. The plot has many surprises along the way. I have yet to rate a Sanderson book less than 5 stars, and that includes his two Wheel of Time books and Warbreaker as well as all three books in Mistborn.

I like the idea of choosing books that have not yet been listed so even though I second the ones above:

1. The Dark Elf series by RA Salvatore. Easy fun read that wouldn't scare away any new fantasy readers.
2. Terry Pratchett-anything. Although my personal favorites are the Rincewind books.
3. Brent Weeks-either the Night Angel series or The Black Prism. I really like his style so far & he is becoming a favorite.

Grant, you stole my list! *grins*

I agree with most of the ones already suggested here. My top three would be Farseer, GRRM, and Mistborn (honorable mention to Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone). But to add a couple that haven't been mentioned yet... The Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series by Tad Williams, and the Acacia series (not completed yet, but soon) by David Anthony Durham.

Of course I have to say Erikson's Malazan books of the fallen for my first choice

Butcher's Dresden as my second.

I think for my third I have to say Elizabeth Bear's stuff...she is awesome

I think both Name of the Wind and Lions of Al-Rassan were way over-rated.(Just my opinion :) )

/scribbles notes madly

A little off the beaten path for me.
1. Swan Song. Many people think this is a horror, but it is too epic and has too much 'magic' I think to be such. It is post apocalyptic.It is post-nuclear war in north America, but the people begin to change into 'new' humans and there are new magical/strange abilities and such. This was a fabulous read the 3 times I actually read it. And I plan to again.
2.Luthiel's Song: The War of Mists This is by a Goodreads Author, Robert Fanney. Although I haven't read the third book yet the first two are amazing. Great Female protagonist and a new and interesting world.
3. The War of the Flowers by Tad Williams. A great, non-typical view of fairies. They live in a steampunk type of world that is motoring along side our own. Great story and plot

Three? You're mean, Grant, just mean.

You already rec'd Guy Kay, although I'm still ready to argue over your measly four-star rating for Tigana *puts up dukes* ... Y'all have got Butcher and Martin and Lynch covered; Chris, I'll second your Jordan - last time I reread [BOOK: Eye of the World] I was impressed by how it had held up, whatever happened with the rest of them. Robin McKinley and Sharon Shinn and Barbara Hambly and Diane Duane and Carol Berg and Lynn Flewelling and Patricia Briggs and Connie Willis and David Gemmell and Steven Brust will probably come up. (Like how I, er, sneaked them in there?) - - so I'm going to go with books I can pretty much count on no one else suggesting:

1) Tomato Rhapsody, by Adam Schell. It should be still available in hardcover (no paperback as yet) . It's a fantasy only in the way Like Water for Chocolate was: no elves or wizards, but magic is loose all the same. Read it. Have good food handy while reading it. This was one of the only times I have come within an inch of flipping back to the first page and rereading it immediately.

2) Dead in Time, by Anna Reith. Like TR above, it's fresh, original, and unheard of. Read it too.

3) A little more mainstream: War for the Oaks, by Emma Bull. One of the finest books I've ever read. Loved it unreservedly.

*wanders out* *wanders back in again faking short term memory loss*

Just three? That's mean of you, Grant. Let's see...

1) Deborah Grabien - Her Haunted Ballads series is sorta-mystery, sorta-fantasy, all fantastic

2) Jane S. Fancher - The Rings trilogy: kept me up all night

3) Nicholas Stuart Gray - probably all out of print, and YA-ish - but intelligent.

3.1) Susan Dexter - probably all also out of print, but gorgeous.

1. James Clemens The Banned and The Banished (it starts with Wit'ch Fire) I loved this series. It was one of my first fantasy series.

2. Mary Brown's Pigs Don't Fly most of which is collected in The Unexpected Dragon. It's hilarious and touching at the same time!

3. Terry Pratchett's books about the Witches. I love these books best of all the Discworld books. Great characters and fun humor too!

Hhhmmm, I'm sure I'm being rather predictable here but:

1. Andre Norton's Witch World series (There's at least 22 of them but I love them all)

2. Mercedes Lackey. Period.

let me think and get back to you...

Chris you get mad, mad props for deciding to "cheat" and recommend books that hadn't already been recommended. It's awesome to see everyone's tastes outside of the normal top recommendations. Incidentally, y'all have awesome, awesome taste :) (especially you Laurel! ;)

Chris, despite all the hate out there for The Wheel of Time and it's longwinded flaws, I still love the series and always will. I'm glad someone brought it up :)

Lmao @ Tracey. You rebel you ;) Of all the books recommended, a couple of yours are the only ones I haven't heard of...I'm ordering them posthaste :) You also get bonus brownie points for bringing up Carol Berg!

Kelly, The War of the Flowers isn't widely appreciated but I also really enjoyed that standalone. As a matter of fact I would recommend it to those that were bemoaning a lack of good fantasy standalones :) It's a fun read

Oh and Tracey, Tigana was really a four and half star novel for me. I couldn't quite give it the full five and became I'm so very mean I rate down rather than up :) Commence with the throwing of heavy sharp edged objects :)

/bookmarks thread

Song of Ice and Fire - GRRM

Farseer - Robin Hobb

Kingkiller - Patrick Rothfuss

Honorable Mention: Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan

Great thread! Off to add to my TBR shelf.

Grant wrote: "Oh and Tracey, Tigana was really a four and half star novel for me. I couldn't quite give it the full five and became I'm so very mean I rate down rather than up :) Commence with the throwing of he..."

It drives me mad that there isn't a half-star option on here.

Tracey wrote: "Denae wrote: "It drives me mad that there isn't a half-star option on here. "

Me too. It's apparently not in the cards, though. *sulks*"

/sigh

Hey it's me. My top three have been well represented here already. I guess what I've learned though is that I should probably read Robin Hobb. Also I'm glad to see there isn't any Thomas Covenant love here.

If I had to pick three books/series that were the most influential in solidifying my love of the genre they would be as follows;

1. The Hobbit
2. Dragonlance Chronicles
3. Wheel of Time

Great choices, Lou. Alot of folks look down on the Dragonlance Chronicles but that series brought so, so many folks my age into the fantasy fold. I still enjoy the occasional re-read of them :)

Dragonlance Time of the Twins was my first fantasy book and so it has sentimental value to me and probably always will.

Never read Dragonlance, either...

Neither have I, not sure I'm familiar with it at all, actually

It was YA fantasy before YA was the cool new thing. There's a thread about them here somewhere or other

Ah. I realized the other day, old school mysteries basically filled the role for me that YA seems to fill for people today during that time in my life. That and somewhat terrible Christian historical fiction. Oh, and some Regency romances that fortunately don't take the genre at all seriously. I've actually been re-reading a lot of stuff lately. They make for nice, familiar palate-cleansing in a way.

As far as the actual point of this thread goes, I've not read a ton of fantasy to date, but the three things I'd have to say the fantasy I've loved the most over the course of my life are the Wrinkle in Time series, the Wheel of Time books, and A Song of Ice and Fire. The latter's actual a quite recent addition, but I absolutely loved them. Well, the first 3, 4th was a bit of a letdown overall.

Hmm...only 3 is definitely a hard choice but...

1. Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb

2. Servant of the Empire Trilogy by Raymond Feist and Janny Wurts

3. Dragon Prince by Melanie Rawn tied with Tiger and Del series by Jennifer Roberson

My choices change with the mood, hard to pick 3.
1 - The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks
2 - The Noble Fool by Heath Pfaff
3 - Rhapsody: Child of Blood by Elizabeth Hayden

Drangonlace and The Dark Elf trilogy would may this list some days. This is my first post on Goodreads so Im not sure how to do the link thing some of you guys did :s

Edit: Linked to books

Luckily, The Finover Tapestry by Kay, and War for the Oaks by Bull and Steven Brust have been mentioned. The other advantage of this list is that we are all serious readers, so I can leave out basics (thanks, Tracey for sneaking them in!)

One book I periodically re-read but have yet to see mentioned is God Stalk by P.C. Hodgell. Gritty, dark fantasy with a great heroine and lots of little mysteries, but well enough written that you don't spend all your time confused.

Wind From a Foreign Sky by Katya Reimann is not well enough known.

My other non-specific suggestion would probably be some Zelanzy short stories. As to which, I think my copies are buried in the basement (which is sinful, now that I think about it).

@ Carol I like Roger Zelazny's Amber series =)
You all make me feel like going again lol. But really I didn't represent any pulp writers which I love. Im still waiting for some of my favorites to be mentioned...Leigh Brackett anyone? The John Stark stories.
;) Sorry for the cheat.

I could never get into Amber... Maybe I shouldn't have read them back to back.

I recently picked up 9 princes at a used book sale so it is on my TBR

DAng Tracy- you know how to make my life sound a lot more exciting than it is. Then again, that might be more in the line of drama rather than excitement...

Or the beginning of a video with a soundtrack that goes "bow chikka wah wah"

hehehehe Ala-you almost always make me giggle

My top three would have to:

Redwall, especially Martin the Warrior
The Legend of Drizzt, especially The Crystal Shard
Ender's Game, even though it is not fantasy

All three of those books changed my view on how books can be emotionally well written based on character's actions.

Ala wrote: "Or the beginning of a video with a soundtrack that goes "bow chikka wah wah""

Hey Ala! What are the sexiest animals on the farm? ;-)

lol, Tracey at the prince list.

so my absolute favorites have already been mentioned and/or are either well-loved, widely-read epic fantasy series (LOTR, SOIF, HDM, Gormenghast)....or are already well-documented, frequently-reviewed standalones (Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Little, Big). so here are some less frequently discussed favorites, in 3 sets of 3.

_____


3 underrated novels that i haven't read much discussion about:

michael moorcock's ode to Gormenghast, edmund spenser, elizabeth the great, and The Feminine Mystique: Gloriana, Or The Unfulfill'd Queen

john crowley boils down fantasy tropes until they are at their most iconic, then breathes strange, ambiguous new life into them: The Deep

super literary, super sexual, super author: The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman

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3 splendid science fantasies:

mother nature slowly reclaims her own...quirky, amusing, humanistic, melancholy: Rumors of Spring

a wonderful classic, delicate & cruel & very sardonic: The Dying Earth

did you know that we are descended from reptiles? The Malacia Tapestry

_____


3 awesome series:

MAJIPOOR. robert silverberg is a giant. this epic is grand-scale yet intimate. why isn't this modern classic ever mentioned? the first novel is Lord Valentine's Castle

LEWIS BARNEVELT. perhaps john bellair's YA fantasy series is just too realistic, too ambiguous, too rooted in the anxious world of a sometimes self-loathing hero to be a comfortable recommendation. the first book is The House With a Clock in Its Walls

CHRONICLES OF TORNOR. elizabeth lynn's trilogy is richly characterized but has no connecting characters, her style radically changes per book to fit the period described, she muses challengingly on both gender & orientation..and the cumulative effect of all the minor note, undramatic life journeys depicted is one that encourages careful reflection on some weighty matters: what makes a community, what makes a civilization? the first novel is Watchtower

1. Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs (awesome heroine, and great magic/worldbuilding. Best werewolves in fiction).
2. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (a good starter epic fantasy read)
3. Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews (another awesome heroine, complex worldbuilding, very good dark edge of noir to story, and some post-apocalyptic elements).

You will be able to tell I lean towards urban fantasy. :)

Oh sheesh, yeah, only 3?

Erikson - MALAZAN!

Robin Hobb - Farseer, Golden Fool, and even Mad Ships as background

Zelazny - Amber Chronicles

Honorable mention that doesn't bump the other 2 because of the meandering of the later books but still a brilliant world - Wheel of Time.

I'm not putting in Martin because I've forgotten everything. The ones that are above I've remembered well and plan a reread.

That's a tough one. A lot are like comparing apples and rutabagas.

EPIC FANTASY
LOTR - definitely
Janny Wurts' War of Light and Shadow
Pern
Wraeththu
Malazan - I think - have not finished it yet
The Stone Dance of the Chameleon - Ricardo Pinto
Riftwar
Drizzt
Cherryh's Fortress series

Except for LOTR all the rest are #2 & #3

hmm...Not familiar with Ricardo Pinto. Thanks for the heads up Kernos!

I am soaking up these recommendations...I haven't read a LOT of fantasy, but my favorites are:

1. Servant of the Empire Trilogy (Is gushing permitted here? WOW. What a FANTASTIC series. It was literary crack to me. The politics are quite simple but super complicated to follow and ever since I read this I have wanted my very own Papewaeio(sp?) and Keyoke. I cannot even explain the buckets of awesomeness that pour out of the pages when you open these books.)

2. LOTR

3. Wheel of Time

The Servant of the Empire Trilogy got me hooked. A friend was reading them and I felt very superior, having classical tastes (Dostoevsky, Poe, Bronte, Austen, etc) and was all, "Let me see that." Then I was very depressed at the amount of time in my life that had been wasted NOT reading fantasy. =)

Also - sorry, that was a LOT of words. ^^^ :P

Lol...I've read all of the great classics as well, Sammie. It's handy for conversation in some settings but Fantasy has always served me best. LOl...and you need to browse more. That was Definitely not a lot of words in F.A. terms ;)

Haha, Grant. I read a lot as a kid (nerd - lol) and the classics always appealed to me. So...when I tried a fantasy book, I was pretty much slapped in the face by how amazing it was. I read as much as I can when I'm not writing so I am paying close attention to you guys' favorites! lol

1) Riftwar Saga
2) Song of Ice and Fire
3) Malazan

The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
is the only one I can add that hasn't already been mentioned several times. I loved this intellectual fantasy and found it to be something completely different from any of the other books I'd read before.

Grant wrote: "hmm...Not familiar with Ricardo Pinto. Thanks for the heads up Kernos!"

I really like the The Stone Dance of the Chameleon trilogy. It's an extremely complex epic fantasy with a fascinating culture/mythology a bit reminiscent of the Empire series plus Mayan culture. Like Malazan and WoLaS it's not a quick read and one has to think about what's going on.