OT: good fantasy books

Teraswaerto · #1 April 20th, 2007, 01:44 PM

Mercedes Lackey good? First time I ever hear anyone say that.

I'd recommend:

A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
-Low fantasy, lots of political plotting, warring noble houses. Very bloody and ruthless, the good guys are not guaranteed to win or to survive.

The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson
-High fantasy, demigods and ancient races, sorcerers battling demons, armies incinerated by magic. History of the world reaching back hundreds of thousands of years. Reminds me of Dominions actually.

Prince of Nothing by Scott Bakker.
-Weird fantasy, the Dark Lord was killed centuries ago and people no longer believe he really ever existed. His servants still exist though, and they are led by sex-maniac aliens. Very dark and disturbing, but excellent.

Ubik · #2 April 20th, 2007, 01:56 PM

Best fantasy story I ever read is "A song of Ice and Fire" by G.R.R. Martin. Start by reading book 1 "A Game of Thrones" and stop at "A Feast for Crows" waiting for the author to continue the story...

Xietor · #3 April 20th, 2007, 02:03 PM

The g martin books are good early, but his last book, a Feast for crows, was pretty bad. He ran out of steam.

Evilhomer · #4 April 20th, 2007, 02:12 PM

Thats mainly cause he split a huge book up in two parts, and had most of the boring characters in book 1 (last one published).

My vote would go for a "song of ice and fire" for number 1. Other books i have really enjoyed when young would probably be Robert Jordan (first 5 books are good, then he somehow lost himself in the plot), Tolkien (a classic) and Le Guin (earthsea).

jutetrea · #5 April 20th, 2007, 02:20 PM

ditto on RR Martin

The Malazan series was surprisingly good, a bit similar to the black company books in that they take a bit to get familiar with the characters... but it works.

Brust's assassin books are good as well

Evilhomer · #6 April 20th, 2007, 02:26 PM

It would seem like GRRMs books are the dominion players favourite choice.

Xietor · #7 April 20th, 2007, 02:32 PM

That is because they love diplomacy and treachery!

Edi · #8 April 20th, 2007, 02:55 PM

I actually like Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series of books for the most part and consider them good. They have their own issues, but I found them entertaining and would not mind reading the lot of them again.

As for George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire, I liked it at first, but it's almost all downhill. It has its good portions, but more bad than good in my opinion. I do not like the gratuitous feasting on rape and torture that is a fairly prevalent trend throughout the series. Martin has a lot of interesting characters, but he simply throws them away for no discernible reason when he runs out of ideas for them and generally they are not replaced or the subplots involving them tied up at all. He does have some interesting characters that actually grew out of some fairly two-dimensional cardboard cutouts into "real" characters. Jaime Lannister for one, in Storm of Swords, the Hound and Tyrion Lannister earlier.

Edis's list of good fantasy

J.V.Jones: Barbed Coil, Book of Words trilogy (Baker's Boy, A Man Betrayed, MAster and Fool), Sword of Shadows trilogy (A Cavern of Black Ice, A Fortress of Grey Ice, A Sword from Red Ice (Nov. 2007)). Contemporary fantasy does NOT get any better than the Sword of Shadows trilogy. That one trounces anything and everything else on the market that I've ever read.
Janny Wurts: To Ride Hell's Chasm, Wars of Light and Shadow (currently at 7 volumes, more to come at some point), Cycle of Fire trilogy, Master of Whitestorm. If J.V. Jones's SoS trilogy wasn't so bloody good, Wurts would be undisputed queen of fantasy writing.
C.S. Friedman: Coldfire trilogy (Black Sun Rising, When True Night Falls, Crown of Shadows), see above.
Marcus Herniman: Arrandin trilogy. Has its problems, but I really liked this one. The final book was in many ways the weakest of them all, but the first one (Siege of Arrandin) completely drew me in.
R. Scott Bakker: Prince of Nothing, already mentioned, totally kickass.
Raymond E. Feist: The Riftwar saga (the original four volumes starting with Magician), and its followup books up until the end of the Serpentwar saga, plus the Empire trilogy cowritten with Janny Wurts
Deborah Chester The Sword, The Ring, The Chalice trilogy and its followup books and the War of Shadows trilogy are all good.
Glen Cook: Black Company. 'Nuff said.
R.E. Howard: The Conan Chronicles. What, you thought I would leave HIS name out of the list?
Ursula Le Guin: The Earthsea books are great.
Tolkien If Howard and Le Guin get mentioned, then he does too.
Roger Zelazny: The Chronicles of Amber
Patricia A McKillip: The The Riddle-master's Tale trilogy. A very good series, though a bit slow to start. It has the novelty of having very unusual villains and a suitably mysterious plot.

That should do for starters.

Xietor · #9 April 20th, 2007, 03:04 PM

Edi,

on the JV Jones series, are they stand alone, or should you read them in a particular order? In short, can you just start with the SOS trilogy?

Teraswaerto · #10 April 20th, 2007, 03:05 PM

I think you misjudge Martin, Edi.

The world he writes about is violent, and the fact he does not gloss over it is one of the things that make him a great writer. The fact that being a main character is not a guarantee if surviving does not mean he's "run out of ideas", just that for a while he told the story from the point of view of someone who doesn't live to see its end.

Also, I don't see how you can say Martin has too much rape and torture and then list Prince of Nothing as "good fantasy".