Spec me a fantasy book

[Silent-Lucidity]

Wheel of time (R.Jordan) - great first 5 books or so, rest pap. Cycles same storyline over and over zzzz. 5/10

Belgariad + Mallorean.(D.Eddings) Great books but Mallorean is the Belgariad just with a different baddie. the tie in books are good too. 8/10

Farseer + liveship traders (R.Hobb) - Very good, enjoyed these, different stories set in the same place and lightly interwoven. 9/10

Magician (Feist)- read these recently, enjoyed them. only read first three. 7.5/10

Blade itself series ( J.Abercrombie) - Really enjoyed these, waiting on third. 8/10

Song of ice and fire series ( G.R.R.martin) Amazing, best of the lot. In so many ways. Takes all the rules of fantasy writing and throws them out the window and what your left with is so refreshing. Very adult themed too. I've never been surprised so much reading a book, just when your getting to like a character he kills them off. 10/10

 

[SteveOBHave]

Oh and the Sparhawk series by Eddings were fun - Diamond Throne etc...

 

[chaosophy]

No time at the mo to read the thread properly but two I've enjoyed recently are...

Joe Abercrombie - The First Law, book 1: The Blade Itself. Definitely want to finish the series but don't want the bigger trade paper back size of book two so have to wait a while

and

Alan Campbell - The Deepgate Codex, volume 1: Scar Night.

Both worth a look imo.

 

[bandit]

I can't stand this attitude. What gives you the right to define what is and isn't a childrens book. To take the most obvious example, Harry Potter was predominantly intended to be a childrens book, but it captured the imagination of thousands of adults. Granted some books, take Gossebumps for example, clearly have a specific market, but thousands of books begin life as merely a book to be read by anyone that finds enjoyment from doing so. Any book that gets more people reading, adult or child, should be applauded.

true.

urlsula le guin and earthsea are supposed to be kids books. i rad them as a kid, but still find them as good as then (the first one anyway)

 

[manveruppd]

I think they are both good easy reads and entertaining - Gemmel is the better of the two as Eddings gets 'VERY' repetitive and lacks imagination when it comes to holding down a decent storyline.

Well, based on the fact that even people who reccomended Gemmel seem to agree with me that the Hawk Queen stuff wasn't very good, I might give the guy another chance and read one of his better ones. Eddings though I'm never going close to again. I only read The Redemption of Althalus and it was a spew of puke-inducingly saccharine feel-good care-bear nonsense, with a predictable non-plot and characters so flat that to call them two-dimensional would be aggrandizing. If the teletubbies sat around a campfire to tell each other horror stories, they might have come up with something more exciting and more well-narrated. The book is obviously aimed at 10-year-old girls - it's just so one-sidedly cheerful and feel-goody that it DEPRESSED me!

The Blade Itself was great fun and I fully intend to finish the series howerver Bakker writes overwrought pap filled drivel. He might actually have some decent stories hidden somewhere in his writing if you can get past his extreme need to demonstrate his 'amazing' grasp on the English language. I wouldn't touch one of his books with a ten foot barge pole.

Aww give Bakker a break! Yeah, it can be "over"-wrtten at times, but I didn't find his language all that pretentious. At a few points where he did slip into pretentiousness I thought (perhaps in my naivete) that he was doing it on purpose to convey a particular character's inflated sense of ego.

The only times in the whole series where I thought the writing was actually bad was when he's describing some of the larger battles. The first big battle, which is told through Cnaiur's perspective, was actually really well-written, cause the character's limited point of view conveys the chaos of battle really well, and it does a good job of putting you in his head as he's slowly figuring out what the enemy general's plan is. When he finally grasps it it kinda makes you have a flashback of the whole battle up to that point and understanding it differently in the light of Cnaiur's realisation. But most of the subsequent battles he narrates in the third person rather than through any particular character's viewpoint and it's awful, because he sounds somewhere in between the writer of a medieval annal and a 5-year-old telling himself stories about his toy soldiers.

He's got other faults as well, like the second and third book in the series seem a bit compressed. The Darkness That Comes Before is narrated by so many different characters, all of them in radically different conditions and in so many different locations, you really got a sense of depth in the world he created, whereas the second and third books basically just follow the progress of the army. There's so much focus on what they do that you think they move through a vacuum, too little background so it ends up a bit bland.

But I just ate his books up despite their faults because the main characters, especially Achamian and Cnaiur, are pure masterpieces of storytelling: they're both so damaged and yet so likable, and he does such a great job of showing off the multiple sides of them while still keeping them consistent and realistic. Achamian has to be one of my favourite characters in all of fantasy literature, simply because he's so much like a real person in spite of the superhuman power which his ability to use magic gives him. There's this fantasy stereotype of the wizard as aloof, wise and dignified, and until now only Pratchett has had the balls to break it, but even his hillarious wizard characters are basically caricatures rather than real people. Achamian is one of depressingly few characters in fantasy fiction who actualyl acts like a real person: he'll get drunk and say rude jokes with his mates, he'll act all wise and sagely with his students, he'll be tender and romantic around his girlfriend, just like any real person, and without any fault lines showing. WHen he's with his colleagues he'll be sceptical and questioning of the real worth of his order's mission, but when he's with outsiders he'll defend his order to the last breath. When he's on a mission trying to hide that he's a wizard and gets roughed about by the locals, he'll have these hillariously petty "I would SO make your head blow up with a single spell if it wouldn't blow my cover!" thoughts, and at a few points when he's been "undercover" for a while he'll go "damn, I really do have magical powers, don't I? This is so surreal!" It's just overall such a trip to be inside the guy's head, simply because his thoughts are so convincingly human rather than the thoughts of some fantasy stereotype or some shadowy figure out of legend, and that makes the stuff he can do and the epic events he stumbles through seem so much more intense.

The only character in his books I didn't like was Kellhus, simply because he's just so much better than everyone else that it's just wrong to try and narrate parts of the book through his eyes: Bakker isn't as smart as Kellhus, he isn't as incisive as him, nor as eloquent (nor is anyone else, that's sort of the point), that it's just wrong of him to try and put us inside Kellhus's head - it just makes all his other characters look stupid when this guy can manipulate them so easily. His abilities are just so extraordinary that it's wrong of him to try and explain to us how it is he can do these things. Magic you can get away with explaining because it's supernatural - throw enough "technobabble" and you can explain the supernatural (Bakker draws from the terminology of philosophy and metaphysics for his technobabble in the same way that Star Trek draws from physics and engineering: ie. liberally and irreverently, and it's hillarious!), but because Kellhus's abilities are "mundane" (he's just an ordinary human supposedly trained to the fullest of his potential) it just sounds stupid and unconvincing when he tries to explain these abilities to us. If he left him as a bit more of a mystery it might've been more convincing.

You just have to laugh at those pretentious people here that spout their OPINIONS about best selling pieces of literature as if they were FACTS.

Sorry, but since when did sales alone become an indication of quality? Can YOU offer any "facts" to show how good your favourite books are?

 

[Meridian]

Wierdstone of Bresingamen

Alf Garner?

Fab book

Alan Garner. Also a kid's book (well, for teenagers technically) - see the discussion earlier about Pullman and Rowling.


And Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea books are for children - and are better than just about every other book mentioned so far.


M

 

[bandit]

Alan Garner. Also a kid's book (well, for teenagers technically) - see the discussion earlier about Pullman and Rowling.


And Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea books are for children - and are better than just about every other book mentioned so far.


M

yep agreed Ged is just about my favorite character.

 

[manveruppd]

phew here too, thought i was the onlky one that thought they were crap!

They weren't all THAT terrible. The first book was vaguely interesting. But the plot was pretty predictable, and when he starts really piling on the metaphysical stuff in the second and third book I got really annoyed with him, not because of his views but because of the pompous, didactic and sanctimonious manner of his delivery, as if he was uttering some deep truth that all us dimwits could never have come up with on our own. "Look at me, I'm so liberal-minded! I am here to free humanity from the tyranny of religious faith! I'm so wise, and my theories about religion are so profound and original!" No they're not mate, you're just a guy who's read Pratchett's Small Gods and found out about Vorlons through Babylon 5!

 

[helmet]

Fackbook, heard it's good but never actually been near it myself.

 

[wormwood]

My big 3 fantasy Authors are - Robert Jordon, George Martin and Steven Erikson. Tolkien may have been the first great fantasy writer but I would certainly rate these 3 as high or higher.

Other good writers I would definitely recommend are Robin Hobb, J.V. Jones, Ian Irvine and Trudi Canavan.

 

[SteveOBHave]

Trudi Canavan.

Q F T - an easy read but good stories.

 

[griffy]

THe Ravenor series from Dan Abnett. A great read!

 

[SteveOBHave]

Eddings though I'm never going close to again. I only read The Redemption of Althalus and it was a spew of puke-inducingly saccharine feel-good care-bear nonsense, with a predictable non-plot and characters so flat that to call them two-dimensional would be aggrandizing. If the teletubbies sat around a campfire to tell each other horror stories, they might have come up with something more exciting and more well-narrated.

PMSL - you so hit the nail on the head - that fairly well summed it up!

Aww give Bakker a break! Yeah, it can be "over"-wrtten at times, but I didn't find his language all that pretentious. At a few points where he did slip into pretentiousness I thought (perhaps in my naivete) that he was doing it on purpose to convey a particular character's inflated sense of ego.

I just couldn't do it - you clearly have a better head for taking in the 'whole' picture than I do because I just couldn't keep up with the character developments - it honestly felt like he was spending all his time developing the characters and the environment and just didn't progress the plot - perhaps it's just a reflection of how short my attention span is.

To me he lacks the art of moving a plot along and retaining the immersion that I got from Tolkein (ignoring Silmarillion which I had to put down). Another writer that I found to have the same art is Gene Wolfe and his Book of the New Sun series and also Robert Silverberg (Lord Valentines Castle etc) - altho both are Scifi writers but have the tendancy towards a fantasy lean.

 

[The Darkness]

I like Donaldson, and for me 'Mordants Need' is a stunning stroy and his best work to date - I prefer it to Covenant (which I also hugely enjoyed). If you havent read Mordants Need you should consider it.

And hes been mentioned a few times, but another vote for George Martin. Amazing books, which in case your a fan and havent heard HBO are commissioning several TV series about (one series per book).

Gemmil books are all exactly the same; yet I always enjoy them so I've read all but the one his wife finished off for him after his untimely death last year.

Good thread - given me some names to try out, thank you.

 

[Hostile_18]

If you like a long story I recommend Otherland by Tad Williams.

4000 pages over 4 books, one long excellent story.

Otherland: City of Golden Shadow
Otherland: River of Blue Fire
Otherland: Mountain of Black Glass
Otherland: Sea of Silver Light

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Edding's earlier books - The Belgariad and Mallorean (and offshoot books), and The Elenium and Tamuli are actually really good, Belgariad being the best.
Ongoing jokes between characters over multiple books (Can anyone give me a 'why me?'), some humour and little things for observative readers to notice, all sorts of little things you often don't find in other author's works. I introduced a couple of my book reading friends to these earlier series, and they all converted, and most now own some of the books in some of the series

The Elder Gods series is pretty cack though, and Redemption of Althalus is a mixed bag, you either hate it, or enjoy it
I quite enjoy it mind, not an epic, not hugely in depth, but there's a lot worse out there.
To be fair though, Redemption of Althalus isnt a shake on the belgariad - it's a similar style of story, just with a lot of the edges and depth cut away to make it fit in one book, but it's enjoyable if you treat it as such, rather than as an epic.
I heard other members of his family (wife and son) took a heavier involvement in his latest books, which could explain why they've been a lot weaker.


Earlier Salvatore books before they lost the focus on Drizzt and his comrades are also rather good, although I felt they got weaker when they moved away from Drizzt, but the Drizzt focused ones tend to be really rather good.

Wheel of Time by Jordan I'd say is a definate mixed bag, you might like them, but I got a little fed up of the repetetive over detailing of the same things again and again, although I found the premise interesting. There's only so much you can hear about the ladies uncrumpling clothes etc etc before you start to glaze over unless you have exceptional patience. From what I've heard of the later books in the series, he could perhaps really have done with condensing the series down to about 2/3 of the number of books, and doing away with a layer of the over detailing, to improve the pacing. But they're a niche market I'd assume, and I didnt quite fit the niche.

Tolkien Im actually not that fond of. I respect his role in the development of modern fantasy, however I found Lord of the Rings a trailing abomination to read to be honest, the Hobbit was better, but I think perhaps he's revered a little TOO highly for his works, because of his influence on modern fantasy, rather than the credit of the works themselves. Rose tinted reading glasses anyone?

Gemmel and Feist I read a little of, unfortunately I was forced to read later books in the respective series' so they didnt seem too great, as I was missing a lot of the understanding of the backstory and the characters. At some point I need to go back and look up thier first books, and give them a fresh shot from those, rather than jumping straight in part way through the continuity.

I've also read a lot of the assorted D&D books out there, I doubt I've touched the surface to be honest, and the Drizzt series are the foremost in my memory of those I've read. I really need to look some more of these up, as I enjoyed the Baldur's Gate games, and enjoy the Forgotten Realms setting, the Elminster series have been on my reading list, whenever I remember they exist, for as long as I can remember. One of these days I'll get round to reading them.

I still need to get round to reading the Dragonlance stories, having only read one of them that my family owned, many years back.

There's been plenty of other authors I've enjoyed as well, unfortunately as I borrow a lot of books from the libraries, I cant remember the authors too well, as I dont have any referance, and havent seen some of the books for years.