Some good fantasy series (books)?

loopstah

loopstah

loopstah

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So I haven't really read any recent-ish fantasy and was wondering what are the current "must read" fantasy series that I've missed.

EDIT: By current I mean recent.

Top 10 series I've read:
Sword of Truth
Riftwar/ Serpentwar
Elenium/ Tamuli
Belgariad/ Mallorean
Wheel of Time
Lord of the Rings
Deathgate Cycle
The Deed of Paksenarrion/ Legacy of Gird
Earthsea
Chonicles of Thomas Covenenant

I'm not keen on Robin Hobb and anything related to D&D is out.

EDIT: Looking for stuff set in fantasy worlds rather than crossovers, although I did list CoTC in my top 10. :p
 
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The obvious one (assuming you don't mind funny fantasy) is the Diskworld ;)

War of the Flowers by Tad Williams (although it's a single books)
The Deverry Series by Katherine Kerr
 
Werewolf said:
The obvious one (assuming you don't mind funny fantasy) is the Diskworld ;)

War of the Flowers by Tad Williams (although it's a single books)
The Deverry Series by Katherine Kerr
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I'm a big Pratchett Fan I was thinking more of a series with an overarching plot.

I vaguely remember reading some of the Deverry series when I was younger and I'm looking for newer stuff.

War of the Flowers sounds a bit like the Spellsinger series, although I'm more looking for stuff based wholly in a fantasy world rather than cross-over types, Dark Tower falls into the same group.
 
His writing isn't everyone's cup of tea, but maybe you'd enjoy reading the books that make up David Gemmell's Drenai tales? I'm also a big fan of his Rigante books and the extended story offered up in Lion of Macedon and Dark Prince. The Jon Shannow ones aren't half bad either! Can you tell I'm a fan? :D
 
Nullvoid said:
His writing isn't everyone's cup of tea, but maybe you'd enjoy reading the books that make up David Gemmell's Drenai tales? I'm also a big fan of his Rigante books and the extended story offered up in Lion of Macedon and Dark Prince. The Jon Shannow ones aren't half bad either! Can you tell I'm a fan? :D
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Yeah, I've read every Gemmell book except the Troy ones. May he be at peace with the Source.
They might not have been as epic as some other writers but he really knew how to write a proper adventure tale. My favourites are anything with Druss in, Echoes of the Great Song and Morningstar.

EDIT: I didn't want to list every fantasy series I've ever read as that would be a "BIG" list. :D
 
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I quite liked The Black Magician Trilogy by Trudi Canavan. It's not a masterpiece or anything, but it's an easy read and quite good :)
 
Sword of Truth
Riftwar/ Serpentwar
Elenium/ Tamuli
Belgariad/ Mallorean
Wheel of Time
Lord of the Rings
Deathgate Cycle
The Deed of Paksenarrion/ Legacy of Gird
Earthsea
Chonicles of Thomas Covenenant

I'm not keen on Robin Hobb and anything related to D&D is out
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:) very similar to what ive read minus those underlined (only read 1 or 2 of Goodkind books)

Its not recent but what about Terry Brooks. Wait before you lynch me! The 1st Shannara trilogy is excellent and imo the 2nd generation is almost as good.....but after that... *cough* it kinda lost its way.

Why no D&D? :D Dragonlance..Weiss & Hickman? Forgotten Realms stuff? R.A. Salvatore? Some gems in there dude.. also the Eternal Champion series by Moorcock?

Also the Dark Materials trilogy might surprise you..very readable..
 
Phyre said:
A Song Of Ice and Fire
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Seconded. Just bear in mind that only four books are currently available in the UK, and at least three more are planned, possibly four. But I've have to say that you've covered every other good series, along with several bad ones.


M
 
Deiwos said:
I quite liked The Black Magician Trilogy by Trudi Canavan. It's not a masterpiece or anything, but it's an easy read and quite good :)
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Interesting, looks worth checking out. :D


Phyre said:
A Song Of Ice and Fire
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I read "A Game of Thrones" when it first came out but it was that long ago I can't remember if I liked it or not. I hate waiting to find out the end of a story though, waiting for the end of the "Sword of Truth" was annoying and I'm not even going to mention the "Wheel of Time". :(

Although I have heard that there's quite a high body count in A Song of Ice and Fire so it might be worth having another look.

Surfer said:
Its not recent but what about Terry Brooks. Wait before you lynch me! The 1st Shannara trilogy is excellent and imo the 2nd generation is almost as good.....but after that... *cough* it kinda lost its way.
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Got all the Shannara books except the latest trilogy and the new prequel crossovers with the Word and the Void books. The Sword of Shannara was the first fantasy book I ever bought with my own money. Elfstones is the best of the lot but I still liked the others even if they weren't quite as good.

Surfer said:
Why no D&D? :D Dragonlance..Weiss & Hickman? Forgotten Realms stuff? R.A. Salvatore? Some gems in there dude.. also the Eternal Champion series by Moorcock?
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I've read quite a few Dragonlance books, they aren't bad but they aren't anything special either (although the Dragons of ....... ones are very good.) Plus there's that many different series I get bored. There's just too many settings/ stories/ times etc to really get into the whole thing. Game based universes are too cliche I feel.

Eternal Champion is a good series, but it's more like a lot of different series connected together than 1 set. Elric of Melnibone is fantastic although I prefer the Corum books, Hawkmoon is pretty good as well.

Surfer said:
Also the Dark Materials trilogy might surprise you..very readable..
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Yeah I really enjoyed His Dark Materials, the amber spyglass was a bit weaker than the first two but overall it was excellent. I quite liked the film as well :D

Meridian said:
But I've have to say that you've covered every other good series, along with several bad ones.


M
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I hope you aren't dissing Eddings, I'll have to whip out an epic prophecy on you if you are, before killing a god in my rage, but not before I set my merry band of companions on you. :p
 
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You could try the Otherland series by Tad Williams. Not 100% strictly fantasy, but incredibly good.

Naiomi Novik's His Majesty's Dragon series is quite good, not in the same league as much of what you've posted though.

Also, I dunno which Robin Hobb books you've actually read, but the Liveship Traders series is far better than any of the later stuff. (The most recent one-Soldier Son- is utter carp)

Other thoughts- The original Conan short stories by Robert Howard & some of the later stuff by various people contain a lot of decent stuff along with the dross, but don't really make up a coherant series.

Cheers

-Leezer-
 
loopstah said:
I hope you aren't dissing Eddings, I'll have to whip out an epic prophecy on you if you are, before killing a god in my rage, but not before I set my merry band of companions on you. :p
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First set was reasonable, and it was good to see a fantasy which actually had a sense of humour - most are more po-faced than a bad mime. But then he/they simply wrote the same story over and over again. Like Gemmell really.


If you want revisionist but good, Barbara Hambly's books starting with Dragonsbane. IIRC there are four or five. Catch is, they're no longer published.


But just remember Sturgeon's Second Law: ninety percent of everything is crud. And if anything that's being conservative when it comes to fantasy.


M
 
Definetely get the Song of Ice and Fire set, not finished yet and originally was only going to be 4 books long, then he said he couldn't get all the last book into one book so was splitting it into two. Now I hear there's more to it? Must be the $$ signs again, hope it doesn't go the way of "Wheel of Time". But by all means the first four are brilliant, and as been mentioned previously, high body count and quite graphic in places.
 
Silent-Lucidity said:
Definetely get the Song of Ice and Fire set, not finished yet and originally was only going to be 4 books long, then he said he couldn't get all the last book into one book so was splitting it into two. Now I hear there's more to it? Must be the $$ signs again
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Originally it was going to be five books: the current first three (note that in paperback form, book three is split into two books), then a five year break in the internal chronology, then two more to finish off. When the fans found out about the gap, there was a massive outcry, so Martin agreed to write a book to fill in that bit of the story. That ended up so long that it got split in two, only one of which has so far been published. He has also said that he now thinks that finishing the story will probably require three books, not two, making at least eight. I gather he also has partly written a book of shorter stories set in the same world before the first of the cycle.


Some other books to add:


The Fionavar Tapestry trilogy by Guy Gavriel Kay. Don't know that got missed out as he's probably the most consistently able writer of fantasy out there. His later books are fantasy versions of real historical events, but this set is pure fantasy.

The Winter of the World trilogy by Mike Scott Rohan. Probably out of print.

Lyonesse (originally published as three books, now usually a single volume) by Jack Vance.

The True Game (ditto now one volume) by Sheri S Tepper. Technically it's science fiction, but it play much more as fantasy. And I hate pigeon-holing.

Some one-offs:

Monument by Ian Graham.

Grunts by Mary Gentle.

If the OP wants to move away from "traditional" fantasy, then I can recommend China Meiville. But no way is he goblins, elves etc - thank God.


M
 
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