Books

[Taishyr]

Lady Door go read Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Erikson (Steve, I believe).

[Shale]

Thanks for summing up why no one should read The Wayfarer Redemption. That's always a valuable  public service.

[Dhyerwolf]

I think the main reason I read so much fantasy is because I read so damn fast and I hate trying to find a new series. I'm a really loyal reader and when I find an author I like, I stick with them until I've read up everything they've written. Then I mope about despondently looking at other books when I go to the bookstore until some happenstance introduces me to something new.

What series have you read and liked? The board overall probably covers a pretty broad spectrum, so you can probably get a few recommendations out of here.

[Lady Door]

Tai: Wow that is quite a large series. o_o I'll have to see if I can find a copy of Gardens of the Moon at the used SF/F bookstore. Thinking from the description it may get a little too gritty for my tastes, but it's worth a look.

Shale: Sharing the painful experience is the only way to survive the memory of it. :p My continuation with the series is a study in literary masochism, I guess.

Dhyer: Oh good lord. What series have I read and liked? Um...

Unabashed Neil Gaiman fan-girl. Specifically, I absolutely adore Neverwhere (hence the board name, hurr) and really liked American Gods and, to a lesser extent, Anansi Boys. I own a lot of Sandman (still collecting the Complete volumes -- 1 down!) and seriously loved Endless Nights. (Says a lot because I don't normally enjoy American graphic novels too much. They feel so ... flat most of the time.) Also really loved Good Omens and I swear, one day, Andrew WILL read that damn book.

Speaking of: read an awful lot of Terry Pratchett and enjoyed. Particularly like the Sam Vimes stories (who doesn't?) and those involving Death.

Harry Potter. Totally unashamed to mention this and that I did the midnight releases for the last 4, including receiving the first copy of the final book at the store downtown (where my awesome English professor was also waiting for a copy).

Still waiting on the next book in Song of Ice & Fire.

Gave up on Wheel of Time around book 5 or 6. Will probably come back to it later, but I was pissed off at the circularity and how goddamn SLOW everything was. Still, I really loved the world and a few of the characters.

PERN! I mentioned I'm a sucker for friendly dragon stories, right? MARY SUE AND HER BEAUTIFUL SPESHUL SHINY DRAGON AHOY! Got into it around 7th grade and kept up with it through high school. It's not all bad -- it's what introduced me to internet fandom and online RP. (I know. That's more painfully dorky than D&D.) -- Also liked the Brain & Brawn series, the Crystal Singers, and a few books from the Talent series. I swear to god if anyone recommends something based off of those, though, I'll give up reading altogether.

The Dragon Quartet. I put up with the ridiculously heavy-handed environmentalist message because I liked Erde and Ndoc and the dragons.

The Death Gate Cycle. <3

Dragonlance Chronicles Trilogy. Just those three.

I've also read a number of one-shots and short stories thanks to leads like wandering randomly down the romance aisle looking for the corniest book ever, talking in the hallways waiting for office hours with a prof and getting recommendations of books to read for fun, short story mags like Analog and F&SF, and going "Hey, everyone's STILL talking about this book, maybe I should read it?"

I'm open for suggestions, but I'm picky for no goddamn reason, too.

[Grefter]

If you like the pulp fantasy, get on to some Eddings.

I highly reccomend Robery Rankin if you are into surreal fiction. 

Also could give Kate Forsyth and Katherine Kerr a look.  Maggie Furey isn't bad for slightly more obscure stuff in that same pulpish field.

Edit - Oh yeah and if you want more of that sickly sweet Weiss and Hickman the Darksword trilogy is like a cheese pizza so fatty and sickening that you know you want to finish the whole thing even if it is horrible.

[Taishyr]

Gritty? Yeah, Malazan Book of the Fallen does gritty some, as a warning. However, it's perhaps been one of my favorite fantasy reads thus far.

As a slight note, books 2 and 3 can be read in either order (2 and 3 both lead to 4; 3 continues 1's plot a bit more directly, but 2 deals with some of the main characters from 1) and 5 could arguably be read before the first four. He likes his parallel plots, though he keeps them confined in each book.

[Sierra]

Seconding Grefter on Kerr. Quality pulp fiction that doesn't pretend to be much else.

I'll recommend C. S. Friedman because she is awesome. She's very good about delving deeply into the psychology of an individual and a culture simultaneously, exploring how the one shapes the other, etcetera. Coldfire trilogy is probably the place to start since that's functionally a fantasy series despite being set on another planet far in the future (she's usually a straight SF writer). Compelling antihero and a quirky take on the supernatural.

Also, China Mieville. I don't know what your tolerance level is for gritty, urban dystopias, but he's built a very lively one in New Crobuzon. I once heard it described as "What Middle Earth would look like if Mordor had won the war." Heavy dose of steampunk and a variety of novel methods on magic. Not exactly a continuous series, but he's written three books now in the same world and a lot of the same places/themes are shared.

EDIT: Reeding comprehenshun is gud. Apparently your tolerance level for gritty is low. Oh well! Maybe someone'll listen to me anyway.

[superaielman]

Gave up on Wheel of Time around book 5 or 6. Will probably come back to it later, but I was pissed off at the circularity and how goddamn SLOW everything was. Still, I really loved the world and a few of the characters.

;_;

Also, try Brandon Sanderson's mistborn series. I've just got into his works and I haven't been let down so far. Very enjoyable series, and he does a good job on his world building.

[Cotigo]

Gave up on Wheel of Time around book 5 or 6. Will probably come back to it later, but I was pissed off at the circularity and how goddamn SLOW everything was. Still, I really loved the world and a few of the characters.

;_;

Emo Super want 2 cut self?

---

You said you were waiting for the next ASoIaF book, yeah?  Have you checked out Martin's "Dreamsongs" collection?  It's worth a read, if you like short stories.  Skip, like, half of the stories in the first book, though.  They're his earliest works and... ugh yeah teenagers can't write.

[Sierra]

Oh, on Martin: find a collection of the Haviland Tuf stories if at all possible. (I managed to nab a a volume titled Tuf Voyaging a few years ago but haven't seen the like since). It's really cool stuff. Pulp SF that hits on some fun themes and has a supremely memorable main character.

[Grefter]

Oh yeah I should note that Rankin isn't pulp fantasy.  I managed to reccomend Pulp, wacked out fucking nuts humor, pulp and then more pulp.

[Dhyerwolf]

Hmm, I might recommend Robin Hobb (Even has dragons! Not exactly ones I'd call friendly though), but really just on the basis that I think she's one of the mostly consistent fantasy writers.

I'd also generally second the Brandon Sanderson recommendation on general principle too.

[Shale]

The Temeraire series, by Naomi Novik, is basically what you'd get if you set Pern in the Napoleonic Wars. It's not exactly flawless, but it's fun.

Also, try Esther Friesner for comic fantasy.

[Grefter]

Hobb is good as well.

[WanderingMind]

Once I get the time, I'll get back into Casino Royale and read from where I last left off.

[superaielman]

Finished book 2 of the Mistborn series. READ THIS SERIES.

Loved the same plot twist near the end Dhyer did. But more than that, the book- in spite of a slow first half- had and kept a constant sense of tension and dread. As bad as things got, you knew they'd just keep getting worse, and they did. Mmm, just awesome all around.

Edit: Read his website Dhyer, he's doing a chapter by chapter breakdown of the mistboard series. He's near the end of book 2. www.brandonsanderson.com

[Dhyerwolf]

Finished book 2 of the Mistborn series. READ THIS SERIES.

[superaielman]

Finished Elantris. Also have an overwhelmingly positive opinion of it. The characters were good and the twists were generally solid. READ THIS BOOK (AND MISTBORN).

World building is done effectively in spite of the book being set in only one small fraction of it, the characters interact well and the religious strife makes sense.  Some spoilers.

Perfectly set for a sequal. The prince's story in Elantris was just captivating. I was actually physically uncomfortable reading some of the sections there. The horror of being trapped in a dead city with gods that had been turned into zombies was interspliced with the comforts of royal life for the princess. Also, the magic system? Was awesome. The cause of the world's god beings falling into ruin wasn't some evil scheme by the bad guys, but by a geologic fault ruining their magical fields. I saw this twist coming a mile away, but it was still a great read.

[Dhyerwolf]

I'm not quite sure how well an Elantris sequel would work. What made the first book really work was the mystery of Elantris itself, and I feel like that would be hard to maintain into later books.

[superaielman]

There's still plenty to do in the world itself. Sanderson seems doubtful there will be a sequel though.

[Dhyerwolf]

There's plenty to do, but I just don't feel that it could necessarily to be told in a way that could be up to his usual standards. Mistborn worked because it was obviously heavily plotted out in terms of plot twists/magic setup, and Elantris feels like a very obvious one-off, albeit an awesome one. Of course, I also thought that the first Mistborn book also was a one-off and needed less resolution than Elantris did!

[superaielman]

Tuesdays with Morrie- Very well put together short novel.  The basic premise is simple (Mitch Albom finds out his old teacher is dying, goes to visit him,  understands life better) but works for what it is.

[metroid composite]

Camp Kumoni
(Just released its final chapter)

Freaking awesome.

Yeah, another internet fiction serial, although better edited than most.  I didn't read it for a long time because I thought "part 60?  Good grief."  Also, from the name and the picture I figured it was probably some silly ancient burial ground story (and given that the first four characters are introduced as "Phantom", "Winter", "Summer", and "Phoenix" I had my doubts early on).

Turns out it's just a story about summer camp set in the present day with normal people, no sci-fi, no magic, and no sex scenes.  (Granted, touches on all four categories in LGBT, but...written in 2008 on a medium that can't be censored, so I consider this appropriate).  Such grounded stories can be hard to find on the Internet, though I've actually got my sources now.  What makes Camp Kumoni really stand out is that in addition to the tastefulness, I found it exceptionally well-written; I literally read it for three days straight until I was up-to-date, then patiently awaited the last five chapters.

[ThePiggyman]

So, for Christmas (FOR CHRISTMAS!), my mother bought me a Satanic Bible... by Anton LaVey.
I'm a metalhead, and I listen to black metal, but I am by no means a satanist. =P

I've actually started reading it, it's almost like a fantasy novel. I won't lie, I like it so far.

[superaielman]

Hero of the ages: Time to go rant in PM with Dhyer. Good book overall, I did figure out the major plot twist though thanks to an assist from Brandon Sanderson's site. Great series, donno how much I like the end, but eh.