[McLovin]

For heroic fantasy it gets no better for me than ASOIAF. The Hobbit is a sentimental favorite though (my favorite JRRT, interestingly, is his short story "Farmer Giles of Ham" which has nothing to do with Middle Earth).

For other fantasy, I give big props to Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast books. Not big on plot, but the writing is outstanding.

Borges' short story "The Aleph" is awesome. Can't remember his other stuff.

[Macros]

seconding/ thirding Legend by Gemmell.


series?
Troy by Gemmell, I absolutely love it.

[RodeoRanch]

Chandler's "Marlowe" books. Love 'em to death.

[stone monkey]

McLovin, on 11 June 2010 - 08:10 PM, said:

Borges' short story "The Aleph" is awesome. Can't remember his other stuff.

When the narrator describes what he sees through the Aleph itself. It's like the world dropping away beneath you; vertiginous...

I love this story, but I love pretty much all of Borges fiction. Everyone should give him a go.

[Daeghrefn]

I know this is the Malazan forum, but my favourite fantasy series is still Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, followed closely by ASoIaF. Like many of you, however, the one-two punch of DG/MoI is still right up there for me.

If we're talking about literature in general, there's no question that my favourite book is Moby-Dick. I couldn't even tell you how many times I've read it, and each time I revisit it I find something that I haven't considered before that takes my breath away. Easy reading it most certainly isn't, but I can't think of many novels that combine adventure and humour with the extraordinary depth and insight that Melville was able to achieve. I love the fact that I can open MD almost at random and find a passage that speaks to the very deepest expanses of my being.

[maro]

stone monkey, on 11 June 2010 - 07:33 PM, said:

Infinite Jest may well be my favourite novel... Closely followed by House of Leaves

My favourite single book is probably the edition I have of Jorge Luis Borges Collected Fictions

As far as fantastic literature goes, I'm a big fan of Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos and I'm also very fond of China Mieville's Bas Lag Novels and Alastair Reynolds' Inhibitors Sequence I'm also getting that way about Charles Stross' Bob Howard/Laundry Series

I do love me a bit of Lovecraft, though, especially At the Mountains of Madness

All good above.

I'd add Neal Stephenson

[Kurt Montandon]

Hmmm ... if we just go with what I can re-read time and time again, I'll go with Bujold's Vorkosigan series.

If you haven't read it, you should. Period. Mirror Dance is my favorite gut-kick triumphant-character-redemption-at-the-end book, and as someone mentioned up-thread, Mountains of Mourning is a beautiful short-story that doesn't even have to be read as sci-fi (in the collection that it was published within, Border of Infinity, the titular novella is an incredible sf story as well).

[maro]

I've never been tempted by ASoIF. Is it worth reading?

[vomitoff]

questions like these are always hard to answer definitively if one has been reading for a long time. for me though, im gonna divide it into science fiction and fantasy

science fiction (first 2 my all time favourites):
dune series by frank herbert
foundation series by isaac asimov (and all his other short stories)
snow crash by neal stephenson (only book of his ive read so far, and quite a long time ago that i read this one - will get the baroque cycle next)
ender saga by orson scott card
the hyperion books by dan simmons (i liked his illium/olympos books too, although his thinly veiled animosity towards a certain religion pissed me off)
the forever war by joe haldeman - written by a vietnam vet. (after reading this i went ahead and read old man's war, armor, starship troopers and a few other ones like this, all good)

fantasy
the works of tolkien, obviously. the silmarillion is my favourite - who he built everything up, and how it all came crashing down. biblical.
guy gavriel kay's tigana, lions of al-rassan (both of which have been mentioned by others before me), last light of the sun. (he worked as an editor on tolkien's works, btw, and his sarantium novels were good, but not half as good as these)
prince of nothing series - bakker - goes without saying, seen this and ASOIAF and covenant in the posts before me, so anyone who hasn't read them, please do.
song of ice and fire - grrm - i like the fact that people die, and quite regularly. more often than not the shitty fantasy series out there do not have this sense of brutality, and even though this might seem a crude distinction, its the one i usually use to decide whether i liked a particular book/series or not.
harry turtledove's the world at war series - a reimagining of world war II in a fantasy setting. brilliant.
thomas covenant - stephen donaldson - a great epic, mature and not shy of depicting the world as a cruel screwed up place. there are some amazing moments in this series.
malazan, obviously. i picked GotM up on a hunch around eight years ago, and wow. what can you say.
legend by david gemmel was good, as was waylander, but what i did not like about both books was the sense of enthusiasm, bordering on cheesy. despite this, legend is still among my favourites.
the stories of kane by karl edward wagner - handsdown the most bad ass character ever
conan the barbarian - robert e howard
haven't read the black company, or the abercrombie novels, but if they dont have that cheesy david eddings-style element, or insanely boring bad soap ala wheel of time, then ill check them out.

for fans of japanese samurai culture i would recommend musashi by eiji yoshikawa.

[McLovin]

maro, on 17 June 2010 - 03:29 AM, said:

I've never been tempted by ASoIF. Is it worth reading?

If you like characters, yes. Every one of his characters is distinct and interesting, and unlike most fantasy, they drive the plot, not the other way round.

[Abyss]

BESTEST STANDALONE: Lions of Al' Rasan - GGK.
BESTEST SERIES: MBF - SE. No question.
BESTEST SERIES THAT ISN'T MBF: SIF - GRRM
BESTEST SERIES THAT ISN'T MBF OR SIF: The Dresden Files - Butcher.
BESTEST SERIES THAT DOESN'T GET NEARLY THE LOVE IT DESERVES POSSIBLY BECAUSE THE AUTHOR GETS PAID VASTLY MORE MONEY TO WRITE VIDEO GAME BASED BOOKS THUS PROVING THE THEORY THAT THE UNIVERSE IS BOTH HIDEOUSLY UNFAIR AND UNFAIRLY HIDEOUS: Acts of Caine - Stover.

- Abyss, just spotted that 'God of War' book and is now sad.

[Salt-Man Z]

Abyss, on 17 June 2010 - 06:51 PM, said:

- Abyss, just spotted that 'God of War' book and is now sad.

Why sad? Do you somehow think Stover can write a book that's not awesome?

[Abyss]

Salt-Man Z, on 17 June 2010 - 07:06 PM, said:

Abyss, on 17 June 2010 - 06:51 PM, said:

- Abyss, just spotted that 'God of War' book and is now sad.

Why sad? Do you somehow think Stover can write a book that's not awesome?

No. The opposite. I think Stover is a frikkin brilliant author and i want to read his original works. Not stuff based on video games that he gets a co-writing credit for.

And i read the first five pages. It's not on par with the Caine books.

[Rath Orlong]

Fantasy series - Malazan (in fact it has ruined my taste for most other fantasy)

Sci-fi series - Herbert's Dune (just like Herbert, Erikson bombards you with half-explained tidbits. addictive.)

Stand alone - wouldn't know where to start. I've been devouring fiction for 25 years. Needle in a haystack would be much easier.

[Mentalist]

I'm gonna add some love for "The Count of Monte Cristo"--that book is brilliant. some lesser-known non-SF novels that I love to death would be Bulgakov's "Master and Margarita" and "The White Guard", as well as almost anything by Jack London, but "The Valley of the Moon" is simply one of the best books I've ever read.

moving onto SF:

best fantasy series ever: this is a 50/50 split between Malazan Book of the Fallen and Nick Perumov's "Chronicles of the Rift"--the latter being best described as "the Russian SE"
honourable mentions to the Sarantine Mosaic Duology by GGKay, Dresden Files by Butcher, Sapkowski's "The Witcher", Lukyanenko's "Watches" and Black Company by Glen Cook.

best standalone book ever: "Not a time for Dragons", by Nick Perumov and Sergei Lukyanenko (hasn't been translated, afaik), and "Godsdoom" by Nick Perumov (available in English thru Amazon)

moving onto Sci-FI:
Series: Hyperion by Dan SImmons and Night's Dawn by Peter F. Hamilton. I haven't read a whole bunch of sci-fi, so that'll be it for now.

best sci-fi standalone: two books by the Strugatsky brothers, I can't really name a favourite. one is "Hard to be a God", the other's "The Doomed City". both are classics, and I love them to death.

[haroos]

two great series, that for some reasons are largely unknown :
1)runelords by david farland - a great series with a very original magic system, and great writing.
the series is made out of two series, the original which is 4 books, and despite being about 2500 pages, covers barely 2 months of that world ...
truly fast paced if ever there was one.
the second series is very special, usualy a sequel series writes the same stuff, optimally at good enough level to make it enjoyable, but this, i think
is the first sequel series i have ever read that creates something new entirely.
even though it follows through on the first series, it still changed the whole settings so radically, that's it's practically a new series.

2) not realy a series, so far 2 books, and i'm not quite sure there will be more, it's the "godslayer" books by james clemens.
again, original, dark, very engaging.
the story covers all the bases : characters, riveting story, originality, everything i like.

and 2 worth mentioning books :

1) the bridge of d'arnth by carol berg, 4 books, she is the best author.
2) "the sword, the ring and the chalice" by deborah chester (who was the writing teacher of jim butcher) , great great story, a must read.

This post has been edited by haroos: 03 July 2010 - 12:54 AM

[Mentalist]

Runelords are kind of hit or miss.
I've read the original series, found it highly enjoyable, but after a break, I've been unable to get myself to read Book 5. I still have it somewhere, I think, but it's chucked away in the deep recesses of my bookcase, along with russel Kirkpatrick, Book 1 of the Iron elves, the first 2 Tom Lloyd books, and other stuff I intend to never re-read.

[ObsoleteResolve]

The problem with the Runelords is the fact that the ultimate villain (beyond that issue, in and of itself: OHLOOK, THAT'S NOT THE LAST BOSS, HERE'S THE UBER ULTRA FORM. God [/i]damn[/i] people who's books read like a fucking videogame. Seriously.) is named the One True Master of Evil.

It took an interesting, promising start and just went "No, seriously. You're doing this? Seriously, mate. Think it through. Please. Oh. You're doing this thing. You're really doing it . . ."

Fantasy, Viriconium is amazing.

Sci-fi, I just recently read Passage at Arms by Glen Cook and it was seriously, seriously amazing. Probably one of my favorite books by him, and easily one of my favorite sci-fi novels.

@Mentalist- have Nick Perumov's novels been translated? I've read all the Sapkowski and Lukyaneko that I can get my hands on, and enjoyed them thoroughly. Comparing Perumov to them (and noticing that Lukyaneko and Perumov worked together on a book . . .) definitely perks up my interest.

[Salt-Man Z]

The first Runelords book was phenomenal, but the next three books did that slow slide into mediocrity that too many series do. (Oh, look, more Reavers...again.) I've been intrigued by the premise of some of the later books, but the Amazon reviews have completely scared me off. That, and the fact that I've discovered far better authors to read in the intervening years.

This post has been edited by Salt-Man Z: 03 July 2010 - 06:20 PM

[Mentalist]

ObsoleteResolve, on 03 July 2010 - 06:27 AM, said:

The problem with the Runelords is the fact that the ultimate villain (beyond that issue, in and of itself: OHLOOK, THAT'S NOT THE LAST BOSS, HERE'S THE UBER ULTRA FORM. God [/i]damn[/i] people who's books read like a fucking videogame. Seriously.) is named the One True Master of Evil.

It took an interesting, promising start and just went "No, seriously. You're doing this? Seriously, mate. Think it through. Please. Oh. You're doing this thing. You're really doing it . . ."

Fantasy, Viriconium is amazing.

Sci-fi, I just recently read Passage at Arms by Glen Cook and it was seriously, seriously amazing. Probably one of my favorite books by him, and easily one of my favorite sci-fi novels.

@Mentalist- have Nick Perumov's novels been translated? I've read all the Sapkowski and Lukyaneko that I can get my hands on, and enjoyed them thoroughly. Comparing Perumov to them (and noticing that Lukyaneko and Perumov worked together on a book . . .) definitely perks up my interest.

AFAIK, only one of Perumov's books has been translated into english--a huge shame, since he lives in the States most of the time.

the book is "Godsdoom", and it can be found on Amazon. the cover's horrific and off-putting, but the book is awesome. I've written a review of it in the reviews subforum.

re: the book he co-authored with Lukyanenko--it's called "Not a time for Dragons" and it is also a great story.