[Furion]

Hey everyone. I'm out of books to read at the moment, and looking to start a new series.

Ive read plenty of Terry Brooks....Eh
Read Patrick Rothfuss's Name of the Wind. Awesome.
I read all of Malazan, obviously, but am avoiding anything involving Bauchelaine, he didn't seem worth an entire book from what I saw in MoI. Favorite Series Ever at the moment.
I read all of ASoIaF. Ecstatically Loved
Read all of WoT. Liked Greatly, loved a little
I finished the Belgariad and the Mallorean. Loved
Finished The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone most recently (starts with The Briar King). I thought it was great.

So now I turn to you all. What do you think must be read in one's lifetime, fantasy or science fiction. Give me your best recommendations, please.

And lets make this interesting. If you wish, vote yays or nays for series that others post. There probably won't be too many nays, as its unlikely that a recommended series by one will be voted down by others, but I'd like to see what series can gather a consensus from this board.

Bonus points for pointing out specifics that make each series stand out. Excellent characters, or prose, or amazing plot, what have you.

Thanks very much.

edited for Briar King. Forgot to mention it.

This post has been edited by Furion: 24 June 2010 - 01:19 AM

[NikitaDarkstar]

The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett are amazing if you like comedy. (Can be read in any order you like.)
More or less anything by Neil Gaiman, except possibly Stardust. (It's not a bad book, but very unlike him.) American Gods and Anansi Boys are the best in my opinion.
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. (Modern, fun twist on the apocalypse? hell yes.)
The Sandman by Neil Gaiman. Technically It's comics and not books, but trust me, they should be on everyones top 10 list of things to read before they die.
The Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. They're a crossover between historical fantasy and normal/high fantasy. Pretty mucha take on what the war between great brittain and napoleon could have looked like if dragons were real. (There's alot more to it than that ofcourse. Really it's another top 10 things to read before you die series.)

[SpectreofEschaton]

After getting caught up with Malazan the first time through, I turned to Bakker's Second Apocalypse (a.k.a The Prince of Nothing) series. I was not disappointed.

[Mentalist]

Furion, on 24 June 2010 - 01:16 AM, said:

Finished The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone most recently (starts with The Briar King). I thought it was great.

are you sure we've read the same last book in the series? I loved it, up untill the ending of "the Born Queen". It sucked royally, imho

I'm gonna add China Mieville's Bas-Lag books to the list--"Perdido Street Station", "The Scar" and "Iron Council" were all pure, concentrated awesome, if only loosely connected.

i'll also add Sergei Lukyanenko's Watch books, since I doubt anyone else would.

[Furion]

Mentalist, on 24 June 2010 - 02:10 AM, said:

Furion, on 24 June 2010 - 01:16 AM, said:

Finished The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone most recently (starts with The Briar King). I thought it was great.

are you sure we've read the same last book in the series? I loved it, up untill the ending of "the Born Queen". It sucked royally, imho

I'm gonna add China Mieville's Bas-Lag books to the list--"Perdido Street Station", "The Scar" and "Iron Council" were all pure, concentrated awesome, if only loosely connected.

i'll also add Sergei Lukyanenko's Watch books, since I doubt anyone else would.

The climax was a bit anticlimactic, heh, but that didn't really surprise me. Keyes's strength was never in describing epic battles, he always glossed over fight scenes. The epilogue really saved it for me. The rest of the series was still good as well.

Also, this is the first I've heard of any of these books or authors. Can you elaborate a bit on them to give me a little context? I could always just wiki them but I'd rather get info from a better source.

This post has been edited by Furion: 24 June 2010 - 02:15 AM

[Mentalist]

Lukyanenko is a Russian writer who's been published in English, the first book of the series is called "Night Watch" (not related to Prachett's Discworld book of the same name). It is a series of Urban fantasy books, with a lot of action, black and grey morality, and a nice twist on the whole "good vs Evil" think.

Bas-Lag books are a set of novels set in a New Weird setting that have some really cool themes to them. Mieville does a great job creating a world that's pretty much unlike anything you've ever seen before.

[HoosierDaddy]

Take a gander at these threads. The "Other Lit" section is chock full of people recommending other fantasy series, reviewing, and discussing them. By the by, if the author has a sub-forum it's worth reading.

http://forum.malazan...showtopic=18713

http://forum.malazan...showtopic=18897

http://forum.malazan...showtopic=17189

[MTS]

Moorcock's Elric novels are fantastic in my opinion.

Cook's Black Company

Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun

Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

Tad Williams' Otherland

Feist's Magician and A Darkness at Sethanon (don't consider Silverthorn must-read, but still good)

Feist and Wurts' Empire trilogy

C.S. Friedman's Coldfire trilogy

Daniel Abraham's Long Price Quartet

Jim Butcher's Dresden Files

This post has been edited by MTS: 24 June 2010 - 03:05 AM

[worry]

Robin Hobb's Farseer, Liveship, and Fool trilogies (which all exist within the same world and should be read in order). Excellent characters (though there's initial youthful whining for the Farseer protagonist), genius plotting and world-building with long term stuff paying off, and some interesting tweaks to fantasy tropes. Not so much as SE engages in, but for instance, her take on dragons is among the most interesting I've read. I believe she gets much love from GRRM, if that means anything.

Tad Williams' Memory Sorrow and Thorn trilogy -- traditional in some ways, but more of a web of plot threads being woven rather than quest fantasy, so even with a young main hero it escapes all of those farmboy tropes. And it doesn't shrink from brutality for the most part.

Keith Donohue's The Stolen Child. Kind of like an extremely melancholy Neil Gaiman; very affecting story all in all. It's a take on the changeling story, told in dual first person from the perspectives of both the human and the elfling.

I don't read a lot of sci-fi, but one great novel I read was Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep...it starts off confusing and even a bit overwhelming, but once you settle in it manages to balance some very strong theoretical stuff with space opera and even fantasy elements.

I also like the bit of GRRM's sci-fi I've read, namely the Tuf Voyaging collection which I'd describe as space fable rather than space opera. Very unique as far as I know. And another short story collection called Nightflyers. He also has a really cool vampire book called Fevre Dream which is set along the Mississippi River during the steamboat era.

This post has been edited by worrywort: 24 June 2010 - 08:19 AM

[Furion]

Thanks for all the replies so far, keep em' coming!

Followup question: which authors make the best use of prose, in your opinions?

[Tsundoku]

worrywort, on 24 June 2010 - 04:09 AM, said:

I don't read a lot of sci-fi, but one great novel I read was Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep...it starts off confusing and even a bit overwhelming, but once you settle in it manages to balance some very strong theoretical stuff with space opera and even fantasy elements. He also has a really cool vampire book called Fevre Dream which is set along the Mississippi River during the steamboat era.

I also like the bit of GRRM's sci-fi I've read, namely the Tuf Voyaging collection which I'd describe as space fable rather than space opera. Very unique as far as I know. And another short story collection called Nightflyers.

A Fire upon the Deep was very cool.

I thought Fevre Dream was by GRRM?

http://www.amazon.co...n/dp/1857983319

Adding David Gemmell's Troy series - really good.

This post has been edited by Sombra: 24 June 2010 - 05:37 AM

[Aptorian]

Mentalist, on 24 June 2010 - 02:10 AM, said:

I'm gonna add China Mieville's Bas-Lag books to the list--"Perdido Street Station", "The Scar" and "Iron Council" were all pure, concentrated awesome, if only loosely connected.

I'll warn against reading Iron Council. PSS and Scar are both excellent, some of the best fantasy I've read in my opinion, but Iron Council was not good. Too much of Mievilles political opinions started bleeding into the story. It didn't have the same structure as the first two, there was too much focus on that gay elementalist, many of the storylines seemed to be tagged on for no particular reason. The big bad at the end seemed to have no connection with the rest of what was going on.

MTS, on 24 June 2010 - 03:03 AM, said:

Tad Williams' Otherland

I'll add War of the Flowers to Williams recommendations.

It's a great modern take on fairy tales.

[Soulessdreamer]

1632 - Eric Flint

The Hamer and the Cross trilogy - harry harrison

The deeds of Paksinarion - Elizabeth Moon

the two Gird novels - Elizabeth Moon

the War god novels - David Weber

Sci fi I tend towards the milliteristic

Honor Harrington - David Weber

Legacey of the Aldenta - John Ringo

Empire of Man - John Ringo

The Vorkosigan Novels - Lois mcmaster bujold

The uplift trilogies - David Brin

the ender novels - Orsen Scott Card

TTFN

[alt146]

Cannot second the Bas-Lag books and The Dresden Files enough. I don't think Iron Council was as bad as all that. It's definitely the weakest book in the series, but there were still some very enjoyable parts.

I haven't read everything that's mentioned above here, but Pratchett, Bakker, Abraham, Hobb and Gaiman are all also worth checking out.

I'm gonna add Hyperion by Dan Simmons and the Takeshi Kovaks Trilogy (Altered Carbon, Woken Furies, Broken Angels), as well as Heroes Die by Matthew Woodring Stover (beat the cat to it ) from my side.

Some of my favourite prose is Clive Barker, although it's always difficult to recommend him since his work is a little bit eclectic and he's the type of author you either love or hate.

[Bauchelain the Evil]

Furion, on 24 June 2010 - 04:18 AM, said:

Thanks for all the replies so far, keep em' coming!

Followup question: which authors make the best use of prose, in your opinions?

Gene Wolfe hands down. I have liked all books I've read of him(just two btw) and I think that the prose has something to do with it.

Scott Bakker(The Prince of Nothing,The Judging Eye also writes very well, in my opinion.

[champ]

to add to the list, any David Gemmell book and also Brent Weeks - Night Angel trilogy

[Ulrik]

Mentalist, on 24 June 2010 - 02:10 AM, said:

 

i'll also add Sergei Lukyanenko's Watch books, since I doubt anyone else would.

All Watch are great books. Hope English translation went well.

[worry]

Sombra, on 24 June 2010 - 05:36 AM, said:

worrywort, on 24 June 2010 - 04:09 AM, said:

I don't read a lot of sci-fi, but one great novel I read was Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep...it starts off confusing and even a bit overwhelming, but once you settle in it manages to balance some very strong theoretical stuff with space opera and even fantasy elements. He also has a really cool vampire book called Fevre Dream which is set along the Mississippi River during the steamboat era.

I also like the bit of GRRM's sci-fi I've read, namely the Tuf Voyaging collection which I'd describe as space fable rather than space opera. Very unique as far as I know. And another short story collection called Nightflyers.

A Fire upon the Deep was very cool.

I thought Fevre Dream was by GRRM?

http://www.amazon.co...n/dp/1857983319

Adding David Gemmell's Troy series - really good.

You're right, I thought of it last but added it to the wrong paragraph. I've edited my original post now though.

[MTS]

Aptorian, on 24 June 2010 - 06:15 AM, said:

Mentalist, on 24 June 2010 - 02:10 AM, said:

I'm gonna add China Mieville's Bas-Lag books to the list--"Perdido Street Station", "The Scar" and "Iron Council" were all pure, concentrated awesome, if only loosely connected.

I'll warn against reading Iron Council. PSS and Scar are both excellent, some of the best fantasy I've read in my opinion, but Iron Council was not good. Too much of Mievilles political opinions started bleeding into the story. It didn't have the same structure as the first two, there was too much focus on that gay elementalist, many of the storylines seemed to be tagged on for no particular reason. The big bad at the end seemed to have no connection with the rest of what was going on.

MTS, on 24 June 2010 - 03:03 AM, said:

Tad Williams' Otherland

I'll add War of the Flowers to Williams recommendations.

It's a great modern take on fairy tales.

I think you just hate people opining in their books, since you were disapproving of the Mars Trilogy for doing the same thing. In which case I don't know how you can't throw the book at SE, since he's been the most guilty by far out of all I've read. Not a criticism, as I don't mind it personally, but yeah.

[Fist Gamet]

MTS, on 24 June 2010 - 03:03 AM, said:

Moorcock's Elric novels are fantastic in my opinion.

Cook's Black Company

Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun

Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

Tad Williams' Otherland

Feist's Magician and A Darkness at Sethanon (don't consider Silverthorn must-read, but still good)

Feist and Wurts' Empire trilogy

C.S. Friedman's Coldfire trilogy

Daniel Abraham's Long Price Quartet

Jim Butcher's Dresden Files

Seconded (except for Donaldson) And also adding Richard Morgan's Kovacs trilogy and also the complete Conan works by Robert E Howard. Most brilliantly well written prose will probably be Wolfe, yes, I agree, although Howard is a terrific writer also.