[Blueiron]

How did any thread on this forum get so nasty so quickly? Please, people I came here for civilized company. I don't care who started it, and even though I don't actually know any of you, I believe that you can be better people than has been in evidence here. Being a jerk every now and then is forgivable, but also to be avoided at all costs. This point has been made enough now, and I can't be your parents, since I'm probably younger than most of you anyway.

For my part, here are some suggestions that are different. (I won't do ten, because I'm not as big a reader as I'd like to be)

First off don't dismiss "YA" stuff, eg, the Bartimaeus trilogy by Jonathan Stroud, or Garth Nix's Abhorsen trilogy.
Also, if there's ever a production of The Tempest, for instance, you can't go wrong with the Bard. That counts as great fantasy in my books, if you'll pardon the dreadful pun. (don't read it though. it makes plays seem lame)

Not exactly what you were looking for, I know, Saidin, but then if you already knew what you wanted, why ask

[polishgenius]

Yeah, even reading his other posts about TCG, some of you have gone waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay overboard here... This topic is a bit self-important and I can't see how just a list of books with no discussion would be of any use to anyone, but hey ho. Just ignore it ffs.

[Dolorous Menhir]

1. Gardens of the Moon
2. Deadhouse Gates
3. Memories of Ice
4. House of Chains
5. Midnight Tides
6. The Bonehunters
7. Reaper's Gale
8. Toll the Hounds
9. Dust of Dreams
10. Starship Troopers

[Aptorian]

Would you like to know more?

[blackzoid]

Briar King, on 22 August 2011 - 12:35 AM, said:

Is Starship Troopers an extremely great read? Ive never read anything by him but I guess if I did it would prob be ST.

I'm guessing its the perfect ending to the Malazan Book of the Fallen that would have met our expectations.
The way that Micahel Ironside came in, kicked the Crippled Gods arse and than explained everything to us was great.
Paran making out with Denise Richards was pretty cool too. Fact.

(I have never read the book if you can't guess.)

My list (in no particular order and not including Malazan as the OP has already read that, sorry some of them are too close to call so don't take this list as being gospel and so may not meet all your criteria)

1: Bakker's Second Apocolypse and Neuropath cos thats pretty freaky.
2: Kings: Dark Tower
3: Song of Fire and Ice.
4: Vernor Vinge: A Fire upon the Deep.
5: Foundation "Trilogy"
6: Pratchett: Everything.
7: Star Wars: Thrawn Trilogy
------------------------------

Thats it off the top of my head. Don't have 10, sorry.

This post has been edited by blackzoid: 22 August 2011 - 01:47 PM

[Salt-Man Z]

blackzoid, on 22 August 2011 - 01:46 PM, said:

Paran making out with Denise Richards was pretty cool too. Fact.

The best part was getting to choose which Paran made out with Denise Richards.

[Obdigore]

Salt-Man Z, on 22 August 2011 - 03:44 PM, said:

blackzoid, on 22 August 2011 - 01:46 PM, said:

Paran making out with Denise Richards was pretty cool too. Fact.

The best part was getting to choose which Paran made out with Denise Richards.

I went for one of the famous horses and along came Sarah Jessica Parker.

OH SNAP!

[Kruppe's snacky cakes]

Old thread, I know, but I wanted to play too.

Fantasy:

1. LOTR by JRRT
2. Malazan by SE (haven't read any ICE yet)
3. ASOIAF by GRRM
4. Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
5a. The Paradise War by Stephen R. Lawhead
5b. The Pendragon Cycle by Stephen R. Lawhead
6. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfus (and presumably the next books, as well)
7. Harry Potter (with apologies to JKR haters)
8. The Dragon Circle by Craig Shaw Gardner
9. The Last Apprentice series by Joseph Delaney
10. The Godspeaker trilogy by Karen Miller

I am only just now getting into epic fantasy, so I would expect some of these top 10 to eventually be displaced by Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson, J.V. Jones, etc.

SF:

(Hard to rank, so I will list them in alphabetical order.)

1. Any short story by Isaac Asimov
2. The Battlestar Galactica books by Glen A. Larson
3. The Ender books by OSC (with apologies to non-fans of Card)
4. The E.T. tie-ins by William Kotzwinkle
5. The Guns of the South, along with the various other alternate histories by Harry Turtledove
6. Imzadi (Star Trek) by Peter David
7. The Otherland series by Tad Williams (many may consider this fantasy, but it involves virtual reality, so I count that as science fiction)
8. The Quantum Leap books by various authors
9. The Space trilogy by C.S. Lewis
10. The Thrawn trilogy (Star Wars) by Timothy Zahn
11. The various silly SF of Alan Dean Foster and Craig Shaw Gardner (The Cineverse Cycle, Glory Lane, Quozl)

Oops, I cheated, that's too many.

I have never cared for hard or military SF, so my tastes are skewed toward movie/TV tie-ins and other sillier fare.

[worry]

There are novels set in the E.T. universe?!?!

[QuickTidal]

Yeah, I think they are set on his home planet...or something. I recall the cover.

[worry]

My entire worldview has been rocked from its foundations.

[Binder of Demons]

worrywort, on 21 June 2012 - 01:03 AM, said:

My entire worldview has been rocked from its foundations.

While mine was rocked by seeing Kruppe's Snacky Cakes' TOP 10 sci-fi list and seeing it didn't include any of

DUNE - Frank Herbert
LORD OF LIGHT - Roger Zelazny
THE STARS MY DESTINATION - Alfred Bester


And then more recently
Greg Bear's EON and ETERNITY novels
Neal Asher's "Agent Cormac" novels or greater Polity novels as well.
Iain M. Banks' CULTURE series
Stephen Donaldson's GAP series
Richard Morgan's Kovacs Trilogy (Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, Woken Furies)

I could go on with the Sci-Fi list quite easily.


I still find the fantasy harder to make a list of, since it would be dominated by Malazan or Dresden books.

[Salt-Man Z]

Strictly fantasy (or could pass as fantasy):

1. The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
2. Shardik by Richard Adams
3. The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson
4. The Acts of Caine by Matthew Stover
5. Mordant's Need by Stephen R. Donaldson
6. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
7. Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake
8. Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny
9. The Black Company by Glen Cook

[Mentalist]

I totally missed this thread when it existed...

1- MBotF (including ICE novels)
2- Nick Perumov's "Hjorward" trilogy + Cronicles of the rift cycle (Wooden sword, Diamond sword + Swordkeeper + Necromancer's daughter). this only gets second place since only "Godsdoom" is available in Enghlish.
3-Neal Asher's Polity stuff. Cormac/Spatterjay/misc--it's all solidly awesome
4 Dresden Files
5 Witcher Books by Andzhej Sapkowski--the whole cycle (The last Wish + The Sword of Destiny + the 5 novels)
6 Donaldson's Gap series
7 Sergey Lukyanenko - Night/Day/Twilight/Last Watch (available in Eng) + Deeptown trilogy (afaik, not available in English)
8 China Mieville-Bas-Lag novels (3 so far)
9 Mikhail Bulgakov - "Master + Margarita" + "Heart of a Dog"
10 Strugatsky Brothers - "The Doomed City" + "It's hard to be a God"

Honourable mentions:
Tchaikovsky's Shadows of the Apt
Ken Scholes "Psalms of Isaak"
ASOIAF
Vadim Panov's "Enclaves" + "The Hidden City" series
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Paul Kearney's "Monarchies of God"
Lynch's "Gentlemen Bastards"
Braided Path trilo by Chris Wooding
Coldfire trilo by CS Friedman

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 21 June 2012 - 02:33 AM

[Kruppe's snacky cakes]

worrywort, on 20 June 2012 - 10:28 PM, said:

There are novels set in the E.T. universe?!?!

Well, the first book was simply a novelization of the movie. Although it contained additional and/or differing scenes. E.g. the tamer "dog breath" insult instead of "penis breath." Interesting factoid: E.T. eats M&Ms in the novel. But the M&M/Mars company didn't want their candy used in the movie because E.T. would "scare" kids away from eating M&Ms. (Dumbest move ever. You know whoever made that decision was fired...) So they went with Reese's Pieces instead.

Anyway the sequel came out 3 years after the movie...available used on Amazon for 1 cent, incidentally.

E. T.: The Book of the Green Planet

Now, at last, we see where E.T. comes from -- who he really is and what his own distant world is like. Return with him to the Green Planet, whose inhabitants are the supreme masters of all growing things in the galaxy. Wander through their immense enchanted gardens, to which E.T. has returned, with Gertie's geranium, a fondness for junk food, and an all-consuming love for the earthling Elliott and his family. But things on Earth have changed since E.T. left. Elliott has begun to notice the opposite sex, and his cherished memories of E.T. are losing ground to thoughts of a girl in his class who wears a rhinestone ponytail clip. More important, he seems to have forgotten E.T.'s teachings of gentleness and peace. "He is about to become the most terrible thing of all," observes E.T. from three million light years away. "He is about to become -- Man."

And that's the last we would see of E.T. until Phantom Menace.

 143606378_0991117e4d.jpg (49.13K)
Number of downloads: 0

Binder of Demons, on 21 June 2012 - 01:42 AM, said:

While mine was rocked by seeing Kruppe's Snacky Cakes' TOP 10 sci-fi list and seeing it didn't include any of...

Well, admittedly I swim at the shallow end of the SF pool. Hard SF just tends to make my eyes glaze over.

[Abyss]

Just for context, I think entering entire series in lists like these is 'cheating'. DG is not the same as RCG. STORM OF SWORDS is (absofuckinglutely) not the same level as FEAST or DANCE. And PHILOSOPHER'S STONE is a far far cry from DEATHLY HALLOWS.

If the list isn't 'Top 10 series', then it's individual books and if 10 books in a series fills someone's list than so be it.

With that, and much internal debate, my Top 10 Fantasy Novels (at this exact second anyways...):

10 - The Hobbit - Tolkien
9 - Caine's Law - Stover
8 - The Thousandfold Thought - Bakker
7 - Dead Beat - Butcher
6 - The Crippled God - SE
5 - Lord of Chaos - RJ
4 - Storm of Swords - GRRM
3 - Blade of Tyshalle - Stover
2 - Deadhouse Gates - SE
1 - Memories of Ice - SE

[D'rek]

Abyss, on 21 June 2012 - 04:41 PM, said:

Just for context, I think entering entire series in lists like these is 'cheating'. DG is not the same as RCG. STORM OF SWORDS is (absofuckinglutely) not the same level as FEAST or DANCE. And PHILOSOPHER'S STONE is a far far cry from DEATHLY HALLOWS.

If the list isn't 'Top 10 series', then it's individual books and if 10 books in a series fills someone's list than so be it.

With that, and much internal debate, my Top 10 Fantasy Novels (at this exact second anyways...):

10 - The Hobbit - Tolkien
9 - Caine's Law - Stover
8 - The Thousandfold Thought - Bakker
7 - Dead Beat - Butcher
6 - The Crippled God - SE
5 - Lord of Chaos - RJ
4 - Storm of Swords - GRRM
3 - Blade of Tyshalle - Stover
2 - Deadhouse Gates - SE
1 - Memories of Ice - SE

On the other hand, I would certainly put Pratchett high up on any list of my favourite fantasy series, but I wouldn't put any single one of his books nearly as high...

[amphibian]

D, on 21 June 2012 - 06:19 PM, said:

On the other hand, I would certainly put Pratchett high up on any list of my favourite fantasy series, but I wouldn't put any single one of his books nearly as high...

Night Watch or The Thief of Time are probably universally considered his best books. Of the two, I prefer the emotional resonance of Night Watch and actually would slot it in my top 10 list. It's a phenomenal book.

This thread is weird in that reading it from the start reminds me of how much a jerk that OP was - specifically in how he went after Terez and a few others -but I'm strongly tempted to hammer down a top 10 single books list. Will probably let it fester for a few days and then post my list.

[Baco Xtath]

Can't rank them:
Gone-Away-World
Gears of the City
Under Heaven
The Scar
Memories of Ice
Long Price Quartet (take that Abyss)
Hyperion
The Etched City
Lamb
Terminal World
House of Suns
All Revelation Space books
First Law trilogy
Malazan - all
All Pratchett
All Mieville


Now I'm just fucking with you, you law-laying cat of darkness.

[Abyss]

Baco Xtath, on 21 June 2012 - 08:09 PM, said:

Can't rank them:
... (take that Abyss)
...Now I'm just fucking with you, you law-laying cat of darkness.

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