best fantasy books

irishman86

Anything new out that i should grab, Ive googled around and just found the same lists over and over
Reading Sandersons latest book but ive a opening for something after that :pac:

donegal_man

irishman86 wrote: »

Anything new out that i should grab, Ive googled around and just found the same lists over and over
Reading Sandersons latest book but ive a opening for something after that :pac:

Picked up Jonathan French's "The Grey Bastards" after reading some pretty good reviews.

Arcsurvivor

Mistborn, Lord of the Rings, and First Law books.

beauf

keane2097 wrote: »

If you had read the books you might make a distinction as I do.

A wry smile is a common human expression, if you think about how many times a day you make one yourself you'll probably agree. I remember noticing the words 'wry smile' appearing a lot in Erikson's books, but I couldn't tell you which character it was associated with, probably because as humans they were all smiling wryly quite often.

In WoT, character development is sacrificed at the alter of physical and verbal ticks. Nynaeve is a constantly irrational and angry character whose anger is constantly portrayed by tugging her braid, a habit she never notices and nobody else in the book has (even people from the same village as her).

Siuan Sanche gets the admirable back story that she was born in a fishing village, which is rammed down your throat for 14 books by the fact that every sentence she utters is some tortured fishing analogy.

The Aiel as a group have this honour system they all follow which is irrational to the point of extreme stupidity but it's an easy way to say 'this character is an Aiel, look at him talking about jietoh'.

There are a lot of others, as far as I remember Rand spends most of the books in an internal monologue about his need to be standoffish and emotionless, Mat is an artful dodger, Perrin is big but careful.

All the people in the books have shticks rather than fleshed out characters.

I'm sure anyone who has read the books knew immediately who I meant with *tugs braid* because that's what her character does over and over and over for 14 books, 'wry smile' in the Malazan books could probably be anyone.

There are 'wry smile' issues ad nauseum in WoT as well, the aforementioned 'I wish I was as good with women as Rand/Perrin/Mat' depending on which of them is having the four page monologue on the subject. The incessant smoothing of skirts by everyone, all the time. The how many more detailed descriptions of dresses do I have to sit through (this will appeal to the women readers no doubt :rolleyes:). The 'I have toes' Aiel shtick. Ugh, the whole thing is such a mess.

Last one, I actually forget about this but it just popped into my head and made my involuntarily roll my eyes. There is one character - one of Elayne's brothers - whose 'character' consists of an unwavering commitment to 'do the right thing' no matter what the cost to himself or anyone he cares about which he has always had since he was an infant. FFS - what a cop-out to writing a book about humans!

Agree with the majority of that. Poorly written meandering mess. But the world itself and the concepts were interesting. I liked the first 7 or 8 after that, it was a chore. Didn't really love the new ones at the end either. They lacked the charm of the early books.

It needed an editor with a heavy hand. If it had been condensed into a half the number of books it would be much better for it.

keane2097

Made me re-read my old post there and involuntarily roll my eyes once again at that joke Galad. Such a terrible character!

Rhiannon89

The Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski. It's a series of novels and short stories that inspired the video game and the upcoming Netflix series.

Sagats_knee

Currently reading Hyperion by Dan Simmons and enjoying it so far.

A left field recommendation from me would be some of the books from the Shadowrun series. Specifically the ‘Secrets of power’ trilogy.

Best fantasy book I’ve completed recently is ‘Legend’ by David Gemmell.

I see a lot of mistborn recommendations here. I tried reading it twice, and found it to be awful. The writing is good, but the main protagonist is essentially Ace Rimmer. I stopped reading when he learned a language in a morning because sure, he’s great.

AbusesToilets

Sagats_knee wrote: »

Currently reading Hyperion by Dan Simmons and enjoying it so far.

A left field recommendation from me would be some of the books from the Shadowrun series. Specifically the ‘Secrets of power’ trilogy.

Best fantasy book I’ve completed recently is ‘Legend’ by David Gemmell.

I see a lot of mistborn recommendations here. I tried reading it twice, and found it to be awful. The writing is good, but the main protagonist is essentially Ace Rimmer. I stopped reading when he learned a language in a morning because sure, he’s great.

Dan Simmons is a great writer. The Hyperion quadrology is very good, I found the Father's tale in the second book quite affecting, surprisingly so. His other duology, Illium and Olympus are brilliant. Blends the Trojan War and Shakespeare's Tempest into a barnstormer of a story.

Yeahyeah42

Nobody has mentioned “The death gate cycle” better than dragonlance in my opinion

Rendezvous with Rama - ok
Aeon by Greg Bear
HP love crafts stuff (more horror) mountains of madness, call of Cthulhu, couple of others can’t remember (really wierd style of English)
The Dark Tower is good (last book disappointing)
Black House - Peter Straub pretty good
Never read WOT so not sure or Mazalon? - would it be as good as the death gate cycle? Only read the 1st 3 books but am going to read the whole series - really enjoyed these

Greenheart by Charles de Lint really wierd but good
The dark is rising series by Susan cooper (would be bit childish now to read but enjoyable at the time)
Weaveworld and the damnation game by Clive barker more horror fantasy (find him very hit and miss) but these were good