Fantasy Fiction

[Beelzebrush]

Do you guys read fantasy fiction?

I hadn\'t read anything by a \'fantasy\' author for years but since Christmas, I seem to have consumed masses of it. I have to say that they are very well written in most cases and not at all the cheese I kind of remember. I think I\'ve just about exhausted the books of - Guy Gavriel Kay, David Eddings and Raymond E. Feist.... any suggestions for further quality authors?

 

[the.super.hamster]

Wheel Of Time

I had gone through pretty much all of David Eddings and Raymond E. Feist so I decided to start on Robert Jordan\'s \"Wheel of Time\" saga. Was a bit daunted by looking at the size of the books and the number in the series (time to read is a luxury at the moment due to new member of the family) but am really enjoying them and am up to number 7 in the series to date.

 

[KatieG]

George RR Martin

I heartily recommend George Martin\'s A Song of Ice and Fire series. The first book is A Game of Thrones, and he is currently writing the 4th out of what should be 6 or 7. It\'s a bit more grown up fantasy than any of the other authors mentioned so far though - people die, bad things happen, etc, so if you don\'t like that kind of fantasy this series may not be for you... but if you do, I highly recommend it. My favorite Fantasy series of all time (at least so far).
--Katie G.

 

[No Such Agency]

I found Eddings to be appalling (hard to pin down why though). Guy Gavriel Kay is pretty good. Neil Gaiman is great but he doesn\'t write \"high fantasy\", more like contemporary dark fantasy. I *highly* recommend Gaiman\'s \"Neverwhere\" but it doesn\'t have any elves or dragons, so if you\'re jonesing for that kind of thing you might prefer \"Stardust\". I hear \"American Gods\" is also good, but again, it\'s more contemporary.

 

[Corvus]

After a very long time of reading SF only, I have started reading fantasy a year or three ago. Since then I\'ve read Tolkien, Robert Jordan, Weiss & Hickman,... That last one I might advice to you, as it can really be described as \"classic\" fantasy.

The last book I\'ve bought is a SF book: Sundiver by David Brin.

 

[ZaPhOd]

Clones

I find that many \"adventure\" style Fantasy books are clone like copies of th eLord of the Rings. Eddings was wuite good, but there were vast similarities. Sparhawk rocked of course. I started readin gthe Sword of Shannara and put it down about 1/3 way through as it seemed waaaay to familiar to me. I really enjoy Michael Moorcock\'s writing. More grown up and Epic, with cosmic consequence and dark undertones... Good stuff with a twist on normal fantasy.
Check out the Elric Saga, as well as Corum, Hawkmoon and many of the other 70 odd titles....

 

[Impernouncable]

I\'m a fan of vintage stuff myself. It\'s horribly out of date, especially the sf, but great fun anyway. I highly recommend Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard. Lovecraft is wierd, but classic and influential. I haven\'t read any of his work, but Fritz Lieber has been recommended by very respectable sources as well.

 

[ZaPhOd]

Oh darn

Yeah, I forgot about Lovecraft He has some really awesome stuff, and some out there kind of stuff too Great ideas for evil mythoi obviously, especially if you can get a hold of the original Deities and Demigods (again, the Moorcock or Melnibonean mythoi are in there too).

 

[No Such Agency]

Fritz Lieber has been recommended by very respectable sources as well.

Lieber\'s \"Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser\" books are hilarious! Not hilarious the same way Terry Pratchett is though, they\'re a little darker and a lot less slapstick. A lot of the humour is at the expense of the two protagonists, who are a little too clever (and horny, and greedy) for their own good sometimes. And they\'re pretty weird sometimes, with some truly unique fantastic elements. They have titles like \"The Swords of Lankhmar\", and \"Swords Against Death\".

 

[darthfoley]

Terry Goodkind is another of the epic types. Fred Saberhagen\'s Swords series was also pretty good. Personally, I\'m a huge fan of Salvatore, Troy Denning, Doug Niles. Robert Jordan\'s Conan was good. Joel Rosenberg, Terry Brooks...

 

[sippog]

I second that opinion about unoriginal fantasy. Personally nothing turns me off faster than to pick up a book and read blurb that says: \"In the land of Merkin, the spell-farter Daxxro must go on a perilous quest to retrieve the Magic Nosepickings of Dalgarth, for without it the land is doomed . . . \" etc, etc, fill in blanks\". (The same goes for all those SF books that start: \"On the planet Merkin, the mutant Daxxro must go on a . . . zzzzzzzz\").

At the same time I\'m not sure what you\'d categorise as strictly \"fantasy fiction\". I\'ve enjoyed a lot of stuff that I\'d classify as fantasy-horror (Dan Simmons for example) or fantasy-historical (Robert Holdstock) - not to mention crossover fantasy-sf. Some of it was enjoyable AND well written, some of it a bit like a greasy hamburger - great at the time but a bit nauseating afterwards.

My recent nominations would go to Tad Williams for his Otherland books (a cyber version of LOTR for those who don\'t know it). Great idea if a bit stodgily written. I\'m currently reading his \"War of The Flowers\" - dodgy fun in faerieland. For humour, I liked Alan Dean Foster\'s Spellsinger books (failed rock musician goes to world of raunchy talking animals) which, for my money, satirises the genre much more successfully than Pratchett (relentlessly twee on a bad day). Gaiman\'s pretty good too but Holdstock writes the darkest and hardest edge fantasy I\'ve come across yet.
I hear that Paramount have just optioned John Carter of Mars (I was a huge ERB fan at nine). Expect the full merchandising blitz in due course. I think \"The Moon Men\" would be a much better choice for filming - a really gung-ho story; Red Dawn meets Dances With Wolves; fit right in with America\'s current paranoid mood.

 

[hopfrog11]

When you have exhausted the present, turn to the past...

I have to agree with ah-\'Impernouncable\', I tend towards the vintage stuff myself. Someone already said Leiber and Robert E. Howard (not the L. Sprague De Camp audited stuff though), so I would mention both Mervyn Peake\'s Gormenghast Trilogy, E. R. Eddisons The Worm Ouroboros, and (dont laugh) John Bellair\'s The Face In The Frost. These would probably all be easy finds at your local used book store. Enjoy!

 

[frenchkid]

Terry pratchette

You forgot one of the best fantasy author, Terry pratchette. his story are awsome and I highly recomande him. I think he won some kinda of litterature award but I\'m not sure. check him out.

 

[Corvus]

Terry Pratchett is the author of the Discworld series isn\'t it?
I once started reading one of this books, but I think I stopped at page 50. I don\'t like that mix of humour and fantasy...

 

[frenchkid]

That\'s him indeed.
I liked the humor part of it. Maybe because I am a funny guy :bouncy:
Anyway I found that the humor in his book go along really well with the story. He also wrote the \"great gnomish book\" or somthing like that

 

[Beelzebrush]

I haven\'t gotten around to reading any Pratchett novels yet. But, there is an ongoing national survey in the UK, which I beleive is announced in November, to find the best (favourite) 100 books of all time. Terry Pratchet has had 5 or 6 nominated. The overwhelming favourite to win is Lord of the Rings (again). It\'s quite interesting, because fantasy fiction is always looked down on (mainly by over-wise, dried up cynical literary critics :flip: ).

Gotta agree about Ghormenghast. I really like Mervyn Peake... however, I\'m not sure if I prefer him as an author or illustrator.

Anyone read Marion Zimmer Bradley (my wife just asked )... Mists of Avalon etc...

 

[GarnetJubilee]

Favorite Fantasy?

Terry Brook\'s Shannara series was the first fantasy I\'d ever read, so I didn\'t have the problem of recognizing it as \"too familiar\" and it still holds a special place in my heart.. (_Magic Kingdom for Sale, Sold_ is also pretty good).

I would recommend (in no particular order) Gail Baudino (urban/historical fantasy-ish), Mercedes Lackey, Steven Brust (the Vlad Taltos books are great!), Mary Brown, Brian Jacques (more youthful, and I especially recommend the core three--Redwall, Mossflower, and Matimeo), Patricia C. Wrede (Even though the _Dragons_ series is more young adult, I still get a good laugh out of it), Peter S. Beagle (Last Unicorn [*nostalgia*]), Christopher Stasheff, Robert Asprin (Myth books!), Lloyd Alexander (a favorite when I was younger--the book series the _Black Cauldron_ came from was much better than the movie..), Jennifer Roberson (the Tiger and Del series and _Lady of the Forest_), and Piers Anthony (Incarnations of Immortality series is sortof urban fantasy and don\'t bother to read more than 3 or 4 of the Xanth novels, if any ). I also recommend _Good Omens_, which is Gaiman and Prachett, but only if you can stomach a little fun at the expense of religion.

If you like Vampirey Novels, I\'d recommend both Laurell K. Hamilton and Chairlaine Harris (Although both can get a little.. adult content-y) and Anne Rice\'s sister, Alice Borchardt (Historical Fantasy), is also an excellent writer (Dare I say, better?), although her books are hard to find around here =(.

This list could go on and on but, luckily for you, my books are all currently hidden away in boxes (I started reading fantasy when I was 8 or 9 and it pretty much went downhill from there....).

I think as long as you don\'t bother going to places like Waldenbooks, Barnes and Noble, or Borders Books (you know, the big \"mainstream\" places), you can find alot of fantasy that is not simply a re-hash of Tolkein.

 

[pitynoman]

BEST author I\'ve ever read - Terry Goodkind - The Wizards\' First Rule series.
Robert Jordan Wheel of time -except for the last one.

 

[mouse]

Ahh....

There are definitely good fantasy fiction writers out there. Yet, I discern a certain disturbing pattern amongst all of them.

They always milk their stories for all its worth and it gets pretty monotonous and dry after a while. It seem that success has gotten to their heads and they no longer bother to reinvent themselves.

I started reading since 9 (now I am 32) and basically covered almost all that there are. All the authors named are familiar to me but most of them left a bad taste in my mind. Eg. Terry Brooks started out well but started to milk his shanara series for all its worth. David Edding forgot what\'s it like to be creative and somehow I believed that he is writing for the sake of money (well who isn\'t but its more than that) and Raymond E.Feist, he just doesn\'t know when to quit on a beautifully crafted Midekemia. There are many others (Terry Goodkind and Robert R. Jordan too loong-winded; seem that they are milking it too).

To me, fantasy has somewhat lost its magic. I yearn for the younger days when I tremble at reading the magic, courage and heroism that unfolds before the pages. The light-hearted moments, the heart-stopping actions, the ethereal dreams and magic that are normally the essence of fantasy.

Currently, I am trying very hard to rekindle the lost love and trying to get my hands on anything that can provide that spark. Right now, I am reading an impressive series from David Gemmell. He\'s a impressive author with good repertoire of human expressions and emotional illustrations. But he somewhat lacks in the uplifting art of magic.

 

[Sturmhalo]

I really can\'t bring myself to read fantasy fiction (or fiction of any sort to be honest!). I read a fair bit in my younger days (Moorcock, Pratchet, Gemmel, some Dragonlance stuff) but I kinda out grew it (no offense meant towards everyone who loves their fantasy though).

The last piece of fiction that I read was Peake\'s Gormenghast trilogy (about 4 years ago!). There was a programme on TV about him and the trilogy sounded intiguing in a twisted way. Unfortunately rather than rekindle my love of fiction it actually made me think that nothing else could better that set of books, so I\'ve had no desire to read anymore fiction!

I\'m sure this\'ll make me out to be some sort of Philestine in some peoples eyes, but I just don\'t care for fantasy fiction anymore.