Must Read Fantasy Series?

[Clarkmeister]

Here's the archived thread - some good stuff in here.

[faith]

Raymond Feist's : Magician Apprentice; Master

Tery Brooks's: Shannara series...

my favorites growin' up... come to think of it; mabye time for a reread

[gumpzilla]

[ QUOTE ]

I stopped at 7 when I saw the writing on the wall. It should've been an 8 book series max.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I agree with this. With 6 it was already starting to go downhill, 7 and 8 were pretty damn bad and I can barely remember anything that happened in them. 9 was more or less in the same vein, but the last 30 pages probably contained the first really big thing to happen in the story in 3 books or so.

[gvibes]

-Michael Moorcock's Elric Books
-The George RR Martin books are outstanding, although the series is unfinished.
-Steven Erickson's (I think) Malazan books are outstanding, two books in (I've read Garden of the Moon and The Deadhouse Gates). In Deadhouse Gates, the Icarium subplot and Coltaine's march are just incredible. Particularly Icarium.

I thought that the Eddings books were garbage. Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn aren't near the quality of the Tolkien/Martin books, but are still decent. Check 'em out.

Oooohhh. I almost forgot. Gene Wolfe's Long Sun and New Sun books are some of the best out there as well. Absolutely brilliantly written. I think they would technically be considered science fiction, but whatever.

[klagett]

Jordan finally announced that the 12th book will be the end. I will keep reading just to see the story finished. I've also already made a few orders already according to some of your guys suggestions.

Thanks

[Duke]

[ QUOTE ]
Although it is becomming more of a soap opera than a fantasy series, but the first 6 books were amazing.

[/ QUOTE ]

In 1994 book 6 was seen as the bad one. If you rate them, it would be something like 9,9,9,10,9,7,4,4,3,1. TSR is obviously my favorite.

[ QUOTE ]
Somebody mentioned Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin but I have heard nothing about that.

[/ QUOTE ]

These are all better than anything Rigney ever put together.

Martin's series is getting longer, just like Jordan's did. The good part is that the books are still amazing. When I get a soap-opera book a'la Jordan I'll give up on this guy too.

I'm not sure of a publication date (no I don't trust Amazon or the publishers) for the 4th book (A Feast for Crows), but the 5th (A Dance with Dragons) is partway complete (book 4 was a 1500+ page manuscript that had to be cut down) and the 4th will be shipping soon (it's done and all).

I think the "ever-growing series" phenomenon is to be expected, though. It's kinda why the ending to Return of the King was so sad. The Hobbits weren't just saying goodbye to Frodo and Gandalf. The viewers, writers, and filmmakers were saying goodbye to a world that they fell in love with and would never get to see again.

That's difficult for a writer. Hopefully Martin continues to weave a web that people cherish instead of fall into the trap that beset Jordan. Lucas did a better job with the Star Wars prequels than Jordan did with books 7+ in the WoT.

~D

[Duke]

[ QUOTE ]
Jordan finally announced that the 12th book will be the end.

[/ QUOTE ]

Did he also finally announce who killed Asmodean? I have 3 theories that are all equally neat and plausible.

As for the end of the series, I also have a soft spot for the end as I hope it will be. Rand as a blind beggar missing a hand kinda walking off alone like the character at the end of Fallout is what I see coming.

~D

[sublime]

the dark tower series by king. i am jealous that you will get to read the gunslinger for the first time [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[TazQ]

Song of Ice and Fire is the best series I've read, and I've read most of them.

Game of Thrones is the first book.

Canadian Steven Erikson is a newer author who is quite good as well. The first book is called Gardens of the Moon. The first two or three books are released in the US, some of the later books will need to be bought of amazon.ca or other sites unless you want to wait for their release dates in the US.

[Matt Flynn]

i stopped paying for the books at 5 and stopped skim-reading them in bookstores at 7. one of them left with a cliffhanger of the White Tower discovering the sisters of the dark (and extremely and contrivedly limited in their ability to root them out due to jordan's misogyny), picked up at the start of the next book for a few pages and then never returned to that thread the rest of the book. what a bunch of crap. also, the storylines got too hung up on artificial reasons they couldn't act effectively and too many side stories got added so jordan wouldn't have to finish his series. a third of the threads depended on the lack of obvious communication between protagonists available in the dreamworld. just devolved into bad writing. i enjoyed 1-3 though.

Thrawn.