SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Other than Grossman's The Magicians, does anyone have recommendations for magic/sff books involving/geared for college students?

I could thoroughly recommend Time of the Dark by Barbara Hambly, author of Those Who Hunt The Night, which is being reviewed at the moment. One of the protagonists (Gill) is a college student and History major, while the other (Rudy) is a Hell's Angel.

Hambly is an excellent author, the story is gripping and the characters are wonderfully rich and vibrant. It's not a story about college, though, if that's what you're looking for. The action takes place in the semi-medieval world of Darwath.

The Book of Skulls by Robert Silverberg is about four college students on a quest for immortality.

Vellum by Hal Duncan is, at least initially, about four college students.

The Harry Dresden series has a bunch of college student as supporting characters. They are also a bunch of werewolves. They first appear in Fool Moon

Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry: The Summer Tree, The Wandering Fire, and The Darkest Road. A classic portal fantasy involving five university students who cross into another world.

Stephen R. Lawhead's The Paradise War follows two university students into another realm based on Celtic mythology. It's also very good :).

How about Tam Lin by Pamela Dean? It won the Mythopoeic Award, I believe.

And for just plain fun, I love Diana Wynne Jones' The Year of the Griffin!

A Logical Magician is about a graduate student in mathematics taking on ancient mythical beings.
Joel Rosenberg's Guardians of the Flame series is about a group of college friends whose D&D session becomes real.

Marc wrote:
Joel Rosenberg's Guardians of the Flame series is about a group of coll..."

That sounds like an interesting book, but that would be painful to be in that situation. I know I wouldn't want to lug around many lbs of armor and weaponry, not to mention trying to stare down a dragon. Somehow the computer programmer vs the dragon does not sound like an epic battle.

The Logical Magician is about a mathematics student who has to discover modern day talismans to use in the battle against left-over forces from Man's mythical past. He represents Order, they represent Chaos.

In the Guardians of the Flame series the college students are translated into the characters they were playing, becoming bigger, stronger, more agile, sneaky, magic powers, etc. Part of their problem is to be themselves in the new bodies, rather than become the characters they started out as.

Hmm, what about a book featuring a single (college-aged) protagonist, rather than a group of friends?

Trudi Canavan's Black Magician trilogy is about a young girl with incredible power who must go to the Magician's Guild training facility or die...and take everything with her when she goes.

If you want bad fantasy, you could try Cristopher Stasheff's Her Majesty's Wizard. Student of ancient languages discovers an ancient scroll in a book, translates it, and is taken to an alternate arth with magic and demons, etc., and everyone speaks Elizabethan English, naturally.

And if you want excellent fantasy, Terry Brooks' Word and Void trilogy features Nest Freemark, a young girl who starts the series as a High school senior and ends as a post-collegiate Olympic runner, when she isn't working to defeat the forces of evil.

I read the Chronicles of Chaos a couple of years ago and it was good reading (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphans_...)

a bit of Hogwarts and a bit of Amber series :)

I loved the Guardians of the Flame series, especially because they didn't take themselves too seriously!

Another series where modern person gets whisked through to fantasy world is The Summoning series by Robin D. Owens, beginning with Guardian Of Honor. They are a pretty light read of romance/fantasy. I think at least one of the characters snatched from here to there in the series is a college student. Each book revolves around a single person going from here to there.