SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

I just finished the Hobbit and plan on reading the Lord of the Rings set. I've also read Fire and Ice Series to current level. I really like medieval type stuff (swords, armour, etc), elves/dwarves/knights, lots of monters (goblins, giants, etc), and magic. I don't have time for 15 books otherwise I'd start the Wheel of Time series. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Arthur

Have you read Patrick Rothfuss yet?

Never heard of him. Do tell please.

If you like the medieval aspects and fighting of those books I'd recommend something like Legend by David Gemmell. There's lots of books but you don't have to read them all, each book completes a story in itself.

Check into Joe Abercrombie also.

And Brandon Sanderson

Stardust by Neil Gaiman
The Book of Atrix Wolfe by Patricia A. McKillip (though I warn that her prose is gorgeous, and so can be a bit hard to read)
Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson, if you can find it

Not medieval, but lots of monsters and magic: The Warded Man

Thanks for the help, guys.

Try David Eddings. The Belgariad and The Malloreon Series. There are 5 books in each series but they are not overly large books (300 or so pages) and quick reads.

I'm a big fan of The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin. I just read the first in the series but was really impressed by it.

How About Tigana, A Song for Arbonne or The Fionavar Tapestry trilogy? These books by Guy Gavriel Kay are amazing.

Artman182 wrote: "I just finished the Hobbit and plan on reading the Lord of the Rings set. I've also read Fire and Ice Series to current level. I really like medieval type stuff (swords, armour, etc), elves/dwarv..."

The Deed of Paksenarrion would be my first choice for that sort of thing. The Bristling Wood is the first in a fairly long series, but there are smaller arcs of about 4 books each in it. Also try Camber of Culdi and the entire Deryni series.

Don't forget the stuff by David Gemmell and all the nice stories from Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance. Then there is R.A. Salvatore who writes some good stories, Robin Hobb loved her works, Sarah Ash, Raymond E. Feist, etc.

I read Fantasy almost exclusively. Check my read shelf and you will find lots of great stories and some not so great.

No love for Terry Brooks yet? He's been my favorite fantasy author forever. Shannara series has grown pretty big, they are digestible in one small set at a time. Check http://www.terrybrooks.net for reading orders if interested.

I see somebody finally mentioned my second favorite fantasy author, Raymond E. Feist. His stuff is great too. The first book of the Riftwar Saga (Magician, which is now broken into two books, Magician:Apprentice and Magician:Master) absolutely blew me away!

Chris, I love Terry Brooks! He is my absolute favorite too. Got to meet him at Comic Con one year. The friendliest guy! Le Guin is awesome as said above, and Patrick Rothfuss Kingkiller Chronicle is brilliant!

Charles wrote: "Chris, I love Terry Brooks! He is my absolute favorite too. Got to meet him at Comic Con one year. The friendliest guy! Le Guin is awesome as said above, and Patrick Rothfuss Kingkiller Chronicle i..."
Yay!! Another huge Brooks fan. I can't believe I've never seen him live. He lives in my area. I need to pay more attention, I'm sure there are plenty of opportunities.

I've been burned (by Terry Brooks) before by series not being complete before starting, so I'm waiting for the Kingkiller Chronicle series to be complete before I start it.

I read LeGuin and it fell a little flat for me. I guess everybody is different. I know it is a "classic", but it just didn't "do it" for me.

It took me awhile with Le Guin too. Having read other authors whose prose is so akin to everyday speech, the language in Earthsea was like chewing a medium well steak. However, overall I loved the story.

It took me awhile with Le Guin too. Having read other authors whose prose is so akin to everyday speech, the language in Earthsea was like chewing a medium well steak. However, overall I loved the story.

The Lies of Locke Lamora is a fantastic book. One that seems to fit the bill you are looking for. Another good one would be Eragon. The book is geared towards young adults, but don't let that fool you. It's quite good. And a million times better then the horrendous movie. And I will throw one last one out there, the Dragonlance books. Start with Dragons of Autumn Twilight - The Graphic Novel. They are fun easy to read books. They are trilogies, and duologies, and stand alone books. Anyway. Hope that helps.

Charles wrote: "It took me awhile with Le Guin too. Having read other authors whose prose is so akin to everyday speech, the language in Earthsea was like chewing a medium well steak. However, overall I loved the ..."

Have you read her "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie"?

Why not try Bernard Cornwell's The Warrior Chronicles Books 1-6

I haven't Mary. I'll check into it. Eragon is excellent! The whole series is actually.

I'm going to stick to the LITR series for now. I really enjoyed the Hobbit so I'm hoping the rest is as good.

Artman182 wrote: "I'm going to stick to the LITR series for now. I really enjoyed the Hobbit so I'm hoping the rest is as good."

amazing.I have read them all at least a dozen times since childhood.

I think the Lord of the Rings is the appropriate primer for the fantasy genre. Anyone who tells me they love fantasy but don’t like Tolkien is viewed with immediate suspicion. There are some excellent recommendations in the posts above. If you want to stay true a medieval/quest theme I’d add Tad William’s Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. For more contemporary fantasy, you can’t go wrong with Sanderson for quality or consistency. The Wheel of Time series starts well, has a very poor middle, and is finally salvaged (quite heroically) by Sanderson. I read the series from the time the first book came out and frequently wonder if the space those thick hardcovers take up on my shelf should be put to better use. As Chris said, if you read Brooks do so in chunks. The first Shannara book (Sword) is probably his worst written book (from a style standpoint) and that turns some people off right away. He does get better. He also dips too often into the same well (you don’t need to read more than the first five Eddings books for the same reason). I do own all of his Terry’s books, so the formula is likeable. Start with the Tolkien. Stephen King (not a big fan) said the whole genre of fantasy is produced by people trying to take another long walk through Middle Earth. I think that’s true.

I vote for Brandon Sanderson.

P.D. wrote: "I think the Lord of the Rings is the appropriate primer for the fantasy genre. Anyone who tells me they love fantasy but don’t like Tolkien is viewed with immediate suspicion. There are some excell..."

I have some pretty large issues with LoTR(4/5 is my rating but how much is tinged by nostalgia I don't know, good odds if I read it fresh I would give it a 3/5) especially since both of my friends who I'm normally am in near lockstep opinion with give it a 2/5.

Most adoring love I see of LOTR among my generation is from people who don't read many books. I have heard I don't like fantasy because nobody will do it better then LOTR and I ask them how much fantasy they have read and it's basically none, it's sheer dogmatic belief that it's the best of the genre so their is no point in reading more.

That being said I feel it's an important read and a good primer if a bit difficult, as it popularized many of the fantasy tropes which may just be assumed in more modern books.

I have read more fantasy books than I could count and Lord of the Rings more times than I could count, and it's unquestionably the greatest of them.

If anything, it's more profound than when I read it in my adolescence.

Well I have read and still am reading tons of fantasy books and in my opinion nothing can quite compare to LOTR in terms of epic fantasy, especially from the literary point of view. Earthsea is a masterpiece too, but that is a different type of fantasy. When I read LOTR for the first time as a child, I liked some titles better. Now I'm sure I won't change my mind, even though I disagree that all fantasy novels are only derivative.

I am one of the people who never read Shannara because of the first volume, I thought it was a poor copy of LOTR and a very bad book. I have however read Brooks' Kingdom for Sale books and liked them.

Brooks' Shannara IS a carbon copy of LOTR. All the main characters are there and they fulfill the exact same roles. Beyond that, though, Brooks simply used the exact same locations, plot points and character beats. Alanon even does the same disappear-reappear "death/resurrection" appearing-in-the-nick-of-time thing Gandalf does. I'm sure there must be numerous websites listing the similarities. I clearly recall my friends destroying the first book when it came out because of its similarities to LOTR.

I suspect Brooks took the advice of "retype a classic novel verbatim" that's often given to young writers, the idea being that you get the feeling of writing superior prose stuck in your brain somehow. He just took it one more step and simply substituted different names.

I don't know when (or, more importantly, how) Brooks' reputation was salvaged from "total hack" to "master storyteller"... perhaps just the fact he has managed to stick around for so long and people like Sanderson and Rothfuss like him for some reason.

Trike wrote: "I don't know when (or, more importantly, how) Brooks' reputation was salvaged from "total hack" to "master storyteller"... perhaps just the fact he has managed to stick around for so long and people like Sanderson and Rothfuss like him for some reason. "

I learned pretty quickly to separate authors I like and recommendations they have.

I always knew people who liked Brooks, I never understood it and based off what I remember when I tried reading him in middle school and high school "total hack" sounds about right. I didn't read anything other then a few Shannara books at the insistence of classmates so maybe he got better. Instead of what I would call aggressively mediocre.

edit: I actually asked my two friends again what they would give LOTR overall they said 3/5 not 2/5 so slight correction there...they really need to get on GR so I don't have to remember.

Rothfuss likes everyone. Or at least seems to. He's the Larry King of Fantasy: his reviews and recommendations are utterly useless.

I just read this and thought some of you might be interested:

"He was for long my only audience... But for his interest and unceasing eagerness for more I should never have brought [LotR] to a conclusion."

J.R.R. Tolkien on C.S. Lewis

I will second Dragons of Autumn Twilight and any Forgotten Realms book.

I always recommend some older stuff like Fritz Lieber, Michael Moorcock, Katherine Kurtz, and Roger Zelazny among others.

Christopher wrote: "I always recommend some older stuff like Fritz Lieber, Michael Moorcock, Katherine Kurtz, and Roger Zelazny among others."

Your mention of Fritz Lieber just dusted a long forgotten memory of how much I enjoyed the Fahfrd & The Grey Mouser stories.

I'll "third" the recommendation of Brandon Sanderson. I've just finished The Way of Kings and am starting on Words of Radiance now. What an amazing story! It's been a long time since I've been this engrossed in a fantasy series.

frank Herbert. try dune.

The Conan novels?

One of my all time favorites, The Deed of Paksenarrion I'd say very "Tolkienesk". Also I'd suggest you not miss David Gemmell. Most of his books fall into the heroic fantasy model, though some of his "heroes" are reformed or reforming antihero types

There are other great fantasy reads and series. It sometimes depends on how "gritty" you want the read to be. Where Tolkien (probably my favorite fantasy is LotR) is a very heroic fantasy others tell a good story but are more dark or have much more blood/filth etc. in the story.

Yeah the Conan stories are terrific, as are the Solomon Kane books - a bit more supernatural pulp adventure than fantasy but still good stuff.

Patricia McKillip has a great series of books about a bard that is quite good too.

The Riddle-Master of Hed (first of the Riddle of the Stars is good) I just didn't think it was much like LotR. Same with Solomon Kane. I like them but they are set in an era of flintlocks and so on. Howard did write a few other story series like Bram MacMorn and Kull that are pretty traditional Sword and Sorcery.

I note that McKillip's later books, while often very good, are even less like LotR than Riddle of the Stars.

The Doomfarers of Coramonde by Brian Daley

Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen by H. Beam Piper

I am glad to find this thread already exists. I was going to ask the same thing. I recently finished Wheel of Time and wanted to get into another epic fantasy series, but don't feel like committing to another of that length just yet. WoT took me 1.5 years. My sister has been trying to get me to read Sword of Truth for ever, but that is even longer when counting the companion series. Shannara and something by Robin Hobb also came to mind but I have too much curiosity to read those in segments. If I enjoyed them I would go from one trilogy to the next until I was done and again those would be even longer than WoT in the end. I was thinking of going with The Name of the Wind, but I am now also eyeing The Lies of Locke Lamora.

I have to jump in here and recommend The Deed of Paksenarrion Rebecca. I recommend it to anyone looking for a fantasy read 9as all my friends here know). It's a trilogy in one volume (there is a longer series that follows it but doesn't effect the trilogy which ends satisfyingly in the third volume).

I have read the all books you mentioned (of course we all have our own tastes and the fact I love a book or not may not effect how you feel about it) and The Deed of Paksenarrion has got to one of my 3 or 4 top favorite novels.

I'm also a fan of mentioned above but found the first volume in that to be far superior to the next 2 volumes (may be just me).

Anyway had to recommend ...otherwise my friends here wouldn't believe it's really me.

Mike (the Paladin) wrote: "I have to jump in here and recommend The Deed of Paksenarrion Rebecca. I recommend it to anyone looking for a fantasy read 9as all my friends here know). It's a trilogy in one volume (..."

Thats for the recommendations. It turns out I already had Riddle-Master on my tbr. I am a little confused about The Deed of Paksenarrion though. It says books #3-5. Do those 3 stand out from the rest of the series?

The "first two" are prequels that take place (literally) thousands of years before the trilogy and don't need to be read as they have no direct bearing on the trilogy or the character (Paksenarrion a young woman who leaves home to become a soldier in a pretty Tolkienesk fantasy world).

I read the ones they call 1 and 2 and found them not nearly as good as the trilogy and unnecessary to the story. I'd hate to have them put you off the trilogy as I find it one the best novels (of any type) out there.

There is another series after the trilogy called The Paladin"s Legacy which follows some of the other characters in the trilogy and it's also a good read...though not quite up to The Deed of Paksenarrion in my opinion.

Mike (the Paladin) wrote: "The "first two" are prequels that take place (literally) thousands of years before the trilogy and don't need to be read as they have no direct bearing on the trilogy or the character (Paksenarrion..."

Ok, thank you.

You sound like a fantasy reader to me. So you might want to try the Thomas Covenant Series by Stephen R. Donaldson. I loved the series, but not everyone does.

You also might want to try the The Magic Goes Away. The series is very good.