LOTR, other good books?

[JamesK840]

I've read Lord of the Rings, though now that I've seen the three movies I'll read it again, as well as The Hobbit.

 

I've been reading the Song of Ice and Fire series from George R.R. Martin, it starts a touch slow in A Game of Thrones, but by the end and especially all the way through A Clash of Kings I couldn't put it down. The characters, the arcs they go through, the intrigue, it's an amazing series. Can't wait for book 4... From the reviews I've seen I think this series may be the closest we can get to a modern Tolkien epic.

 

So those are the only two fantasy series I've read, but I highly recommend them. I've also read The Princess Bride, really quite funny, I loved the unique style of the writing.

 

So who has other recommendations, stand alone or series?

 

A good link for reviews, submitted by people all over the internet, everything I've read off this list (mostly SciFi) I've loved...

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/6113/top100.html

[Trixie]

James, you must look into the "His Dark Materials"

trilogy, by Philip Pullman. They are astonishingly good. The three books are called The Golden Compass", "The Subtle Knife" & "The Amber Spyglass"

Trixie

[Rod Hagen]

If you're Lutheran and in-touch with your innner pre-teen, you'll love The Chronicles of Narnia. I did.

[Guest lookin4lust]

If you want something on the funny side try the Spellsinger series by Alan Dean Foster. The main character is taking a break, and smoking a joint at UC Berkely, when he finds himself transported to another world. The inhabitants are larger than normal walking, talking, dressed animals(mainly mammals). He doesn't believe it's real until an otter with a cockney accent slashes him with a sword.

 

It turns out he was summoned by a wizard, who happens to be a turtle, with a sidekick bat who sounds like a Brooklyn taxi driver. The wizard was trying to bring an engineer to his world. Instead he got a sanitation engineer.

 

It's one of those books that will make you laugh out loud. Very tongue-in-cheek

[giovoni]

The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan ... it isn't even done and spans about 5000 pages already. You pretty much have to really love the genre to put out he effort and lately the books have bogged down. Still if the finish is as good as the beginning and middle books it will be worth it.

 

Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series (first book is called "Wizard's First Rule") is fun if much more gory. I think there are 6 of those but they are easier reads as well.

 

Tad Williams has two series one, Memory Sorrow and Thorn which starts off with "The Dragonbone Chair" and another which is more science fiction called Otherland which is also the name of the first book.

 

A good stand alone book is Stephen King's "Through the Eye of the Dragon" I believe it's called. Very good mystery/fantasy novel.. not horror and having not really been into his books I was quite entertained by this one.

 

As I said on a different thread I think every gay man who has any interest in fantasy should read the Last Herald Mage by Mercedes Lackey. This series begins with Magic's Pawn.

 

There are many other authors and series which are very good.. these are my favorites, besides of course JRR Tolkien's series which 'rules them all' so to speak. If any one is interested I could go into others as well. However, if you read enough I'm sure you'll find certain authors which you enjoy more then others, with no need of that much advice from too many fellow readers.

 

Gio In Denver

 

PS.. I realize certain people on this board orgasm when they have a chance to correct the punctuation or grammar of anyone they can. I'm well aware that I'm citing these works VERY casually. I'm not really sure how to even incorporate italics and such into a message so quotes will have to do. I'm not implying that any of these books are actually magazine articles.

[Michael]

Not exactly a "fantasy" novel in quite the same way as some of the other books mentioned, but Hermann Hesse's "The Glass Bead Game" is at the top of my list of favorite books.

 

It's also one of the very few books that I have read multiple times.

 

I re-read it every 3 or 4 years and find new things in it every time.

[+ Hoover42]

James,

 

If you haven't read them yet, I definitely recommend that you check out The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson. There are three books in that series and then three more books in the followup work, The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

 

...Hoover

[Guest gentle guy]

I second the recommendations of The Last Herald Mage series, the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and Magister Ludi. Warning about Magister Ludi: it ain't light reading!

 

I would also add:

 

Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea Trilogy. Also, if you like scifi, her novels The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed are phenomenal.

 

Bored of the Rings, which is the Harvard Lampoon parody of LOTR. Hairy toes, anyone?

 

Read Tolkien's Leaf by Niggle. It can be found in Tree and Leaf, where "Tree" is his essay "On Fairy Stories" and "Leaf by Niggle" is a sort of novella (or very long short story, lol) that illustrates Tolkien's ideas of high fantasy and subcreation.

[larbord]

I have to agree with you about the George R. R. Martin series - simply the best one going right now. I would also agree about the Jordan and the Goodkind series, although the last three books in each has really sucked. Both Tad Williams series and the Thomas Covenant series are also good.

 

To this list I would add the current series by David Coe, the first of which was Rules of Ascension. Only 2 out in this series, but if you like Martin, you will like these. Also, The Briar King, by Alan Keyes is a promising start to a new series. I highly recommend both of them.

 

By the way, I am supposed to get an advanced readers copy of the new Martin as soon as it is available. I'll let you know how it is.:+