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Steven Brust is a legend.

And I can't get enough of Miles Vorkosigan or Honor Harrington.

I've lost count of the number of times I've read Timothy Zahn's The Blackcollar.

Any Military SF by David Drake, and anything in the Slammerverse in particular. (His Lord of the Isles fantasy series didn't really grab me.)

Steve Stirling and David Drake's The General series.

Eric Flint and David Drake's Belisarius series.

David Weber's Bahzell books.

Ooh, Spider Robinson - Callahan's Crosstime Saloon and the companion Lady Sally McGee books.

(Actually, I'm fairly willing to gamble on just about anything Jim Baen deems worth publishing :) )

A lot, but not all, of Mercedes Lackey's work.

-Hyp.
 
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ShadowX said:
What novels have really blown you away other than the obvious and popular books like LotR and A Game of Thrones?
I think I need 'obvious and popular books' defined a little more precisely.
 




johnsemlak said:
A Song of Fire and Ice.

The George RR Martin Books. Game of Thrones and all that...

edit: beaten to the punch by the Blue Winged Midget Mod. ;)

Snap ;) -Hyp.
 
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Hypersmurf said:
A Song Of Ice And Fire. A Game of Thrones, etc.

-Hyp.
Ah yes. I get the names confused sometimes.

Now, on with posting the 'non-obvious'

E Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros

William Morris' The Well at the World's End
 
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ShadowX said:
What novels have really blown you away other than the obvious and popular books like LotR and A Game of Thrones?

Sean Russell's "Moontide & Magic Rise" duology ("World Without End", "Sea Without Shore"), and it's sequel/prequel "The River Into Darkness" duology ("Beneath the Vaulted Hills" and "The Compass of the Soul") are the best books I've read, period (with the exception of Voltaire's "Candide"). The second duology books, I simply had to read in one sitting, they were that good (admittedly, I read fast, but they're long-ish books, took me 5 or so hours straight).

It's a unique setting, sorta. It's kind of akin to the 16-1700s, in a world somewhat like ours. At least, the world has many parallels with ours. It's set at the start of the age of rationalism. The main character in the first duology is a young scientist, just out of school. But he is the heir to a mysterious legacy, his uncle was an apprentice to a "Mage". (as this is explained in the first chapter, it's not really a spoiler).

Anyway, it's full of mystery, politics, exploration, magic, romance, sea travel, sea combat, mysterious ruins.

The second duology was came out later, but is actually set before the first one (kinda like the Star Wars movies). It's main character is the uncle of the character in the first duology. It explains many of the mysteries and things only hinted at in the first duology.


Sadly, I don't think they sold well, and he's now working on a Jordan clone. A bad Jordan clone. Sigh.

SF wise, I really like H. Beam Piper. Space Viking in particular. He's not a great writer, and some of his characters tend to be almost caricatures, but I've always enjoyed them.

The worst books I've ever read were by Steve Perry. If you ever want to feel like you've been both kicked in the groin and the head, try reading his Space Ranger series (I think that's the name of it)
 
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Timothy Zahn's "Triplet" is an interesting combination of SF and Fantasy that heavily inspired my home brew D&D world.

A lot of people like Glen Cooks stuff. He has two many series, "The Black Company", which is sort of military fantasy, and "Garrett PI", which is basically a private detective heavily inspired by Raymond Chandler, set in a fantasy world. I never got into the Black Company stuff, but I really like the Garrett books (being a big fan of detective novels).

I've also found Alan Dean Foster to be a very good author. He's got a couple series, and some books in a common setting, but also many interesting one-shot books. "Cyber Way" for instance, is something of a cyberpunk book set in the SW of the US, based on American Indian legends.
 

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