Help me find a book...

[McTreble]

Hey gang:

I am finishing Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy right now (No spoilers please! I still have 130 pages left in Last Argument of Kings)

I love it and would recommend it to anyone, but I am very much getting burned out on fantasy books/ trilogies where war is the story/ backdrop/ focus.

I'm tired of reading about massive armies and Generals in tents and such.

Any recommendations?

To give you a sense of my tastes, I consider Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Thorn to be the best fantasy ever written, beating out Tolkien. (And I do realize that war is the backdrop of that trilogy.)

Thanks!

 

[Crothian]

Thieves World! It's dark fantasy and a collection of short stories. It is a fast read and if you don't like the way one of the stories is written you just skip it and go to the next one. There is a series of books but you don't have to read them all if you don't want to. It is completed and I see used copies of it all the time so it should not be hard to find even if it is about 30 years old. The stiories are written by many different authors some you may have heard of others maybe not.

 

[Thunderfoot]

Have you tried looking under your bed?
Seriously though, I second Crothian's nod to Thieves' World. It's interesting seeing each character as seen from different perspectives, where one sees a hero another sees a villain. Great stuff.

Also, if you're looking for light-hearted, the M.Y.T.H. INC. series authored by the editor of Thieves' World is really good, and only one of the stories has anything to do with war, though mage battles, the mob and inter-dimensional bookies play a really big role. It's a really easy read, but it's very fun.

 

[Ebon Shar]

You obviously have great taste if Tad Williams is your favorite. His books are excellent.

It's hard finding a fantasy series that does not have a backdrop of war, but I'd highly recommend Greg Keyes. Start with The Waterborn and The Blackgod, which are outstanding, and then try his fantasy series, Kingdom of Thorn and Bones. They compare favorably with Williams (though not as good, imo).

You might also love Robin Hobb. The Farseer books, though set during a war, are outstanding. Nobody writes characters like Hobb and you may find the plot secondary to the characters, which is a good thing I think.

Finally, if you like a dash of Sci-Fi mixed in with your fantasy, try Julian May's The Saga of the Pliocene Exile. These are some of my favorite books ever and you will not regret reading them.

I hope you find something you enjoy.

Edit: Oh, I'd stay away from Abercrombie's Best Served Cold for a while. While I loved it and I love Abercrombie, he turns the grim and gritty up to 11 in this book.

 

[Dioltach]

I was burned out on fantasy for a while until about a year ago, when I discovered two books: The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, and The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.

Locke Lamora is about a gang of conmen in a fantasy city that resembles Renaissance Venice. It's pretty dark and gritty, but the story is gripping and the characters are very engaging.

The Name of the Wind is the first in a series of three, in which the main protagonist narrates his life story over the course of three days. Again, pretty dark but I found it impossible to put down.

 

[McTreble]

Thanks for the ideas! Some good ones here, it seems.

Strangely enough, my next read is actually going to be Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Then I'll hit up some of these suggestions.

 

[Atavar]

I like Brandon Sanderson, who was tapped to finish writing the Wheel of Time series:

Elantris
The Mistborn Trilogy
Warbreaker
The Alcatraz Series (currently at three books)

It took a while for me to try the Alcatraz books because they are children's books, but I found them to be great reads.

Later,

Atavar

 

[Hand of Evil]

Lord of Light by Zelazny

--- Crazy Fact ----

In 1979 it was announced that Lord of Light would be made into a 50 million dollar film. It was planned that the sets for the movie would be made permanent and become the core of a science fiction theme park to be built in Aurora, Colorado. Famed comic-book artist Jack Kirby was even contracted to produce artwork for set design. However, due to legal problems the project was never completed.

Parts of the unmade film project, the script and Kirby's set designs, were subsequently acquired by the CIA as cover for an exfiltration team for six US diplomatic staff trapped, in Tehran but outside the embassy compound, by the Iranian hostage crisis. The team had a version of the script, renamed to Argo; they pretended to be scouting a location in Iran for shooting a Hollywood film from that script.

--- Crazy Fact ----


Hawk & Fisher by Simon Green - just a good read of city cops in a fantasy world.

The Codex Alera by Jim Butcher (The Dresden Files) - great fantasy books, up to number 4 now.

Gotrek & Felix Warhammer novels are getting better an better.

 

[Umbran]

The Codex Alera by Jim Butcher (The Dresden Files) - great fantasy books, up to number 4 now.

I've only read the first book of the Codex Alera. It was okay, but nothing special.

The Dresden Files, however, are fantastic.

If you prefer more epic fantasy, you can try the "Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone", a 4-book series by Gregory Keyes. Eventually there's a war, but it's like three books in before that gets rolling.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I've only read the first book of the Codex Alera. It was okay, but nothing special.

The first was the weakest, each book after has been better.