Any Decent Fantasy Novels?

[Rackhir]

1) Glen Cook's the Black Company - Probably the best "Grim 'n Gritty" fantasy ever written.

2) Glen Cook's Garret Novels (titles follow the form of Color-Metal-Noun ex Red Iron Nights, Cold Steel Hearts...). Basically hard-boiled, film Noir set in a fantasy town. Great characters and some quite devious plots. Unfortunately all but the last 3-4 novels are out of print so you'll have to check used book stores for those.

One last Glen Cook book to recomend - The Swordbearer. Probably also have to check used book stores.

3) Steven Brust's Jhereg books - They center around the adventures of a human assasin in a society where humans are Not the dominant species.

4) Terry Pratchet books - Nearly all of them are terrific and very funny, but there are a few stinkers. His books fall into a few "series". Most reliable for good books are anyone where Death is a main character, The city watch books (usually centering around Cmdr. Grimes - head of the watch or Captain Carrot who is pretty much the definition of lawful sincere totally honest caring good) and ones that Center around Rincewind the world's most incompetent wizard who seems to be able to survive nearly anything.

5) It's not quite fantasy, but the Belesarius novels by David Drake and Eric Flint are very good, though they do start to suffer from the Uber character problem towards the later books. They take place in an alternate earth where time traveling forces from the very-very-very far future are trying to reshape the history of humanity and pitting the Byzantine empire vs the Malwa empire in India.

6) David Weber's Oath of Swords and The War God's own. Set in a fairly original fantasy world, these are just rollickling good fantasy adventures. Very entertaining and highly re-readable.

7) Robert Lynn Asprin's Myth books - Terrific for the first 5-6 books and drop off after that. The first book has also been adapted into a graphic novel with artwork by Phil Foglio. So its humorusness gets cubed.

 

[Seonaid]

Not exactly a novel, but Sojourn by CrossGen Comics is very good fantasy. Most of their books are excellent, and I'd recommend a few others, but I think Sojourn's the only pure fantasy . . .

 

[Hand of Evil]

Christopher Rowley's Bazil Brokentail have been enjoyable reads for me. Very defined world, easy read, and good story if standard fare.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

I took a break from fantasy for awhile, and read some really good Sci-Fi: Neil Stephenson and Vernor Vinge. Generally I've found that the same sort of people who enjoy fantasy epics enjoy their writing, even if they're not really into Sci-fi. Stephenson seems to enjoy making the technological appear magical- especially in "The Diamond Age'. Vinge did the same thing in "True Names"- both novels are highly recommended.

Recently I got hooked on Salvatore. He's not a terribly original writer, but he's got a flare for action and pacing. I'm on the ninth book in his series of Drizz't novels, "Siege of Darkness", and enjoying it to no end- it's a nice break from the overintellectualized fiction I usually read, anyway.

Some posters recommended Moorcock. I'll second that, and steer you in the direction of his "Dancers at the End of Time" trilogy (my favorite work of his), now available in a single paperback volume. If you enjoy time-travel scenarios, "steampunk" style fiction, and satirical wit, these will be right up your alley.

Robert Jordan was also mentioned- and I'll second the poster that suggested just the first 3 books in the series. Whereas he may be derivative (except in the far hinterlands of Sci-fi and postmodern satire, who isn't?), he's one of the most skilled writers to hit fantasy fiction since Tolkien. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to know how to end his story...

 

[Tarek]

WJW

Pity, that. I'd like to see the third part of the Metropolitan trilogy. However, unlike LoTR, which was one novel broken up into three books for publishing reasons, Metropolitan and City of Fire can stand on their own, having very, very few unresolved threads between books.

For me, Martin is tedious, because there are many different characters to keep track of. With LoTR, there are at most three threads to follow, and Tolkien didn't move the action from one thread to another with every chapter (slight hypberbole).

In addition, none of the characters in Game of Thrones has really interested me; neither has the "scenery" involved. Just a matter of taste, really.

Tarek

 

[Seonaid]

Re: WJW

For me, Martin is tedious, because there are many different characters to keep track of.

Don't read Turtledove, then. His books can be quite good, but the sheer scale of them sometimes is tedious.