Any Decent Fantasy Novels?

[Shallown]

As always I must reccomend Sean Russells Initiate Brother and Gatherer of Clouds. A set of novels based in a psuedo Oriental background. He does a great job interjecting the culture into the books while maintaining a brisk pace that isn't full of fights and combat. His characters are seasoned but not all-knowing. I loved these two books and have read them several times. He also did two other books based on a europen renescance (Sp?) period. Not quite as good but worth the read.

later

 

[mmadsen]

I would recommend almost all of the Fantasy Masterworks (available from Amazon UK):

1. The Book of the New Sun: Volume 1: Shadow and Claw - Gene Wolfe
2. Time and the Gods - Lord Dunsany
3. The Worm Ouroboros - E. R. Eddison
4. Tales of the Dying Earth - Jack Vance
...

 

[Pielorinho]

I thought of another one . . . It's not high fantasy by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a really good book, and very much a fantasy (to me anyway). Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson.

Ooh, good recommendation! Winterson is, if you're gonna genrefy her, a Magical Realist author (IMO, natch). Good stuff: lyrical, beautiful, funny, horrifying. She's all literate-like.

[hijack] Our local bookstore annoyingly shelves Winterson's works in the "lesbian fiction" section (near women's studies and gay/lesbian studies), meaning that folks looking for a fiction book probably won't stumble across her writing, and meaning that I was unable to find her books when I went to buy one for my sister for Christmas.

Look, bookstore owners: I know you're a lesbian couple, and that's all cool and stuff, whatever. But why you gotta ghettoize lesbian authors? I doubt someone in the "lesbian fiction" section is looking for anything beyond detective stories with hot butch action in them; all this does is prevent folks browsing the normal fiction section from finding Winterson's delightful novels. It's in many ways a great bookstore, but that irks me no end.[/hijack]

Daniel

 

[ArcOfCorinth]

Quest for the Fallen Star by Alan Dean Foster
The Burning City by Larry Niven and someone else
Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis

 

[ergeheilalt]

The Runelords by David Farland was really good. Dragon Weather by Lawrence Watt-Evans was a very fun book and holds a lot of promise for future books. The book, Wizard's First Rule was very good too, by Terry Goodkind, theses books tend to be cynical and kinda depressing, but still good reads.

Erge

 

[drothgery]

The Burning City by Larry Niven and someone else
[/B]

The someone else is Jerry Pournelle, of course. Generally, if you don't know who the someone else is in a book by one of them and someone else, it's usually the other one.

 

[Dinkeldog]

You might appreciate Janny Wurtz's War of Light and Shadow (I think that's the title of the series). Judging from not liking Eddings and Feist, I'd recommend avoiding Brooks--especially anything with "Shannara" in the title. I'll also go with the earlier recommendation of Modesitt's Recluce books.

 

[Tarek]

Sheri S. Tepper's _The True Game_.

_Three Hearts and Three Lions_. I forget who the author is, but this book was the inspiration for the D&D Paladin class. And it's a pretty good read.

_The Black Company_ series by Glen Cook.

I second Wolfe's _Book of the New Sun_, and Vance's _A Dying Earth_. Both writers present odd but plausible cultures quite well. If you do pick up _Book of the New Sun_, read it through once, put it aside for a day or two, and then read it through again, carefully. Pay attention to the words and try to visualize what is happening. Wolfe is wonderfully capable at misdirection and writing through a character's eyes, misconceptions and all...

_A Game of Thrones_ is popular, but the books are long enough that I'm having a hard time following the story, and I used to read through _The Lord of the Rings_ in an afternoon.

The Tir Alainn trilogy by Anne Bishop.

Aristoi, Metropolitan and City of Fire by Walter Jon Williams.

The first Amber pentology by Roger Zelazny. Lord of Demons, ditto. Heck, nearly anything by Zelazny.

C.J. Cherryh's Fortress series.

Tarek

 

[Gizzard]

Aristoi, Metropolitan and City of Fire by Walter Jon Williams.

Metropolitan and City of Fire are both very, very good, but they are also the first two parts of a trilogy that fell into publishing limbo. Its been 6 years since the last book and I haven't heard anything about Williams being re-signed to finish the series, so I wouldn't hold my breath. Fair warning before anyone gets hooked. ;-)

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

_Three Hearts and Three Lions_. I forget who the author is, but this book was the inspiration for the D&D Paladin class. And it's a pretty good read.

It is by Poul Anderson

_A Game of Thrones_ is popular, but the books are long enough that I'm having a hard time following the story, and I used to read through _The Lord of the Rings_ in an afternoon.

If you can read LOTR in an afternoon, you're a better man than I am. Each time I read LOTR, it's a long undertaking. I love the books, but they make for slow reading for me. OTOH, GRRM is about 3 days per book (long days, but worth it)