Fantasy authors worth the reading.

[Banshee16]

R. Scott Bakker - The Prince of Nothing - He strikes me as a cross between Erikson and Martin, with Martin's character styles, grittiness, and politicking mixed with Erikson's over-the-top superhuman abilities. Really good stuff.

The final battle in the Thousandfold Thought was just awesome.....

Can't wait for the next trilogy.

I'm a Feist fan, but some of his books are better than others. One of my favourites wasn't even part of the Riftwar series....."Faerie Tale".

I enjoyed Sarah Ash's trilogy about Gavril the Drakaon...I can't remember the name of the series..something about Snow and Ash.

Banshee

 

[Desdichado]

The Elric books might not strike you as innovative 30-35 years after they were written, but they were at the time and he's more than simply the Anti-Conan. A character description is not the same thing as a character or characterization. There still aren't many characters like Elric in fantasy even today AFAIK. Perhaps his style just rubs you the wrong way.

It's not like I just read them yesterday; I read them twenty years ago. And no, they really aren't that innovative. They were only innovative in the sense that nothing much had been done yet, not in the sense that they really stretched the envelope in any significant fashion. Even Moorcock himself admits that he was merely reversing stereotypes and wrote Elric as a kind of photographic negative of Conan.

Moorcock has a large number of books yes, but they are also generally much shorter than most current fantasy novels. The page count for the entire original Elric series is no more than 1.5 to 2 Robert Jordan novels for example. In any case accusing him of being a hack writer based simply on the number of novels doesn't make sense. Nor is 6 short books a basis for completely writing off the author as a hack. You might not like them, but that isn't the same thing as them being bad stories.

I'm not even sure what this is about. At absolutely no point did I accuse Moorcock of being a hack because of the size of his output. I didn't even hint at such a thing, or imply it, or otherwise say anything that I can see that would lead you to believe that I believed that.

 

[Desdichado]

Couple more comments on the OP: I too thought that Terry Brooks' first book wasn't bad when I read it 25 years ago (or however long ago it was--mid to late 80s sometime), but I never could go on from there without losing interest, and I also remember being completely unable to re-read that book without getting very quickly bored. I'm going to have to relegate him to another one of the rather poorer fantasy writers.

David Eddings is another one that mystifies me. I actually find the first series decent (if not good) in a breezy, almost satirical way, but anything beyond that is just plain embarrassing. Unfortunately, he's not embarrassed at all; he pretty much admitted in an essay he put in The Rivan Codex that he feels little but contempt for fantasy readers and he is purposefully shovelling out formulaic drivel because it's his belief that that's exactly what the market wants.

Sadly, given his sales figures, he may well be right. I can't stomach him, though. Terrible stuff once you get past the Belgariad itself. And even that's only OK at best, if you don't have anything better to do.

Given time, I could knock down a lot more popular writers: Steven Erikson is, sadly, lacking in the craft of writing, at least in his early work. I'm hoping (and I've been told) that he improves, so I'm holding my nose and taking the plunge. Robert Jordan's flaws are fairly obvious and well-hashed out, but he's definately more of a soap opera writer than a fantasy novelist. It's certainly possible--maybe even likely, that the conclusion by Sanderson will be significantly better than the last several Jordan novels. Terry Goodkind I also can't stand. George R. R. Martin I kinda like, but I think he's a bit overwritten, to say the least. Glen Cook I like quite a bit, but his voice actually turned me off for a time.

Who do I like? I recently quite enjoyed Scar Night by Alan Campbell. I've also been reading a lot of "vintage" fantasy; Howard, Leiber, Burroughs, even Lin Carter, and while it's faults are fairly obvious, so are their strengths.

I haven't read all of Feist's material by any means, but I really like the first half dozen books or so. Pretty good stuff. I've also really been enjoying the Dresden Files novels, but that's not "traditional" fantasy. Still fantasy, but non-traditional.

I can think of some more a little later.

 

[Celtavian]

re

I have to admit I don't see the allure of Terry Brook's either. I enjoyed his Sword of Shannara as a one time read, but it doesn't stand out as memorable. Fantasy doesn't seem to have alot of what I'm looking for in a book. Too many predictable characters in predictable situations reacting in a predictable way.

I imagine part of the reason is that there are too many fantasy series carried on through endless iterations. I'm pretty sure Lord of the Rings would have become uninteresting if Tolkien kept on writing in the same world.

I want to get in and get out of a world. I don't want to wander endlessly in it until it becomes as mundane as the real world. So many fantasy authors end doing just what I don't want to read. I read a ton of Conan stories and they were great, but after a while you can only take so much of the same thing over and over again. Some of these fantasy authors don't know when to stop, and we have only fantasy readers to blame for buying the most recent work of such and such author set in such and such world.

I'm just glad there are discussions like this to fliter through the dirt and find the gems. I don't like sifting through dirt to find a gem.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

Okay so it may not be "Fantasy" but as it is based on a game setting I have to reccomend The Horus Heresy series published by Black Library. Each book is written by a different author and I haven't been able to put any of them down. Right now I am reading "Flight of the Eisenstein" and so far I think I like it best because it picks up at the half way point of the previous book "Galaxy in Flames" but continues telling the story from a different character's experiences and point of view. It is like having multiple cameras getting footage of a history making event and being able to see it from several angles. The second half of the book takes the story further but from what I understand this is the last that is tied to the core timeline since I don't believe that a book has been released that covers the siege on Terra... I believe the others are snapshots during the Warhammer 40K Horus Heresy timeline.

Absolutley AWESOME!!!

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

Robert Holdstock - Mythago Wood...

I'm listening to "Of Sorcerers and Men" and the narrator, Tolkeen scholar Michael Drout, recommends the book as an heir and departure from Tolkeen and his style.

So, I've been thinking about it.

Care to expand on what you've written about the book?

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Absolutley AWESOME!!!

BTW, anything by Dan Abnett rocks on toast.

Brad

 

[Errandir]

Ah, where to start?

Tolkien is great, obviously. The world building is incredible (I taught myself to read and write elvish, heh), and I especially like the literary aspect to it. Most modern fantasy seems to be written for children, and as such the quality of the writing in most of it is awful. As an English professor, Tolkien took his writing seriously.

Garth Nix and Phillip Pullman are two that haven't been mentioned before. Their books are aimed at a younger audience, but it's still good fantasy.

After, Tolkien, my favorite is probably Ursula le Guin - surprisingly, another who hasn't been mentioned. Her Earthsea cycle is phenomenal, and most of her other books (some are sci-fi) are well worth reading too. Another somewhat similar writer is Patricia McKillip (the Riddle of Stars trilogy was incredible, but I haven't read much else by her).

Oh, and Jacqueline Carey. She hasn't written much, but I've thoroughly enjoyed what books of hers I've been able to find.

Anyways, I tried to stick to mentioning authors that nobody's brought up yet (well, besides Tolkien), just to get something new in here. Has anyone else read these?

And one last thing. I've used the list at Best Fantasy Books to find some really neat fantasy on occasion, though there's also a lot on the list I don't agree with. Anyone else seen the site?

 

[Desdichado]

Never seen it before. The fawning fanboi-ism over Martin and Erikson is almost embarrasing, and that page has been up for four years (!) without any of those typos being corrected?! How does he live with himself?

Still, taking it for what it's worth (just some random guy on the internet's opinion on fantasy books) it's not bad. It's got a few titles on it that I haven't heard of yet.

Hm... I'm tempted to write up my own now after reading it. Without pretending to be objective, like he does (Martin is universally agreed to be the best fantasy author today? Really?) and just throwing my own rather biased opinions out there on what to read.

Sounds fun.

 

[arcanaman]

I'm listening to "Of Sorcerers and Men" and the narrator, Tolkeen scholar Michael Drout, recommends the book as an heir and departure from Tolkeen and his style.

So, I've been thinking about it.

Care to expand on what you've written about the book?

must read