Good Fantasy Book

[CCamfield]

Steven Erikson's Malazan Empire series is incredible. Starts with Gardens of the Moon. Not easily available in the US yet, but fairly cheap to order from amazon.ca. (Note: 4 books and counting, but each book does bring the events in it to a conclusion)

Jim Butcher's books are light fun. They're about a wizard (who sort of operates as a PI and police advisor) who runs into a lot of trouble in modern-day Chicago.

 

[S'mon]

CJ Cherryh's Chronicles of Morgaine are pretty good - more for atmosphere & character than for plot, though. I agree the Earthsea trilogy is fantastic (esp 1 & 3), there's little to compare with it in terms of true fantasy series (as opposed to Sword & Sorcery, which is quite different).
I guess CS Lewis's Narnia series, if you're ok with Christian allegory, is quite powerful in places.
I like Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant but many hate them, they're very dark & exceedingly verbose.

 

[Phebius]

American Gods by Neil Gaimen. Since AMerica is a country of immigrants, it follows that people had to bring their gods with them. What happens when they lose their worshipers?

Good Omens by Neil Gaimen and Terry Pratchett. Funny take on the end of the world.

(These might be out of print) Guardians of the Flame series by Joel Rosenberg I found these at a used book store and am loving the hell out of them. The premise sounds lame, but it works. A group of gamers get sent into the gaming world they play in. Then everything goes horribly wrong. Some die, one goes catatonic, and everyone has to deal with things that are the norm in this world, but not in ours, most notably slavery.

 

[Tewligan]

Moorcock's Elric series. Then his Hawkmoon series. Then his Corum series. Damn, Moorcock is awesome.

 

[s/LaSH]

While some won't recommend Wheel Of Time, I will. The books are currently dragging a little, but I bet by the time you get up to book 10, another one will be on the shelves and it'll either be supremely awesome or kill any hopes the series had of keeping its readers. Plus it's got that Stargate factor, in that it's deep enough to fuel a conversation that no outsider could ever understand with words like ter'angreal and Mashadar and Ashaman and stuff floating around.

 

[CCamfield]

Um... I don't think that's unique to the series, and a common criticism of Jordan seems to be that not enough happens in the books.

I could cite Warrens, Ascendants, the High Houses and the Deck in the Malazan Empire series, for instance.

 

[drothgery]

Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books (get The Book of Jhereg for the first three); good, fun (except Teckla), and each book is largely self-contained. And the Khaarven books, too (The Phoenix Guards, Five Hundred Years After, The Paths of the Dead, Lord of Castle Black, and Sethra Lavode [forthcoming]).

 

[Hand of Evil]

My all time fav is Lord of Light by Zelazany.

 

[Dimwhit]

If you want some good, light-hearted, very fast reading, try the Myth series by Robert Asprin. The first book is called Another Fine Myth. There are about a dozen in the series, but they're short and each one takes just a few hours to read (roughly).