What's Good in Books?

[Darklance]

I've been away from Enworld for a long time and I'm kind of out of touch with what new fantasy/Sci-Fi books are popular. Some of the ones that I have liked over the past few years have been:

A Song of Ice And Fire series

Only Forward
The Straw Men
Spares
One Of Us

The Videssos Cycle.

The Farseer Trilogy
The Liveship Traders Trilogy
The Tawny Man Trilogy

Tamir Trilogy
Nightrunner Trilogy

Gates Of Fire
Last of the Amazons
Tides Of War

Perdido Street Station
The Scar
King Rat



Some that I haven't liked are:

Sword of Truth

Wheel Of Time (Some parts were good but it had all the pacing of a wounded bull)

The story about the Leper whose name escapes me

Does anyone have any recommendations for new books..or old ones that I might have missed? Thanks.

 

[Richards]

Recommendations:

The Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe
Shadow of the Torturer
Claw of the Concilliator
Sword of the Lictor
Citadel of the Autarch
Urth of the New Sun

The Dying Earth series by Jack Vance
The Dying Earth
The Eyes of the Overworld
Cugel's Saga
Rhialto the Marvellous

Those are some of my favorites. I've been meaning to reread the Book of the New Sun again soon.

Johnathan

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Stephen King's The Dark Tower series.

The Gunslinger
The Drawing of the Three
The Wastelands
Wizard and Glass

All the recent Discworld books have been excellent.

 

[Michael Tree]

Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay, is an extraordiary book, and is going to be discussed in the EN World book club in a few weeks.

I would also recommend the Vlad Taltos series of books by Steven Brust, which starts with Jhereg. Don't worry, it's not some sprawling never-ending epic. All the books are complete and self-contained, though it's still best to read them in the order of publication.

If you havn't read the Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny, do so. It's 10 books, but the first 5 books are one remarkable story, and the second 5 are another entirely (and not nearly as good, so don't bother with them).

 

[CCamfield]

Steven Erikson's Malazan Empire series.

Gardens of the Moon
Deadhouse Gates
Memories of Ice
House of Chains


(So far. Next book is due out next year, and the series' projected length is... 10 books. But they are more self-encapsulated than some series, and lots of stuff happens in 'em.)

 

[LightPhoenix]

I would recommend Tad William's Otherland series.

 

[gregweller]

I just started reading 'Quicksilver', volume 1 of 'The Baroque Cycle' by Neal Stephenson. It's sort of a prequel to 'The Cryptonomicon'. It weighs in at a hefty 900+ pages, and the second volume is due in April 2004, and the third in September 2004. How I wish some other writers ...cough cough ...jordan...cough cough...martin, could get their series' done so quickly! Another interesting feature of this book is that the author has set up a wiki site to annotate the book. And from the first 100 pages or so, it looks like there's a lot to be annotated.

The main web page is at http://baroquecycle.com (click on the Meta link to get to the wiki page.)

 

[Olive]

I'd be interested to ehar how you find some of these recomendations Darklance.

I have pretty similar taste to you, based on what you've enjoyed, and I hated some fo the suggestions above (esp. Vance...)

If you've never read any Ursela Leuin, I'd really recomend the Earthsea books.

 

[CCamfield]

If you've never read any Ursela Leuin, I'd really recomend the Earthsea books.

That's Ursula K. LeGuin.

 

[Darklance]

I'd be interested to ehar how you find some of these recomendations Darklance.

I have pretty similar taste to you, based on what you've enjoyed, and I hated some fo the suggestions above (esp. Vance...)

If you've never read any Ursela Leuin, I'd really recomend the Earthsea books.

I've read Vance..and while he has his moments...they're far to far apart. I get the impression that a lot of his fame comes from him being something a pioneer in his field.A lot of D&D spells are based on his stuff. Maybe I'll check out the Earthsea series.

I'll let you know what I think of the rest when I get a chance to start reading.