Your Favorite "Light" Fantasy Books

[Mistwell]

I've been reading some denser fantasy lately (like Erikson's "Malazan: Book of the Fallen" series). It's good stuff, but it requires attention to detail, is lengthy, and isn't what you would call "light" fantasy reading.

I am looking for some lighter fantasy right now. Something similar to Harry Potter. I was considering maybe Coraline from Neil Gaiman (I've read just about all of his other stuff).

I am not looking for something as light as the Xanth series or anything. Harry Potter probably is a better level than Xanth, for what I am interested in.

Anyone have any recommendations?

 

[Thanee]

Quicksilver Trilogy (Quicksilver Rising, Zenith & Twilight) from Stan Nicholls

Great read IMHO and definitely on the light side. Cool characters and a lot of modern-style elements, which are nicely incorporated into the fantasy world.

Also the Gentlemen Bastard series, The Lies of Locke Lamora, is reasonably light and very fun.

Bye
Thanee

 

[The Human Target]

I second the Lies of Locke Lamora.

 

[Mallus]

Eddings's Belgariad, Fiest's Riftwar, and more recently, Lynch's Lies of Locke Lamora --which gets decidedly not light in places.

 

[GSHamster]

Jim Butcher's Dresden Files or Aleran Codex.

 

[Merkuri]

I liked the Deathgate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, but I read it a long time ago and don't recall how mature it was. I think I read them in either middle school or early high school - I always had a high reading level so sometimes I'd read age-appropriate books and sometimes I'd read more mature books and I don't recall which category these fall into.

Oh, and if you haven't read them before, don't read the Wikipedia article. In the first paragraph of the article they reveal some secrets that you don't learn until the fourth book, I think. Geeze!

If you haven't read them already any of the Dragonlance books are good, too. I remember reading the original trilogy (Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Dragons of Winter Night, Dragons of Spring Dawning) and I felt like I was partaking in the candy of the book world. They were good stories, a nice adventure, but not very filling.

I just realized that both sets of books I recommended were by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. In my opinion they do good "candy" fantasy books. Anything by them will probably fit your needs.

 

[Wombat]

For me, it's probably Fritz Lieber's Fafhrd & Grey Mouser series -- whopping fun, not much to have to think about, and origins of every thieve's guild in ever game

 

[drothgery]

Almost all of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books and Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books. Naomi Novik's Teremaire series.

 

[BadMojo]

Almost all of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books and Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books. Naomi Novik's Teremaire series.

I second the "Vlad Taltos" books. The writing itself is excellent and I think *most* of the books would qualify as light. The ones that fall in to the "caper gone horribly wrong" category are fun, fast reads.

I enjoy Simon Green's "Hawk and Fisher" books which come across as a mixture of a fantasy novel and a cop buddy movie. The writing isn't exactly good; maybe average at best, but the subject matter is entertaining.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I'll second (third, fourth, whatever) Brust's Vlad Taltos series and Green's Hawk and Fisher series. I also enjoyed Eddings' Belgariad, though I preferred the Elenium (his first trilogy about the knight Sparhawk) myself.