Grack21 Posted December 22, 2010 Share Posted December 22, 2010 I like Brooks. It was awesome in 4th grade. That Lord of The Rings fanfic I wrote at the time was nowhere near as good.I really don't mid if you hate him or life him. It's the vibe i get from people in other threads some times which just started to get to me last night. It probably doesn't help I was trying to fix a PC problem for 6 hours before posting. It's OK. I'm sorry. I love you guys! Really! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cantabile Posted December 22, 2010 Share Posted December 22, 2010 As a self-declared Bakker fanboy I also put in my suggestion for The Prince of Nothing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grack21 Posted December 22, 2010 Share Posted December 22, 2010 OK! Here a reply with me not being a whiny bitch! Woo!I highly recommend The Arthur Books by Bernard Cornwell. Closest in style and feel to ASoIaF that I've come across. In fact I started reading Cornwell's Sharpe books because of a recommendation GRR had on his page. All the others people have mentioned are good, Abecrombie sounds specifically like what you;re looking for. And everyone brings up Bakker every third word around here, so that's probably a good bet. (I have actually been convinced to give it another go, but the B&N here was sold out. Pooey). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polishgenius Posted December 22, 2010 Share Posted December 22, 2010 The Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham has been vaguely mentioned, that's definitely a high recommendation for me. Probably my favourite new fantasist who arrived in that couple of years alongside Lynch, Rothfuss, Abercrombie, and Bakker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grack21 Posted December 23, 2010 Share Posted December 23, 2010 Oh Lord I forgot The Black Company by Glen Cook. Go read those. Right away! Go! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnetite Posted December 23, 2010 Author Share Posted December 23, 2010 Thanks everyone!A lot of great recommendations. Please keep them coming. I just picked up, "The Lies of Locke Lamora". The first few pages are decent, although I don't judge a book until the first 100 pages or so are done! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnetite Posted December 23, 2010 Author Share Posted December 23, 2010 Shogun and ASOIF are my favorite books also. I would recommend things like:Lymond Chronicles by Dunnet Warlord Chronicles by CornwellRome series by McCulloughPrince of Nothing by BakkerNice. I'll check these out too :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnetite Posted December 23, 2010 Author Share Posted December 23, 2010 ETA: Also, your criterion are so broad as to be rather meaningless, they just mean "a book that doesn't suck". You also only mention two bad series but don't say why you stopped reading one of the two. People will list their favourites, while barely acknowledging there was to be a filter.Sorry, but I have to reply to Errant Brant's post. I'm not going to write an essay on my preferences. I gave people general guidelines, and received some great recommendations. I'm not here to write an essay with regards to my reading preferences, and this isn't the only place at which I've done my research. I thank you for your recommendations, but please ..lighten up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pallantides Posted December 23, 2010 Share Posted December 23, 2010 You should also check out Robert E. Howard's Conan stories (and Kull as well for that matter). I've found Howard to be an excellent writer (can you tell I'm a big fan with the username I have? :D), and his stories are mildly similar to ASOIAF (at least in the way that it reads like historical fiction). The stories themselves are rather short, but because he wrote quite a number of them, you can usually find most of them in anthologies. Also if you're going to get into Conan, I'd say to avoid anything written by other writers at first (i.e. avoid the L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, Robert Jordan, and other authors), until you read Howard's Conan. The other authors do give some interesting takes on him (and some are really bad), but I've noticed that they tend to cloud the view of who Conan really is. It's a shame that Conan can be so abused like that though, but eventually you'll find out what's great and what's crap. Also the Conan graphic novels by Kurt Busiek and published by Dark Horse are equally a great take on the stories (being that they use Howard's work as the foundation). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Errant Bard Posted December 23, 2010 Share Posted December 23, 2010 Sorry, but I have to reply to Errant Brant's post. I'm not going to write an essay on my preferences. I gave people general guidelines, and received some great recommendations. I'm not here to write an essay with regards to my reading preferences, and this isn't the only place at which I've done my research. I thank you for your recommendations, but please ..lighten up!heh, , sorry to disappoint, but it wasn't intended to be offensive or aggressive, I was just warning you that you could have shortened your first post of half its lines with the same result, while I was already there posting links and titles. No good deed goes unpunished, is that how they say?But on the other hand, now that you mention it, maybe I should have lightened up and not posted. Seems like good advice in general for me. Heh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnetite Posted January 12, 2011 Author Share Posted January 12, 2011 heh, , sorry to disappoint, but it wasn't intended to be offensive or aggressive, I was just warning you that you could have shortened your first post of half its lines with the same result, while I was already there posting links and titles. No good deed goes unpunished, is that how they say?But on the other hand, now that you mention it, maybe I should have lightened up and not posted. Seems like good advice in general for me. Heh.It's all good, thanks for your suggestions. I picked up The Lies of Locke Lamora, and thoroughly enjoyed it, even though he's absolutely invincible. I'm going to pick up something else tonight after I've done more research into the books mentioned in this thread.Thanks again people! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galactus Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 I'd suggest reading something absoluely atrocious: Goodkind maybe. That way you get back into perspective. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
undertow Posted January 14, 2011 Share Posted January 14, 2011 The Sword of Shannara was the 1st fantasy read that I realized was truly atrocious. I think I read the first 20 pages in 3rd grade or so. Honestly, there's plenty of fiction better than ASOIAF, but I'll try to recommend a few things that I consider similar-types of readsLord of the Rings, Silmarillion, etc.La Morte D'ArthurThe Killer AngelsGates of Fireanything by HP Lovecraftanything by Bernard CornwellConan seriesLies of Locke Lamora and The Once and Future King both have good repsBut I'm a better reference for non-fiction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Toblerone Posted January 14, 2011 Share Posted January 14, 2011 The Sword of Shannara was the 1st fantasy read that I realized was truly atrocious. I think I read the first 20 pages in 3rd grade or so.I read the whole damn thing. And I'm never reading another Terry Brooks book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnetite Posted February 1, 2011 Author Share Posted February 1, 2011 I'd suggest reading something absoluely atrocious: Goodkind maybe. That way you get back into perspective.Pull your head out of your arse. I read the first few books when I was 13, and yes I thought it was a decent story at the time. Nothing exceptional (hence, the 3.5 out of 5 stars).My point (if you can read), is that I want to read something much better.So provide me with some good suggestions or get the hell out.Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnetite Posted February 1, 2011 Author Share Posted February 1, 2011 The Sword of Shannara was the 1st fantasy read that I realized was truly atrocious. I think I read the first 20 pages in 3rd grade or so. Honestly, there's plenty of fiction better than ASOIAF, but I'll try to recommend a few things that I consider similar-types of readsLord of the Rings, Silmarillion, etc.La Morte D'ArthurThe Killer AngelsGates of Fireanything by HP Lovecraftanything by Bernard CornwellConan seriesLies of Locke Lamora and The Once and Future King both have good repsBut I'm a better reference for non-fiction.I think I'll check out Bernard Cornwell and/or Joe Ambercrombie next. I read the first two Locke Lamora books, and they were great in terms of adventure, but the characters really don't have depth.Thanks for the suggestions! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bronn is God Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 Honestly, there's plenty of fiction better than ASOIAFFiction is such a huge, huge category. But in fantasy, ASoIaF is probably God tier. Infact, GoT -> SoS is some of the damn best fiction I have read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darzin Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 All the recomedations here are good my personal vote would be Bakker, the only fantasy I like better than ASOIF but alot of people hate them so take that with a grain of salt.On Terry Brooks I feel he gets a bad rap yeah the Sword of Shannara is a bad ripoff of tthe Lord of the Rings but it is his worst book, granted the others aren't nearly the caliber of the books represented in this thread but I felt that his Heritage and Voyage series were decent young adult books. I actually really like Voyage in the same way I like the chronicles of Narnia its a cool adventure with airships and the villian is a supercomputer trying to power itself to store knowledge from a technologically advanced past that is pretty orignal yah know, or not typicall in a fantasy novel. Its just most people start with Sword which is shit and then move on but I had a limted knowledge of authors in fourth grade and so I pushed on to the decent stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterbound Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 Well, this seems to be the 4000th iteration of this subject, just in the year or so i've been a fully participating member of the board. I'm always torn as to wether or not I should post something supportive, or repeat the statement that he/she should check the fucking 2 stickies that are posted at the top of the forum to answer questions such as this. Fuck it. Pull your head out of your ass (arse sounds so European) and use the goddamn search function, or read the links provided by the Bard. You aren't going to get any new or insightful information by starting a thread that aren't already included in those threads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Toblerone Posted February 2, 2011 Share Posted February 2, 2011 All the recomedations here are good my personal vote would be Bakker, the only fantasy I like better than ASOIF but alot of people hate them so take that with a grain of salt.On Terry Brooks I feel he gets a bad rap yeah the Sword of Shannara is a bad ripoff of tthe Lord of the Rings but it is his worst book, granted the others aren't nearly the caliber of the books represented in this thread but I felt that his Heritage and Voyage series were decent young adult books. I actually really like Voyage in the same way I like the chronicles of Narnia its a cool adventure with airships and the villian is a supercomputer trying to power itself to store knowledge from a technologically advanced past that is pretty orignal yah know, or not typicall in a fantasy novel. Its just most people start with Sword which is shit and then move on but I had a limted knowledge of authors in fourth grade and so I pushed on to the decent stuff.That's fine and all, but I'm not going to trudge through all his stuff when there's lots of other books out there I actually want to read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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