Narrowed down my list, please help me pick the series that will become my new all-time favorite

[Happy Ent]

Given the OP's list of favourites above, I'd say The Long Price Quartet, while wonderful, is *not* the one he/she will enjoy the most.

 

Exactly. I know plenty of books that I love but that aren’t consistent with the OP’s description. When an original poster does the work of actually describing his or her biases, we should not turn such a thread into yet another “I love [i]this[/i] book as well and highly recommend it[/i]”-thread.

[Errant Bard]

Exactly. I know plenty of books that I love but that aren’t consistent with the OP’s description. When an original poster does the work of actually describing his or her biases, we should not turn such a thread into yet another “I love [i]this[/i] book as well and highly recommend it[/i]”-thread.

Not too certain about this. Everyone and his brother says, after reading the Fantasy modern bestsellers that they want the gritty, low-magic stuff.

The OP read the usually most recommended gritty Fantasy, and now they are his favourite books, other than that he wasn't gripped by Rothfuss, and it is entirely understandable, and he enjoyed TLOLL but wasn't compelled to read the next, which also is understandable given the standalone nature of the book.

That is all the info we have, and from there, was it not for the direct request to describe the shortlist he made, I would be actually more eager to recommend a book that is [i]unlike[/i] what he read before. It feels half-assed to half-respect his request, ignoring the short list he put time into building, but restraining yourself to his apparent comfort zone too.

[JSC5]

Wow, thank you to everyone who replied, especially Errant Bard for the extremely helpful breakdown.

 

Long Price intrigues me for many reasons, and I actually forgot to mention I read about half of the first one many years ago, but then put it down. Blasphemy I know, but I do think I will appreciate it more at this juncture in my life. I remember loving the writing, the magic, and the characters. The slow build I can be ready for now.

 

I appreciate the additional recommendations over my list. My goal is to find the next series I will truly love, and although these were some I determined might be a good fit, the more the merrier.

 

I'm leaning right now to do Vernor Vinge then Book of the New Sun/Long Price/Amber (once I finish Second Foundation).

 

What are everyone's thoughts on Malazan/Culture compared to what's been said? I've heard these two are the best of the best when it comes to brilliant series.

 

Oh, and I do like Murakami too.

[Martell Spy]

On the Culture, I read the first half of Consider Plebias so that I could get grounded in the Universe, then I skipped over to the Player of Games, since I heard it was the best one. I'm a few chapters into that one. So far I'm very impressed. I've never encountered an author quite like Banks. Two areas he's really good at are dialogue and technical descriptions. I'm going to read Plebias, I just got impatient for the Player of Games. Definitely dive into them when you get a chance.

[Errant Bard]

I'm leaning right now to do Vernor Vinge

Although Vinge is great, if you indeed want recommendations outside your list but matching your already-read series and your stated criteria, I have to second Richard Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs novels over Vinge. For one thing Vinge did not write a series but two standalone in the same universe, for another his books are mostly devoid of the gritty cynicism present in works like PON or TFL. Morgan has all that and more.

Having said that, Donaldson's The Gap is even more of a gritty series, and more seminal than the Takeshi Kovaks one. But I would still read Neromancer and Snow Crash before either, anyway, they are way way less... ponderous, I guess, than foundation.
 

What are everyone's thoughts on Malazan/Culture compared to what's been said? I've heard these two are the best of the best when it comes to brilliant series.

Culture: No valuable comment from me as I only read Consider Phlebas, found is uninteresting and full of edgy melodrama, though the setting itself was interesting enough, and never tried Banks again. I had read Startide Rising not long before and Banks really did not seem to measure up in worldbuilding, evocation or storytelling for me by then. I plan to give it another shot one of these days.

Malazan... It is divisive. Some better people than me like it a lot, but I find it crude, shallow, repetitive, badly structured and altogether badly written: Not The Eye Of Argon, but not the masterpiece full of profound themes that the author thinks he is writing. If you want fifty pages of big battles full of exploding corpses, large scale magic and melodrama ramped up to eleven after one thousand pages of slogging through monologues of philosophing soldiers sending you with the subtlety of a rocket launcher a profound message like "family is good", then this is a series for you.

[Kat]

What are everyone's thoughts on Malazan/Culture compared to what's been said? I've heard these two are the best of the best when it comes to brilliant series.

 

The Culture novels can be enjoyed individually, and don't have to be in order although I think reading them in publication order was nice. But it's also a series that won't leave you with cliffhangers. I just finished listening to the audiobooks over a period of about 1.5 years. I could have listened to them all in a row if I actually had them all, but 3 of the books are hard to find in the U.S. so it took me a while to track down the versions I wanted. It's a series that I wish I had read much, much longer ago, and when I started, I was wondering where they had been all my life? A lot of people recommend starting with Player of Games, and I think I'd echo that as a good introduction since Consider Phlebas is told from the perspective of someone who is an enemy of the Culture so it's sometimes a little tough to understand what the world is about. But, it's really, really good stuff and Banks is now one of my top 3 authors. There are few recurring characters in this series, although sometimes they allude to things in history from a previous book, but it takes place over a very large time span and in many star systems. Nearly everything is possible in this series and I wish Banks were still alive because it's a very fun sandbox to be in.

 

Malazan- well, I like the series, and I guess you could consider some of the books standalone, but it's different from Banks in that there are a lot of recurring characters between books, a timeline that matters for the most part, and an overarching storyline. Because of that, and since Malazan Book of the Fallen is completed, I think it's best to read these books without interruption. Some books were better than others, as is normal in such a large series. Yes, there are philosophizing soldiers. There's some really, really nice parts of this series as well that aren't just mega-battles. The way I describe this series to other people is that it is written by someone who very clearly has a sense of what geological/prehistoric time is like and then writes with a style of punctuated equilibrium, so you're going to get long stretches where people are talking (or whatever) and then other parts where massive things happen all at once, and then back to more leisurely stretches of the book.

[Bjornbert]

City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Benett
The Smiler's Fair by Rebecca Levene(I've seen some people here haven't liked it. I loved it and thought it was the series that feels the most like ASOIAF)
The Folding Knife by KJ Parker
The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley(you'd probably enjoy her earlier work more but I haven't read them yet)
Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence(hands down the best fantasy author currently writing imo)

[DreamSongs]

I would go with 'HitchHiker'.

[JSC5]

Thanks to the additional responders!

 

I read Altered Carbon years ago and enjoyed it, might be time for a re-read.

[RedEyedGhost]

Malazan... It is divisive. Some better people than me like it a lot, but I find it crude, shallow, repetitive, badly structured and altogether badly written: Not The Eye Of Argon, but not the masterpiece full of profound themes that the author thinks he is writing. If you want fifty pages of big battles full of exploding corpses, large scale magic and melodrama ramped up to eleven after one thousand pages of slogging through monologues of philosophing soldiers sending you with the subtlety of a rocket launcher a profound message like "family is good", then this is a series for you.

 

That seems to be a pretty fair description of it imo.

[Ealdorman Halasahr]

I can recommend, for instance, Kameron Hurley's trilogy Bel Dame Apocrypha ("God's War", "Infidel", and "Rapture").

You might want to give J. V. Jones's so far unfinished Sword of Shadows-series (four parts published out of five, so far).

Oh, and I like the first part in C. S. Friedman's The Magister Trilogy, so perhaps the rest of the series is great, too.

[Darth Richard II]

Sword of Shadows is going to be at least six books now.

[williamjm]

Although Vinge is great, if you indeed want recommendations outside your list but matching your already-read series and your stated criteria, I have to second Richard Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs novels over Vinge. For one thing Vinge did not write a series but two standalone in the same universe

[i]A Fire Upon The Deep[/i] does have a direct sequel now, although admittedly it's nowhere near as good as the prequel - I think [i]A Deepness in the Sky[/i] is one of the best Science Fiction novels I've read.

 

Sword of Shadows is going to be at least six books now.

 

I like the series, but I think it's fair to warn potential readers that the series does have a number of things I thought were a bit reminiscent of [i]A Song of Ice and Fire[/i], unfortunately one of those things being the size of the gaps between books being released.

[Spilt Pea Soup]

Here are my two cents.  Your list of favorites mirrors my own almost exactly, and sad to say, you've exhausted most of the good stuff out there.  Here are a few thoughts on your suggestions:

 

Book of New Sun:  Way overrated.  Dull, boring, and not nearly as intellectually or stylistically satisfying as others would have you believe.

 

Malazan:  I can see the appeal of these, but they weren't for me.  Felt like a massive role playing game written into a series of novels.  The writing was difficult to understand, mostly because Erikson isn't very good at organizing plot.  Still, there's a lot of fun things going on, so if you do like it, it would be hours of enjoyment.  And lord knows plenty of people do like it.

 

The Culture:  Couldn't get into it.  Many people love this series, but I found it very dull.

 

Mistborn:  very fluffy beach read.  Easy to enjoy, but easy to forget.

 

Bas-Lag:  China Mieville is a treasure.  His books are amazing.  While they don't quite fit the niche of the works you listed as your favorites, they certainly bring something new to the table.  And he can weave a good tale.  Highly recommended.

 

Acacia:  I liked these a lot.  Of the list, they are the most similar to ASOIAF.  Not as long or complex, but good and worth reading.

 

The Expanse:  A really great epic space opera.  Much better than the Culture, IMHO.  Highly recommended.

 

Assassin's Series by Robin Hobb:  Why isn't this on the list?  You would probably like it, and it's got many books to enjoy.  

 

Broken Empire:  A gritty realism fantasy hit.  This should also be in the running.  4-5 books out already, and quick, fun reads.  Check it out.

[Ealdorman Halasahr]

Sword of Shadows is going to be at least six books now.

Oh, I didn't know that. Nice.

Thank you for telling me (us).

[The Marquis de Leech]

Bas-Lag:  China Mieville is a treasure.  His books are amazing.  While they don't quite fit the niche of the works you listed as your favorites, they certainly bring something new to the table.  And he can weave a good tale.  Highly recommended.

 

Perdido Street Station is the sort of book I wanted to like, but I ended up feeling ambivalent. OK, he's got lots of innovative weird stuff (to the point of weird for the sake of weird), but the plot was nothing to write home about, and the whole crisis engine thing is just Marx's Dialectical Materialism in machine form.

[Happy Ent]

When I started PSS I thought “Holy shit, this is amazing. Why didn’t anybody tell me? (Well, they did, but why didn’t I listen)?” But by the end I was much less enthusiastic. 

 

Still, I consider it a must-read. It’s still better than pretty much anything you’ll find.

[unJon]

When I started PSS I thought Holy shit, this is amazing. Why didnt anybody tell me? (Well, they did, but why didnt I listen)? But by the end I was much less enthusiastic. 
 
Still, I consider it a must-read. Its still better than pretty much anything youll find.

I really loved The Scar. Thought the other Bas Lag books were just okay.

[Disturber of Peace]

Some Isaac Asimov?

[JSC5]

Some Isaac Asimov?

Just finished the original Foundation trilogy actually. It was good, but I don't think it will be on my all-time favorite list.