Fantasy and SF Recommendations: Series

[Eira Seren]

Jack Whyte's A Dream Of Eagles (Camulod Chronicles). I prefer it to his Templar Trilogy. Back before they made King Arthur look gritty and realistic in the movies, we got this series, which starts in the twilight/fall of the Roman empire in Britain.

[Suttree]

Reading and enjoying Mark Lawrence's "Emperor of Thornes". If anyone is looking for a new series this is a solid one.

[KingGendry]

Anyone with a Kindle I would recommend having a look for Rob J Hayes and his trilogy The Ties That Bind.

It's self-published so there are a couple of typos here and there, but the definitely worth a look if you're an Abercrombie fan, similar style of character driven gritty fantasy.

The first one was 77p when I bought it and the whole trilogy came to less than £5 so well worth a try.

[The Girl King]

Not sure if anyone's posted it yet but l apologize in advance. l've persuaded myself to post this, and it sort of feels like a betrayal. Over the summer l read the Mistborn series by Brandon sanderson, and l have got to say that l haven't read a fantasy series l've loved this much since asoiaf. There's sci-fi in the mix, ancient propechies, a touch of zoroastrianism, metal benders, immortal despots, and shape shifters. And there's a crapload more. The only thing l can complain about is sanderson's writing style. Tends to be a bit shaky in some areas but they can be overlooked.

[King Wayne-1st of His Name]

I was going to post this in the non-SF, but this series takes place in like 2070 with a ban on traditional firearms, flying/auto-drive cars, droid drinkmakers and basically bat-computers to analyze crimes to find criminals. This could totally be a crime-drama on the SyFy channel!

So I said what the heck, the In Death murder-mystery series by J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts).

[First of My Name]

The Acts of Caine series, by Matthew Stover. He's one of the most underappreciated authors of our time. He has a beautiful writing style, and his characters and action scenes are brilliant. The books in this series are: Heroes Die, Blade of Tyshalle, Caine Black Knife, and Caine's Law. I'd rank it almost on par with ASOIAF.

The setting is a future earth, which is ruled by a rigid caste system. The masses are entertained by Actors - people who travel to "Overworld" using technology, and there execute their job description: to risk their lives in interesting ways. The series follows the Actor Hari Michaelson, who takes on to role of Caine. He's a wonderful character - an anti-hero and a big ass BAMF. Overworld is a bit like Westeros or Middle-Earth, riddled with the usual fantasy stuff, but handled in such a way that everything feels fresh and original.

Go out and get this series. Now!

[Lianne Of Tarth]

The only fantasy series that I've ever read completely and probably my favourite books I've read are The Belgariad and The Mallorean series by David Eddings.

Together they make a 10 part series, and in short is based around a motley crue of characters and their journey to fulfill an ancient prophecy. It can be a bit slow and predictable in parts and there are a lot of characters, however if you have read ASoIaF, you shouldn't have a problem with that, but I just love everything about this series, the characters, the way they develop and the relationships formed between them, the world Eddings has created, the humour and the just overall story that is told.

[Beathag]

FIrstly: woo first post!

Secondly: Stenbuck you are so wrong. Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' is a work of utter genius and muct be read by absolutely everyone. The themes and connotations behind the book are incredibly interesting and the series is perhaps one of the best I have ever read. I would go as far as to say that they are literature not fiction, worthy of being studied at university and beyond. To say that the author deserves to be shat on is like comparing Pullman to Meyers and that is something that should never be done. The great Christopher Hitchens himself said in one of his essays that he approved of Harry Potter only because it might lead children to read Pullman's fantastic series.

His Dark Materials is brilliant. The characters are solid, and the reader watches as one irredeemable character becomes redeemed and central to the death of a pretender. The two main characters, Lyra and Will, stay with the reader long after, as do the witches, the panserbjorn and the daemons. I would love to visit Jordan College in Lyra's Oxford, alas, I cannot.

Someone earlier mentioned that they had heard good things about the YA series, The Dark is Rising. Excellent. The first and second book are YA but not overwhelming so. The series ripens book by book.

[RedEyedGhost]

Can you please eloborate more on this topic? I couldn't get through first few chapters due to its extensive use of thesaurus in world building.

It seems to take about two hundred pages for most people to acclimate. Excellent books though, and you should give them another try.

For some, it's thesaurus language, for others, it's just language. Try Goodkind.

Beat me to it. Bakker don't need no stinking thesaurus!

[Welease Woger]

Can you please eloborate more on this topic? I couldn't get through first few chapters due to its extensive use of thesaurus in world building.

I'm reading The Prince of Nothing and I'm loving it. And although English is not even my first language, the vocabulary used in the books is not really a problem to me. Using the built-in dictionary of my e-reader twice of thrice per page is usually enough to understand the harder terms without breaking the rhythm of reading. And the effort totally pays off, the story is amazing.

[RedEyedGhost]

You made my head spin with all the acronyms. :-D

Broken Empire it is then. Thanks.

I think there are quite a few similarities between The Prince of Nothing and Abercrombie's works. Based off of you choice of user names, I think you'll absolutely love Cnaiür. Compared to these two series I found The Prince of Thorns to be quite... I don't know juvenile or maybe immature, and I didn't like it enough to finish reading the trilogy.

[Ours if the Fury]

The Dragon-Lance Chronicles

The Legends of Drizzt

Hunters blade trilogy (Continuation of legends of drizzt)

The Book Dwarves !!!

And the War of the Spider Queen series !!!

[SerArthurHeath]

I know others will hate it but I think The Stormlight Archive by Sanderson is fantastic epic fantasy

[Frey Pies]

I know others will hate it but I think The Stormlight Archive by Sanderson is fantastic epic fantasy

Agreed! This is the only forum I've seen it get hate on. Words of Radiance even has an average close to 5 stars on amazon. I don't get why so many here don't like it though :/

[peterbound]

Read the actual Sanderson threads. Think we covered it pretty well in there.

I think most liked it. There's just a vocal minority.

[milk-of-the-poppy]

Would support the recommandations for Abercrombie, Bakker, Lynch and Morgan.

All very good in my opinion.

But would also like to warn people to be careful with advice of the type "If you love ASOIAF you will also love this".

For instance, I have read this a lot about Rothfuss The Name of the Wind.

Well, I love ASOIAF (obviously) but I hated this.

You could argue that somebody who can make you dislike almost every character in a book is somehow a good writer. But since I disliked Kvothe and Denna, who are supposed to be the hero and heroine of the story, most of all, I doubt this was Rothfuss's intention.

This really was the most irritating book I have ever read - well, started to read, I could not finish it.

A waste of time and money, but it serves me right for taking other people's advice without first checking out for myself.

[Nicomo Cosca]

I'm struggling between starting The Way of Kings or continue with The Dagger and The Coin. I read the first book and I thought it was ok (3,25/5). The second half more than made up for the avarege first half, and I thought both Geder and Dawson were fantastic characters. Also the prologue and the epilogue were amazing. But for some reason the book just doesn't do it for me, I don't know if it is world building or the writing style but something doesn't let me enjoy it. I read the teaser chapter of book 2 at the end of my book 1 edition and I honestly can't do it.

On the other hand there is something that completely calls my attention from TWoK but there seems to be a negative reaction to BS on this boards and I haven't read any of his works yet, so I don't know if I should start with him with such a long series

[mandred torgridson]

@ Nicomo: No contest in my opinion. Abraham is one of my favorite authors while the books written by Sanderson seem quite average to me.

I would go even as far to say Abraham is among the top 3 Fantasy authors still alive. I am fascinated how he is able to write Scenes that suck you in without anything that spectacular Happening - just 2 guys talking to each other etc.

D&C is even better than LPQ in my opinion - although the latter has already been great.

Some series I like which have not been listed (or not too often) so far:

Ken Scholes - Psalms of Isaac

David Hair - Mage`s blood

Miles Cameron - Traitor son cycle

Mark T. Barnes - Echoes of Empire

Col Buchanan - Heart of the World

Robert Low - The Oathsworn (not Fantasy but a great and fast paced read about a group of crazy vikings)

Elspeth Cooper - Wild Hunt

[peterbound]

The Acts of Caine series, by Matthew Stover. He's one of the most underappreciated authors of our time. He has a beautiful writing style, and his characters and action scenes are brilliant. The books in this series are: Heroes Die, Blade of Tyshalle, Caine Black Knife, and Caine's Law. I'd rank it almost on par with ASOIAF.

The setting is a future earth, which is ruled by a rigid caste system. The masses are entertained by Actors - people who travel to "Overworld" using technology, and there execute their job description: to risk their lives in interesting ways. The series follows the Actor Hari Michaelson, who takes on to role of Caine. He's a wonderful character - an anti-hero and a big ass BAMF. Overworld is a bit like Westeros or Middle-Earth, riddled with the usual fantasy stuff, but handled in such a way that everything feels fresh and original.

Go out and get this series. Now!

Welcome to the Crusade. You're a little late to the party, but all are welcome aboard.

Pick up Kearney next, and jump all in on the lost cause train.

[TheRevanchist]

A newbie when it come to the genre but would make some recommendations (my favorite is ASOIAF, obviously):

The Wheel of Time (Robert Jordan) - I absolutely loved it. It is the most epic saga I have ever read. I think that it gets a lot of stick from some people, and most of it is unwarranted. Saying that, it has some problems and if you decide to read it, then be warned, book 9 and book 10 aren't good. But on the end, I was extremely satisifed.

The Kingkiller Chronicles (Patrick Rothfuss) - Only 2 books so far. The first book 'Name of the Wind' is absolutely fantastic, on par with ASOIAF. The second book is decent too.

The Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien) - I didn't like it that much, but it needs to be read even if it is for historical reasons. It is quite a decent reading but IMO not as good as ASOIAF/WoT and a few others. I regretted reading The Hobbit, absolutely hated it.

A Raven's Shadow (Anthony Ryan) - Two books so far. I liked the first book a lot, and the second one is quality too. It has a similar narrative structure as The Name of the Wind and so got compared to it, which I think helped its sale.

Mistborn (Brandon Sanderson) - Sanderson is the best author when it comes to creating magic systems. He is also very good at making shocking moments, twists and has some decent characters. The writting isn't that great and some things are oversimplified though.

The First Law (Joe Abercrombie) - Probably the closest thing to ASOIAF, although it is much simpler (less characters etc). It is griddy, dark and has a lot of black humour. The characters are even more gray than in ASOIAF.

To do list:

- Half a King - Read and loved the first two books on The Shattered Sea. Great books.

- The Black Company

- Tigana - Fantastic book and cannot imagine how a standalone fantasy book can be better.

- Malazan Book of the Fallen

- The Broken Empire - Unfortunately, I didn't love that much these books. The third part is really great, but I struggled on the second book. The first one was ok though.

- The Stormlight Archive

- Gentleman Bastards

- Night Angel

- Prince of Nothing

- The Dark Tower

Edit: Edited with the descriptions of the new books I've read since I made this post.