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Fantasy and SF Recommendations: Series


Datepalm

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The Kingkiller Chronicle I cannot recommend enough. The Name of the Wind is easily one of the best books I've ever read. It's a damn classic in my mind. The second book, The Wise Man's Fear, isn't as good, but still far ahead of most things out on shelves. God, I love this series. Cannot wait until the third book. Rothfuss is a great writer.

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I recommend The Book of the New Sun By Gene Wolfe. I'll throw out some words:

Dense, Dying Earth, Catholic Mysticism, Unreliable Narrator, First person Perspective, Mysteries, Twincest, Torture, More revealed upon the second readthrough, Borges, Post-apocalypse, Mysteries upon mysteries, Difficult prose.

If you like ASoIaF because it's full of mysteries and rewarding. Understanding this series is a real accomplishment, and it served as my "gateway drug" into real, high-literature.

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I'd recommend anything by Neil Gaiman or China Mieville. I loved Perdido Street Station and Good Omens is one of my favourite books ever.

Nobody's mentioned Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast yet.... Give it a go, it starts with Titus Groan, then Gormenghast and then fizzles out a bit with Titus Alone, because the author died before he could finish it (there was a fourth book planned). Peake was a bit mad, even by his own admission, and so's this, Gormenghast is an ancestral seat of of the Groans, and it's a bit like Winterfell on acid...especially if it had a kitchen boy who was an unholy mix of Littlefinger and Hot Pie. It can be hard going but it boasts the best named characters in fantasy fiction, I mean you can't go wrong with people called Prunesquallor can you?

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I just got into The Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Stephen Erikson. I finished the first book, "Gardens of the Moon." Can't wait until I start "Deadhouse Gates". A word of advice if you plan on reading this. Stick with it. It's a tough read for the first couple hundred of pages since it deals with magic, differents "clans", warrior and mage classes, different species and races within specific species. It's complicated, but once you get the hang of it, you'll understand what you were reading when you were confused, and it'll be difficult to put the book down eventually.

EDIT: Grammar

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Rose of the Prophet ,

a book trilogy by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis.

It is set in a fantasy-medieval world and depicts the fights of Gods, demi-godly creatures and men in the godly fight for universal power.

I personally like the 'homeric' tone the books have, showing gods and human alike, even explaining the creation and constitution of this world like Tolkien in his Silmarillion. The story is also really attractive, focusing on deep and troublesome characters which are closer to anti-heroes than to 'classical' heroes (as Odysseus himself)

Even the ending is surprising, and though unexpected, after avidly reading the 3 books it's just great. I personally finished it and felt a little sad inside, because of the great experience I had had that knew that was over.

I sincerely recommend it to everyone who likes the classical greek mythic influences in fantasy literature, and to Dothraki lovers too! (It would be interesting to search for influences GRRM may have to Hickman and Weis)

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I had never really read fantasy/scifi before ASOIAF, and even gave up on LOTR with the first book when I was a teenager.

I am really liking Bakker's Prince of Nothing series so far. Took a while to get into, and the first book was kind of a "when are we going to get to the fireworks factory?" affair, but sitting around now waiting for book 2 to come from Amazon and having withdrawals.

Really love the Nansurian Emperor's character, it takes skill to write a character whom I can't tell if he's an idiot or a genius so far!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I am SO happy that I've finally stumbled upon a thread like this. Recommendations from people with the same head works at me. Saweet.

I have a few myself, some that have been mentioned already, some that haven't.

I will point out that although I've always read, I was never really interested in reading fantasy. I was into real life thrillers, crime stories etc etc. One of my closest friends then recommended His Dark Materials to me... I was skeptical... I honestly wasn't too bothered but after a little pressure I finally caved and I can happily say, this was the series that introduced me to the world of fantasy and sci fi and I have NEVER looked back. So...

His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman

The story involves fantasy elements such as witches and armoured polar bears, and alludes to a broad range of ideas from such fields as physics, philosophy, and theology.

Harry Potter - No explanation needed, really.

True Blood by Charlaine Harris

There are 13 books in the series - quite an easy read but they're full of fantasical excitiment. Vampire, werewolves, Faeries, witches, werepanthers... I could go on.

K-Pax trilogy by Gene Brewer

Such a simple but mesmerising plot line.

When a new patient is brought to a mental institution claiming to be an inhabitant of a planet called K-PAX, the hospital seems just the place for him. Yet, except for certain otherworldly abilities, the "alien," prot, appears to be perfectly sane. In taped therapy sessions prot is asked about life on K-PAX - its lifestyle, principles, foods, language. Prot paints a consistent and credible portrait of a glorious utopia painfully unlike our own and yet so possible, could we only erase from human nature its greed and cruelty. It becomes easy, even desirable, to believe in prot's identity and homeland. But prot insists that he must return home. As his announced date of "departure" approaches, staff and patients alike are thrown into turmoil: If he is mad, what will happen when the fateful day arrives? If K-PAX is for real...please, may they come along too?

Book of Words trilogy by J.V.Jones

The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins

I will edit this as I go... :)

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Hey you got me really interested in the Vorkosigan Saga, but could you tell me in which order should I read the books(disregard the smaller books in the series, I'd like it better to read the main books)?

I read them all in chronological order, but I would suggest skipping Free Falling and starting with Shards of Honor - you can find that order here in the center of the page highlighted with the blue border (or it's listed on nearly all the amazon pages for the books). What you really want to do is buy a hardcover copy of Cryburn (like the $10.95 copy here) that includes the "cd" which has ebook copies of every book and short story in the series except for Memory, Dreamweaver's Delima, and Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (this last was published after Cryburn). My copy of Cryoburn was the best $20 I've ever spent.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I read the City of Dark Magic novel and it was a very fun read. The next book is coming out this November, I think. But I'm sure it will be a series. I mean, it will at least have a sequel. The book is definitely grounded, I mean it's not "out there" fantasy, but I enjoyed it anyways.

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Also guys, I'm a fellow board member, although I mostly limit to the Forum Games. I just published my debut novella "Let's Kill the Sun." It's a fantasy book for all ages and it is the first of a trilogy.

It is currently available on Amazon Kindle. There is also a paperback version, but it is only available at the moment in the Dominican Republic.

You can find a summary as well as a sample of the book on the amazon page.

If you have the time the facebook page of the book can be found here. I would really appreciate it if you could "like" the page. :wideeyed:

You can also follow me on Twitter as well.

You can check everything out and feel free to PM me any thoughts or comments. I'll be more than happy to answer any questions you might have.

I hope you all enjoy it and thanks a lot for the support!

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Dune. ASOIAF in space, with added philosophizing. And do read the prequels and sequels. I will probably be fed to a sandworm for saying this, but I think that they are actually worthy prequels and sequels to the series, establishing the Thinking Machine threat (although the ending of the sequels was a bit deus-ex-Thinking Machine)

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Dune. ASOIAF in space, with added philosophizing. And do read the prequels and sequels. I will probably be fed to a sandworm for saying this, but I think that they are actually worthy prequels and sequels to the series, establishing the Thinking Machine threat (although the ending of the sequels was a bit deus-ex-Thinking Machine)

Ya, you should be fucking Gom Jabbar'd for that idiotic statement.

Stick to the Original works. Fuck KJA and Young Master Herbert.

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Well, I'd add anything by Joe Abercomrbie, Douglas Hullick, Scott Lynch, and Anne Lyle.

And also Colleen McCullough's Rome series. After finishing the second book last week, I realised here's an author who even begins to come close to GRRM in terms of scope.

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I see lots of well-deserved mentions for Dune (a must-read for anybody on this board) but I didn't see any mention of Herbert's Destination: Void/Pandora series. I'd like to throw that out there, based on the first two. I am still working through the series but consider it among the best I've read. Destination: Void itself is a crazy novel that has way too much hard, hard science, almost all of which would only really parse for someone who got a computer engineering degree in the 60s but it was still great. It's about a team of scientists charged with creating AI and they must do so far out in space since the last time it was attempted on Earth the entire project disintegrated. Literally. From my understanding it's one of the hardest sf books in terms of science but the characters and concept are great and you get the feeling the jargon is besides the point. The second book is from the late 70s and is called The Jesus Incident. It relates the next story involving their AI creation. From these two books you get D:V which is like 2001 but better, and The Jesus Incident which is very much an inverted Dune (it's on a wet planet.) Can't wait to start the next books, The Lazarus Effect and The Ascension Factor. It should be mentioned all but the first are collabs with a poet called Bill Ransom. He seems pretty good, it's not a case of a hack ghost writing for the talent.

Anyone read these?

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I recommend The Book of the New Sun By Gene Wolfe. I'll throw out some words:

Dense, Dying Earth, Catholic Mysticism, Unreliable Narrator, First person Perspective, Mysteries, Twincest, Torture, More revealed upon the second readthrough, Borges, Post-apocalypse, Mysteries upon mysteries, Difficult prose.

If you like ASoIaF because it's full of mysteries and rewarding. Understanding this series is a real accomplishment, and it served as my "gateway drug" into real, high-literature.

A friend gave me all of these plus the sequel but I found the writing incredibly difficult. As in, after reading ten pages, I couldn't really tell you what I had read much at all. Does it begin to flow better eventually when you're used to it? It's entirely possible it's just over my head.

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The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica by James A. Owen. An ongoing series combining fantasy, science fiction, time travel, and historical fiction. Overall an interesting plot, however it can get very complicated, especially later in the series (plot twists worthy of GRRM!) There are lots of little easter eggs referencing other authors and works, which then inspire further reading!

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Seriously, The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb is awesome.

Dune is quality as well I agree. The 2 immediate sequels are good as well. Everything else is horrific. Dune doesn't read like a series... It reads like a novella that was expanded and then got some sequels because the original was so good.

Herbert Jr should be avoided at all costs.

Thomas Covenant is a great series as well.

I am about to start The Blade Itself.

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