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Poll: Which book series?Start A Song of Ice and Fire ~4000 pages (16) 36% Start Lord of the Rings ~1200 pages (13) 30% Other - say what! (7) 16% Finish Wheel of Time ~ 5,500 pages (4) 9% Finish Redwall ~2,800 pages (4) 9% 44 total votes Your vote: Which book series? (Vote): Start Lord of the Rings ~1200 pages
(Vote): Start A Song of Ice and Fire ~4000 pages
(Vote): Finish Wheel of Time ~ 5,500 pages
(Vote): Finish Redwall ~2,800 pages
(Vote): Other - say what!
So I'm a decently avid reader and I've got a big bookshelf full of 100+ star wars, battletech, warhammer, redwall, wheel of time, and various other sci fi/fantasy books. I'm finishing up 2 or 3 random books and then I'm not sure where to turn - that's where you guys come in!
I could get around to reading lord of the rings, which i stopped after the hobbit. I've heard good things and it's gotten huge amounts of hype but I know how it ends already...
I've been watching game of thrones and think it's amazing. I could start a song of ice and fire but I'm not keen on starting it when the series isn't finished, even if the show is awesome. This would be pretty long and take a while to finish.
I also started the super long 14 book wheel of time series about 10 years ago but ran out of steam after book 7 of 14. Basically the hero has magic powers, is the chosen one, has a tribe of warriors following him, and goes around killing an evil council of sorcerers. Each book is really long and there are a bunch so it would probably take even longer than a song of ice and fire. Each of the last 6 has been on the NYT best seller list, but I suppose all of the series hvae been.
Then there's redwall, which I read all of back in 4th grade. It's a little silly but still pretty good. I've read 15 of them but there are another 7 now that have been published since I last read it.
I like sci fi and fantasy equally but it seems like all the epic series tend to be fantasy. What have those who finished the series thought? Thanks!
 
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you could always read the awesome series called "the dresden files" by Jim Butcher.
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LoTR was a fairly good read but its my opinion that Game of Thrones is significantly more gripping. If you've watched the movies I suggest skim through the book to see if you enjoy it then get to game of thrones, if not then just go straight to song of ice and fire and i don't think you'll regret it lol. Also, watch the show ;D
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Look for the Night Angel trilogy.My favourite ever books (Beating aSoIaF)
aSoIaF will never be finished so I don't recommend it. It took him 5 and a half years to release a book that was supposedly half completed on the release of his AFFC.
There's still 2 more to come after ADWD also.
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Voted Lotr, but you should also consider reading Necronomicon or anything written by H.P Lovecraft!
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Germany2896 Posts
Since LotR isn't that long and it's a standard piece of fantasy, so I'd read it.
The middle books of wheel of time are pretty slow. But in book 11 it picks up again. So you might want to read those books selectively or just use a summary for them.
ASoIaF has a great following. And of course there is the current TV series for it. You'll need to decide if you want to read first, or watch first. It's unclear if the series will ever be finished, since the author is pretty old, and doesn't like the idea of somebody else finishing it for him.
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The Malazan Book of the Fallen is a long series which I'm working on finishing which is pretty epic, but you have to pay attention. It gets really funny and pretty complicated. (It is pretty grim though, hence the series name.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malazan_Book_of_the_Fallen
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Other:
The Dark Tower series by Stephen King.
It's a 7 book long series about the world's last gunslinger on a quest to find the Dark Tower which is a nexus of time and space and is in some sort of unknown peril. The series is incredibly badass and I've probably read the 7 books three times each and have picked up new and interesting things each time.
I'm not sure I did such a good job describing it but if you're interested then a quick google search will give you a better outline of the series.
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"The Chronicles of Amber"
"Hunger Games"
"Als die Götter starben"(or "When the gods died") by Günther Krupkat.
Not sure if they're really what you're looking for, but I found them pretty interesting,´.
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Oh Redwall was so much fun to read when I was a kid. I don't even remember which book I was on.
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I'm voting for Redwall because I loved reading those books when I was younger. I'm not sure what I'd think of them if I were to read them today, but they'll always have a special place in my heart.
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Hyrule19228 Posts
His Dark Materials is another great option. It's relatively short (somewhere around 1000 pages), so it shouldn't be too long of a read.
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Hunger Games
His Dark Materials
Redwall <3
Any of these choices above are excellent in my opinion.
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I've had a really hard time getting into LotR. I've read The Hobbit, but I've started and stopped the first book about 4 times.
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On June 02 2011 01:48 Dalguno wrote:
I've had a really hard time getting into LotR. I've read The Hobbit, but I've started and stopped the first book about 4 times.
I was the same way...I started the first one, found it extremely boring, and then restarted it like 5 times because everyone told me it was such an amazing series. But I saw the movies, so not all is lost I guess.
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On June 02 2011 00:01 MasterOfChaos wrote:
Since LotR isn't that long and it's a standard piece of fantasy, so I'd read it.
The middle books of wheel of time are pretty slow. But in book 11 it picks up again. So you might want to read those books selectively or just use a summary for them. It's unclear if the series will ever be finished, since the author is pretty old, and doesn't like the idea of somebody else finishing it for him.
Asoiaf has a great following. And of course there is the current tv series for it. You'll need to decide if you want to read first, or watch first.
I love the wheel of time. Its being finished by Brandon Sanderson(Robert Jordan died of a blood disease) who wrote the last 2 WoT books, and they were excellent. The last will be out before too long, and I would definitely finish them when the last comes out.
Book 7-8 are a bit slow but I still like them, book 9 was good, but then book 10 is soo slow, I read chapter summaries when I reread the series. 11 was pretty good, and the last two have been awesome.
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Finish Redwall because those books literally take a few hours apiece at most. Then read LotR, it's not particularly long, it's quite good, and knowing the ending doesn't really ruin it. Some people find it boring, but if you stomached seven books of Wheel of Time without burning out you'll have no problem. After that it's up to you. Song of Ice and Fire is much, much better than Wheel of Time, but if you don't want to read it while the show's still going (don't really get how that matters, but whatever)... Honestly, if you weren't already seven books into it, I'd tell you not to even bother with Wheel of Time. I read books 1-5, accidentally skipped 6, and finished reading 7 before realizing there were hundreds of pages of "content" missing. Or maybe it was 7 I skipped, it was somewhere in the middle of the series. Point is, I only ended up finishing it 'cuz I'd already gotten in so deep. The ending was better than the middle, but I'm pretty sure they could abridge the entire series into half as many books and not lose anything important.
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Dark Tower or A Song of Ice and Fire in my opinion. Easily in my top 5 of book series all time.
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i've actually not read that many books but I really enjoyed the Eragon-books. The first three are about ~2500 pages i guess, the forth and last will come (hopefully soon).
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Read the Thrawn Trilogy by the genius Timothy Zahn. It's basically what should be Star Wars Episode 7, 8, and 9. You can get by with little knowledge of the Extended Universe.
But, speaking of Extended Universe. Read the entire thing all the way up to (and including, if you like seeing Star Wars ruined) the Yuuzhan Vong saga. It basically starts off minutes after the conclusion of the Battle of Endor (The Truce at Bakura) and continues through to the Thrawn Trilogy (X-Wing Series, I Jedi, Jedi Academy Series, other standalones).
This is a very large and very good collection of novels if you're a Star Wars fan, since most of it was written when Star Wars was good. The Yuuzhan Vong series devastates the lore though, and after that it gets worse... Don't waste your time.
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Otherland series by Tad Williams is the most epic sci-fi I've ever read. It's about some people who get trapped in an online universe. I dunno how long it is, but it's 4 large doorstoppers.
Dark Materials is good but juvenile, and LOTR really isn't as much fun to read if you have already watched the films.
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I would go with A Song of Ice and Fire. It's just a very good, crisply written story that happens to have its own TV show and is somewhat of a current trending discussion topic because of the show.
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If you haven't read LotR you have to.
I've been reading through the Shannara series by Terry Brooks and enjoying them quite a bit =].
I'd wiki them or something and read them in chronological order if you decide to pick them up.
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EPT
