|
Hello TeamLiquid! I'm Praetorial, and I need to ask a question.
Give me a book!
I've just finished all of Jim Butcher's novels-the Dresden Files and the Codex Alera. I swept through all of George R. R. Martin's books-A Song of Ice and Fire-and found it to be rather boring.
This took me two weeks.
Unfortunately, now I am very bored, with no fantasy fiction books lying around. I would like a few recommendations, if you would be so kind.
Rules:
1)No classics-Yes, I've read Lord of the Rings, no I don't want to read Glen Cook.
2)Must be baller-Please don't give me a Game of Thrones-esque novel that is six hundred pages of nothing.
3)Must be(somewhat) SFW-If someone glances over my shoulder, I don't want to cause a riot(I'm a freshman, what do you expect)
4)Must be a series-I can read ~1000 pages a day. It's just my thing, and I don't want to be satisfied with my reading for only a day.
5)Fantasy fiction.
6)Explain your choice, please.
Thank you for your time, and I apologize for having wasted it on this sorry blog if you came here looking for a decent blog.
 
|
Dom Casmurro by Machado de Assis.Best example of the realism movement in Brazil.It is really dark and embracing,altho short.
Nvm.It isn't a series.I've never read "O tempo e o vento " by Érico Verissimo,Its a very long series but a friend did and she said she loves it.Memórias Postumas de Brás Cubras & Quincas Borba by Machado de Assis are indeed related to each other so they "kinda" qualify as a series.
|
On January 13 2012 12:50 mrafaeldie12 wrote:
Dom Casmurro by Machado de Assis.Best example of the realism movement in Brazil.It is really dark and embracing,altho short.
Fantasy fiction only, people.
|
Easy 2 choices for you. Both are excellent although one is more highly regarded imo and slightly better. Check out goodreads.com ... I actually somewhat trust their rating system. Anything above 4 should be very good (I have not checked Twilight ratings so don't hold me on it =P).
1) The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle ... yeah lame series name I know) - Patrick Rothfuss - http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/186074.The_Name_of_the_Wind
This one is Harry Potter, in a good way for older ppl. It is very well written in terms of quality and has a very interesting main character. Note that it is not as serious as Game of Thrones, but definitely moreso than Harry Potter. I believe the second book in this series recently came out and was maybe ? voted the best for fantasy or something on goodreads.
2) The Lies of Locke Lamora (The Gentlemen Bastards) - Scott Lynch - http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/127455.The_Lies_of_Locke_Lamora
As one reviewer mentioned ... this is like Ocean's Eleven with Robin Hood set in a very interesting Venetian/Italian settting (not modern setting) but with some magic elements. The writing is not as good as Name of the Wind or Game of Thrones but the story and cons are highly entertaining in a pirate-like way (weird way to describe it I know).
|
Excellent, thank you. I've heard of it, but never bothered to read it. I hated Game of Thrones, the books were terrible.
I actually liked Twilight(aaaaaah don't crucify me).
|
Canada5565 Posts
|
I was going to say JG Ballard's short stories, but they're short stories. There's a lot of them, so they can take up a lot of your time, and there's some continuity between them.
|
I will also suggest two other books by the same author which are ok but I think you might like. Wikipedia them both or find them on www.goodreads.com to get more info or reviews. I did not like them as much as the other two I mentioned because I feel like sometimes things become too fantasy cheesy. But I have a feeling we have slightly different tastes and you might like them a lot more than me.
1) Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn Triology) - Brandon Sanderson
This has an interesting magic/rule system where you eat metals and gain particular abilities.
2) The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive) - Brandon Sanderson
Edit: Name of the Wind is definitely the most well written out of the bunch and is a bestseller ... so it's a bit more well known.
|
If you haven't read it yet, The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan is definitely one of my favorite series ever. Not sure if it will be your cup of tea but it will definitely fulfill your requirement of being a series, seeing as its like 13 books.
|
idk if you've seen this or not, but it was recently posted in the 2012 what are you reading thread. So far i've found 3 books (although all scifi) to read from it, i hope it'll be of use to you.
![[image loading]](http://www.box.com/shared/static/a6omcl2la0ivlxsn3o8m.jpg)
|
The Shannara series by Terry Brooks, read ALLL of the books! (:
The first few ones felt "like Narnia, but,,,, not" but then it just goes crazy. I've really enjoyed the series, but it's been a while so I can't give too many details. Easy reading, Legendary swords, saving the elf life-tree, the last of the druids with their dissapearing castle etc. One thing I quite like about it is that throughout the series it's the same sort of locations/items (e.g. The Sword of Shannara) but in really different environments over the course of 'a few centuries passing'.
I would recommend starting from the first one (IIRC "the book of 3") and going from there. Many books, but you can easily blast through them. Another one is the whole Earthsea series by Ursula Le Guin. Only about 4 in them, but it's a novel universe, really gives a different and interesting perspective on the whole 'magic' of things (the drains it has on the wielder, and the hand-in-hand edness of 'good' and 'evil' magic, interesting).
|
The Malazan Book of the Fallen series if you like large amounts ofmagic thrown into your fantasy?
|
9 princes of amber - Roger Zelazny
Intense, gripping, thought-invoking fantasy about alternate realities and battles for kingship.
|
Wheel of Time series
13 (soon to be 14 books) each about 800 pages iirc so plenty of reading to do.
Very well developed stories and characters.
Good vs. evil type of plot (to overly simplify it).
Not really sure how else to sell it (hopefully someone else will help!), I'll just say I've reread it about 5 times now, for each of the past 2 book releases I got it day of and read all day until I was done, and am almost literally counting down the days to the final book's release.
|
How do you read so fast? :o Maybe you should try some books which require some critical thinking so you can take them more slowly  I don't particularly like fantasy so I can't help you with recommendations.
Seriously 1000 pages what the hell lol. If you only tried Victorian fiction there would be so many novels written for you.
|
On January 13 2012 13:43 Chef wrote:How do you read so fast? :o Maybe you should try some books which require some critical thinking so you can take them more slowly I don't particularly like fantasy so I can't help you with recommendations. Seriously 1000 pages what the hell lol. If you only tried Victorian fiction there would be so many novels written for you.
I'm a bit in shock too. 1000 pages seems like overload, how do you even start to process the information, be enveloped in the atmosphere and characters, while you just race through? And seeing as you enjoyed the Dresden files which is predominately action with very little thought involved maybe try the Abhorsen trilogy? I quite enjoyed it as a teen and there's a very minimal amount complexity like AsoiaF, which you labelled 'boring'.
|
I would recommend the Dragonlance series of books starting with Dragons Of Autumn Twilight, thats the first book in the chronicles series. In the entire universe of books theirs 5-6 series of 3 books each. Plus theres a bunch of other people who are now writing books set in the same universe so you always have something new to read!
|
Buddy fantasy is for scrubs. Time to graduate to science fiction. You can start with the complete works of Philip K Dick and move on to William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, and Kim Stanley Robinson.
|
I don't read a lot but here you go.
Inheritance series by Chris Paolini
Final book just came out. There's four books and probably about 2500 pages. General idea is the main character is a dragon rider. Feels a lot like Star Wars without the space part. The third book has a lot of interesting ideas in it.
Eragon
Eldest
Brisingr
Inheritance
+ Show Spoiler [sorry, these are probably classics.] +Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey
More of the above with different ideas thrown in. She's probably the most well-known sage of dragon fiction.
Dragonflight
Dragonquest
The White Dragon
Dragonsong
Dragonsinger
Dragondrums
sci-fi:
Dune series by Frank Herbert
Original book considered by many to be the best sci-fi of all time. Best-selling sci-fi novel in history, 1966 Hugo Award, etc.
Dune
Dune Messiah
Children of Dune
God Emperor of Dune
Heretics of Dune
Chapterhouse: Dune
+ Show Spoiler [maybe classic] +sci-fi:
Foundation series by Isaac Asimov
It's Asimov, and it doesn't disappoint. It's sci-fi though! From Wiki: "According to Asimov, the premise was based on ideas set forth in Edward Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and was invented spontaneously on his way to meet with editor John W. Campbell, with whom he developed the concept." I haven't read it yet, but it's on my shortlist.
Foundation
Foundation and Empire
Second Foundation
Foundation's Edge
Foundation and Earth
Prelude to Foundation
Forward the Foundation
|
Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos series (ongoing, currently @ 13 books, but they're stand-alones pretty much), and if you like those, you should read the rest of his books, especially his Khaavren Romances series (five books, very good parody of Dumas's Three Musketeers, set in the same world as the Vlad series). He's an amazing fantasy/sci-fi author who is almost too witty for his own good. Sharp, light writing. I haven't read the Dresden Files but I've heard if you like the style of that Butcher's series, you will almost certainly enjoy Brust's style in the Vlad series. The dialogue is amazing, the pacing fast.
Quick dirty summary: Vlad's a human assassin living in a city mostly populated and controlled by Dragaerans (think "elves") who basically constitute the upper social class. He gets hired for jobs. The initial books of the series are basically about him carrying out those jobs. They're written like detective stories -- Vlad figuring out how to carry out his job -- except ... well, from the other point of view. Later stories start to develop more of an arc of development and plotting that go beyond just "he gets a job, he does it" though the structure of the stories essentially stays the same throughout. He's a snarky wise-ass and has snarky wise-ass friends. The characters are very well-written and likeable, even when they shouldn't be, and the setting well-developed and well-presented. There's no Good vs. Evil shit going on, just a lot of human wranglings. Assassinations, bank scandals, untying legal matters, personal and petty revenge, warfare (he gets enlisted into the army against his choice in one of the books and is very annoyed), close escapes, gods-being-fuck-all-irritating-for-no-reason, plots-within-plots -- you name it, Brust's written it and usually with a twist.
It's not a classic (not main-stream enough despite it's subject material, rofl), it's definitely baller, it's SFW, it is a series, it's fantasy fiction, and it's a fast read, so just pick up the first book (Jhereg), get through it, and then you can judge for yourself instead of having me blather at you. You can find excerpts online at Amazon if you want to just take a look at his style.
Some short quotes from his books can be found here, just to give you a feel for his sort of wit: http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/27704.Steven_Brust
|
The Witcher books are pretty badass.
|
The Dark Tower series by Stephen King is quite good if you haven't read it before. Its composed of 7 reasonably long books so it should keep you occupied for almost a week. There are lots of different settings and events so it always stayed quite interesting (to me at least).
|
Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons. It's a long series but it's worth it.
Amazingly rich sci-fi universe and technologies. Mind blowing scenario. Great writing style. I've read it 4 times and I never get tired of it.
|
doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1187 Posts
I quite like most of the stuff in the left bottom corner of endymion's chart.
If your looking for a shortish series I suggest Hobbs (but not liveship traders series that was total trash), especially the assassin's series and the soldier's son stuff.
Terry Brook's first 2 Shannara series were also very good, the later stuff sorta became repetitive though.
Sara Douglass' Axis and wayfarer redemption and David Edding's Belgariad/mallorean were also fairly decent.
If your looking for a longer series with more detailed mythos, I'd suggest R E Feist or the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan(now Brandon Sanderson). The Feist stuff is not in a single series per se, but the continuity is fairly, well, continuous nevertheless.
|
For real though, what you should read is Raymond Feist I think is his name. First book is Magician's Apprentice. My friend's dad gave it to me when I was a kid and I remember it being really awesome.
|
What about the Witcher Series Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski?
I've never read the books, but I've played the video games and they are absolutely fantastic. the setting and the mature theme behind the series is very gripping. The genre is fantasy-fiction & is a series as well, so fits in your criteria.
The series has the following bookings:
The Last Wish
The Blood of Elves
Times of Contempt
Baptism of Fire
The Swallow's Tower
Lady of the Lake
|
"The Swarm" by Fank Schätzing
It's more a science fiction thriller than fantasy fiction but it's awesome. It takes place in the present. The protagonist is a Norwegian scientist who discovers strange behaviour of a newly discovered species at the seaground. While trying to find out what's going on there are numerous reports of stange beaviour by sea animals all over the world. After several expeditions the bioligist comes up with a revolutionary theory that if true would end up in catastrophy.... . The point of view switches to other protagonists as well but the Norwegian is clearly the main character. The plot is very unlikely to be true but not entirely impossible. Everything that happens can be explained scientifically. It was an awesome read for me. I dont think that any book like this has ever been written. Just unique. No idea about the translation but since it's a thriller and not Shakespeare it should be OK.
Check out the novels by Carlos Ruiz Zafon too
All of them take place in the Barcelona of the 20th century adn reflect on the history of the city while telling a fantastic plot about literature, love, hate and big big tragedies. Hte books are related but totally stand alone. You want to read "The Shadow of the Wind" first. At least that's what I did.
I guess you heard about the Millenium triloy by Stieg Larsson. Read the books. They are awesome. You shouldnt watch the movies before reading the books. It's a pure thriller, no fantasy though at all but still a must read.
|
I'll second the recommendation for The Lies of Locke Lamora. It's dashing and fun and angry and lewd and savage and heartening and clever. It's supposed to be a seven book series, but only the second book has been released (I liked it just as much as the first) so far.
The Wheel of Time would mostly fit all your preferences (except for those books in the middle in which nothing much happens), but there are a lot of them and it's a huge investment for something that is alternately really engaging and really boring.
I didn't love Brandon Sanderson's books as much as everyone else seems to - I thought they had interesting ideas but there were so many plot twists that I found myself anticipating them all.
There's a lot of good YA fantasy (and some science fiction) out - obviously it's not going to be as long or involved necessarily as traditional adult fantasy, but a lot of is definitely worth reading. I can give you some recs if you're interested (I was a bookseller for seven years, and I now work in publishing.)
|
The dresden files by jim butcher
dectective sotry+ fantasy+ muder
Fucking amazing
|
|
|
I've read just about everything mentioned in this thread, and I love Jim Butcher so I think I can provide some advice.
1. Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos series. Babylon posted a nice summary already, but these books are essentially both of Butcher's series rolled into one. Each book is only 200-300 pages so they move fast, but there are enough of them to give you a lot to read.
2. Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy. It's urban fantasy in a made-up world. Action-packed and fun, but still manages to be deep and insightful. It's probably my favorite trilogy ever.
3. Harry Potter? If you like modern day fantasy and you liked Twilight, HP is worth a shot. It gets a bad reputation for its popularity and marketing to kids, but they're fun books. Don't expect superb writing or anything of that nature, but it doesn't seem like that's high on your priority list anyway.
Stuff you should probably avoid:
1. Kingkiller Chronicles - awesome books, but if you didn't like Game of Thrones, I don't think you're going to care for these either. They're huge and contain swaths of hundreds of pages with no forward movement of plot. The third book probably won't be out for 3-4 more years either.
2. Sanderon's Way of Kings - 1000 pages of boredom, and only the first book in a 10(?) book series. Won't be finished this decade. Read Mistborn instead.
3. Wheel of Time - I like the series, but it's excruciatingly slow for books at a time. Much worse than A Song of Ice and Fire in that regard.
|
Terry Pratchett is one of my all-time favorite authors.
Anne McCaffery's early books are very good. I really like her Dragonriders of Pern series - but don't waste your time on anything with her son's name on it.
Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay.
Gene Wolfe wrote a series starting with Shadow and Claw. I didn't get too far in this one because the author (imo) does not do enough to inform the reader about the world. It's all very vague. Maybe if I'm in the right mood I'll pick it up again.
Edit: So basically, refer to Endymion's post. That should just about cover you.
*dashes off to library*
|
On January 14 2012 04:38 Zaranth wrote:
Terry Pratchett is one of my all-time favorite authors.
Anne McCaffery's early books are very good. I really like her Dragonriders of Pern series - but don't waste your time on anything with her son's name on it.
Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay.
Gene Wolfe wrote a series starting with Shadow and Claw. I didn't get too far in this one because the author (imo) does not do enough to inform the reader about the world. It's all very vague. Maybe if I'm in the right mood I'll pick it up again.
Edit: So basically, refer to Endymion's post. That should just about cover you.
*dashes off to library*
I would've written a rec of Terry Pratchett too, but I've only read a few of his books, so I don't feel as if I'm qualified to speak about him. Men at Arms is great though. He does really clean satire work; if you appreciate good, well-written humor, you should pick his Discworld series up, OP. His pacing's a little "eh" at times -- sometimes nothing really happens for 75% of the book, and then shit just starts happening really fast -- but if you're fine with that, I'd definitely give them a go.
GGK is amazing if you like his sort of writing, but he can be a little off-putting at first. I'd describe GGK as Tolkien's protege, to be honest -- he helped Tolkien's son edit The Similarion, after all -- and he has a similar sort of writing style, though perhaps a little more lyrical. His primary genre is historical fantasy. If you were to pick up a book by him, I'd say that starting off with Lions of Al-Rassan would be a better introduction; then you can move into Tigana or the Sarantine Mosaics series, then if you really like him and are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, hit the Fionavar Tapestry series (which are some of the easiest books to misinterpret if you don't know what exactly Kay is trying to do).
I typically wouldn't rec GGK to anyone who doesn't like GRRM though, because they're both pretty meticulous with their plotting, but I dunno what his specific objection to GRRM's books are besides the fact that they're boring and even then I don't know what he thinks makes them boring, so.
|
I just finished The Lies of Locke Lamora ... so I can give you some fresh insight. It's damn entertaining and will be a very fast read even thought it's 499 pages. The pacing is very fast with some interesting interludes ... and it really does read like you're watching Oceans Eleven (in a good way). The ending is a bit disappointing and kinda quickly wraps things up, but I still would recommend it. I reserved the sequel, Red Skies Under Red Seas, and have heard it's decent, although slightly worse than the original.
|
I third the Mistborn trilogy. Extremely unique concept, very well written.
|
On January 13 2012 13:16 bITt.mAN wrote:
The Shannara series by Terry Brooks, read ALLL of the books! (:
Either that or the Belgariad Series. Belgariad is 10 books split into 2 series of 5. First is called Belgariad second Mallorean. A decent amount of reading if that's what you're looking for. Also the Sparkhawk series by the same author (David Eddings). It's 6 books split into 2 series, Elenium and Tamuli. None of them are particularly difficult so pretty good if you read through books really fast without pondering much.
|
The Legend of Drizzt - R.A. Salvatore
Pure Fantasy
This is a really long series that spans a book numbers at 21 (as of now). So if your looking for a really really long series to read there you go. Though the entire series is broken into smaller segments that follow a story arc over the course of 3-4 books. Personal favorite trilogy of the entire series is The Dark Elf Trilogy. This is the "origin" story of Drizzt Do'Urden.
Ender's Game Series - Orson Scott Card
Sci-fi
The first book in the series Enders Game won both a Hugo and Nebula awards. A story about a genius kid and the pressure of being the "messiah." There is a reason this book is on nearly every "must read" Sci-fi list from anyone who knows good Sci-fi. Be sure to follow Enders Game with Enders Shadow. Don't read Speaker for the Dead immediately after Game.
|
If you didn't like Game of Thrones (found it boring/long/complex) but want fantasy you would probably enjoy R.A. Salvatores Drizzt Do'Urden books. A plus for you is there are like 30 of them. lol. Pretty fast pretty easy reading.
+ Show Spoiler +List of BooksJust an easy way to list all the books, not recommending where to buy them etc. etc.
Edit: I hadn't read page 2 so this finally got mentioned right above me lol.
|
I would recommend the belgariad series by david eddings
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
