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Awesome website Daigomi!
Reading through all of this made me remember a vague conversation I once had with a friend about 10 years back or so. He was talking about a book or series he was reading in which magic meets technology. I think the theme of the book was about a war between two parallel worlds.. or something about a portal which made two worlds being able to travel to each other. Perhaps a time traveling thing? Not sure. One world was supposedly to have all magic stuff going on, the other was non-magic and all technology (I think).
He told me it was a really great read. It somewhat sounds interesting, I guess it could be totally lame or actually pretty good. Dunno if this rings a bell @ anyone, it's the best description I can give lol 
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South Africa4316 Posts
On July 27 2009 22:45 Smorrie wrote:Awesome website Daigomi! Reading through all of this made me remember a vague conversation I once had with a friend about 10 years back or so. He was talking about a book or series he was reading in which magic meets technology. I think the theme of the book was about a war between two parallel worlds.. or something about a portal which made two worlds being able to travel to each other. Perhaps a time traveling thing? Not sure. One world was supposedly to have all magic stuff going on, the other was non-magic and all technology (I think). He told me it was a really great read. Dunno if this rings a bell @ anyone, it's the best description I can give lol
All I can think of is The Magician by Feist, which has a portal and parallel worlds and stuff, but I can't really remember if the other things you mentioned happens in it. Still, the book was very popular around 10 years ago, so it is possible 
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Enders game.
Finest sci fi series i have ever had the joy of reading. Simply amazing.
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Feist's Magician is a good book, although it has pissed me off in a couple places. Make sure before you buy it that you know that Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master together form a single book, Magician. Originally, Feist had to cut a lot of stuff out, but due to popularity, he was able to edit it back in. Then, due to length (or so they say), they split the book into two. The "halfway point" is not as good a stopping point as you might hope for.
I've heard that the first trilogy of the Riftwar Cycle is by far the best and that the others... are not so great. Since I haven't read any other than Magician, I cannot tell you this from my own experience, just what I've heard.
Lately everyone seems hooked on GRRM's A Song of Fire and Ice. The series is incredibly good, although mildly overrated. They are real doorstoppers (I've been told that the word count for the first book exceeds the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy) set in a totally crapsack world. Sometimes the perverseness of it all, the great length, the archaic prose, the shits between character perspectives, and some focus on characters who don't seem central to the plot, can get a little annoying. On the flipside, it leaves a wonderfully fleshed out picture.
Robert Jordan with his Wheel of Time... he's undoubtedly one of the fantasy greats, but I've always felt he's overrated. I see a lot of people post shit online like, "Wouldn't it be great if the XXXXX series was written by Robert Jordan instead?" And often times I flat out tell people: no. Jordan was a great author, but frankly, his stories can get a little boring at times. That's what you get when the author is paid by the word count of each book, I guess (yes, that was part of his deal with his publisher... ). *Shrugs*
I haven't read anything by Salvatore, but I heard that the early Drzzt novels were good. Just, I also heard that the later ones suck.
Now I'll toss out a new name. An author I'd recommend checking out is Glen Cook, particularly for his The Black Company series, which is a gray and gray morality (rather than the typical black and white or the black and gray of GRRM's works) series about a band of mercenary soldiers set in a fantasy world. Cook's writing is very different than most other authors in the genre so there's an extreme "your mileage may vary" tag on his work, but with The Black Company, I always feel like I'm on the edge of my seat, reaching for more. To date, it's my favorite fantasy series. Cook was the first modern fantasy author to really bring epic fantasy down to the human level (Black Company predates A Song of Fire and Ice by more than a decade), but he is often overlooked in favor of bigger names.
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Don't know how you can reccomend The Black Company but not the Malazan series
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Because I only just bought Gardens of the Moon recently and haven't read it yet? Okay, I know I commented on Salvatore, but someone else brought up his name first, so I wrote what I've heard (from several different sources).
Edit: I'm going to suggest some more books...
Read Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. One of the best urban fantasy books out there. One of the few urban fantasies that doesn't devolve into a vampire romance (with BDSM and a male harem... cough Anita Blake series...).
Also try Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Funny book.
And this one I'll recommend I'm positively sure most of you haven't heard of: The Stepsister Scheme by Jim C. Hines. It goes into what really happens after the "happily ever after" in fairy tales. It's pretty funny, but at the same time, these aren't your Disney fairy tales. For instance, just like in the original "The Sun, the moon and Talia," it took more than a kiss to wake up Sleeping Beauty, if you catch my drift. Unfortunately, I've heard rumors of a Disney movie adaptation on the way. Expect some serious adaptation decay.
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In one's life, there is before and after one has read Dune. Where are you?
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How good would you guys rate Discworld? I've always wanted to read it but at the same time I've always had this feeling that it would disappoint me.
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United States3824 Posts
I second this, though I didn't get around to reading the last one. They are kinda targeted as teen/young adult but I'm sure people who like fantasy would still enjoy them.
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Ma Jae Yoon.... 2009!!!
I BELIEVE
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On July 28 2009 00:26 Smorrie wrote:
How good would you guys rate Discworld? I've always wanted to read it but at the same time I've always had this feeling that it would disappoint me.
Well I already recommended it to you but I´d say that if you have a sense of humor you like it.
It´s parody, but you can find some "hidden!" opinions and more serious stuff which only make it better IMO. But.. loads of fun!
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motbob
United States12546 Posts
Contact by Carl Sagan. IMO the best science fiction book ever written, not because of the science, but because of the philosophy.
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On July 28 2009 00:39 Mah Buckit! wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2009 00:26 Smorrie wrote:
How good would you guys rate Discworld? I've always wanted to read it but at the same time I've always had this feeling that it would disappoint me. Well I already recommended it to you but I´d say that if you have a sense of humor you like it. It´s parody, but you can find some "hidden!" opinions and more serious stuff which only make it better IMO. But.. loads of fun!
I guess I should just try it sometime not in the plane tho^^
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On July 27 2009 22:30 IMlemon wrote:
Of more recent works, I'd recommened prince of nothing trilogy. I found it far superior to fire and ice series.
Prince of nothing was 10x better than RR Martin's crap series. I swear to god if he kills off the imp i'm going to burn the book series in my back yard.
Terry Pratchett is honestly the best all around author. Read everything he writes.
Robert Jordan does the best classic/epic fantasy.
Steven Brust does some pretty interesting fantasy, but stay the hell away from his Khaavren Romance crap.
Simon R. Green writes crazy comic book style series. Amazing and crazy ideas.
C. S. Friedman is the absolute best up and coming sci-fi/fantasy author.
Endor's Game and the rest of that series(not the shadow crap) is outstanding, but the rest of Card's novels are a snore.
John Ringo and David Weber write above-average military sci-fi, and you can find all their books online for free at http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/ (Literally months of reading there)
I can list more if you want. This is just off the top of my head.
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iNcontroL
USA29055 Posts
smorrie in the name of all that you love please read song of ice and fire
NOW
LIKE 5 YEARS AGO NOW
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On July 28 2009 01:58 {88}iNcontroL wrote:
smorrie in the name of all that you love please read song of ice and fire
NOW
LIKE 5 YEARS AGO NOW While I can understand why people think that GRRM is a bit overrated, I feel that the praise is well deserved. Honestly, his series is what got me back into loving reading, and if you still haven't read it yet then I really feel you're missing out.
After you're done with that series (or at least as far as the series has been left off), then I'd probably recommend the Gentlemen Bastards series (the first book being The Lies of Locke Lamora). TLoLL is probably the first book I've read since ASoIaF that gave me a similar sense of epicness. The style of writing and the scope of the world isn't as grand, but the characters, setting, and the story itself are pretty awesome.
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On July 27 2009 22:45 Smorrie wrote:Reading through all of this made me remember a vague conversation I once had with a friend about 10 years back or so. He was talking about a book or series he was reading in which magic meets technology. I think the theme of the book was about a war between two parallel worlds.. or something about a portal which made two worlds being able to travel to each other. Perhaps a time traveling thing? Not sure. One world was supposedly to have all magic stuff going on, the other was non-magic and all technology (I think). He told me it was a really great read. It somewhat sounds interesting, I guess it could be totally lame or actually pretty good. Dunno if this rings a bell @ anyone, it's the best description I can give lol
Sounds like The Dark Sword series by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. The original trilogy was written in 1988, but there was a follow up book in 1998 that involved a portal connecting Earth to the magical world that the trilogy was set in. The trilogy wasn't very good, but that fourth book was horrendous. For some reason in the late 90's Weis and Hickman decided to shit on the trilogies they had written in the 80's with series ruining sequels (e.g., Dragons of Summer Flame).
On July 28 2009 01:31 animus123 wrote:
Endor's Game and the rest of that series(not the shadow crap) is outstanding, but the rest of Card's novels are a snore.
Most people think Ender's Shadow and its sequels are better than the Ender's Game sequels. Even if you really liked Speaker for the Dead, you have to admit that Xenocide and Children of the Mind weren't very good in comparison. I've read hundreds of fantasy/sci-fi novels, and Ender's Game is probably my favorite book. That's not just nostalgia either - I read it in ~2006.
I'll add the Prince of Nothing to my list of books to read. I've never even heard of the series, but if it's better than A Song of Ice and Fire...
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I really enjoyed the Shannara series from Terry Brooks.
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EPT
