| Forum Index > Media & Entertainment |
|
Euronyme
Sweden3804 Posts
Other than that, Neil Gaiman's awesome as well. He's done a book together with pratchett, so I guess I'm just into the genre. I've only read Neverwhere by him, but it was awesome. Watch out for David Eddings.. I wouldn't suggest reading them unless you're younger than 15. | ||
|
mig el pig
Belgium3 Posts
A song of fire and ice by George Martin The Witcher series Those 3 have been mentioned before and their all great indeed. but you can also consider these, although they are bit more obscure The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant: It's high fantasy but with some unique twists Chung Kuo; Futuristic world dominated by the Chinese (only read the first 4, never found the others but they are currently being republished. ) | ||
|
Robellicose
England245 Posts
- Fantasy Tolkien is worth reading, if for no other reason than his literal INVENTION of the Elves / Dwarves / Dungeons and Dragons style of fantasy. His books are the starting point for this huge swathe of literature. The Tyrants and Kings series, by John Marco is an absolutely awesome series. Whilst some people deride David Edding's Elder Gods series, the Sparhawk Trilogies (The Tamuli and The Elenium) are simply brilliant. As previously mentioned, the Witcher novels are great and successfully avoid myriad fantasy cliches whilst creating a compelling universe. If you don't have time to read them, the PC game The Witcher Extended Edition is similarly brilliant and has a lot of story depth to it. For humorous fantasy, I seriously don't expect anyone to ever beat Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, although Tom Holt has written books that come close. - Science Fiction Peter F. Hamilton, Iain M. Banks and Alistair Reynolds have an extensive catalogue of quality science fiction. If you're looking for some of the founding fathers of the genre, check out Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick and H. G. Wells. Neil Asher produced my favourite series, centring around the universe he created involving the Polity and the Prador Kingdoms. The books about Agent Ian Cormac are probably my favourite. Check out Gridlinked, The Line of Polity and Polity Agent especially. Richard Morgan also has created a very interesting universe, check out the series of Altered Carbon, Broken Angels and Woken Furies. | ||
|
KasPra
Estonia983 Posts
| ||
|
mcc
Czech Republic4646 Posts
1) Stanislaw Lem, basically everything by him. Very hard to read for some, highly philosophical. His books can be divided into serious and satirical with not much overlap. The satirical ones are the funniest in whole sci-fi genre that I ever read, yet still full of very intellectual stuff and food for thought. Unfortunately any translation loses half the humor, especially into non-slavic languages, but I heard there is pretty good English translation of some of his books (by Kandel I think). On the other hand also some bad transalations, mostly double ones from German. Definitely recommended : Star Diaries and Cyberiad (both have Kandel's translation) as the satirical ones. Solaris and His Master's Voice from the serious ones. 2) P.K.Dick, because he can write and his stories are interesting. 3) U.K. Le Guin , as above 4) Picnic by the road (also known as Stalker) by Strugacki brothers 5) H.G.Wells, Stapledon are also pretty good Fantasy : Tolkien, that is probably all  | ||
|
Euronyme
Sweden3804 Posts
On February 14 2011 00:44 KasPra wrote: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - one of my absolute favourites. Idk what people think about it but i love it. It's not serious at all though, mostly full of humor and satire. You should check out some Terry Pratchett books m8 The best of the 'Guide' is like the average in Terry's books in my opinion. They've got the same kind of humour as well. My favourite part of the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy was like the first 20 or so pages, with the jingis khan stuff ^^ Litterally laughed out loud (no pun intended). | ||
|
Born)Slippy
Norway1904 Posts
A bunch of stuff mentioned here I have already read. David Eddings I refuse to believe can ever write good stuff, I still remember how numb I felt inside after reading some of his Elder Gods bs. Extremely lame, generic stuff. I will check out The Witcher, John Marco and maybe Chung Fuo if I can find those books... to start with. Keep it coming, I suspect other people than me are interested in this :-) | ||
|
CuttyFlam
Belgium523 Posts
- Raymond E. Feist, start out with "magician" his masterpiece if you ask me, also his debut ^^ Science fiction: -Peter F Hamilton: Absolute no brainer, epic space opera!! | ||
|
Zechs
United Kingdom321 Posts
Neil Gaiman - anything Terry Pratchett - anything except the Witch novels, which i find kinda boring. The Dwaves (Markus Heitz, i think?) Orcs (forgot the name of the author but i was pleasently surprised for such a generic-sounding book) The Bloodgate Codex books 1 & 2, the 3rd one is very tedious and is ruined by time travel (time travel stories kinda ruin everything IMO, especially in literature) | ||
|
Node
United States2159 Posts
I'd also say that pretty much everyone, not even necessarily sci-fi / fantasy fans, ought to read The City & The City, which takes a fascinatingly unique concept and runs with it, making a story unlike anything else out there. | ||
|
EdaPoe
Netherlands82 Posts
Snowcrash - Neal Stephenson Anansi boys - Neil Gaiman Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Prachett | ||
|
Topin
Peru10102 Posts
really good book, part of a trilogy called "the seven realms". the 2nd book is relatively new: The Exiled Queen | ||
|
Project Psycho
United Kingdom329 Posts
| ||
|
Ajunoo
Germany147 Posts
A Song of Ice and Fire - LOTR like epic fantasy The Name of the Wind - pretty much normal fantasy, but EXTREMELY well done Mistborn Trilogy - very unique magic system, interesting story Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman - excellent book, not your standard fantasy, kind of an...alice in wonderland only in a weird magical parallel universe london (including King's courts in Subways and things like that). Aside from all that (I'm sure the above books have been mentioned already), check out http://www.goodreads.com/, its a nice site to get book advice imo | ||
|
Headshot
United States1656 Posts
| ||
|
Fryght
Netherlands254 Posts
Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy Robin Hobbs's Tawny Man trilogy (read only after Farseer) | ||
|
blamous
United States377 Posts
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever (the first trilogy) is IMHO hands down the best epic fantasy series since LoTR. The second Chronicles is not as great but is still great. The last chronicles is in progress, having been taken up again after nearly 30 years, and so far has not disappointed me. Donaldson also has another bestselling series called "The Gap Cycle" - 5 books - unbelievable characters and story - just really really great stuff. I just started the Song of Fire and Ice books but have not been drawn is as of yet. I'm hoping it's just a slow developer. My time is limited and so these days I do most of my 'reading' via audiobooks. The reader of SoFaI is not that great, which may be the reason i'm not getting into it. EDIT: I can also vouch for the Wheel of Time. I found it to be a great story. Yes, because of the length it is difficult to keep things straight in the story, and at times things can seem a bit protracted, but overall it is a stunning accomplishment... Sanderson has done justice to the work thus far, IMO. Honorable mentions: Chronicles of Narnia, LoTR, The Elenium and Tamuli by David Eddings (I thought they were better than the Belgariad and Mallorean, all of which I read when I was 15, so my memory is probably colored.) | ||
|
Kimaker
United States2131 Posts
Chronicles of Thomas Covenant-Stephen R. Donaldson Belgariad-David Eddings Conan-Robert E. Howard Eternal Champion-Michael Moorcock Gor-John Norman Epics: Lord of the Rings (obligatory)-JRR Tolkien The Dark Tower-Stephen King Dune-Frank Herbert "New" series: Wheel of Time Wayfarer Redemption : On February 13 2011 23:11 Scarecrow wrote: Gemmell, Eddings and Feist are the three best fantasy writers imo. Any of their earlier books are must reads. I also loved Ursula le Guin's Earthsea quartet. The Salvatore books and any other generic fantasy fan fiction is rubbish and should be disregarded. Wheel of Time is also very overrated. That feels like you're taking it a bit far. I mean, no one's gonna say Salvatore did anything incredible with his writings, but it's not like it started out all bad. The Dark Elf Trilogy was decent...it just sorta descended into...not so great after that xD But the foundation novels were good. WOT has so far been okay, but nothing great. After reading all these "reviews" I'm hesitant to go spend money on the third book... | ||
|
joheinous
Iceland522 Posts
| ||
|
Lysteria
France2280 Posts
It follows an elite mercenary army, in a quite normal feudal world (except the presence of magicians). Really good dark fantasy here, without good nor evil, just men who try to get the job done. | ||
| ||
StarCraft 2 StarCraft: Brood War Dota 2 League of Legends Counter-Strike Other Games |
|
OSC
Shameless vs MaNa
Nicoract vs Percival
Krystianer vs TBD
Cure vs SHIN
PiGosaur Monday
The PondCast
OSC
Big Brain Bouts
Serral vs TBD
BSL 21
BSL 21
Wardi Open
Monday Night Weeklies
|
|
|
EPT
