Favorite Fantasy or SF Novels

[3bob]

Moved to Vedanta forum as it seems appropriate here.

 

Hello SereneBlue,

My hearing is shot from working around industrial equipment, my eyesight is ok for long distances and the time I have available to digest and or comment on long Tao Bums battles like these is limited, then again I'm looking forward to reading the next Terry Brooks novel; how about you or may I ask what are some of your favorite fantasy novels? (a subject which could be moved to a seemingly separate but still dependently originated string where it might be empty but hopefully not blank)

 

Bob

[lifeforce]

I'm looking forward to reading he next Terry Brooks novel

 

Excellent choice of author !

I know this comment was for SereneBlue but I couldn't help but chime in.

The Shannara books are great.

I'm about to tackle Frank Herbert's Dune starting this week.

Sorry to go off on a tangent like.

[3bob]

Excellent choice of author !

I know this comment was for SereneBlue but I couldn't help but chime in.

The Shannara books are great.

I'm about to tackle Frank Herbert's Dune starting this week.

Sorry to go off on a tangent like.

 

No problem for me. (morfing to something else but maybe not so for other posters?)

 

Wow, the "Dune" collection is quite an undertaking! I sure enjoyed them, lots of vivid desert descriptions used as background for all the other goings on!

 

The movie was ok at best, perhaps a 5 out of 10, whereas the books are more like 7.5 out ten, imo. anyway. Have fun

[JustARandomPanda]

Hello SereneBlue,

My hearing is shot from working around industrial equipment, my eyesight is ok for long distances and the time I have available to digest and or comment on long Tao Bums battles like these is limited, then again I'm looking forward to reading the next Terry Brooks novel; how about you or may I ask what are some of your favorite fantasy novels? (a subject which could be moved to a seemingly separate but still dependently originated string where it might be empty but hopefully not blank)

 

Bob

 

Heh. Moved this to the Book Club forum to Dependently Originate here.

 

Fave Fantasy authors. Well I'm gonna sneak some SF authors in here too even though you didn't ask about them.

 

1. JRR Tolkien - classic - no one compares

 

2. Frank Herbert - classic - no one compares

 

3. Stephen Baxter - my fave hard SF author.

 

4. Brandon Sanderson - fave current epic fantasy author after GRRM

 

5. George RR Martin - love his SoI&F but refuse to read any more of it until it's finished

 

6. Alastair Reynolds - 2nd fave hard SF author

 

7. Kressley Cole - love her Immortals after Dark

 

8. Gena Showalter - love her Lords of the Underworld

 

9. Stephen King - love the Dark Tower series!

 

10. Madeleine Lengle - love A Wrinkle in Time and all it's sequels - especially A Swiftly Tilting Planet.

 

11. Norton Juster - even as an adult I still LOVE The Phantom Tollbooth!

 

12. Isaac Asimov - Love his Foundation series!

 

13. John Scalzi - loved his Old Man's War series. Looking forward to his Red Shirts (sounds funny as hell! )

 

14. Tom Robbins - Jitterbut Perfume was fantastic. Looking forward to more of his stuff.

 

15. Pre-Christian Anne Rice. Ever since she converted to Christianity I have found her works utterly boring. Too bad. I really liked her Witching Hour series. Sigh...Oh well...

 

 

Used to like Robert Jordan (books 1 - 4 but after that it went downhill Big Time. Ugh. )

 

 

 

There are some new authors I hope to try out within the next few months.

 

Right now I'm reading Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep and loving it.

 

One author I tried out and was really disappointed with was Robert Heinlein. Checked out his Stranger in a Strange Land and found it a borefest. Flat characters, dull problems I had no interest in...lotsa preaching behind the facade of "characterization". Ugh. After all the hype I was really surprised and disappointed. Never read another Heinlein book ever again. Another author I discovered I do not like - Robin Hobbs. Borefest. Good writing skills but her world and characters were boring. Again...really surprised how much I didn't care for her stuff. Ditto Anne McCaffrey. And...um...alas... Terry Brooks, Stephen Donaldson and Steven Erickson. Can't stand Terry Goodkin. Read several of his Sword of Truth series hoping they'd get better and they never did. (Also he's Way too Preachy in his novels )

 

Tried all of the above and just couldn't get into those author's works.

 

 

I've heard 100 Years of Solitude is good. Hope to check that out soon along with Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. Also have What Dreams May Come and The Between up soon.

[RyanO]

Nice list Serene.

 

I'm going to reiterate George Martin's series. It has achieved wide popularity due to the HBO series, and it is deserved. My favorite series ever. Two caveats: It's not finished yet and Martin has been slow to finish, and also it's a very adult and dark setting.

 

I also really enjoyed the Belgariad series as a nice example of a very well done straitforward fantasy series (although a little cliche), which is also good for young adults.

 

Also Tigana is a great fantasy novel that's not part of a series.

[Gerard]

[idquest]

1) Neal Stephenson - everything

2) Ian Banks - Culture

3) Peter Hamilton - Confederation

4) David Marusek - Counting Heads

5) A Asimov - unsurpassed Foundation

6) Julian May - Saga of Pleocene to Magnificat

[JohnC]

If you like Brandon Sanderson (who is awesome):

 

Awesome:

You'll love The Night Angel Trilogy from Brent Weeks

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss <- READ!

Among Thieves by Douglas Hulick

 

 

Good:

The Lies of Locke Lamora - by Scott Lynch

The Warded Man - Peter Brett

Theft of Swords - Michael J Sullivan

The Dragons Path - Daniel Abraham - better than good.. but not awesome.

 

Ok:

The Blade Itself - Joe Abercrombie

 

John

[JustARandomPanda]

You'll love The Night Angel Trilogy from Brent Weeks

 

I'm waiting for the Omnibus edition of the Night Angel trilogy that collects all 3 books in one volume. It's supposed to be released late 2012.

 

 

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss <- READ!

 

I checked out the first book and liked it so it's very likely I'll check out the second. The main character is very much a "Mary Sue" type but for some reason it still works well. But for people who are alergic to Mary Sue characters as the chief protagonist I wouldn't recommend it.

 

I'm also really itching to read The Legend of Eli Monpress.

 

It's the omnibus edition of all 3 novels. I read the back of the book and it sounded hilarious.

 

 

blurb alert:

 

 

Eli Monpress is the greatest thief of the Age (he's also something of a wizard). But first he needs to increase the bounty on his head. So he'll start small (and work his way up) and steal something people aren't likely to notice is gone for a while

 

....

 

like a King.

 

 

 

....

 

 

I cracked up when I read that. So that book is definitely on my 'gotta read soon' list. Will definitely check out some of the others recommended here.

[JohnC]

 

 

I checked out the first book and liked it so it's very likely I'll check out the second. The main character is very much a "Mary Sue" type but for some reason it still works well. But for people who are alergic to Mary Sue characters as the chief protagonist I wouldn't recommend it.

 

Huh, I think the character is fairly well developed. I enjoyed the authors perticular writing style as well.

 

But I'll probably be checking out Eli Monpress soon.

 

John

[Protector]

I had somewhere a collection of short stories by one author but I don't remember the name

I remember some stories so tell me if they sound familiar

 

One story was used as art for the cover, in it an alien needed to find skin of some creature that doesn't exist on their planet anymore but he went to hunt for it anyway.

Meanwhile, human astronauts land of that planet and set up a camp or something. Alien finds them and identifies them as the missing creature and sets traps around camp. In one trap he put diamonds because he heard these creatures love diamonds. Humans get scared eventually and leave but the alien gets the skin of one of them anyway.

On the cover of the book was one of the human's space suits hoisted like a flag.

 

Another interesting story was about a restaurant told from different perspectives. There was a waitress who worked very hard for a regular customer because she had an impression that he came only because she was cute or something. Then the same story was told from the chef's perspective who though the customer came only because the food was good and so he kept making it more and more fatty. Then the story was told from the customer's perspective, he kept coming because the atmosphere was good.

The story was just describing every day in the restaurant and how chef and waitress were very proud of themselves first but then the customer died and they blamed their food and cuteness for killing him.

This story was even used in class somewhere before I moved to Canada

 

Another story I head was very popular, for its steamy parts I bet. There was this veery pretty lady who was bored or something and she was thinking of cheating on her husband or something. Just when she was thinking that, a new vacuum cleaner arrived to her home but she didn't order one. The computer inside the vacuum fell in love with her and delivered itself to her home... and started doing things *COUGH!!!*

 

Another story was about a person who never been to Earth and when he went on a vacation there, or went to live, he saw a stand where you could shoot women or something creepy like that. Then he was a shop where they sold love, but he didn't understand what they were talking about so he ordered some. They gave him a girl to go on a date with then she had to come back to the shop and his feelings started to get all mixed up. And then he went to the stand.

 

There was the most peaceful looking planet ever. One day some people from Earth needed some youths from that planet to join the army. To show that their planet was normal, everyone made sure everyone had their roles straight. While doing that, they found out that THEY NEED A CRIMINAL. So, one guy was made to be the thief and all the people in his town supported him with it and gave their own stuff and were all smiley about it. When Earthlings came, they were kinda confused.

 

OK one more, this was the biggest story in the book collection. This story is almost like Futurama and maybe inspired it a little. Just a normal person was driving down the road, when he crashed into another car and died. The moment he died, people from the future caught his soul and put it into another body. Saving him was a stunt the company pulled to make themselves look good and the rescue was used in a commercial. The guy was then left to walk around THE FUTUUUURE.

It was a very good story and in the book, such a tease, the final page of the story was on the right side of the book as you read it and it looked like if you turn the page, the story would continue but it woooooooont.

Edited May 3, 2012 by Sinfest

[doc benway]

Lord of the Rings and Dune are my favorites.

Here are some other really good ones:

His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman

Dan Simmons - The Hyperion Trilogy (and anything else)

The Sparrow and Children of God by Mary Doria Russell

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Wicked by Gregory Maguire

And another good one is -

Hard Boiled Universe and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami

[DaoWaDiddy]

I like many of the books/authors already mentioned (Asimov, Herbert, Tolkien, etc.)

 

Here are some other favorites:

 

Spider Robinson

- Callahan's Crosstime Saloon and

some

of the follow-ups. The Stardance books.

 

Roger Zelazny

- Lord of Light

 

Neil Gaiman

- American Gods

 

Neil Stephenson

- Snow Crash. You have to love a book where the main character is Hiro Protagonist.

 

Katherine Kurtz & Deborah Turner Harris

- The Adept (and the rest of the series)

 

Talbot Mundy

- OM: The Secret of Ahbor Valley and others

 

Harlan Ellison

- Damn near anything. He's written a ton of short stories, TV episodes, etc. Some samples short stories:

Repent Harlequin Said The Ticktockman

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

William Gibson

- Neuromancer / Count Zero / Mona Lisa Overdrive - the Father of Cyberpunk

 

David Drake

- the Honor Harrington series

 

Theodore Sturgeon

- Again, damn near anything. He wrote amazingly great short stories, wrote my favorite Star Trek episodes - "Shore Leave" - and came up with the phrase "Live long and prosper".

 

Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson

- The Illuminatus Trilogy - not quite SF or Fantasy

fnord

but an amazing read none the less.

 

--------------------------------------------------------------

 

My favorite SF book is Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A Heinlein.

 

I first read it as a teenager while attending a very conservative parochial school. One of the things that the book helped me do was to take a look at religion from a very different perspective; it was one of the crowbars that helped me dismantle the box and become the lapsed Daoist that I am today.

 

Read to enjoy and enjoy what you read.

 

Charlie

Edited June 2, 2012 by DaoWaDiddy

[Apech]

Samuel Delany

 

Nova, Jewels of Aptor, Eistein Intersection, Dhalgren, Stars in my pocket like grains of sand ... etc.

 

[Cat Pillar]

This thread is reminding me of how much I used to read, and how much I miss reading for fun. x.x

 

So many great suggestions on here, so many books I still want to read...

 

One day, when I am not so busy...

[Erdrickgr]

I rarely read fiction, but being a fan of the Dragon Age: Origins game I did read the two prequel books (The Stolen Throne and The Calling) and enjoyed them. I read LOTR several times when I was younger, but haven't read it in probably 15 years.

[Brian]

Excellent choice of author !

I know this comment was for SereneBlue but I couldn't help but chime in.

The Shannara books are great.

I'm about to tackle Frank Herbert's Dune starting this week.

Sorry to go off on a tangent like.

 

Be sure to read the Dune saga in the order it was published (and I highly recommend the later installments his son co-wrote, too...)

[doc benway]

I just finished reading the entire Walking Dead comic series - FANTASTIC!

I've never read comics before but these were compelling.

Another good SF novel I read a while back was The Passage by Justin Cronin.

The follow up to it is due in October

[dwai]

Recently started reading The Mystic Saga by Scott McElhaney....available on kindle store @ amazon. Nice space saga...

[Melanie]

Lets see my favorite SF, would be,

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Philip K Dick

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

The Alchemist - Pualo Coelho

 

There are a lot more that I like but those three are always my top picks.

[doc benway]

Recently read two more -

1. Wool - The Omnibus Edition by Hugh Howey.... WOW - great stuff from an independent writer. Very inexpensive ebook. Get it!

2. Radix - AA Attanasio .... I struggled a bit to get through it but overall a pretty good read. Heavily infused with spiritual themes.

[konchog uma]

anyone ever read John Crowley's Little, Big?

 

i think its my favorite book i've ever read. Top 3 for sure.

 

http://www.amazon.co...rds=little, big

 

edit: its fantasy btw, not scifi. Kind of a fairy tale but with six foot fairies

Edited August 12, 2012 by anamatva