Fantasy Readers!

[mhatchett]

I thought I would start this thread because I think a lot of us are interested in Fantasy/Epic Fantasy/Dark Fantasy/Noir Fantasy, anyway, you get the idea. I’m going to list a few of my favorites old and new, please add yours.
1. Robert E. Howard: Solomon Kane, Conan, Bran Mak Morn: The Last King.
2. Edgar Rice Burroughs: Tarzan.
3. Karl Edward Wagner: Darkness Weaves, Death Angel's Shadow, Night Winds.
4. David Gemmell: Legend, Waylander, Waylander II: In the Realm of the Wolf.
5. Mark Lawerence: The Broken Empire Trilogy.
6. Peter V. Brett: Demon Cycle.
7. Glen Cook: The Black Company.
8. Scott Lynch: The Gentleman Bastard Sequence.
9. Christian Cameron: Traitor Son Cycle.
10. Elspeth Cooper: Songs of the Earth.
11. Joe Abercrombie: The First Law Series.
12. Patrick Rothfuss: The Kingkiller Chronicle.
13. Ian Esslemont: The other Malazan Tales.
14. Harry Turtledove: The Lost Legion, The Tales of Krispos.

[bugen]

J.R.R. Tolkien: All 5. I even loved The Silmarillion.

Terry Brooks: Sword of Shannara trilogy and Heritage of Shannara tetrology. I haven't read these since I was a teenager but loved them back then and figure I probably still would. Especially Elfstones and Wishsong.

Margaraet Weiss & Tracy Hickman: Chronicles trilogy and Legends trilogy (Dragonlance). These I've read within the last 10 years. Not as complex as Brooks or Tolkien, but they hold up and are very entertaining.

Thanks for the list. Been looking at Demon Cycle based on an earlier forum comment and have Black Company on Kindle but haven't gotten to it yet. This will be a great reference.

[TJCams]

I'm not much of a fantasy person, but I did enjoy Edgar Rice Burroughs Kasprak series book 1 - Land That Time Forgot (I think....), got less than 1/2 way thru the second part of this trilogy and put it down - may revisit it.

I want to try McAffrey's Dragonriders again - I tried reading Dragonriders of Pern way long time ago, but it was too big for me them (pre high school probably), as my Dad had most, if not all, of the books in that series.

That's about it for fantasy for me right now. I would certainly be willing to give some fantasy novels a try though!

[Martin]

Have not read much Fantasy but I loved King's Eye's of the Dragon.

[Dan Hocker]

Fantasy is pretty much all I read. My favorite probably being Terry Brooks. Specifically the Word and Void trilogy, which is basically a prequel to the entire Shannara series set in Illinois in the 90's.

[mhatchett]

I read Brooks in my youth. Really haven't been back since. I'm sure I'll revisit one day. I have been reading Brian McClellan's Powder Mage Trilogy, Django Wexler's Shadow campaigns and Anthony Ryan's Blood Song, part of the Raven's Shadow series. Lots of really, really good stuff out there. And some, while not bad are not to my taste. I had to put the Barrow down. I might pick it up latter.

[bsaenz24]

I've heard great things about the first Anthony Ryan book and mixed on the second. I'll still read them once the third is out.

[bugen]

I had no idea or had forgotten that Shannara was Earth.

Dan you mention Word and Void trilogy detailing this. Would you guys recommend re-reading the Shannara Sword and Heritage books for proper perspective, or could one dive right into Word and Void with only vague memories of the original books?

[bsaenz24]

I think the Word/Void books are probably some of my favorite Brooks titles. I did love the first three Landover books too, but they were much lighter/fun reads.

[Dan Hocker]

I had no idea or had forgotten that Shannara was Earth.

Dan you mention Word and Void trilogy detailing this. Would you guys recommend re-reading the Shannara Sword and Heritage books for proper perspective, or could one dive right into Word and Void with only vague memories of the original books?

I would definitely start with the Word and Void stuff. I personally would have had they been out when I started in on Terry Brooks books years ago. I think chronological is almost always best over publication order. Word and Void is also so much of a prequel that it has very very little to do with the actual Shannara stuff.

[marduk]

Joe Abercrombie: anything
David Eddings: all the books before Leigh (haven't read any of those)
Craig Shaw Gardner: the Ebenezum and Wuntvor trilogies (light-hearted fantasy)
the Thieves' World series
Lloyd Alexander - The Chronicles of Prydain
Guy Gavriel Kay - The Fionavar Tapestry
David Chandler - Ancient Blades Trilogy
Michael J. Sullivan - all
any Warhammer novel
the early DragonLance books
Terry Brooks - the original Shannara trilogy
Greg Costikyan - Another Day, Another Dungeon; One Quest, Hold the Dragons

[bsaenz24]

Just an FYI, I had read many years ago that Eddings wife had help write the books for years before they publisher let her name go on the book too.

[slayn666]

Richard K. Morgan's A Land Fit For Heroes books are great, everyone should read them. He does the fantasy deconstruction thing much, much better than Abercrombie (I still love Joe's books, though!).

[Dan Hocker]

This is a good list, hopefully I can find some audio books from this when I'm done listening to the Shannara stuff. It's been an interesting experience so far in audio book form.

[bugen]

Wasn't sure where to put this and didn't want to start another new thread, but for some who might not have heard celebrated, multi-award winning fantasy/horror author Graham Joyce passed away today. For those who may be interested a definitive Best-of short story collection was announced a few weeks back by PS Publishing and is still available on their site in limited and trade.