David Eddings: the
Belgariad and/or the
Mallorean.
Ursula K. LeGuin: the
Wizard of Earthsea sequence.
Raymond E. Feist:
Magician,
Silverthorn,
A Darkness at Sethanon.
Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurtz:
Daughter of the Empire,
Servant of the Empire and
Mistress of the Empire.
Don't bother with the "Shadow of a Serpent Queen" and suchlike titles, though, in my opinion.
Raymond E. Feist:
Faerie Tale. It's unrelated to the above titles.
Peter O'Toole: The
Modesty Blaise series.
Orson Scott Card:
Ender's Game,
Speaker For The Dead,
Xenocide and maybe
Ender's Shadow but maybe not.
Anne McCaffrey:
Dragonflight,
Dragonquest,
Dragonsong,
Dragonsinger,
Dragondrums,
The White Dragon,
Dragonohforsod'ssakeenoughalready,
Crystal Singer,
Killashandra,
Crystal Line,
To Ride Pegasus,
Pegasus in Flight,
Pegasus in Space,
Tower and Hive,
Lyon's Pride,
Damia,
Damia's Children (not necessarily in that order).
Laurell K. Hamilton: the
Anita Blake series, or at least the first few of it:
Guilty Pleasures,
The Laughing Corpse,
Circus of the Damned,
The Lunatic Cafe and
Bloody Bones. They got a bit predictable a over-raunched as she went on and switch from out of her depth and clinging on for dawn to loafing in a huge silk-decked four-poster bed with her pet ancient vampires and alpha male werewolves. Don't bother with the Meredith books,
A Kiss of Shadows and its followers.
Terry Moore:
Strangers in Paradise. Good luck getting the full set of hardbacks, but you can get a full set of the pocket-sized ones [http://www.strangersinparadise.com/store.html].
Garth Ennis: Preacher [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Preacher-Graphic-Novels-in-order/lm/211UIUN3PAQKM].
Wilbur Smith: too many to list [http://www.wilbursmithbooks.com/novels/bibliography.html]. They get a bit too similar if you read too many of them, but they're good.
River God was rather different, for reasons explained in a note towards the end of the book.
Shout At The Devil is singularly horrible.
Wild Justice is a bit too much of a Hollywood action flick and not enough of a book. You'd probably do better to stick with the older stuff:
A Falcon Flies,
Men of Men,
The Angels Weep,
The Leopard Hunts In Darkness and
Triumph Of The Sun and
When The Lion Feeds,
The Sound Of Thunder,
A Sparrow Falls,
The Burnign Shore and so on, which overlap somewhat in time.
Robert Ludlum: several books [http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Robert+Ludlum&x=0&y=0&ih=10_2_0_0_0_1_0_0_0_1.44_212&fsc=-1], including some whose titles you may recognise from recent film publicity.
Alistair Maclean:
Where Eagles Dare,
When Eight Bells Toll,
The Satan Bug,
Ice Station Zebra et cetera. I want to fly this route [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XKGhG0W0LQ]!
Terry Pratchett:
The Colour of Magic,
The Light Fantastic,
Wyrd Sisters.
Mort and
Pyramids,
Truckers,
Diggers and
Wings and
Only You Can Save Mankind.
Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman:
Good Omens.
William Gibson:
Neuromancer.
Tom Sharpe:
Wilt,
Wilt On High,
The Wilt Alternative.
James Herbert:
The Dark,
Rats,
Lair,
Domain,
The Fog and some others are good but some of his other work is pretty lame by comparison.
Stephen King:
IT, Christine and Bag of Bones but not Misery or Cujo.
.....
... and there was a thread about "required reading and viewing" for books and films everyone should experience. There were a few things in there for being really good rather than for character development value, but here's the latest edition of the list:
12 Angry Men
1984
A Bridge Too Far
A Clockwork Orange
A Language Older Than Words
A short history of nearly everything
After Dachau
Alas, Babylon
All Quiet On The Western Front
Amen
Animal Farm
Apocalypse Now
Atlas Shrugged
Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks
Betrayed
Beyond Civilization
Blackadder Goes Forth
Brave New World
Callahan/Lady series
Cat's Cradle
Children Of Men
Climate of Change
Das Boot
Earth Abides
Ender's Game
Enemy At The Gates
Enemy Mine
Fahrenheit 451
Farnham's Freehold
Felidae
Fingerprints Of The Gods
Flags of our Fathers
Footfall
Friday
Glory Road
Go Ask Alice
Gran Torino
Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas From The Computer Age
Hamburger Hill
Handlebars <===== song.
Heart of Darkness
Heaven's Mirror
Herland
Home Of The Brave
Hope of Earth
Isle of Woman
Into The Wild
Ishmael
Job: A Comedy of Justice
Johnny Got His Gun
Letters From Iwo Jima
Logan's Run
Lone Survivor
Lucifer's Hammer
Mars <===== trilogy.
Missing
Momo
Mother Night
Muse of Art
My Ishmael
Paths Of Glory
Providence: The Story Of A 50-Year Vision Quest
Rashomon
Riddley Walker
Schindler's List
Shame of Man
Slaughterhouse Five
Soldaat van Oranje (Soldier of Orange)
Sophie's World
Starship Troopers <===== the BOOK. The movie(s) should be burned.
Stranger in a Strange Land
The Abyss
The Art of War
The Book Of Five Rings
The Caine Mutiny
The Confession
The Constant Gardener
The Culture Of Make Believe
The Day of the Triffids <===== book, never the film!
The Diary of Anne Frank
The Fifth Sacred Thing
The Green Mile
The Hagakure
The Holy
The Last Children
The Last Enemy
The Last Unicorn
The Mists Of Avalon
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress
The Name of the Wind
The Narnia Series <===== originals, not movie tie-ins.
The Neverending Story
The Pursuit of Happyness
The Quiet American
The Rift
The Shawshank Redemption
The Story Of B
The Stranger
The Tomorrow Testament
The Wave
Time Enough for Love
To Kill A Mockingbird
Tunnel In The Sky
Underworld
Utopia
Walking To Mercury
Warriors
Z
Z For Zachariah
Zen & the art of Motorcycle maintenance
On the other side, I advise you to avoid anything related to "Magic Kingdom For Sale Sold", "Titus Groan" or Terry Brooks in general, actually.
