Recommend me some fantasy novels!

[Meathands]

For a taste of prog-rock inspired/inspiring nonsense, you could do a lot worse than Michael Moorcock, with particular reference to the Hawkmoon, Corum and Elric novels. The guy was an absolute legend of the fantasy scene, but tends to be overlooked for his citicism of Tolkien's Winnie-the-Pooh-esque style. If all else fails, Moorcock's the only writer I know of that collaborated on prog albums based on his characters.

 

[WolfThomas]

Well you've got Wheel of time, so the Farseer triology and the Tawny man trilogy by Robin Hobb.

 

[Mr. Blik]

The Bartimeaus trilogy: Amulet of Samarkand, The Golem's Eye, and Ptolemy's Gate. great books. i think ill pick em up again.....

Eragon, Eldest, Brisingr, and which ever one comes out next. THAT MOTHER F***** SAID IT WAS JUST GOING TO BE 3 BOOKS. WHAT THE HELL. EXTENDING IT AND MAKING ME WAIT. AND THEN THAT SHIT MOVIE CAME OUT?! HOW COULD YOU SELL OUT LIKE THAT? ASSHOLE

finally, just one out of like 8 of the Incarnations of Immortaility. the first one. On a Pale Horse. that one will fuck with your shit.

 

[AcacianLeaves]

Greg Keyes' Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone is a great 4 part series. It has its flaws but ultimately I enjoyed reading them and they are quick, enjoyable, light reads. It starts with The Briar King, which is a very good book and will hook you in for the other 3 easily.

I have never been able to get into fantasy series that lasts more than 7 books. In most of them (Wheel of Time, for instance) you can remove about 10 books and the story would be better for it.

 

[BubbaJeff]

Like lots of people have mentioned, Robin Hobb is a pretty safe bet, I'd say the Farseer trilogy has been my fave so far, and the Tawny Man trilogy after that (they share the same characters). I didn't like the sailory ones in between so much, but they carry on chronologically from the first trilogy.

Joe Abercrombie's 'The Blade Itself', like other people have also mentioned, isn't half bad if you like your fantasy brooding and violent; and Adrian Tchaikovsky's 'Shadows of the Apt' series is worth a go too. It's not what i'd call a typical fantasy in that instead of the generic fantasy setup of races is absent, and instead he deals with a series of human civilisations that take insect characteristics; warrior ant tribes and wise and aloof moth men for example.

Everyone seems to have either brought up fairly recent fantasy names, or just stuck with the LotR - not a bad thing, mind, just thought i'd throw in Gormenghast for some funsies. Its dark, VERY dark, and more than a little weird, but pretty rewarding

 

[zelamy]

the discworld books are fantastic, funny but they all have serious plots underlying the comedy, and they have some great characters.
i just finished reading orc by stan nicholls, that's a great book, or series, i got the omnibus edition, funny, violent, epic and a great read.
and i swear you can't go a few pages in that book without a fight breaking out.
there's also the the, his dark materials, books, the northern lights/ the golden compass in the us, the subtle knife and the amber spyglass.
and there's one book from my childhood i'd like to recommend, the iron man, not the marvel comic, the book by ted hughes, it was adapted pretty successfully into an animated movie called the iron giant.
not strictly fantasy, but it's a great little book.

 

[Riobux]

1984 is classed as science fiction, sometimes.

 

[MortyMnemonic]

Did this a while ago with Sci-fi novels and got some great suggestions out of it, so I figured I'd do it for fantasy as well.

I have nothing to read. I've got enough books in my room to sink a damn battleship, but I'm in desperate need of more. So, if anyone has any fantasy books or series they love, please tell me. I'm not too fussy, I'll give most things a shot in the genre, so throw anything you want at me. Just as a pre-emptive strike, I've got the Malazan book of the fallen, A song of ice and fire and The wheel of time series. Obviously read LOTR as well.

Feel free to hijack this for discussion if you like, and thanks in advance.

I would recommend "Neverwhere" by Neil Gaiman. It's not so much a fantay novel but a fantastic novel.

Also, "The painted man" by Peter V. Brett, super awesome.

And at last, can you read German? Then there would be some of my absolute favourites as addition.

 

[y1fella]

Did this a while ago with Sci-fi novels and got some great suggestions out of it, so I figured I'd do it for fantasy as well.

I have nothing to read. I've got enough books in my room to sink a damn battleship, but I'm in desperate need of more. So, if anyone has any fantasy books or series they love, please tell me. I'm not too fussy, I'll give most things a shot in the genre, so throw anything you want at me. Just as a pre-emptive strike, I've got the Malazan book of the fallen, A song of ice and fire and The wheel of time series. Obviously read LOTR as well.

Feel free to hijack this for discussion if you like, and thanks in advance.

Wheel of time is really good and if you hadn't read that then i would of recomended it but other wise anything by J.V jones she has written 2 series. read them both but if you can read the Bakers boy series then the shadow sword series.

 

[LitleWaffle]

I'm going to have to say the Xanth Series by Piers Anthony.
At least 30 books in print and he is still going. It's about magical world of Xanth thats in a parallel dimension to mundania(our world). Each human of Xanth as a single magical talent ranging from creating a colored spot on the wall to almost anything unimaginable. Xanth has tons of magical and dangerous creatures, all pun-filled.

The pun-filled part of this drives many away from it but if you either like bad puns or you can live with them, i highly reccomend this series.

 

[Rusty Bucket]

Jesus, this is still going? Wasn't expecting that. I really want to buy all of these, but my wallet is unfortuntely unequipped to deal with that.

 

[Magnalian]

I heard the Eragon books were awesome and the movie was a huuuuge disappointment after reading them.

I liked the books, can't wait for the 4th one to arrive. Haven't watched the film, I have bit of a morbid curiosity for it though, I kinda want to see it just to see how bad it is.

It's really bad. Almost all of the major plot points are intact, but there are so many little things wrong with it that it doesn't matter.

Case in point: Saphira flies into the sky before Eragon has named her, turns into an adult in the space of a minute, then lands next to Eragon, saying "I am Saphira." Grr.

Eww, I just saw a picture of her. What the hell is up with those wings? Those aren't dragon wings! Now I have to watch this!

 

[Blue Musician]

I wouldn't recommend them that strongly, probably because I'm a outside of their a
Another book that I suggest is Nothern Lights (a.k.a. Golden Compass), the first book on it's Dark Materials trilogy. The other books aren't that good. Anyway, it isn't like the film, if you saw it, it has more depth to it, and if you haven't seen the film, good for you.

I don't know, The Subtle Knife had its moments. Pullman didn't fully lose it until The Amber Spyglass, by which point the actual story had been shoved to one-side to make room for the soapboxing against all things C.S. Lewis (and in so doing managed to duplicated everything there is to dislike about Lewis' works). Speaking of which...

Actually Northern Lights is probably the best book in the series, it's generally more interesting, and it made more sense than the other 2 books in the series. I also find it a little more dark. Not sure if you will like it though, but I found it a great book, and yes, it is better than the Subtle Knife and Amber Spyglass by far, those 2 books were a mere disappointment (specially third).
Anyway, still I recommend the Bartimaeus Trilogy to all of you before any other book.

 

[Blue Musician]

I can easily suggest the Bartimaeus series by Jonathan Stroud. It's just and excellent book trilogy, it has so much detail and little nods to other things (like Aladdin, but it does make sense, not that it's just a nod to something else). Believe me, it's probably some of the best books I have read to date. Note that the cover doesn't make it look that good, just ignore it and read the book! This one really surprised me. I do not want to give much of the plot, let's just say it's like a mix between Harry Potter and Hellboy. And no, it's doesn't contain any wands, Hogwarts, or anything that you didn't like about Harry Potter. Say it has the best moments of those series I mentioned. Curiously enough, Deathly Hallows reminded me somewhat of Bartimaeus, simply because it went somewhat to politics and it was somewhat dark.
Anyway, I suggest getting these books NOW! If you want me to elaborate a little bit more, you can PM, but I also think there is a fragment of the first 1 or 2 chapters on Jonathan Stroud's website, or was it the Bartimaeus Trilogy official site? Anyway, read them, you WILL enjoy them.

Seconded, the Bartumaeus trilogy is one of my favorite books ever. Loved the universe it painted.

And here is the start of the first book.

Spoiler

The temperature of the room dropped fast. Ice formed on the curtains and crusted thickly around the lights in the ceiling. The glowing filaments in each bulb shrank and dimmed, while the candles that sprang from every available surface like a colony of toadstools had their wicks snuffed out. The darkened room filled with a yellow, choking cloud of brimstone, in which indistinct black shadows writhed and roiled. From far away came the sound of many voices screaming. Pressure was suddenly applied to the door that led to the landing. It bulged inward, the timbers groaning. Footsteps from invisible feet came pattering across the floorboards and invisible mouths whispered wicked things from behind the bed and under the desk.

The sulfur cloud contracted into a thick column of smoke that vomited forth thin tendrils; they licked the air like tongues before withdrawing. The column hung above the middle of the pentacle, bubbling ever upward against the ceiling like the cloud of an erupting volcano. There was a barely perceptible pause. Then two yellow staring eyes materialized in the heart of the smoke.

Hey, it was his first time. I wanted to scare him.

And I did, too. The dark-haired boy stood in a pentacle of his own, smaller, filled with different runes, three feet away from the main one. He was pale as a corpse, shaking like a dead leaf in a high wind. His teeth rattled in his shivering jaw. Beads of sweat dripped from his brow, turning to ice as they fell through the air. They tinkled with the sound of hailstones on the floor.

All well and good, but so what? I mean, he looked about twelve years old. Wide-eyed, hollow-cheeked. There?s not that much satisfaction to be had from scaring the pants off a scrawny kid.

So I floated and waited, hoping he wasn?t going to take too long to get round to the dismissing spell. To keep myself occupied, I made blue flames lick up around the inner edges of the pentacle, as if they were seeking a way to get out and nab him. All hokum, of course. I?d already checked and the seal was drawn well enough. No spelling mistakes anywhere, unfortunately.

At last it looked as if the urchin was plucking up the courage to speak. I guessed this by a stammering about his lips that didn?t seem to be induced by pure fear alone. I let the blue fire die away, to be replaced by a foul smell.

The kid spoke. Very squeakily.

?I charge you . . . to . . . to . . .? Get on with it! ?T-t-tell me your n-name.?

That?s usually how they start, the young ones. Meaningless waffle. He knew, and I knew that he knew, my name already; otherwise how could he have summoned me in the first place? You need the right words, the right actions, and most of all the right name. I mean, it?s not like hailing a cab?you don?t get just anybody when you call.

I chose a rich, deep, dark chocolaty sort of voice, the kind that resounds from everywhere and nowhere and makes the hairs stand up on the back of inexperienced necks.

?Bartimaeus.?

YAY! Found someone which knows and loves the Bartimaeus books! I'll send you an invite immediately.

 

[Slash Dementia]

I'd suggest Paula Volsky's 'The Curse of the Witch-Queen'. It's an incredible book. I would actually suggest all of her books to anyone.
Perfect mix of adventure, politics, romance, magic, great characters and memorable settings.

I think she's very underrated and deserves more attention.

YAY! Found someone which knows and loves the Bartimaeus books! I'll send you an invite immediately.

I read the first book and I love it. I have the others on my shelf and plan to give them a good reading soon.

 

[snide_cake]

I highly recommend the Doctrine of Labyrinth series by Sarah Monette. I just finished it and after 1/3 of the first book I was hooked.

The first book is called Melusine, then Virtu, then Mirador and lastly Corambis.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

The Watch series by Sergey Lukyanenko (Night Watch, Day Watch and two others I haven't read yet)

Those would be The Twilight Watch and The Last Watch

 

[HK_01]

Probably this has already been said, but the First Law books by Joe Abercrombie are a great read.

Edit: And what the person above me said. Those books are great too.