Fantasy? (1 Viewer)

[nick1048]

The Magician
Waylander
The Sword in the Storm
Pawn of prophecy - and the rest of the eddings saga.

 

[cameronS]

ohh riftwar was fucking awesome, love milamber and tomas

i agree serpentwar wasnt as good, but it still rocked

bull shit, milamber is a faggot who talks and has sex. constantly.

serpent war had excellent characters

rupert avery is the fucking best.

prince of the blood and the kings buccaneer were excellent.

honoured enemy is the best book i've ever read. The other riftwar legends sucked ass.

conclave is okay, krondor series were great.

 

[grendel]

it has been a while since i read feist but i thought "faery tale" was his best book.

epic fantasy you can't go past tad williams or george rr martin (or tolkien.)

but without doubt my favourite is tim powers (the annubis gates, the stress of her regard, declare...etc) the most original fantasy writer at the moment. not your typical sword and sorcery fanatsy, his novells are set in the real world and draw on lots of elements, history, occult, politics, literature, grail legend... it is a little inappropriate pidgeon holing powers as a fantasy writer because his writing transcends many genres. everybody must read at least one of his novels before thay die.

 

[^CoSMic DoRiS^^]

i cant believe that noone has mentioned Terry Pratchett yet!!! then again, i didnt read alll the posts, but...he is the maddest fantasy author!!! sure, some of it might not seem as "fantastical" as other writers, but come on, if the Discworld isnt a fantasy place, what is? And Death...my all time favourite character (except perhaps for lord vetinari) what a funny man i must say. v. humourous/satirical too - you dont often get that in fantasy books. terry pratchett whoops tamora pierces ass...

 

[kami]

My favourites of fantasy are:
Sara Douglass' Troy Game quartet. A brilliant set of books which displays how much she has grown as an author, it is set at first in ancient greece but later moves to albion aka ancient england.
China Mieville's Bas Lag series. The first one known as Perdido Street Station is one of the best book ever, it is like a gritty yet fantastical version of all the big cities in the world. His second one The Scar is even better and needs to be read to be believed, however it is veeerrry dense reading.
Steven Erikson's Malazan series. Woohoo, great, fantastic, what can I say? Read these! The interplay of cultures, sorcery, and politics is very intriguing. Also veeerry dense.
Janny Wurts' & Raymond E. Feist's Daughter of the Empire trilogy is great, definitely enjoyed the bug people(what were they called again?).
Guy Gavriel Kay's Sarantine Mosaic is also coolness.
Robin Hobb's Farseer, Liveship and Tawny Man trilogies are great there is so much in there, my absolute favourite.
George R. Martin's Song of Ice & Fire is really good, its almost a mix between Robin Hobb's and Robert Jordan's styles but argh he is taking so long to write the next one

 

[ace__3001]

My favourite fantasy writer has to be David Eddings, although I don't like his latest series, the Dreamers or whatever, and Regina's song was pretty lame.
The Riftwar saga was great, but Magician was easily the best part.
Can't go past LOTR and The Hobbit of course.
But the only Fantasy series that I completely HATE has to be the Bitterbynde by Cecilia Dart-Thornton (I think that's how you spell it). I can't quite point out just why that trilogy sucks so much, it just does. I'd tell you to go and read it so that you can see for yourself how bad it is, but I wouldn't want to make people suffer like that.

 

[Inferior-nova]

yea tracy harding a great writer, the series contiunes another trilogy called "The celestial Triad"

 

[jhakka]

I'm currently reading The Death Gate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. An easy read, and very enjoyable. Not too much thinking involved.

I just ordered Dragonlance Chronicles and Dragonlance Legends (Weis and Hickman) off Dymocks. Can't wait for those to come in.

 

[overthaedge]

i cant believe that noone has mentioned Terry Pratchett yet!!! then again, i didnt read alll the posts, but...he is the maddest fantasy author!!! sure, some of it might not seem as "fantastical" as other writers, but come on, if the Discworld isnt a fantasy place, what is? And Death...my all time favourite character (except perhaps for lord vetinari) what a funny man i must say. v. humourous/satirical too - you dont often get that in fantasy books. terry pratchett whoops tamora pierces ass...

ditto to that... terry pratchett is a legend with fantasy novels.
hahha and death is awesome.

but i reckon he beats tamora pierce only cause they each cater for different aged audiences. I use to love tamora pierce, but now it just doesnt appeal to me as much as discworld does.

 

[tempco]

I'm currently reading The Death Gate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. An easy read, and very enjoyable. Not too much thinking involved.

really liked the series. :uhhuh:

 

[cameronS]

Feist is the single greatest author, ever.

noone comes close, jordan, goodking, and the endless list of d grade fantasy authors (douglas, hobb, nix etc) that every seems to like.

please, if you can, suggest a fast paced, amusing, likeable, simple narrative thats there to entertain rather than to impress.

please.

 

[billbro]

The first Riftwar book (Magician) was brilliant, the the second, Silverthorn sucked, mostly because it followed Jimmy the Hand, who didn't even rate as a secondary character in the original, and I don't remember the third, other than that is was much like the second. Even better was the Empire series, set around the same time, but in Kelewan. I loved these ones because of all the politics. daughter of the Empire was good, Servant of the Empire was awesome, and Mistress of the Empire sucked. And I hated Serpentwar/Conclave of Shadows. His main prblem is that he has too much focus on minor characters.

I haven't visited this thread in ages, I read Silverthorn ages ago so I can't clearly remember what happened but I was pretty sure it followed Prince Arutha not Jimmy the Hand and focused on the poisoning of his bride. Also Jimmy the Hand isn't a secondary character but rather a character who is intergral to the whole riftwar series. On the contrary Feist's focus on minor characters is probably one of his strengths because he is able to tie together different characters through a series and show the extent of their transformations as in the case of Jimmy the Hand rising to become the Duke of Krondor or was it Rillanon or whatever.

Also I fail to see who Conclave of the Shadows focuses on minor characters since the opening novels of the series seemed to have a different slant to the usual Fiest books where it followed Talwin Hawkin's instead of progressing to a new focal character like most of his other series.

Will edit this later, not thinking straight today and I can't be bothered reading through it.

Also im reading Terry Brooks, his Jerle Shannara series which after reading over half the first book is starting to get interesting.

 

[corro]

im a fan of david gemmel, medieval type fanatasy althogh he varies a bit depending on the book/series

 

[jhakka]

I have yet to read either of them, so meh.

Love Dart-Thornton and Douglass, though.

I'll have to rehash my longish post from last year some time.

 

[but why....]

I liked the Isobelle Carmody books and Raymond E. Fiest when i was younger~!

Isobelle Carmody's Darksong - Darkfall trilogy is interesting lots of character depth but if you're into plot it is a bit slow

nup mate i'm sorry but those books are full of plot its not funny, this is her master peice some would say that obynetwen (spelling) but its not she started that series when her craft wasn't as well developed and as such that series pales in comparasen to the darksong triligy which creates characters to level i've only seen in lord of the rings (though i stopped reading that book) the plot is so multifaceted that it may at times seem slow but i never thought it was, its such an interesting take on the world, she is an amazingly gifted writer.

sorry got carried away. the books not slow just long

 

[funniboi]

If that's the case, Jimmy the Hand should have been a stand-alone series to Riftwar. He might have been very important to the whole thing, but he got maybe one or two lines in Magician and the war itself ended with the book. Silverthorn and A Darkness at Sethanon would have been so much better if they were related to Magician rather than directly descended from it. I found it very unwieldly to go from following Pug/Milamber thoughout Midkemia and Kelewan for the first two books (though I read Magician as an omnibus of the two boooks), and then for him and Tomas to hardly get a mention in the following stories. It sucked. If it had have been showing them through another characetr's eyes (as in The Dragon Reborn) it would have worked, but for Pug and Tomas to almost completely drop out of the story just made the series shit.

i'm just starting to read silverthorn...

but i thought they still followed from magician.. and that the other books like 'the kings buccaneer' or whatver, followed arutha and his journeys (including jimmy the hand?)

but now that you say pug is almost complete dropped out. i dont know if i want to continue reading.

 

[billbro]

Argonaut, it comes down to a matter of preference where it is obvious that for you a series must follow a central character or group and can not truely deviate from them but Feist writing style means that it simply never happens that way.

Regarding Jimmy the Hand as a stand-alone-series then you are completely missing the point of the way his series are structured as they are a progression of events (more background in Jimmy is given in his own novel). I think you fail to realise the time frame of events in the series where it is only logical for another character to fill the leading role as others would inevitably have aged and died the exception being Pug and Thomas due to their amazing magical powers displayed in the initial book. So the obvious shift in the protagonist is a deliberate move as is emphasises the changes in time, where most series have each novel encompassing a small section of time which is opposed to Feist which extends over extensive periods. Consequently the series follows a whole era of the Kingdom rather then a brief snippet where varying series such as the Krondor, Empire and stand alone novels slot together to form what would be a history of a nation.

The key difference between Feist and many other authors is the fact that he places greater importance on an intricate plot that spans across all his novels rather then focus on specific character development and a shallower plot then say David Eddings. As such there is definitely character development hence why you are attached to Pug and Thomas but they are in truth only a small section of the history and a smaller part of the overall scheme. Feist's novels are not glued together by the war between the tsurami (sp) but if you have read through his series an unseen evil force...

Essentially it boils down to what you like, where I believe Feist is far superior to many others because he is able to develop characters but more importantly is the amazing depth in the plot he provides. It would not come as a surprise to me that George RR Martin's novels from the Song of Ice and Fire series or something along those lines fails to entertain you as well. I find his novels brilliant as well and while he does generally follow the same characters, each chapter is actually in the eyes of varying individuals so in a sense there is no central figure and key perspectives that you follow will actually perish as a character dies.

“Jordan wipes the floor with Feist and then some.” I definitely fail to see this point since I found some of his series while still very entertaining a tad slow and I still prefer Feist as a writer.

 

[billbro]

Again it is part of the way the series is structured and Arutha warrants more then one or two pages with it logically following him as it follows the con'Doin or whatever lineage. The series doesn't follow one character, it follows the history of the nation and each character is further developed within each novel. If you want a character that is seen throughout much of the series then it is Jimmy the Hand because he starts off as a youngster.

Also while I think that Serpent War Saga would be his weakest series, albiet I thought that series did fundementally follow the sole character of Eric which was probably why I found it much less enjoyable.

 

[keladry]

i quite liked darkfall and darksong - i like massive books/series (the fun lasts for longer - most of the time), although wheel of time (massive books AND series) is slowing down. can't wait for knife of dreams tho! uh yeah... back to legendsong - the characters of glynn and ember are some of the most interesting i've read and although carmody plays on cliches and devices a lot, the plot is intriguing with a few twists and lots of clues to the big plot, working on the quest thing. the only problem i think with the legendsong is that the third book darkbane has some massive explaining to do... so many questions to be answered!!

oh yeah if anyone ever thinks that reading kids books when you're past yr 12 is silly/gay/insert derogative term here - i still read kids books like narnia, tamora pierce, garth nix, redwall and i'm at uni - it doesn't matter as long as you still enjoy it.

"Any decently written kids' book should be just as enjoyable for adult readers. Good stories and good ideas are ageless." - Tamora Pierce

hear hear.

 

[keladry]

and regarding feist:

feist tends to do the "the world is more important than the characters" thing. if u don't like it, then don't read it. i don't particularly mind it, just that its a little confusing for my poor little brain when major players fade into the background just when i was beginning to like them. their roles have been fulfilled, they have the happy-ever-after ending, settle down and have kids that then continue to shape midkemia.

the history of midkemia is far more interesting than any character feist has created (barring pug, tomas, jimmy) and that's why i still read him, even after the serpentwar disaster (goddamn i hate two word paragraphs at the beginning of chapters!!).

i liked the empire trilogy a whole lot better tho. gripping stuff. the best he's written, on par with magician.