Best fantasy by a mile is Steven Erikson's Malazan Empire books. Utterly stunning fantasy, nothing comes close to it imo.
Old favourites of mine include Gemmel, Feist, Moorcock, Guy Gavriel Kay, Barclay and RR Martin. Some of the newer writers I would recommend are Joe Abercrombie, Scott Lynch and Brain Ruckley.
Heard about the abercrombie ones before (on this forum data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7) picked up three of them recently and they are on my 'to read' pile.
I thought they were a bit "Mehh" - Read the first two then gave up after that, just couldnt get into them, they have all the usual suspects in fantasy but it just didnt gell together for me.
His books have been a different take on the fantasy genre to me - at first the excessive swearing just did not ring true - but then something clicked. Glokta is just an excellent character, and poor old whassname the Berserker is supurb as well.
I met Joe Abercrombie at a recent signing, and his blog is very funny as well - really reccommend it. data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
I liked Feist's riftwar.
I preferred the Recluce stuff by Modesitt (because it has engineers!)
Listening to Wheel of Time by Jordan (not Katie Price!!!) on audiobook in the car (on book 4 at the moment).
Loved Orcs - desperately want Orcs sequals
And I actually really enjoyed His Dark Materials trilogy (Pullman) when I read it to my son as bedtime story.
Got a bit annoyed by the Eragon (Inheritence Cycle) saga (Paolini) because it was meant to be a trilogy, I invested a lot of my time reading them, and whilst I enjoyed them the saga just didn't seem to make much progress and as I was reading the third book it was clear that the ending was either going to be very rushed or not happen.Of course it didn't happen, nowhere near and it looks like Paolini may have given up on it because there is no sign of a fourth book.
Cheers,
Nigel
Mostly read sci-fi but I'm reading George R.R. Martins "A Song of Ice and Fire" series at the moment, it's very good.
Out of the other fantasy I've read, I thought "Perdido Street Station" by China Mieville was excellent. Also Mary Gentles "Ash: A Secret History" was one of the most amazing books I've ever read.
Some News on book 4...
In a March newsletter sent out by Alagaesia.com, Paolini stated that he is hard at work on the book
Beginning June, 2009, Paolini started exclusive monthly interviews with Shurtugal.com to answer fan proposed questions and discuss the future of the Inheritance Cycle.
In July 2009, Paolini stated that a recent chapter he wrote is called "Brains!", but clarified by saying that "No there aren't any zombies in the book, unfortunately."
In August 2009, Paolini mentioned that the cover of the book would have a green dragon on it.
@IronGiant
Thanks for the info.I'll wait to here the reviews before I commit any more time and money to this though.
I read a report that statement when Paolini was writing Brisingr, he got half way through and released that the book would be too big to finish as a trilogy so would need to be split into two.And then it went on to say that he had no timesacle for writing the fourth book.
My opinion is that there is no way the story can be completed in one more book - unless it sacrifaces the style so far and goes for a very hammy ending.
Cheers,
Nigel
I used to read a lot of Eddings and other similar stuff when I was a kid, but for some reason gave up on fantasy for a almost a couple of decades after that.
A couple of years ago I picked up Joe Abercrombie's 'The Blade Itself' after reading a review, and since then I've been on a bit of a roll.The authors I've enjoyed most this time around would be George R. R. Martin, Joe Abercrombie, Scott Lynch and R. Scott Bakker.All fantastic stuff.
I've been reading Fiest and Eddings for years!
but have move on a bit in the last couple of years.
I read The quickening Series of books by Fiona McIntosh last christmas and thought they were exellent! I really would recomend them.
I also love the James Clements books a bit darker than Feist or Edding! but he taking a break from fantasy for the last couple of years to work on his other adventure books written under the james Rollins, which are alos great and what have been getting most of my reading time! (way better than dan brown)