Fantasy book or series recommendation needed

dieeasysteve

Has anyone mentioned "James Clements" Banned and the banished series? Love those books good and dark.

jenam93

Well I have done WoT books 1-7 in a row and definitely need a break so think I'll go for Conn Igguldens empire of silver next.

Apsilon

Fantasy is pretty much my staple diet of reading material and by far the best fantasy writer of recent times imho is David Gemmell. Some of his books are utterly astounding. The writing style is just sublime and never gets boring.

If you haven't read any of his then I would start with anything to do with the Drenai. His characters are amazing and whilst I would be hard pushed to pick a favourite, I think I would go for Skillgannon. The Swords of Night and Day and the incredible White Wolf in particular are superb.

The Druss series, (Just don't read Legend first, start with The First Chronicles of Druss then The Legend of Deathwalker as these precede Legend) are also fantastic as are the Waylander series and all the off-shoot books, like The King beyond the Gate and Winter Warriors etc.

The Jerusalem Man series is also fantastic. A bit of a departure from swords and sorcery about a man in a post apocalyptic enviroment after the world toppled on it's axis. Think Book of Eli a billion times better.

His standalones are brilliant as well with Dark Moon probably the best.

All his books are good and I really cannot recommend them highly enough.

My favourite fantasy writer though and whose writing style I see mirrored in Gemmells is Robert E howard. If you haven't read Conan, then you're missing some of the greatest fantasy stories about probably the greatest fantasy character of all time. Conan is very similar to Gemmells Druss but just about edges it as the stories are a lot more varied with Conan, and the standout book in the Conan series is Conan the Avenger which is quite simply brilliant. You need to read them in order though and only read Howards books before moving on to other authors Conan stories by the likes of  L Sprague De Camp, Lin carter and Robert Jordan (who wrote Wheel of Time series).

As posted as well, the Steven Erikson Malazan series is superb as well.

Feist's Empire series is superb and probably surpasses the original 5 or 6 Magician books. His later stuff as has been posted is a bit laborious now.

Another fantasy book which is often overlooked but is extraordinary is Nightland by Willaim Hope Hodgson (not Nightworld by paul anderson though that is a really good horror). Nightland is a seminal piece of fantasy about the last remnants of the human race living deep in the earth because the Sun has burned out and one man sets out across the dark world through demons to find his beloved.

Written in a slightly archaic style but once you get into it, you don't notice. It is however very hard to get hold of now and unless you can get a web copy or it has re-released, the chances are it will cost you a fair amount of money to buy it. But it is well worth it.

Battle

Excellent books, just wish he would hurry up and write the next in the Godslayer series, its been 6 years since the last one.



My favorite fantasy series would have to be the Heralds of Valdemar series by Mercedes Lackey, although Jim Butchers Furies of Calderon series is brilliant stuff (as is his Harry Dresden series)

I would also recommend Elizabeth Moons Deed of Paksenarrion series, the Mistborn trilogy from Brandon Sanderson (actually anything that isnt Wheel of Time by Sanderson is a good read), The Heir of Novron series by Michael J Sullivan (originally self published but then snapped up by Orbit for an obscene amount of money and released as three two book omnibus editions) and the Night Angel trilogy by Brent Weeks and his new series the Lightbringer trilogy starting with The Black Prism.

I could continue all day to be honest as I tend to devour books at an alarming rate (alarming to my bank balance anyway) but thats a few of my favorites.

And just a quick word about David Eddings, while the Belgariad and the Mallorean are a great read and are some of my favorites, as are the Ellenium and the Tamuli, his use of Dues Ex Machina to resolve all his plots is annoying and becomes ridiculous in his later books like the god awful Dreamers series which is just hideously bad and the ending of which is just a slap in the face to all the people who endured the drivel of the previous three books to reach the dire conclusion.

Rant over

shaolin kid

Just read Alan Campbell's "sea of ghosts" the gravedigger chronicles.pretty good first book,currently reading mark charan newtons  "broken isles" legend of the red sun.

Smurfin

Has anyone read any Mark Charan Newton?  Just curious as to any opinions out there?

shaolin kid

See above currently reading his last book in "legends of the red sun" series.as a whole been a good read I think,well worth a go.cant think who I would compare his style to but china  melville  is a fan and write a segment in the last book

Kelltic

Yup, I have read all 3 so far. They have a very different feel than a lot of more traditional fantasy and he does tend to examine themes which are a little more modern. His writing style I think has gotten better over the 3 books so far. I would say give the first a go and see if you like him.

blackdog79

hello all. i've never been much of a fantasy reader, its always science fiction for me, but recently i've been having 'china mieville' books popping up as suggestions on amazon  urban fantasy was how some of the reviewers described the books. so i thought why not. i've got to be honest folks, i've fell straight into the rabbit hole!!
'perdido street station' is what ive started with, and i can't put it down now!
are the rest of his books similar to this one? if they are he's got a new fan.

jono987

I'm currently reading the malazan series, its brilliant and the depth of the world Erickson has created is stunning