Recent Posts
Song of Ice and Fire - Martin (Best Evar! And I will fight you if you say otherwise!!!)
Ravenor/Eisenhorn/Gaunts Ghosts - Abnett
Dragonlance - Weis/Hickmen (because of what they meant to me when I was a kid)
WILDCards - Various (Edited by Martin)
I haven't read that many series honestly...Shannara, some wheel of time, a BUNCH of DND books, (Streams of silver trilogy I am still fond of), Riftwar series. There is a BUNCH of stuff I want to read though so I will be watching this thread for some good ideas for where to start next.
Dark Tower
Rama
Earthsea
Now, I cheat...
The Niven & Pournell novels, not the Ringworld books, but the other novels like Legacy of Heorot, Footfall, The Mote in God's Eye, et al. All set in the same universe, but not necessarily a series--like SK's DT books, which scope beyond the DT porper and into It, Skeleton Crew, Hearts in Atlantis, and so on.
Good Lord you guys got me thinking--I've read a lot of series and have some really good memories about reading them. Looking at your lists, apparently there is some stuff I should pick up out there.
My favorites, about in the order I picked them up (I think):
Conan, Howard
LotR, Tolkien
The Xanth series, Piers Anthony
Ringworld, Niven
Four Lords of the Diamond, Jack L. Chalker
Dune series, Herbert
Dark Tower, King
I don't have too many series that I didn't love, because if I don't get hooked, I don't read the series. I reckon I've wasted my time on about twice (maybe thrice) as many as I have favorites.
These ones were pretty good, but not really favorites:
Elric series, Moorcock (sometimes his writing really sucks thought)
Thieves World, ed. Aspirin
Chronicles of Thomas Covenent, Donaldson
various Discworld books, Pratchett
The Baroque Cycle- Quicksilver, The Confusion, The System of the World. By Neal Stephenson.
A Song of Ice and Fire- A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast of Crows... By George R.R Martin.
The Mars Trilogy- Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars. By Kim Stanley Robinson.
Sandman- Neil Gaiman.
The first two of the Rigante series by David Gemmell
Yeah, the first two were great. The last two kinda sucked. IMO it's a bad thing to skip a thousand years between two books of the same series, but all of Gemmel's bools are like that. Ever try to read the Dranor(sp?) books. The man cannot write in cronological order.
Top Four...
Corum (Spear/Oak/Sword) - M. Moorcock - Tragic
Dying Earth (T.D.E/Eyes/Cugel/Rhialto) - J. Vance - Classic
Gord The Rogue - G. Gygax - Epic
Xanth - P. Anthony - Fun
Honourable Mentions...
His Dark Materials Trilogy - P. Pullman - Thought provoking kid-lit.
New Crobuzon Trilogy - C. Mieville - Just started this thanks to Dragon Mag. Looking good so far.
IMO it's a bad thing to skip a thousand years between two books of the same series, but all of Gemmel's bools are like that. Ever try to read the Dranor(sp?) books. The man cannot write in cronological order.
Well, he can't write at all now, of course. I think he got better as he went along, and some of his later books were very good. Some of his early stuff was very samey, though, like the first two Jon Shannow novels. The third redeems the series, somewhat.
Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn by Tad Williams.
A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher
The Word/Void Series by Terry Brooks
Shannara Series by Terry Brooks
Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Darkness is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper
The Time Quartet by Madeleine L'Engle
The later three series are some of the only series that I read has a child and still enjoy, many have fallen at the wayside of time, but they've remained quite steadily.
Out of all of those, I would have to say that Tad Williams barely edges out Martin for my favorite series, who is tied with Brooks for a close second.
Earthsea I consider a book that many people should read, simply due to the subtle way it shows tolerance, understanding, and equality within an excellent magical adventure. *grins*
All in all, though, those are some of the few series that I can read more than twice.
Robert N. Emerson
Grand Master Delver CuDraoi at http://www.delverssquare.com/
Magister of http://www.glenravin.com/
The Emerson Papers at http://friadoc.livejournal.com/
Lord of the Rings, of course.
J. Gregory Keyes' Waterborn "series"- technically only The Waterborn, The Blackgod and the Fool Wolf stories from Dragon, I felt like the setting was really cool and original and the young hero archetype character actually felt like an eighteen/nineteen year old guy.
Elric and Corum (though I realize now that I've only read the first Corum trilogy) by Moorcock.
China Mieville's Bas Lag books.
Dude...Moorcock...check out The War Hound and the World's Pain.
It's badass.
Gotta love the Von Beck Family and their infernal dealings.
Also have you read the Dancers at the End of Time series (An Alien Heat, The Hollow Lands, The End Of All Songs, Legends from the End of Time, The Transformation of Miss Mavis Ming, Elric at the End of Time)?
These should have been on my list and popped the Xanth books into honourable mentions.
Let’s see what everyone’s four favorite series of fantasy or sci-fi books are. Why 4? I didn’t want to narrow the choice down!
Anyway, here are the rules:
* Pick 4 series of books
* You can include sequel series if you wish (as with the Belgariad choice below).
* Where a particular world has dozens of novels, you must choose a particular series (or linked series, as in the previous rule)
* Note, this thread is not intended as a discussion of the merits (or not) of particular authors or their books.Here’s mine:
Belgariad/Mallorean, by David Eddings
Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkein
Riftwar/Serpentwar Sagas, by Raymond Feist
Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan
Thats word for word in order my list!
Dude...Moorcock...check out The War Hound and the World's Pain.
It's badass.Gotta love the Von Beck Family and their infernal dealings.
Also have you read the Dancers at the End of Time series (An Alien Heat, The Hollow Lands, The End Of All Songs, Legends from the End of Time, The Transformation of Miss Mavis Ming, Elric at the End of Time)?
These should have been on my list and popped the Xanth books into honourable mentions.
Not yet, but I'll prolly get around to them.
1) The Bahzell Books by David Weber (books 1 & 2 available free from Baen.com)
2) Council Wars series by John Ringo
3) Honor Harrington series (again David Weber, and 14+ books at last count)
4) Dune
honorable mentions, Dark Paladin Series by John Ringo (would have placed higher, but way out of genre), Hithchikers Guide, Dreaming Dark by Keith Baker
I loves them council wars books too.
I like that elf lady. Lots.
(edit) that's the one with There Will Be Dragons, innit?
Yup yup, There will be dragons is book one of the series, Bast Rocks, and the insult section from the end is awesome cubed.
My friend got me a copy signed, it will be arriving (with him) in August
OK here are my Faves:
Hobbit/LotR - J.R.R. Tolkien (for obvious reasons)
Empyrion - Stphen Lawhead. Originally 2 Books The Search for Fierra & The Siege of Dome you can only get it now as an Omnibus Edition (much to my extreme dissapointment when I let someone borrow my copies and they moved away with them). I bought these books 15+ years ago with a Sunday School voucher to the Church Bookshop. I had to beg my mother to buy me the second as the voucher only covered the first. Best begging result EVER! =) Empyrion
The Commonwealth Saga - Peter F. Hamilton. 2 books Pandora's Star & Judas Unchained (although there are other books set in this setting. These books are a complex mesh of different characters plots that make you wonder how their storylines will ever connect in the end.
Commonwealth Saga
and I gotta say it at the risk of sounding cheesy
The Drizzt books and subsequent spinoffs - R.A. Salvatore (and other writers for series such as War of the Spider Queen & Daughter of the Drow).
Honourable Mention
The Rama Cycle - Arthur C Clarke (with help from Gentry Lee for the Sequels) The Rama Cycle
The Days of Yor Series - Roy V. Young. Old Skool TSR novels: Captains Outrageous: Or, for Doom the Bell Tolls (1994) &
Yor's Revenge (1995).
Not exceptional, but they just really twigged with me for some reason with their mix of humour & fantasy. I would have liked to have seen 1 more book to round it out into a trilogy, but I can't have that Porsche I want either so I suppose I will live with it.
All of these have been mentioned previously, but...
Also ran: Sandman by Neil Gaiman, pretty much all of Christopher Moore's books (since they inter-relate so much), and an obscure little series my an English author about a boy who finds out he's a wizard and goes to this school called Hogwarts.
and an obscure little series my an English author about a boy who finds out he's a wizard and goes to this school called Hogwarts.
** spoiler omitted **
LOL... how could I forget the little boy who loves The Flash soooo much he had someone tattoo a Lightning Bolt on his forehead. Now that is a hardcore Flash fan I can be proud of ;)
and an obscure little series my an English author about a boy who finds out he's a wizard and goes to this school called Hogwarts.
** spoiler omitted **
Ooh ooh, those books too! I should have put them on my list as well.
This thread is going to keep me in reading material for a long time, as I can see our tastes run almost the same.