I've got a hankering to track down some books with a heavy focus on mages/wizards/sorcerors and was wondering if people could offer up some suggestions?
Thanks in advance,
AJC
Magic of Recluse
Thanks to all for the suggestions!!
AJC
C.S. Friedman has two brilliant (unrelated) series about very morally-twisted mages: the Coldfire trilogy, where old-school magic is rediscovered/reinvented on a retro-future sci-fi planet, and the new Magister trilogy, about a fantasy world where magic-working drains lifeforce (yours or someone else's). Both make for a palette-cleansing change of pace from the usual boy comes-of-age in fantasy-Medieval-Europe premise.
For the usual stuff, I'll second the recommendation of the Eddings books, and add a recommendation for Terry Brooks' Shannara books (also Brooks' "Word and Void" series for modern fantasy). Also, Raymond E. Feist's "Magician" series was a good apprentice-to-master-mage story for the first few books, although I never quite finished the whole expanded political story.
Melanie Rawn's feminist reimagining of the Dune-verse, "Dragon Prince" & "Dragon Star", were very engrossing and had an interesting genetic/sci-fi take on mages. Her later, as-yet-unfinished trilogy, "Exiles", was much better, and exclusively focused on warring Great Houses made up mostly of rival mages (and magical Bards!). (The "Exiles"-universe was also an interesting take on a wholly matriarchal society.)
Mercedes Lackey's earlier "Valdemar" books were quite good as well, and featured all kinds of different flavors of magic-users, but check reviews, b/c some of her books devolve into schoolgirl-romance territory.
And if you want to jump in the deep end, try reading Robert Jordan's epic-scale "Wheel of Time" series, although the cast is so frickin' huge, it does expand beyond magic-users. (Caveat - the last book is as-yet-unfinished, as the author recently passed away, but it's a great ride nonetheless.)
Wha... Robert Jordan died? Not Allowed! Set! Fix it! Bring him back! He must finish the series!
Wha... Robert Jordan died? Not Allowed! Set! Fix it! Bring him back! He must finish the series!
Wow, how did you miss it? He died of some bizarre cross between cancer & heart disease in the fall of '07. In any case, this guy is working on finishing the WoT series based on Jordan's notes & draft manuscripts. Supposedly it'll answer everything in one book, due out this fall.
I hold small, but constant, hope that the long years of cryptically unanswered questions will finally come to a satisfying end, having been a devoted follower of the Wheel since '91.
Marriage, child and a large load of work putting the wife through college. Haven't had much time for reading... I don't know, the way tolkien's stuff got done wasn't very satisfying to me, but I don't want to see someone else mangle Robert Jordan's work because of it. Guess I'll have to do like everyone else and cross my fingers, wait and hope.
I've got a hankering to track down some books with a heavy focus on mages/wizards/sorcerors and was wondering if people could offer up some suggestions?
Thanks in advance,
AJC
I am reading >Wizards< right now. It is really good.