1. Conan
2. Stormbringer
3. Amber
4. Harry Dresden
5. Dark Tower
1.Foreigner (C.J Cherryh)
2.The Belgariad
3.Diskworld (esp the Nightwatch)
4.Hawkmoon
5.The original Dune trilogy (but not the later novels)
1. Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien)
2. Song of Ice and Fire (George RR Martin)
3. Chung Kuo (David Wingrove)
4. The Gap Into Conflict (Stephen R. Donaldson)
5. Hyperion / Endymion (Dan Simmons)
6. Gene Wolfe's The Knight/The Wizard
7. Lankhmar (Fritz Lieber)
8. Conan (RE Howard)
9. HP Lovecraft's stuff
10. Dying Earth (Jack Vance)
there are more series I love, and these are in no particular order after 1 and 2, and I've limited myself to only one series per author - at least the first six here would have multiple series that I love - except GRR Martin, I've only read the one series of his so far.
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James Ellroy's American Underworld trillogy, hands down. For fantasy, I'll have to go with Glen Cook's Black Company series. His new Instrumentalities of the night books are excellent too.
For classics, Zelazny's Amber series is pretty good (the old cyle is better than the new one), as is Gene Wolfe's Books of the new sun. Finally, I like Steve Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.
For fantasy, I'll have to go with Glen Cook's Black Company series. His new Instrumentalities of the night books are excellent too.I almost picked up Black Company the other day.. it's that good huh?
I just actually realized that they were written back in the 80's. The version I saw was a new printing with the first three books all compiled and printed on really nice stock and for some reason assumed it was from the last few years.
I read quite a bit and had never heard of them.
I highly reccomend Cook's Black Company as well. I have reread the series several times since it first came out, and I think he does an excellent job of capturing the 'greyness' of mercenary war in a fantasy setting. Also, Goblin, Silent and One Eye are some of the most memorable spellcasters in literary history.
That being said, the series kinda did go on a little too long. I didn't like the wrapup at the end, but the originals are stellar, as are the first few 'books of the South'.
Let's not forget George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series. New book hopefully soon! <crosses paws>
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Some of my favorites (in no particular order):
Dune
LotR
Incarnations of Immortality
Dark Tower
Dragon Lance
Conan
Lankhmar
Brian Lumley's Necroscope books
There is also another series by Frank Herbert that I really like: Whipping Star and The Dosadi Experiment was a two book series starring a character named Jorj X. McKie of the Bureau of Sabotage.
1. Man/K'zin wars
2. Lankhmar (Fritz Lieber)
3. Conan (RE Howard)
4. HP Lovecraft's stuff
5. Lankhmar (Fritz Lieber)
6. John Carter of Mars
7. Stormbringer
8. Von Bek stuff(Moorcock too)
9. Oh yeah; I liked the Amber stuff
10. Dying earth's cool too; just didn't get too farIn no particular order.
Heathy, did you mean to put Leiber down twice?
Anybody read the Dray Prescott series? (Ever once in a while, I have to ask again.)
Guardians of the Flame series.
The Xanth line by Piers Anthony.
I liked the Gaurdians of the Flame series. Not seen those in a while...
Lord of the Rings, Tolkein
Dresden Files, Butcher
Madship Trilogy, Hobb
Icewind Dale, Salvatore (demon wars almost made it, but the second trilogy was not worth reading)
Discworld, Pratchett
Landover Series, Brooks
Madship is the only one not on someone else's list so far. Which tells me more poeple need to read them. Let me recommend that to everyone :)
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Glen Cook's Black Company series. .
The last two books get a little weird. While I think they work as a way to make the BC storyline a bit more epic, I have to admit that they are not my favourites. They wrap the whole thing up rather nicely, though. Not bad books, but they are not as good as the earlier ones. The silver spike isn't paticularly good either, but it is an add-on that deals with some loose threads, rather than part of the core story, and can be skipped without missing anything important.
Beyond that, the books are bloody marvellous. Cook has fantastic protagonists (Goblin and One-Eye in particular), but what really stood out to me were the adversaries like The Limper and the all-too-brief encounters with Shapeshifter (there are some choice ones in the latter books as well). The plots are nice and tight, and the magic/industry overlap is bith inventive and commonsensical (like the air force action in Book 2) and his world is both fantastical and convincing. Finally, Cook manages to write great adventure yarns with some keen sociological insights (such as the ethnic conflicts in the later books) without becoming a pretentious bore (unlike, say, Robert Jordan or R.A. Salvatore).
I ant to add one more series - Glen Cook also writes an occasional installment in an ongoing fantasy detective series about P.I. Garrett that manages to be both some of the best fantasy I've read and some of the best crime stories. They are a bit up and down, but well worth a read, especially if you need ideas for an urban fantasy campaign. If you like Stephen Brust's books about Vlad Taltos (which is another excellent series), but would like the magic toned down a bit, this series would be just the thing.
In no particular order:
Lord of The Rings - Tolkien
The Eternal Champion - Moorcock
The Book of the New Sun - Wolfe
The Knight/The Wizard - Wolfe again
Thieves' World - Asprin et. al.
Myth Series - Asprin again
Dune - Herbert
Discworld - Pratchett
Grimjack (comic) - Ostrander
Middlearth stuff, Tolkien
A Song of Ice and Fire, Martin
Lyonesse, Vance
Dying Earth, Vance
Riftwar, Feist
New Sun, Wolfe
Lankhmar, Leiber
Prince of Nothing, Bakker
Malazan (first three), Erikson
Drenai, Gemmell
Earthsea, Le Guin
Averoigne, Smith
Dresden, Butcher
Amber, Zelazny
Elric, Moorcock
Dune (except 5), Herbert
Star Wars: Republic Commando (including the Imperial Commando books) by Karen Traviss.
Hammer's Slammers series by David Drake
The Wess'har Wars series by Karen Traviss
The Death Gate series by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
Ender's Game quarter by Orson Scott Card
The Tiger & Del novels by Jennifer Roberson
The Legacy of the Force Star Wars novels by Aaron Allston & Karen Traviss, not the ones by Troy Denning.
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In no particular order:
Black Company - Glen Cook
Riftwar Series - Raymond Feist
Empire Series - Raymond Feist / Janny Wurts
Conan, Solomon Kane, Bran McMorn etc. - Robert E. Howard
Wars of Light and Shadow - Janny Wurts
Malazan Book of the Fallen - Steven Erikson
Monarchies of God - Paul Kearney
Gaunt's Ghosts - Dan Abnett
Gotrek & Felix - Willian King later Nathan Long
Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Song of Ice & Fire - G.R.R. Martin
Elric, Corum, von Bek etc. - Michael Moorcock
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1) Tolkien
2) Feist, primarily for his SerpentWar books and less so for the Magician books.
3) REH's Conan
4) Lloyd Alexander's Prydain chronicles
5) Harry Potter
6) Terry Brooks' Shannara series
7) Farland's Runelords series
There's a bunch that I'm on the fence about like Gemmel, GRR Martin, Goodkind, Wurts and Lieber.
Wheel of Time... first part of the final book comes out on Tuesday!
Same here, although it goes close with several others (lots of happiness for the final book getting out, no matter how...)
To mention others
All Robert Jordan (though the main Wheel of Time is my favourite)
All Tamora Pierce
Nearly everything be Anne Rice
All David Eddings (at least every bit I've gotten my fingers on)
hmm... damn... if I actually listed it all the would be too long... well, those are some of the main things...
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I will also put my vote in for the Black Company books, though I am also enjoying the Instrumentalities of the Night so far. My favourite others (just listing the ones I reread at least once per year):
The Chalion series: Bujold
The Vorgison saga: Bujold
The Confedatory series: Huff
The Quadrail series: Zahn
The "Bug" war (don't think that series has an offical name but it includes In Death Ground and the Shiva Option): Weber
LOTR : Tolkein
The Abhorsen books: Nix
Deed Of Paksenarion: Moon
The Fionavar Tapestry: Kay
The Darkglass Mountain series by Sara Douglass may make it onto this list...once it is finished.
1) Tolkien
2) Feist, primarily for his SerpentWar books and less so for the Magician books.
3) REH's Conan
4) Lloyd Alexander's Prydain chronicles
5) Harry Potter
6) Terry Brooks' Shannara series
7) Farland's Runelords seriesThere's a bunch that I'm on the fence about like Gemmel, GRR Martin, Goodkind, Wurts and Lieber.
Glad to see another fan of Lloyd Alexander :)
Here are my four favorites, in order from most favorite on down:
1) Master of the Five Magics / Secret of the Sixth Magic / Riddle of the Seven Realms by Lyndon Hardy. Not only do these books have the coolest magic system I've ever seen, by far, but Lyndon Hardy can squeeze more plot and action into one "part" of a book (each of his books being divided into 4-6 parts) than most authors can manage in an entire novel. And his use of language was perfect for fantasy! And "Secret" has the coolest alien world in fantasy - move over, Planescape! ("Riddle" was inferior, though.)
2) The classic Foundation series by Isaac Asimov. The use of psychohistory shows how science fiction can be more than just any old story with laser guns and spaceships thrown in. Plus, Asimov skillfully uses simple dialogue to paint a picture of what's going on all over the galaxy! And the frequent skipping from one era to another one decades later provides a distinctive storyline.
3) The Oz books by L. Frank Baum. Don't laugh! Sure, it's a children's series, and Baum's world-building may seem amateurish compared to that of later authors like Howard and Tolkien. But Baum did it first! Remember, the most notable fantasy stories before Baum included those of Anderson, with no plot, and those of the Grimm brothers, with many massive plot holes. But Baum gave us a fantasy world which we could BELIEVE in (at least until we put the book down) and which inspired many other authors. And Baum just had that je-ne-sais-quoi, that certain storytelling CHARM that keeps you reading. I'm sure I'm one of many who first got hooked onto fantasy because of Baum's Oz books.
4) Lord of the Rings by Tolkien. Okay, this one's been discussed to death, so I'll refrain from commenting this time.
Also, I'm glad that people have mentioned, on this thread, certain other series I like a lot, although they didn't quite make my "favorite" list:
Zelazny's Amber series
Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince and Dragon Star trilogies
Dune
DragonLance
Lloyd Alexander's Prydain chronicles
Harry Potter
My goodness! I was searching these boards for something else, and I saw that last post, which I wrote 15 years ago. I can't believe I said that stuff! I've revised my opinions heavily since then. Now I feel compelled to write the current list of my Top Ten favorite novel series'.
I could ramble on for thousands of words about my criteria, what it was about each series I liked, and which specific books in those series' I liked and which books I would suggest you skip. But I doubt anyone would read all of that. And in some cases, I'm particular about which edition to read, but again, I doubt anyone would read my explanation of which editions are good and why I feel other editions are bad. Maybe I'll just content myself with throwing the words "edition specific" into those items.
Okay, here's the list of my favorites, from the best on down:
1. Dragonlance by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
2. The Oz series by L Frank Baum
3. The "Jeeves" stories by P G Wodehouse (edition specific)
4. The first Amber series (the first five of those novels) by Roger Zelazny
5. The Conquerors trilogy by Timothy Zahn
6. The classic Foundation trilogy by Isaac Asimov
7. Master of the Five Magics, Secret of the Sixth Magic, and Riddle of the Seven Realms by Lyndon Hardy (edition specific)
8. The Hobbit / Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien
9. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (edition specific) Yeah, it's one book, but I regard it as a series because it's LONG enough to be one. And some editions were in multiple volumes.
10. The Great Brain series by John D Fitzgerald
Lord of the Rings (and Hobbit and Silmarillion)
Amber Chronicles (Corwin books, I like Merlin's but are definitely farther down the list)
Dresden Files (a bit in the dumps after last two, and his writing pace slowing considerably)
Chalion books by Bujold (first 3, not Penric ones)
Discworld books (City Watch, then Witches then Death)
Vorkosigan Saga (ending with A Civil Campaign, not really happy about later books)
Conan Chronicles (only Howard's)
Sharing Knife books by Bujold
Lyonesse trilogy (really should read Vance's other stuff)
Locke Lamora series
Harry Potter (yes she's an a%+++$#, no i'm not buying her stuff anymore, but series is still great reading, all the plotholes aside).
His Dark Materials
Second Mistborn series (first series is fine, first book is excellent, but the other two are just a setup for other books, and much more boring to read. i'm reading the way of kings for 5 years now, it's really a slog. didn't touch his other stuff).
Hyperion/Endymion
Honorary mention comics:
Jeff Smith's Bone series
Hellboy (original series+ In Hell, Ed Grey stuff and Koshchei, others tend to run to bleak and bleaker).
Thorgal
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Ho Boy, My favorites are the ones I have known the longest.
LoTR: First fantasy I ever read and the one that has had the biggest impact on me
Discworld: I mean Monty Python/ Douglas Adams meets fantasy. Great stuff
Thomas Covenant: Yeah it has some similarities to Tolkein. But the main character is...different than most
Black Company: Definitely more true to life
Earthsea Cycle; Really nice worldbuilding
Vlad Taltos: A fantasy novel with some sci-fi weaved in and one of the most memorable main characters
The Pendragon Cycle: I love this guys take on the King Arthur legend
I think the best "Recent" series I've read is The Night Angel Trilogy
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Some of my favorites (in no particular order):
Dune
LotR
Incarnations of Immortality
Dark Tower
Dragon Lance
Conan
Lankhmar
Brian Lumley's Necroscope booksThere is also another series by Frank Herbert that I really like: Whipping Star and The Dosadi Experiment was a two book series starring a character named Jorj X. McKie of the Bureau of Sabotage.
Not much changed. I can add a name to that Frank Herbert series I had previously mentioned. It's referred to as the ConSentiency Series. And it also includes two short stories I did not own at the time of my previous post. I should also add Herbert's Pandora Sequence as well, but that's mostly for the first book, Destination: Void.