The Fantasy Novel Thread(tm)

[WarZidane]

So I was thinking of making a thread about a Brandon Sanderson novel or Malazan, or..well, pretty much any fantasy novel I've read, but came to the realization it'd probably be too specific to be a long-lived thread.

Instead, I decided to try a general fantasy novel thread! I'm hoping that by not confining it to one series or even author, more people will come in here and discuss novels or just rant about how great the one they just read is.

Just be sure to tag any possible spoilers, of course.

Anyhoo, to start off, I've been reading Gardens of the Moon (first novel in the Malazan series by Steven Erikson) and it's been very intriguing so far, even though it was pretty hard to get a grasp on things when I just started it because you're kinda just thrown in at the deep end. Lots of interesting characters in multiple factions to the point where I have no idea which faction to even root for.

[Fynn]

Ok, this one’s gonna be a shocker. Brace yourselves.

The Witcher is amazeballs, you guys!

[Freya]

I used to consume fantasy novels left and right but as I've gotten older I've had less time to read. So I see big fantasy novels as very time consuming.

man i'm an old lady now.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

I’ve been working through the Wheel of Time series, and it’s been pretty good despite a couple of issues I have. Just started the book where Brandon Sanderson took over after Robert Jordon died.

I enjoy what I’ve read of Brandon Sanderson quite a bit as well. I’m debating between reading all of his Cosmere stuff once I finish Wheel of Time or starting up Malazan.

[Freya]

I have read his mistborn book, good stuff. I'll probably pick up more of those soon. He's a good writer

[Scotty_ffgamer]

I’ve only read the mistborn trilogy and a good chunk of his first published book, Elantris. I just recently bought pretty much all of his books though. I’ve also listened to some of his podcast, Writing Excuses, which is really good for people interested about writing and publishing.

[Wolf Kanno]

This is where I do my obligatory shout-out to the Death Gate Cycle which is written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman of Dragonlance fame.

Quick synopsis: The books take place on four worlds based on the classical Greek elements of Air, Fire, Earth, and Water. They were once one world but a race of powerful humaniod wizards called the Sartan sundered the world into these four elements before nearly vanishing without a trace. A rival race called the Patryn were imprisoned beforehand in a makeshift deathworld called the Labyrnith and once they escaped, they began their plans to get revenge. They send out Haplo, who is always accompanied by his dog, to investigate the four worlds.

Each book takes place in a different world and largely involves Haplo dealing with the politics of the Humans, Elves, and Dwarves that now call these realms home. Air is a world that is mainly all sky with floating islands. The humans and elves fight for control while the dwarves slave away on the lower islands trapped in a perpetual storm that gives the world it's only source of water. Fire takes place in a Dyson Sphere surrounded by a star. The world has massive forests growing everywhere and most of the mortal races no longer even remember if there is a ground. The world soon becomes under siege by giants who are destroying everything in their path, can the feuding races turn aside their differences to survive together? Earth is an underground cave of lava, fire, and poisonous gas. The world is so deadly and toxic, that civilization only remains due to resorting to the forbidden arts of necromancy. Water is a massive ocean that people can breathe and is filled with small island nations. Unlike the previous realms, this world is one of the few where the lesser races all actually work together but even there world starts to become plagued by wicked serpents of great power and intelligence who may be the very physical embodiment of the hubris of the Sartan.

Long story short, it's seven volumes, great characters, unique magic mechanics, and the way the worlds are all developed is very fascinating.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

I’m going to have to add that and Witcher to my list. Well, Witcher was already on my list I guess, I just need to get around to getting it.

[Fynn]

Whoever wants to get into the Witcher - either check reddit or ask me about the book order. I don’t know if it’s the issue of release times in the US or something, but I’ve seen a lot of people start with Blood of Elves, which is the third book. I’ll go into detail about why you should get into it with the book order added later when I have a bit more time - expect a long post ;)

[WarZidane]

Sanderson's great. I've read Elantris, Warbreaker, the first Mistborn trilogy and the three released Stormlight Archive novels now. I'll probably start on the second Mistborn series after I finish Malazan, though given that I'm on the first novel in that series, that'll be a while yet.

But yeah, I've greatly enjoyed every single Sanderson novel I've read thus far.

[Chibi Youkai]

The second Mistborn series is interesting, but make sure that you read the little novella that goes before it, as it introduces the main characters. And oh, the Stormlight Archives. If you start to read them, give yourselves plenty of time and patience. I love that series so much, but the shortest of the three books is over a thousand pages. Which makes it a slow updating series. It'll probably be at least another two or three years before book four comes out, since three was just released last November.

Is anyone here a fan of David and Leigh Eddings? Redemption of Althalus is to this day one of my favourite standalone fantasy novels.

[WarZidane]

Yeah, Stormlight is the first series I've really dived into long before it'll actually be finished. Worth it though, Oathbringer is probably my favorite novel.

As for the novella that's part of Mistborn era 2, thankfully I have Arcanum Unbounded, which i think has all Cosmere short stories so far. I've read most of them, barring the Elantris ones because I only recently finished Elantris.

Speaking of which, the Edgedancer novella was great too. I could probably read an entire full-size novel about Lift and not be bored a single second.

[Chibi Youkai]

I think we'll see more of Lift in the next book. Brandon wrote somewhere that he really liked the character. Which I guess is obvious enough since she got her own novella.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

So I’ve been wanting to get into the Discworld books lately too, and I’ve been wondering what the best way to go about those books might be. I feel like there are a lot.

I at least think I remember there being some Discworld fans on EoFF.

[WarZidane]

I've only read the City Watch novels of Discworld myself, which have a clear order in them (that being the release order :p )

I'd imagine release order works fine for the rest of them as well.

I will say the City Watch novels are great and so "Guards! Guards!" is a fine starting point.

[Pant Leg Eater from the Bad World]

Books! My favorite subject!

Re: Discworld
Check this out. It might help you decide on which books to read. They don't really need to be read in order, but there are quite a few of them that are directly related.
75190


The Malazan series is one that I really want to get into. But, like Freya, I'm becoming an old woman and don't have a lot of time.


I love Brandon Sanderson. The Cosmere books are awesome. I still haven't read Oathbringer, but that is because I want to read Edgedancer first. And that is a lot of book to read. Those two and Soul of the Empire are the only Cosmere books I haven't read yet.

My favorite thing about Sanderson's different books are his different magical systems. I don't think I've ever read an author that is so imaginative in regards to the ways that magic works in his worlds. This reason, if for nothing else, makes him worth reading.


I'm also going to take a moment to second Wolf Kanno's shout-out to the Death Gate Cycle. That is a GREAT series. Definitely an enjoyable read and interesting take on the worlds being broken apart.


The Witcher is pretty alright, from what I've read so far. I have the first four or five books. The way I'm reading it, Blood of Elves is the third book. Also the next one in the series I need to read. I think a bit gets lost in the translation from Polish, because I don't often find it exciting to read. But I like the characters so much that they make it worth reading.


I've been off and on working my way through the Wheel of Time for the past couple of years. I had a good start, where I read the first 7 books (New Spring thru Lord of Chaos) and then I hit a slump and needed a break. I got halfway through a Crown of Swords and didn't touch the book again for over a year. I'm about a quarter way through Winter's Heart now.


I want to give my own shout-out to Brent Weeks and his Lightbringer series. I think the way he mingles magic and color vision is extremely cool. Plus the underdog story is really good, because there are times you love, pity, and loath Kip (the/a main character). Good bits of political intrigue, betrayal, and rises/falls from grace. He also did the Night Angel trilogy, which I loved. Great assassin story.

smurf it, let's keep going.


Peter Brett just finished the Demon Cycle. I loved these books so much. The different cultures he creates are fantastic. Each of the 5 main books focuses on a different persons backstory and perspective. Don't worry, he writes from many different characters points of view in each book, but the focus is generally on a particular persons big story. I thought that was a really neat thing. Kind of like what Brandon Sanderson is doing with the Stormlight Archive.


Patricia Briggs has some wonderful stuff, but her Mercedes Thompson novels are just amazing. They follow Mercedes, a skinwalker who can change into a coyote at will, in her experiences with the Fae, werewolves, vampires, and more, as she tries to live her life as a mechanic in rural Washington state. Urban fantasy kinda thing.


Steven Brust and the Vlad Taltos novels, although there is a whole world history he has written about. Mostly a fantasy with some sci-fi possibilities subtley mixed in. Vlad is a human gangster/assassin in the land of Dragaerans (tall, magical, ridiculuously long living badasses i.e. elves). He gets into a lot of trouble, but makes lots of powerful friends along the way. He also has an awesome jhereg (cat sized dragon) familiar named Loiosh who he communicates with telepathically. Oh, and he is a witch. I heckin love these books.


Alan Dean Foster gives us another telepathically connected dragon like creature in the adventures of Pip and Flinx. Well, not telepathically. Empathically. Flinx is a super powerful empath in a science fictional future. Together, Flinx and Pip, a minidragon (snake with wings that spits acid), travel the stars interacting with different alien life forms and causing the best kind of trouble.


Simon R. Green has many a great series. I don't know whether I want to highlight the Deathstalker series or the Nightside series. Or the Secret Histories. Or the Blue Moon / Hawk & Fisher. So many choices. I'll give the basics.
Deathstalker - SciFi. Chemically enhanced badass who just wants to be alone inherits deadly responsibilities.
Nightside - Urban Fantasy. Private Detective with the special gift to find absolutely anything if he looks returns to the supernatural London underground called Nightside, a place where it is always 3am, nothing is what it seems, and everything is possible.
Secret Histories - Urban Fantasy. What do you do when you are part of a supernatural family that has protected humanity from things that go bump in thie night and then that same family declares you a rogue agent? Eddie Drood, secret agent, fights back.


Kevin Hearne gave us the Iron Druid Chronicles and the joy of knowing an Irish wolfhound who loves sausage. Atticus O'Sullivan is the last surviving druid. At 21 centuries old, he spends his days running a tea shop in Tucson, Arizona. At least until one of the Celtic gods decides they want something he has. Then all Tír na nÓg breaks loose.


Robin Hobb gave me another assassin who has adventures that span over three trilogies. It starts with the kings bastard becoming the families assassin and of course, the bastard assassin has to save the kingdom without getting any credit. The third trilogy just finished up and I can't wait to see what is next for Fitz the assassin. There is so much in these books that I don't want to risk giving anything away.


The Cal Leandros novels. Rob Thurman brings us to modern day New York and shows us all the things that we thought were just fantasy exist, and boy are they ugly. Cal Leandros and his half brother Niko are a pair of badasses who have had to take care of each other since childhood. The twist is that Cal is half Auphe, a species that is feared by everything and ghastly evil. At least Cal looks human though.


Holy cow. I'm going to end with a specific book that I just absolutely love. It is probably my favorite fantasy book of all time. I read it a couple times before I moved away from home and have been searching for it again ever since. After 10 years I finally found a new copy, since it has been put back into print.
The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia McKillip. This is simply an amazing book that has so much emotion to it. McKillip writes some of the best prose I've ever read, but still manages to keep it simple. I'm not going to go into detail because I don't want to ruin any of the magic for you.


okay i'm done now.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

That will be a good list to go through for later. I still like them, but the wheel of Time books do slow down considerably for about 3 books. They pick up again for the final 4 books it seems.

For anyone who likes looking into the publishing world and just getting extra author insight, Brandon Sanderson is also very active on reddit and has done something like 4 or 5 AMAs on there. They can be somewhat interesting if you like Sanderson. I also enjoy his Writing Excuses podcast (though I haven’t listened to it in a long time.)

[Loony BoB]

The entirety of the Raven books by James Barclay were good enough to actually knock Lord of the Rings off my top spot when it comes to favourite books. The character development over the series and the excellently realistic banter (and general dialogue), with funny moments mixed in with extremely serious moments allow this series to be what I consider to be the best example of how a Final Fantasy book series should be written. Oh, and many critics consider him to be an excellent writer of action, which helps when you get to the battles.

[Vincent, Thunder God]

Based on the recommendations in this thread I decided to buy the full Death Gate Cycle, so that should keep me busy.

The main long series I've read are WoT, Sword of Truth, A Song of Ice and Fire, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (all 10 books) and the Dark Tower. Of those the Dark Tower for me was the best. I've re-read the Wheel of Time many times but only recently finished the last book - I had read all the others before but this for this last re-read I just couldn't get past the first half of book 7 so I just jumped to the end - and I'd highly recommend that to anyone who is struggling - the mid books just aren't worth it. Similarly Sword of Truth really struggles with quality beyond maybe Faith of the Fallen, and I don't think any of them were as good as the first. ASoIaF is obviously not complete but I would say it's pretty consistent so far. The Thomas Covenant series I probably love way too much and wouldn't really recommend it to the average fantasy reader. The Dark Tower though I'd highly recommend to SK fans and fantasy/SF/horror fans in general. It's pretty strong throughout.

EDIT: If anyone is looking for some really funny Wheel of Time reviews, Adam Roberts posted some great ones several years ago - unfortunately he took down his blog but luckily someone archived the posts - you can read them here if you're interested: https://web.archive.org/web/20101029054021/http://punkadiddle.blogspot.com/search?q=Wheel+of+Time

[Scotty_ffgamer]

I'm finally on the final book of The Wheel of Time! I'm excited to see how the story ends. Since there are a number of Wheel of Time fans on here it seems, how did those who finished the books feel the books were after Brandon Sanderson took over? I personally like the books quite a bit, and I feel like it still feels like Wheel of Time. I get people's complaints about how Mat was handled, but I adjusted to it well after his first chapter.

[Bubba]

Did anyone read ‘The Man on Platform Five’?

[Vincent, Thunder God]

I'm finally on the final book of The Wheel of Time! I'm excited to see how the story ends. Since there are a number of Wheel of Time fans on here it seems, how did those who finished the books feel the books were after Brandon Sanderson took over? I personally like the books quite a bit, and I feel like it still feels like Wheel of Time. I get people's complaints about how Mat was handled, but I adjusted to it well after his first chapter.

I thought he did a solid job of wrapping up the series. I hate to say it but I don't know if Robert Jordan himself could have done better. I just wish some of the middle books had been merged into a few faster-paced books and we could have gotten to some of the plotlines introduced in Shadow Rising earlier (Perrin hunting Slayer, Mat saving Moiraine etc). The middle is just too bloated and it does a disservice to the structure of the series, especially when the last book especially is so fast-paced. I was shocked at some of the major character deaths at the end - but that could have had more impact if the series had better pacing. What's especially sad is how Jordan had plans for Mat-centric novels after the main series that he never got to because the main series took so long. Also there are some interesting bits with Demandred amassing the Sharan army by fufilling their prophecices planned in the last book that were cut at Harriet's request but were later included in an anthology called Unfettered - I haven't been able to read it myself but imagine if that had been included in, say, Lord of Chaos or Crown of Swords - because so much of what we see of the Forsaken in those books is boring and lame. Having a subplot where one of them is actually doing something would be great, and then the Sharan army wouldn't just come out of nowhere.

I think all in all it's a deeply flawed series but it had a ton of potential in the early books and I think Sanderson did a good job of finally completing it. Again I'll recommend reading the Adam Roberts reviews I linked to before because they're pretty hilarious (especially Winter's Heart).

[Scotty_ffgamer]

I have started my read through of Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere, beginning with his unpublished White Sand novel. I thought it was actually pretty good, and I don’t really see how it can work as a graphic novel. I feel like too many details will be missing.

It was interesting reading something that hadn’t gone through all of the stages of editing from a good, successful author. It was pretty rough with a number of misspellings, missing words, and all the other mistakes every writer does. The structure, story, and characters seemed pretty well done though. Some of the roughness there I think could have been fixed pretty easily with just some minor revisions; but some of that might just be that I’ve seen how his writing has improved some over the years. You could also tell that he had more planned for the world, and it’s kind of sad that we probably won’t get those potential sequels in prose form.

[Raistlin]

I used to read a ton of fantasy novels in my teenage years. Death Gate Cycle by Weis/Hickman (plugged already by WK) was my favorite, followed by their DragonLance books.

For modern fantasy, I'm not quite as well-read, but I have to recommend Patrick Rothfuss and Joe Abercrombie. Both are excellent writers, and Abercrombie's First Law series is both dark and engaging.


Similarly Sword of Truth really struggles with quality beyond maybe Faith of the Fallen

That's an understatement. Goodkind is a mediocre writer (and apparently a real whackjob), but SoT kept me engaged due largely to well-developed, endearing characters. The last few books in the series are garbage.

[Chibi Youkai]

I like Patrick Rothfuss' writing style, but it would be hard to recommend him until he actually finishes book three. He's almost as bad as certain other authors that will remain unnamed until he gets that book out.

[Vincent, Thunder God]

Similarly Sword of Truth really struggles with quality beyond maybe Faith of the Fallen

That's an understatement. Goodkind is a mediocre writer (and apparently a real whackjob), but SoT kept me engaged due largely to well-developed, endearing characters. The last few books in the series are garbage.

Oh, I agree. Personally I think that there was a huge quality dip starting even with the 2nd book. I don't know if he had more intervention from the editor or what in the 1st book, but it was the best by far. And yeah, Naked Empire in particular and the last trilogy were terrible from what I remember. I don't think I'd ever want to read the series again.

It's amazing how you can read an excerpt of a fantasy book (like in Adam Robert's WoT quotes) and say objectively "this is really bad writing" but then remember enjoying them back in the day. I'm looking forward to starting the Death Gate cycle because I've certainly read a lot of poorly written fantasy in my time. xD