Fantasy Novels

[Scotty_ffgamer]

So I've taken an unfortunate hiatus for a while from reading, and I wish to remedy this situation. Partially as a means to get suggestions to get back into reading, I'd like to have a discussion on what are some of our favorite fantasy novels we have read. I'd also like to have a discussion on what exactly you all look for in a good fantasy story. This is the crowded genre that got me both into reading and writing, and it's something I find comfortable which is why I'm starting here as I get back into it again.

[Pike]

I've always been more of a sci-fi person but you really can't go wrong with The Hobbit because it's just a fun romp of a read and it's often genuinely funny, too.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

I'm actually going to do a separate sci-fi thread soonish as it's a genre I've always really liked but have so little experience with. After I read some other stuff, I'm going to start my sci-fi venture with The Road Leads Up since I loved the little I read and just never got too far into it!

Edit: The Hobbit is fantastic though. I really should read it again soon but all of my books are boxed up somewhere and out of reach. I'm going to look for new stuff to download on my kindle since I have easy access to that!

I'm thinking about looking into some of Brandon Sanderson's stuff outside of the Mistborn trilogy. I read that and enjoyed it quite a bit despite some of its flaws. It had a really nice, interesting magic system which is a concept I'd never thought much about before reading that series. Apparently I already have his first book, Elantris, downloaded so I'll probably do that first.

Editra: Apparently I have the first book in the Wheel of Time series too. I feel like I've heard a bunch of conflicting things about that series and not sure if I want to get into a 14 book series at the moment, hmm.

[Madame Adequate]

I'm actually going to do a separate sci-fi thread soonish as it's a genre I've always really liked but have so little experience with. After I read some other stuff, I'm going to start my sci-fi venture with The Road Leads Up since I loved the little I read and just never got too far into it!

Oh wow, you flatter me! I hope I make a good impression of the genre but if not, don't let me put you off - there's people out there with enormously more talent and creativity than I have (like Pike )

[Scotty_ffgamer]

I did read one of Pike's books which was very enjoyable! You both are great writers!

[Raistlin]

Editra: Apparently I have the first book in the Wheel of Time series too. I feel like I've heard a bunch of conflicting things about that series and not sure if I want to get into a 14 book series at the moment, hmm.

It's probably worth reading for a die hard fantasy fan, but definitely nothing amazing. Robert Jordan is basically a poor man's George R. R. Martin, in that he creates this fantastic world and overplot, but then just struggles putting everything together, combined with frequently mediocre writing. And of course, he died before finishing it, which may end up making my comparison to Martin even more apt. To be fair, I only read the first... 8? 9? books, and it was well over a decade ago. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the books, but I would put a lot of the fantasy genre above it.

My old favorite I'll recommend is the Death Gate Cycle, by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. They also wrote another old favorite of mine, DragonLance (or at least the main cannon portion of that seemingly endless saga), which features my namesake, but I'm not sure how well some of those books will have aged (outside of the Legends trilogy, which is timeless because it focuses on Raistlin).

A more mature, darker fantasy is The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie. It's very anti-hero focused, and I enjoyed it immensely when I read it in college.

As for what I look for, many of the same things I look for in JRPGs: engaging characters and plot development. Magic and dragons are pretty cool too.

EDIT: And how can I forget the only ongoing fantasy series I currently keep up with, Patrick Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicles. Some of the best writing in modern fantasy novels.

[Del Murder]

I wish there were better fantasy novels out there. I feel like fantasy writers (at least ones that write for adults) care more about world-building than plot. And gods damn, can they be smurfing wordy. The Hobbit is an awesome fantasy story. It is straightforward, funny, and epic. Lord of the Rings is also great obviously but again very wordy. A Song of Ice and Fire, which most of us here are well aware of is, again, enjoyable but very wordy and much more focused on world-building than a cohesive plot.

My favorite fantasy series is probably Harry Potter. The last few books get long, but with only a couple exceptions it never feels like it drags on or stops being interesting or relevant.

I tried reading Wheel of Time but I couldn't get past the first chapter. 30 pages about a stroll down a forest path where nothing happens. No thanks!

Just finished reading the first two books in the Kingkiller Chronicle (The Name of the Wind series). The first one was really good but the second book was, surprise, too long and really boring in the middle (the beginning and end were good).

Neil Gaiman is not my favorite author but I did like Good Omens and I'll probably read American Gods at some point.

If you can stand 'kid' books, then the Narnia series is fun and enjoyable (and the books are short so it's not like you'd waste too much of your time reading them).

I don't even know if Hunger Games counts in this genre but it's great, though the ending of the third book is disappointing. This series reminds me of Mass Effect in that way: 3 great stories with a disappointing ending.

I really liked The Golden Compass but my wife says the other two books suck so I just stopped with that one. Still it's pretty good on it's own.

I think in general I find fantasy stories geared more towards children or young adults to be more enjoyable.

[Pike]

I really liked The Golden Compass but my wife says the other two books suck so I just stopped with that one. Still it's pretty good on it's own.

SECONDING this book, it's fantastic. Agreed that the other two are not as good as the first (the second of the trilogy is easily the weakest) but if you like the first a lot it may be worth a readthrough just to see what happens. My biggest problem with the second two books is that the first book is set in this super cool steampunk-inspired world and then the second two spend more time in the "modern" world, or a couple other different parallel worlds, which frankly aren't as interesting to me. Also the author gets "atheist preachy" so if that's not your thing then caveat emptor. But yeah definitely at least read The Golden Compass.

[Wolf Kanno]

My old favorite I'll recommend is the Death Gate Cycle, by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.

I will second this one. I've always been more interested in Sci-Fi than fantasy but I do like macabre stories like the short stories of Edgar Allen Poe or the non-Sci-Fi stories of H.P. Lovecraft. I have been meaning to read the original Conan series as well.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

I've been interested in The Golden Compass, but I didn't read it when I was younger because of the atheistic undertones of the series I'd heard about. That sort of thing wouldn't bother me now, but I just haven't gotten around to it.

The Hunger Games is a weird one for me. I enjoyed it, but I actually think the movies do some interesting things that improve the experience of the story overall for me. It's nothing too spectacular though.

I love Harry Potter. That was the series that got me into reading longer novels, I'm pretty sure. It was also when I first started really dabbling into deeper literary analysis and interpretation, though I was unaware of this fact at the time.

Pendragon by D.J. MacHale is another series I deeply adore. Looking back, it's probably not the best series, but I was hooked when I started reading it. It was a book my mom just bought me on a whim, and it worked out well. It also probably started getting me to look at writing different narrative styles, and it was the initial inspiration for a slew of story ideas that I still return to to this day.

Another series I started on a whim was the Engineer Trilogy by KJ Parker (Devices and Desires, Evil for Evil, The Escapement). I felt the beginning of the first book had a ton of potential, and I was super interested in seeing where they took everything. I was very disappointed by the end of it all, though. All of the characters were pretty despicable, and each new book would just find ways for me to dislike even the few characters I found likable at first. The world was interesting, and the plot was fairly interesting if I remember correctly, but the characters ruined it all.

[Shorty]

Harry Potter, for certain. And the Middle Earth books, of course.

Neil Gaiman is a wonderful author, and I would recommend Neverwhere to anyone and everyone.

The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander. There was a movie made of The Black Cauldron years ago, but the series actually begins with The Book of Three.

Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea series.

The Howl's Moving Castle books by Diana Wynn Jones.

The Sword of Shannara series by Terry Brooks (soon to be a tv show!).

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant is supposed to be good. I've only read the second book, The Illearth War, but the rest is supposed to be excellent. I believe Bleys is a big fan.

I've meant to read The Golden Compass, The Name of the Wind and The Dresden Files for a while.

[Night Fury]

Being a 90's british kid.... Harry Potter fo'sho. Will just never ever not love that series.

Also, when I was at school my teacher read us this one book and I can never remember what it was called now, but it was fabulous. What I can remember about it was that they had to travel through the eye of a needle or something? I think the main character was called Sarah but I cannot for the life of me remember. Ahhh, I just googled on a hunch and I believe it was 'Rebecca's World' by Terry Nation!

[Pike]

I've been interested in The Golden Compass, but I didn't read it when I was younger because of the atheistic undertones of the series I'd heard about. That sort of thing wouldn't bother me now, but I just haven't gotten around to it.

The first book is definitely the least preachy (yet another reason why it's the best one). It's a really magical book and I highly recommend it.

[Electroshock Therapy]

Original answer coming through!

Harry Potter.

Like many kids, Harry Potter is what got me into reading more books (even though I read less than I'd like to). The reason I place Harry Potter above many other probably more intelligent novels is one thing: characterization. What the novels may lack in plot (it really could have been four decent-sized books), it make up for and then some in giving us interesting and "real" characters. Over the course of seven books, these characters better have some growth, and they do! Character growth feels so natural in this series. I enjoy reading these books because more than any other because no other book has given me such rich characters to join in on adventures like Harry Potter does here. It also helps that the adventure itself is a fun one, too.