Looking for FANTASY recommends

[lpking]

It starts with Wit'ch Fire, continues with Wit'ch Storm, Wit'ch War, Wit'ch Gate, and finishes with Wit'ch Star.

And were you totally not seeing those apostrophes, by the end?

(in all sincerity)

[SCiofalo]

And were you totally not seeing those apostrophes, by the end?

(in all sincerity)

Haha, I remember those! Not a bad series, if memory serves. And to answer your question: yeah, you totally stop noticing the apostrophes after a while...

[lpking]

yeah, you totally stop noticing them after a while...

How reassuring!

I've never read a fantasy novel with weird names or lots of apostrophes, but I've been religiously following this thread and taking notes. So if I decide to delve into some of the works recommended here, and they contain weird names and/or lots of apostrophes, I shall persist until I, too, am blind (to them). 

[SCiofalo]

Honestly? Most of the time I roll my eyes at the fantasy cliche of putting freakin' apostrophes everywhere. I can usually overlook it but I still roll my eyes.

Along those lines, though, I also highly recommend the Genesis of Oblivion Saga by Maxwell Drake. Be warned: only his first two (of four) are out right now, with the third scheduled in July. I can't wait!

[lpking]

Honestly? Most of the time I roll my eyes at the fantasy cliche of putting freakin' apostrophes everywhere. I can usually overlook it but I still roll my eyes.

There was a discussion somewhere about unpronounceable names and names full of apostrophes. It was quite enlightening for those of us who haven't read much recent fantasy. That was the origin of my reaction to Neo's earlier recommendation.

Aha! Here is the thread:
http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php/topic,68779.0.html
(Gotta love the search function here!)

[BoomerSoonerOKU]

The Malazan series is a beast - the first book is just a slight toe dipping into the overall story.  It's HUGE - so if you liked it, it only gets better. Like pretty much all authors, he'll wander a little bit here and there but the Malazan series has tons and tons of characters and believe it or not it all fits together.  A character with a passing mention in one book will have about 400 pages dedicated to them in a later book.  I don't know if I would have kept going if not for my brother's *raving* review of the series (he read the whole series).  While reading book 1 I was saying, hmmm, I don't know - this is cool, but it's a bit confusing, etc. and he just said 'dude, you have NO idea - the scope just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and it all fits together - Erikson is a genius.'  So, I kept reading.  I'm about 85% through book 5 now..

 I'm sure his style is disconcerting for some though - his books aren't all spelled out with characters histories all spelled out from beginning to end as you read.  He writes as people experience things normally.  If I meet character X and Y for the first time, pretty much all I know is what I see/hear and what I know from before about them.  X and Y might have a large history between them but I won't know that to begin with.  A lot of books spell everything out - re-reading a book you don't learn anything new.  Re-reading the Malazan books would be a totally different experience.  You learn as the characters learn and when everything is kind of confusing - it's meant to be.  You're like, wait, is this a 'good' guy or a 'bad' guy?  You have no idea - not until you learn more about them over time and of course learn it's all shades of grey.   They're definitely not for everyone but I can say a couple things.  I've never searched so much in my Kindle (wait, who was that again? ), nor have I ever bookmarked or highlighted as much (in a good way - lots of, wow, that's some really great writing...).  If you're going to give them a shot, try the first 3 books at least [which, I know, is saying something - they're all around 1,000 pages].

I have to agree with almost everything said here regarding the "Malazan Book of the Fallen" series.  I'm now on book 9... Been reading the series uninterrupted except between book 1 and 2 (for some reason book 2 wasn't available in the US until earlier this year).  I've been a heavy fantasy reader for the past 20+ years, and I can't remember an author that has weaved such an epic story together.  

It's definitely not a light read.  I almost had to pull myself along through the first book.  I hadn't really felt more confused or detached from a story in a long time, but after sticking with it in the next few volumes I've been very pleasantly surprised.  

About the best recommendation I can give for the series is after book 2 I bought the rest of the series for the Kindle and pre-ordered book 10.  At 10 bucks a pop it wasn't cheap, but I feel the story/writing is well worth the price.

Erikson is what George R.R. Martin could be if he dedicated himself to writing.

[Tara Maya]

It's more fantasy noir than epic, but it's down and dirty: Dead Dwarves Don't Dance.

[Colin Taber]

Dead Dwarves Don't Dance.

Having said that, I can't picture a live dwarf dancing, either! 

[David M. Baum]

Erikson is what George R.R. Martin could be if he dedicated himself to writing.

I'm not going to argue with you. I'll just say that taste is a personal thing.

[Sean Cunningham]

Did you read the Dresden series as well? I've been debating Codex Alera but I've heard a lot of Dresden fans didn't enjoy it nearly as much, so I'm hesitating. At the same thing, I love what Butcher's been doing with Dresden and I want to find a way to give the man all of my money so he won't stop writing 

I read the first Dresden novel and I thought it was okay. I could also see the early components of what were going to be bigger story arcs later. Unfortunately I seldom do well with first person. Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is one of the rare exceptions.

If Dresden fans didn't like the Alera books as much because they weren't urban fantasy I can understand that, but I could barely put the books down. I'd pull them out for five minutes while waiting for the train. They're excellent high fantasy with characters I really liked, a great story and an unusual and well-implemented magic system. The quality through the books was consistently strong and the main character is very proactive, a hero type I wish I saw more of.

I was also very impressed with his series discipline. There was no extra padding, each book was a solid step along a path you could see the bare bones of in the first book. No strange divergences into the author's personal philosophies, which is fine when done well, as Terry Pratchett usually does, but I've read a few fantasy series where it was done poorly.

The series is a solid adventure with great heroes, interesting villains with the fate of the world at stake. It's usually the first one I recommend to fellow fantasy readers.

[Neo]

And were you totally not seeing those apostrophes, by the end?

(in all sincerity)

LOL, in all honesty, I just made total abstraction of them after the first half of the first book and ignored them - but then again, I have a great capacity in having my mind skim through these kinds of idiocies, and see the word almost just as a drawing that identifies it with its meaning, if you see what I mean. Guess reading a lot of fantasy will teach you that particular skill, lol.

 

[BethCaudill]

A few weeks ago I picked up Among Thieves by Douglas Hulick.   What caught me was the tag line:   Honor can get you killed.

It's the first in a series about the Kin a race working the not quite nice side to city life.   A bit of magic and lots of action.  I enjoyed it.  Looking forward to future books.

[lpking]

...I have a great capacity in having my mind skim through these kinds of idiocies, and see the word almost just as a drawing that identifies it with its meaning, if you see what I mean. Guess reading a lot of fantasy will teach you that particular skill, lol.

Hear, hear. Yes. Though I'm unsure if reading the fantasies teaches you the skill. It may be that those with a tendency that way gravitate to fantasy.

-another visual thinker

[SCiofalo]

There was a discussion somewhere about unpronounceable names and names full of apostrophes. It was quite enlightening for those of us who haven't read much recent fantasy. That was the origin of my reaction to Neo's earlier recommendation.

Aha! Here is the thread:
http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php/topic,68779.0.html
(Gotta love the search function here!)

Ooh, great thread! Thanks

[DeoreDX]

Someone previously mentions The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold.  I just finished this one Sunday and I can't recommend it enough.  Great book.  It's a stand alone story but it looks like there is a second book that happens after the first but follows a different character.  I'll be picking that one up too.

Someone already mentions Guy Gavriel Kay's work.  Good stuff.

Here is a series I never see mentioned but I gave it and try and thought i was pretty good.  The Reluctant Swordsman (The Seventh Sword Trilogy Book 1) by Dave Duncan.  Great series but I'm not sure if it has the grit you were looking for.

I also love the Mistborn trilogy by Branden Sanderson.

[Paul Jones]

Have you tried The Drawing of The Dark, by Tim Powers? It's a one off, high-adventure fantasy novel. I'd highly recommend it.

[Colin Taber]

Someone previously mentions The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold.  I just finished this one Sunday and I can't recommend it enough.  Great book.  It's a stand alone story but it looks like there is a second book that happens after the first but follows a different character.  I'll be picking that one up too.

Someone already mentions Guy Gavriel Kay's work.  Good stuff.

Here is a series I never see mentioned but I gave it and try and thought i was pretty good.  The Reluctant Swordsman (The Seventh Sword Trilogy Book 1) by Dave Duncan.  Great series but I'm not sure if it has the grit you were looking for.

I also love the Mistborn trilogy by Branden Sanderson.

I'm going to try and get through all of these. I've been hearing about The Curse of Chalion for years and been meaning to check it out, the same goes for GGK's books (and best of all, some of them are alternate history, which I usually get a kick out of). A reader suggested Dave Duncan to me about a year ago. I've been meaning to check his stuff out, but when I go browsing (at a bookshop or on Amazon) I tend to forget his name. 

[Budo von Stahl]

Gary Hoover's Land of Nod trilogy might be to your liking, and he's a great guy to boot.  I don't think they are out in ebook, but I know you can get paperbacks of The Iron Tower trilogy and Martin Scott's Thraxas books through Amazon.  Mckiernan and Scott aren't recent, though.  The link to the KB authors was probably the best advice you got in this thread, though!

[Joseph Robert Lewis]

Since you worked in a book store you're probably not aware of some of the indie stuff then.  Davlid Dalglish's Half-Orc series is a blast [5 books I believe]

I tried the first book in this series, but I was turned off by the main characters. The wizard-brother seemed totally immoral (using dead children to build his magic power) and the warrior-brother seemed to barely sense that killing innocent children might not be a nice hobby.

Does the tone/direction change at some point?

[Marcin Wrona]

... (and best of all, some of them are alternate history, which I usually get a kick out of)...

They're not really alternate history so much as inspired (in some cases) by historical events and personalities. Lions of Al-Rassan and the Lord of Emperors books are particularly close... but in neither case are they genuinely historical or alt-historical in the way we'd generally understand it (like, Lions doesn't take place in Spain, it takes place in a Spain-esque fantasy country with a few serial numbers filed off).

[rscully]

I liked Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth Series, the first 2 dragonlance trilogies (Chronicles and Legends)

I'd also try the Half-Orc Series by our fellow Indie David Dalglish, good stuff.

Rodney

 

[Sean Cunningham]

A character with a passing mention in one book will have about 400 pages dedicated to them in a later book.

I really wish he did that the other way around in the Malazan books. The four hundred page character intro wasn't a bad story, as I recall it, but if it had come first I'd have cared about whatever his name was when he turned up in the desert, instead of him being just some apparently incidental character I didn't pay much attention to at the time. By contrast, JK Rowling spent time introducing me to her characters along the way, so by the end I cared about every one of them and whether or not they made it to the end alive.

It's been a few years since I read any of them, but from memory Erikson doesn't seem to do that as much in the later books. It was a quirk of of his style I particularly disliked in the earlier books. Overall though, I like what he's trying to do.

[David M. Baum]

I tried the first book in this series, but I was turned off by the main characters. The wizard-brother seemed totally immoral (using dead children to build his magic power) and the warrior-brother seemed to barely sense that killing innocent children might not be a nice hobby.

Does the tone/direction change at some point?

Funny, I just asked quite similar questions to the author. The writing is good, but if I can't care for the characters, it's difficult. 

[TheSFReader]

Someone previously mentions The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold.  I just finished this one Sunday and I can't recommend it enough.  Great book.  It's a stand alone story but it looks like there is a second book that happens after the first but follows a different character.  I'll be picking that one up too.

Oh yessss ! Paladin of Souls is great too. I was disapointed in the third one (The Hallowed Hunt), but some other readers liked it better.
I heartily recommend all of Lois McMaster Bujold's books ("The spirit ring" beeing the lesser though).
For Fantasy/Romance readers prefering a more sedate pace, the "Sharing knife" series is also great (although slightly less "adventurous").

[Colin Taber]

Funny, I just asked quite similar questions to the author. The writing is good, but if I can't care for the characters, it's difficult. 

I have downloaded Weight in Blood, but not had a chance to start it. I'll be interested to see what my reaction is. I don't mind reading about characters who are unpalatable, as long as they are internally consistent and well written. We'll see...