[redsniper]

X-wing series. 9 books. 8 are good and 1 is mediocre.

[Jetmech Jr.]

Originally posted by karajorma


Don't. It's absolute sh*t.

The first one in the series is brilliant and works best as a stand-alone. I'd advise that people read the first one and avoid the last three like the plague cause I found the ending hugely unsatisfying.

Mild Spoiler.

Spoiler:

Throughout the series the books leave you wondering who built Rama and why. The ending is literally the worst case of Deus Ex Machina I've ever come across in my life

[/B]

Warning appreciated. I'd heard that the last 3 books were written more by Gentry Lee. Is that true? Would explain the ****tiness. It's just cliche' after cliche' after cliche' .

Originally posted by Deepblue

The Wheel of Time... Ah...

I got to the 12th book before I decided the books had gotten dull and stretched out. Jordan REALLY needs to end the bloody series already! Books 1-9 were pretty good though.

Wheel of Time >>>>>>>> Lord of the Rings.

Never insult the Wheel of Time. EVER.

[mikhael]

Wheel of Time absolutely rocks--as an audiobook. It flows better, surprisingly.

The Sword of Truth is awesome, in my opinion. Fair warning though: the whole series is a fantasy interpretation of Ayn Rand's objectivist philosophy.

Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel novels are masterful, if you can get past the central character being a sexual masochist and you don't mind Christianity being mucked about with. These books appealed to me on many levels, not the least the idea of Christ's blood and the earth mixing to produce a new, more wordly god.

George R. R. Martin's  A Song of Ice and Fire is as good as you'll ever get in the realm of modern epic fantasy. It is at once subtle in detail and audacious on scope. I've never been rivetted so thoroughly by a fantasy series. Its a reimagined medieval Europe on the edge of winter that will last decades. There's not much magic, but what's there is inspiring.

Susan R. Matthews Bench series. Scifi stories set in a stellar nation ruled by Law, devoid of moral guidance. Cautionary and chilling at times and less about the technology than horrible things nations do to individuals in the name of Justice. Fair warning: the main character for most of the books is a self-loathing sadist, and Matthews style is rather raw at times. The end result is, in my opinion, utterly beautiful.

Any C. S. Friedman, especially the Coldfire Trilogy. Fantasy (nominally scifi due to background) about a world where human thoughts uncontrollably affect the environment around them, causing magical effects and manifesting people's fears.  Features the best priest ever and one of the best fallen men I've ever read. Absolutely excellent. Also of note is the Madness Season (a science fiction take on a vampire and an alien invasion) and This Alien Shore (a story about the many uses of human mental diseases).

Stephen Donaldson's Gap series is worth reading if you don't mind a story in which every main character is designed to be loathsome. Fair warning, Donaldson seems to have a fetish for having leading men rape leading women. Its happened at least once in every series I've read by the man.

Carol Berg's Books of the Rai-kirah are fun fantasy about a slave and the prince who owns him and the battle to save the world from demons. Some of the interpersonal twists are devastating and the lead characters really are incredibly pleasing.

Michael Flynn's "Star" books (Firestar, Lodestar, Roguestar and Falling Stars) are an excellent exploration of the threat of earth crossing asteroids and the future advancement of technology.

Tad Williams' "Memory, Sorrow and Thorn" series, named for three powerful magical swords is another fine fantasy epic. The basic world details will be familiar, but the story is completely different than you might think. The short version of the setup is: "collect the magic swords and save the world", but that hardly does it justice, and the man's ability to twist the reader's preconceptions inside out, sideways and upside down is without parallel. Likewise, his Otherland series, a mixture of virtual reality scifi and bizarre fantasy is wonderfully bizarre and surprising. The ending is especially memorable.

Finally, I'm going to recommend Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, The Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon. The first two are nominally set in the same world and feature, among other things, katana wielding pizza driver hackers, skateboard messengers, viruses, discussions of Sumeria and the origins of books of the Bible, nanotechnology, massive orgies, powered armor and a chinese revolution. The last is a time frame jumping story about searching for Nazi gold, along with a lot of cryptography, math, at least one secret society and the strangest method of divvying up a dead person's belonging I've ever seen. The only flaw in all of these books is that Stephenson can't write an ending to save his life. The books are brilliant till about 95% through, then he just runs out of words and the story ends. Its always a wild ride up to the end though. All three of these make excellent audiobooks, btw. I've read them and listened to them and there's just something so much better about listening to them. He's got the right style for storytelling (which is different than merely writing).

There's a series whose authors I can't remember and I can't be buggered to look up. The title of one of the books is "By Honor Betray'd". Great bloody scifi/fantasy series about jedi knights and sith lords--er... about two different schools of psuedowizardry fighting it out against an galactic backdrop. the whole things is very Star Wars, but different, and in a lot of ways better. These'd make great movies.

[Ransom]

Stuff by Alastair Reynolds.

In particular I recommend Diamond Dogs (tis a short story). His full novels are also pretty good from what I've read so far (except Chasm City... which I thought was terrible) but I've yet to see them surpass Diamond Dogs, which incidentally was what renewed my interest in sci fi novels.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Jetmech Jr.
Warning appreciated. I'd heard that the last 3 books were written more by Gentry Lee. Is that true? Would explain the ****tiness. It's just cliche' after cliche' after cliche' .

From his previous writings I'd guess that the big unsatisfying ending was due to Clarke rather than Lee. That said at points in the other 3 I did wonder at what point the authors had decided to stop writing sci-fi and start with a political thriller/soap opera in space.

The books get too obsessed with the people onboard Rama and forgot that the main reason people were reading the sequal was because they were interested in what Rama itself was.

[pyro-manic]

Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials Trilogy. Genius.

Tenner says the upcoming movie "interpretations" are godawful...

Rendezvous With Rama was outstanding. a little brief, but very cool, because it leaves so much unsaid. If done properly, it'd make an excellent film, though Hollywood would murder it. I'm not even touching the sequels, as they're supposed to be dreadful.

Another suggestion: Robert E. Howard. He wrote the Conan books, about the Hyborian era of the world (basically a fictional history of early humanity, with magic and monsters and stuff). I haven't actually read any yet, but they're meant to be very good.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by pyro-manic
Rendezvous With Rama was outstanding. a little brief, but very cool, because it leaves so much unsaid. If done properly, it'd make an excellent film, though Hollywood would murder it. I'm not even touching the sequels, as they're supposed to be dreadful.

Aparently the film adaptation was looking good. No idea what happened to it. The IMDB page is a little sketchy.

[Mongoose]

Originally posted by pyro-manic
Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials Trilogy. Genius.

Tenner says the upcoming movie "interpretations" are godawful...

The Dark Materials trilogy was truly excellent.  Very well-written and poignant.  If that line about the movies is true, I'll be very upset.  At least I have the amazing Narnia movie to look forward to this December.

Originally posted by Jetmech Jr.
Wheel of Time >>>>>>>> Lord of the Rings.

Never insult the Wheel of Time. EVER.

No personal offense, but if I knew where you lived, I'd probably be firebombing your house right now. I only got through the first two of the Wheel of Time books, and there were many parts even during those when I was mentally screaming, "Just get on with the damn story, already!" I plan to keep reading the series to find out what happens, but Jordan is not even remotely in Tolkien's league.  Not to mention the fact that, even over the course of two books, he seems to have "borrowed" a lot of Tolkien's material (black riders that inspire fear; "troll"+"orc"="trolloc"; fell flying things; a journey in the dark that could be either Moria or Paths of the Dead, take your pick; something occurring in the "Third Age"...I could go on ).  Call me a fanatic, but I don't take insults to what I consider the greatest work of English literature ever very lightly.  Without Tolkien, most of the authors who have been mentioned in this thread wouldn't be writing what they are.

[Jetmech Jr.]

Then I guess it's good you don't know where I live then. *cough* White House *cough*

You're right. Jordan isn't in Tolkiens league. He's way beyond that.

Comparing Myrdraal and Naz'ghul is a stretch. Beyond the Black cloaks, there's not really many ways they are the same (in fact, what the Naz'ghul wore were more akin to beggars rags). Same with Trolls/Orcs and Trollocs. The only similarity there is the name, and thats REALLY stretching it. I'm not even going to try to understand where you were going with your comparison of Draghkar and "fell flying things." Going by that, tokien ripped off of Crows and ravens.

"A journey in the Dark?" You've gotta be ****ting me, there .

I won't deny that Jordan got some inspiration from Tolkiens books (it's likely).

But the fact remains that TWoT>>>>>>>>>>LOTR.

[Andreas]

Althought it wasn't really released recently, I'd highly recommend Gateway, by Frederick Pohl. A true classic, in my opinion.

[Flipside]

I don't really think it's worth saying that one Author is better than another. After all, there asre people out there who think the J.K.Rowling is the greatest author who ever lived, whereas I think she is a mercenary biatch who simply re-dressed ideas from several other books and now tries to sue anyone who's writing even remotely looks like a Harry-Potteresque work. Notice, if you will, that she does not go near Pratchett, despite the fact that Ponder Stibbons looks very remarkably like Harry Potter. This is possibly because theres more than a few comparisons to be drawn between the Unseen University and her own work

[Jetmech Jr.]

You misunderstand. I'm not saying Jordan is better than Tolkien. Merely that The Wheel of Time is better than The Lord of the Rings.

[Flipside]

hehehe, fair enough I'm not saying whether you're right or wrong, mainly because there is no right or wrong, only opinion

Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed Tolkein, I like Gemmell, some of the early Raymond Feist stuff, and, as I mentioned earlier, David Farland, his books have an excellent 'edge' to them that managed to be fantasy without glamour, even if, in my own opinon, his work isn't quite as polished or complete as some more experienced writers, the potential he has provided himself with to extend the series is massive. He's come up with a technique for 'magic' that is both unique and intelligent, with people making donations of 'wit' or 'strength' etc to their leige lord at the cost of their own, using runes that are burned onto the flesh of the Lord. But he takes the idea further, bringing in such things as Vectors, who are highly runed individuals, say with multiple runes of strength, who then donate that strength, via a single rune, to their lord, this makes the Lord even more powerful, but also serves to act as a weak link in the chain, thus forcing the magic users to not only consider their strategy on the battlefield, but also to consider the safety of the source of their abilities. Anyway, it's worth a look

[mikhael]

Saying Jordan lifts things from Tolkien is like saying "humans breathe air". One has to go long and far out of one's way to write an epic fantasy story centered on apocalyptic events and the battle between good and evil in this day and age that doesn't owe at least a little to Tolkien. He defined the genre. Jordan is certainly inspired by Tolkien, and this is a good thing.

Contrast this to Terry Brooks, author of the Shannara books. I defy you to read Sword of Shannara and not see the near 1:1 correlation in plot points and events between it and LotR. The difference between Brooks and Jordan is immense: its the difference between outright theft and owing a debt.

[Mongoose]

All right, I will admit that the trolloc reference was a stretch; it's just that, when I first read the description of them, the only thing I could think of was "orc."   I still completely disagree with your comparison between the stories, but different strokes for different folks, I guess.  To me, one of the things that makes the Lord of the Rings so thoroughly enjoyable to read is Tolkien's skill at keeping up multiple threads of the story, all in sync with one another.  Another is what I consider to be his brilliant use of description; the story generated more vivid mental images of Middle-Earth for me than any other story I've read has done.  Above all else, the fact that the three books represent such a small fraction of what Tolkien did is amazing; he created an entire history, mythology, pantheon, many different factions over thousands of years, a higly detailed geography, and even two complete Elven languages.  He didn't just write a novel; he created an entire alternate world, one that feels every bit as real as our own.  To me, that sets him far above any other author.  Tolkien defined this entire genre of literature; that's why I love Lord of the Rings so much.  I haven't bothered to even look at most of the other authors mentioned in this thread; as far as I'm concerned, I've already read the original and the best. Considering that Lord of the Rings has been listed as the second-best-selling work in English, behind the Bible, I guess I'm not alone, either.

One thing that did strike me negatively about Jordan's series was seeing that there were twelve or thirteen books, each of which seemed to keep getting longer.  To me, the trilogy is the perfect length for fantasy or sci-fi; if you start lingering into a seemingly neverending series, it's highly difficult to keep a relevant flow of story.  Even over the course of the first two Jordan books, I kept getting the feeling that certain parts of the story were either drawn out for far too long or just irrelevant to everything else that was going on; the section in the first book where everyone is separated just grated on my nerves for some reason. I'm normally a patient reader, so I don't know exactly why it happened, but that's just the way I felt about it.  Some parts of his storyline did interest me quite a bit, and I do plan to keep reading the series, even if it will seemingly take me years to get through it.  I do understand that Jordan isn't simply ripping material from Tolkien; I'm sure he has a great respect for his predecessor.  It just unconsciously irks me whenever I see what I consider to be "borrowed" material from him in other books; I'm just a fanatic, I guess. I've heard about how a lot of Terry Brooks's work is just blatant ripping-off; I wouldn't even bother reading him.

To make another contribution to the actual topic (sorry for the side-track ), another trilogy I'd recommend is the Sabriel series by Garth Nix; it's made up of Sabriel, Lirael: Daughter of the Clayr, and Abhorsen.  It's written for more of a young adult audience, but I still find it to be immensely enjoyable.  It's not like many other aspects of fantasy I've seen.  The series revolves largely around the Charter, a kind of Force-like benevolent ethereal presence of bound magic, and the opposition to it by necromancers who raise the Dead and wield corrupting Free Magic.  These necromancers can travel freely in Death itself, which is represented by a cold and dark river.  The main focus of the series, the Abhorsens, are the only servants of the Charter who wield Free Magic, but they work to banish the Dead, not raise them.  I've always been of the opinion that this trilogy would make terrific movies if treated properly.

[Ford Prefect]

Considering that Lord of the Rings has been listed as the second-best-selling work in English, behind the Bible, I guess I'm not alone, either.

I've also heard that title given to Don Quixote. Don't know which one is right, but just thought I'd add that.

I haven't bothered to even look at most of the other authors mentioned in this thread; as far as I'm concerned, I've already read the original and the best.

But with some authors, that's sort of like comparing apples and oranges. Not all fantasy and science fiction authors mentioned write in the epic style. Harlan Ellison's fiction, for example, is allegorical short stories, and they're nothing even remotely resembling what people think of when someone mentions sci-fi or fantasy.

[mikhael]

Heh. Ellison. Isn't he the guy that wrote "Midnight in the Sunken Cathedral"? That was pretty damned brilliant.

I haven't bothered to even look at most of the other authors mentioned in this thread; as far as I'm concerned, I've already read the original and the best.

That's just dumb. Might as well say Terry Goodkind isn't worth reading, simply because Ayn Rand already wrote the masterwork of Objectivism. They're different books with different stories. Only the core ideas are the same. Sometimes, to appreciate the meaning of a story, or the message the author is trying to put forth, you have to see it from a different angle, contrast it against something similar but slightly different.

[icespeed]

nanana, terry goodkind isn't worth reading because he's a dodgy writer, or at least the first book was dodgily written and put me off reading the other ones.

ursula le guin is another cool writer, her short stories are better than her novels in my opinion but both are... she's got a very poetic, flowy, aesthetic sort of style.

also orson scott card rocks mad. have i said that before? he wrote ender's game, but i liked the ender's shadow series better.

[karajorma]

The only reason I didn't mention OSC is because the original post asked for new stories. That said Ender's Shadow is pretty new So I can pimp it and say read Ender's Game first

[Deepblue]

Yeah, OSC does rock. Only problem is I've already read most of his books.