Eyes on Final Fantasy Forums > General > The Lounge > fantasy novels

[Araciel]

Which perhaps should have been the original medium... :P

[Bunny]

Care to explain why?

[Kes]

I've been upset to find I'm not into reading nearly as much as I used to be.

That being said, I love Sherwood Smith's new trilogy and I cannot wait for the last one to be out. Smith is absolutely amazing.

I like about half of Robin Hobb's stuff. Her first and third trilogies, but not so much with her second and latest. The Fool was just a really great character.

Neil Gaiman is good too but I prefer his poetry and graphic novels.

I've got a long list of authors whose stuff I want to finish but never got around to doing so, and that includes George R. R. Martin, Steven Erikson, and Gene Wolfe.

There are also books I cannot stand and that would be Terry Goodkind.

Also, Andre Norton is a woman? Huh, I never knew that. Go her.

[The Summoner of Leviathan]

Right now I have been re-reading some Tanya Huff books I have. They are alright, nothing spectacular about the writing style save for the wit. She always makes me laugh.

I can't wait for The Shadow Returns by Lynn Flewelling It is coming out this June It will be her fourth book in her Nightrunners series. It was actually LunarWeaver who recommended me the series. It is <3. I also like her other series, the Tamir Triad. Set in the same world as Nightrunners but a few centuries earlier.

I've also found myself dipping into some of Mercedes Lackey books as well. I read The Last Herald-Mage trilogy which was good but it is super depressing. Then again, Vanyel was a whiny snot at times. It kinda falls into that whole "gay love is filled with angst" motif. Then again, the book was written in the 80's, so often I find criticisms about it to forget that fact (it is often criticized for the whole its-okay-to-be-gay message). If you want to read fantasy novels with gay characters, I strongly recommend reading Nightrunners series since the romance is really well done and paced out through the books. Anyways, I am planning to hopefully read more of her Valdemar books.

[rubah]

I read the first couple of mercedes lackey's bardic voices series, they were pretty good.
<tmi>
(i read them over a course of months while sitting on the toilet, but it didn't affect the quality of the writing any)
</tmi>

[Citizen Bleys]

I've never been on the toilet for more than a month at a time. You should see a doctor at once.

[Germ Hamee]

Originally Posted by Ouch! ^

The love for ASoIaF makes me exceptionally happy. Unfortunately, that series and its awesomeness has just about ruined every other fantasy novel. For someone who writes fantasy, I tend to hate just about every series I read. xD

I agree with everything you just said. I find it nearly impossible to be affected by the "usual" fantasy novel shocker after the jarring events in A Storm of Swords. It's kind of hard to beat the tragedy that is the Stark family. Unfortunately, after A Feast for Crows, I worry that even GRRM will have difficulty topping that in the future.

Originally Posted by Kes ^

I like about half of Robin Hobb's stuff. Her first and third trilogies, but not so much with her second and latest. The Fool was just a really great character.

Oh dear, I'm almost the complete opposite. The Liveship Traders completely floored me, and remains one of my all-time favorite set of books along with ASoIaF. Her latest trilogy was pretty slow moving but won me over with the last book. On the other hand, I found The Tawny Man trilogy to be underwhelming in comparison, though the final book was pretty much amazing. But yes: Fool > all, and even at her lowest, I find Robin Hobb to be far more readable than a majority of the competition.

I've taken a bit of a break from fantasy in my reading, but I'm looking forward to the next couple of books on my shelf: The Book of Joby, by Mark J Ferrari, and The Blade Itself, by Joe Abercrombie. I've heard great things about both, so I hope they don't disappoint. The Name of the Wind is another one I keep hearing about, but I've been suspicious of it since hearing that the main character is a bit of a Mary Sue.

[Nifleheim7]

A thread titled "Fantasy Novels" and no one yet mentioned the names of R.E.Howard,Michael Moorcock or Karl E.Wagner?