need help on picking my next read.

[huxley]

i volunteered at my local, head start place, it's sort of like salvation army but with different iteams. anyway i help sort out the used books. i worked their for three days in a row. and when i went to buy some books that i wanted, they just gave them to me. so i wanted suggestions on wich on to read first and maybe some background on the fantasy ones, like if it's a book in a series or something.

Terry Goodkind: soul of the fire.

terry brooks : the elf queen of shannara. and : the voyage of the jerle shannara.

r.a. salvatore: realms of mystery. : the halfling gem : the crystal shard: streams of silver.

and did anyone ever read a fantasy book called: thieves world -book 1-

i would like to hear what you guys have to say about these books.

 

[dwndrgn]

All are parts of series. The Goodkind is I think one of the much later ones in his Sword of Truth series (of which there is much comment on this forum, you may want to check that out before you begin the series. FWIW, I've enjoyed the series but I seem to be in the minority.) The Brooks one is also a famous series but these are two books from two of the latter sections. You'd want to start there with The Sword of Shannara. Again, this one is hotly contested around here. Many people consider it a cheap ripoff of LOTR but I enjoyed it for itself.
The Salvatore ones I don't know much about but I know that many of these are well-liked.
Thieves World is a serial fantasy series, with differing authors. I've never read them so I don't know much about them.

 

[huxley]

one important question i had was from the books i've posted if i start one will i be lost cause most of them are from series and i haven't read the first book.

 

[Aleksei]

The crystal shard is the first book in a trilogy, so no problems there. I can recommend the site Fantastic Fiction it's a great place to find information about books.

 

[Winters_Sorrow]

Well my 2c
The RA Salvatore books
Start with the Crystal Shard, then Streams of Silver then The Halfing Gem then Realms of Mystery (I'm not familiar with the last one). They're mostly good as standalones, but have recurring characters (like Drizzt) who develop as the stories go along.

The TB books
Voyage then ElfQueen as I recall. They are both spinoff from the Shannara series as DD said, but they're set long enough after them that it's not essential to have read them first.

TG book - never really got into them and never felt the inclination to support any more of his work after seeing some of his comments so, personally, I'd use it as a coffee coaster or if you have a wobbly table leg...

Thieves World
As I recall, the first one was by Robert Asprin? I didn't really get into this series but as I understood they were each set in a city but all were standalone stories with different characters.

Oh, and FWIW - "for what it's worth". I only just worked that out now

 

[Taltos]

"Thieves world" is a shared world (is also pretty dark world) - to which many known authors have contibuted both as stories in anthologies and as a separate books. The collections were (ok, there may be more coming, but the last one to date seems to be from 2004) edited by Robert Asprin and Lynn Abbey.

As with all anthologies, some stories are better than others.

 

[Pyan]

and did anyone ever read a fantasy book called: thieves world -book 1-

i would like to hear what you guys have to say about these books.

There's about seven or eight in this series, which is a "communal world" one, with each contributor writing about his/her own character.
Not bad, quite dark in places - later books suffered as some of the better-known authors dropped out.

 

[j d worthington]

Thieves' World -- never read the entire series (got distracted into other things) but what I read was enjoyable. Not earth-shaking, but fun and, yes, occasionally quite dark. So far as I know, the last of the original series was in 1989 though, as Taltos says, there are more forthcoming (or are supposed to be). There were originally 12 anthologies, now 14, and several novels and collections in the series. For the dates of publication, here's this:

Thieves' World - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Looks like you've got a loooot of reading if you're going to keep up with this one.... Enjoy!

 

[Stormpirate]

The Elf Queen is the second book in the Heritage of Shannara series, which followed the Sword / Elfstones / Wishsong trilogy. The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara is the beginning of one of his most recent trilogies. That one is a good one to start out with.

 

[williamjm]

r.a. salvatore: realms of mystery. : the halfling gem : the crystal shard: streams of silver.

The Crystal Shard, Streams of Silver and The Halfling's Gem are the first three of Salvatore's seemingly endless series of Forgotten Realms books. They're entertaining light reads.

IIRC Realms of Mystery was a short story collection by various Forgotten Realms authors.

 

[huxley]

i've started the r.a. salvator books. thanks for the help guys.