Your Favorite Fantasy Book(s)

[sassy1]

My favourite fantasy books hmmm... difficult question but I'll give it a go...

Robin Hobb's 3 trilogies, The Farseer, Liveship Traders, and Tawny Man trilogies

Terry Brooks' Shannara Series

The Lord of the Rings (of course )

Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders or Pern series, and her Catteni Sequence

Eragon and Eldest by Chris Paolini

David Gemmell's Rigante series


...and that'll do for now they're my FAVOURITE favourites

 

[Connavar]

My favs are :


Legend- Gemmell

Rigante Series - Gemmell

Stones of Power series - Gemmell

Riftwar Saga - Raymond Fiest i am talking about the first series which starts which Magician.

 

[Talysia]

I think my favourite fantasy book would have to be Neil Gaiman/Yoshitaka Amano's The Dream Hunters. Of course, most of the books I read, I like, but that one stands out as one I can read again and again.

 

[Jason_Taverner]

read some Steven Erikson it really is very good

 

[Connavar]

I have Gardens of the Moon waiting for me to read it. I have a couple of books to read before then its time to see what Erikson is about.

 

[j d worthington]

Hmmm. Naming my favorite fantasy books might get a tad lengthy, especially depending on the definition of "fantasy".....

However, for those that come right off the top of my head:

E. R. Eddison:
The Worm Ouroboros
Mistress of Mistresses
A Fish Dinner in Memison
The Mezentian Gate

Fritz Leiber:

Swords and Deviltry
Swords Against Death
Swords in the Mist
Swords Against Wizardry
The Swords of Lankhmar
Swords & Ice Magic
The Knight and Knave of Swords
(of which my very favorites would be the first three and Swords & Ice Magic)

J. R. R. Tolkien:

The Lord of the Rings
The Silmarillion

Clark Ashton Smith:

Zothique
Out of Space and Time

James Branch Cabell:

Jurgen
Figures of Earth
Something About Eve

H. P. Lovecraft:

The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

Robert E. Howard:

This is difficult, as they've been so manipulated over the years but, picking from the plethora of his work --
Kull
Red Nails (ed. by Karl Edward Wagner)
The People of the Black Circle (ed. Karl Edward Wagner)
Skull-Face and Others

Lord Dunsany:

The Gods of Pegāna
Time and the Gods
The King of Elfland's Daughter
Fifty-one Tales

H. Rider Haggard:

She
King Solomon's Mines

A. Merritt:

The Face in the Abyss
TheDwellers in the Mirage
The Ship of Ishtar

Michael Moorcock:

The Eternal Champion
Elric of Melniboné
The Vanishing Tower
The Revenge of the Rose
Stormbringer
The King of Swords
The Sword and the Stallion
Blood
The Jewel in the Skull
The Runestaff
Count Brass
The Champion of Garathorm
The Quest for Tanelorn
The War Hound and the World's Pain

Harlan Ellison:

Deathbird Stories
Strange Wine
Shatterday

Karl Edward Wagner:

Death Angel's Shadow
Darkness Weaves

Poul Anderson:

The Broken Sword

Andre Norton:

Witch World
The Year of the Unicorn
Spell of the Witch World

Avram Davidson:

The Phoenix and the Mirror
The Island Under the Earth

T. H. White:

The Once and Future King

George D. MacDonald:

Lilith

Friedrich Heinrich Karl de la Motte, Baron Fouqué:

Undine

Mervyn Peake:

Titus Groan
Gormenghast
Titus Alone

William Morris:

The Well at the World's End
The Water of the Wondrous Isles

Fletcher Pratt & L. Sprague de Camp:

Land of Unreason
The Roaring Trumpet
The Iron Castle

Fletcher Pratt:

The Well of the Unicorn

William Hope Hodgson:

The House on the Borderland

G. K. Chesterton:

The Man Who was Thursday

R. A. MacAvoy:

Tea with the Black Dragon

Robert H. Boyer & Kenneth J. Zahorski (eds.):

The Fantastic Imagination
The Fantastic Imagination II

 

[sassy1]

wow thats quite a few favourites there

 

[Jason_Taverner]

I have Gardens of the Moon waiting for me to read it. I have a couple of books to read before then its time to see what Erikson is about.

cool, take your time when reading it, its the most difficult one, its worth it in the end.

 

[Connavar]

Yeah i have heard that several times that the first one is hard to read but the series are worth reading. If that is true i force my way through the first book.

 

[Nikitta]

The Silmarillion

I've recently ordered that online because I've heard good things about it from so many people. I'm having the worst of trouble with the title, though, so I'll never be able to talk to anyone about it, unles they mention the title first, but what are the odds of that happening outside the chronicles?

 

[Joel007]

sil (as in window)
mar (like in mariner)
ill
ion (prounounced the same as eon)

I think so anyway, I have to confess i've never heard anyone say it before.

 

[Nikitta]

sil (as in window)
mar (like in mariner)
ill
ion (prounounced the same as eon)

I think so anyway, I have to confess i've never heard anyone say it before.

I imagine that too when I see the title, but remembering the tile when it's that complicated is next to impossible for me, I'm afraid.

 

[Joel007]

too many i's and l's together can boggle the mind somewhat

(like the D&D "Illithid")

 

[Nikitta]

Yeah. I tend up end up calling it "the Sil-something" or "the Sillymally -ehm- a Tolkien book!"

 

[Jason_Taverner]

Yeah i have heard that several times that the first one is hard to read but the series are worth reading. If that is true i force my way through the first book.

worth mate I promise, the second book and the third book made me weep like a little girl

 

[j d worthington]

Hmmm. Might help once you've read the book, but the Silmarils themselves are the jewels created and devised by Fëanor, which captured the light of the Two Trees (from which came the sun and moon)... So, if you can simply get "silmaril" right, then add "ion" (pronounced as Joel says), that should do it. And the above is to help remember. As it stands, it's an alien word, but if you can picture the jewels themselves, and attach the name silmaril to that image, it becomes a familiar thing, and hence easy to remember the title....

 

[The Ace]

Sorry, Eddings 'Belgariad,' and 'Mallorean,' LOTR of course, the Narnia books and Pratchett's discworld.

 

[j d worthington]

wow thats quite a few favourites there

Ummmm.... there would have been others on the list, but people quibble about Bradbury being classed as "fantasy" (even though he himself calls himself a fantasy writer or fantaisiste), as well as Beaumont, Matheson, etc. But were it not for that, I'd definitely have had several Bradbury titles on there: The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, I Sing the Body Electric, The October Country, Dark Carnival, S is for Space, A Medicine for Melancholy, The Machineries of Joy, The Halloween Tree, Dandelion Wine, From the Dust Returned, Something Wicked This Way Comes......

 

[Laura Stamps]

I adore dark urban fantasy novels and would highly recommend Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden novels. Harry is a wizard for hire, and so far I think there are 8 books in the series, with more planned. Just some of the best dark urban fantasy I have read in a long time. The first book in the series is Storm Front.

I am also crazy about Lilith Saintcrow. Her Dante Valentine series is some of the best dark urban fantasy out there. The first two books have already been published (Working for the Devil and Dead Man Rising). And the next three will be coming out the end of 2007 and beginning of 2008 (she changed publishers recently so they would publish her books faster). There are very sparse romantic touches in these books, not a lot, but what is there is very good (you can tell I'm not much of a romance reader!).

If you like a lot more romance you'll enjoy Saintcrow's Watcher series. There are 4 books published in this series with more planned.

 

[Connavar]

the second book and the third book made me weep like a little girl

Haha is that a good thing ?


Sorry man but that made me laugh, now i have to know what did that to you!