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Favorite Fantasy Series (High or Low)?

Kevin_Lowe said:
Vance on his good days, Cherryh on her good days (which don't include days where she's working on something with "fortress" in the title) and Guy Gavriel Kay on his good days are all worth reading. Tolkien, Diana Wynne Jones and LeGuin, obviously.

That is about it, sadly. Sturgeon's law applies.
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Sorry, but if you think Terry Pratchett is crap, your opinion can safely be dismissed.
 
Sceptic-PK said:
Oh yeah. The movie was awful :(
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And the worst part was, there was no good reason for it to be awful. All they had to do was stick to the Dragons of Autumn Twilight story line and hire a decent animation studio, instead of hacking together 2-D and 3-D elements.
You always knew when the draconians were about to attack, because all of a sudden it would shift into 3-D.
Can't forgive them for mangling Raistlin's "Hope is the denial of reality" speech, either. I'll have to condemn them to the same circle of hell reserved for the people on the HHGTTG movie project who left out these two key Arthur Dent lines:

“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, "yes, I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard.'”

and

"Ah," said Arthur, "this is obviously some strange usage of the word safe that I wasn't previously aware of."
 
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Brian-M said:
Either that, or he simply has no sense of humor.
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How kind of you.

I forgot Pratchett because I think of him as a parody writer rather than a fantasy writer as such.

However if he has to get filed under fantasy, some of his stuff is very good. Also now you've reminded me, Truckers/Diggers/Wings is perfectly good scifi without the ironic distancing and parody of the Discworld books.
 
Kevin_Lowe said:
How kind of you.

I forgot Pratchett because I think of him as a parody writer rather than a fantasy writer as such.
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No offense intended, I was responding to the "Sorry, but if you think Terry Pratchett is crap" comment and assumed that a dislike of Pratchett had been expressed, but didn't bother to check. (And so suggested a possible reason why someone might not like Pratchett.)
 
The Thousand and One Nights is full of wonder. I can open it up to a page at random and become lost in it.

I often read it aloud for extra goosebumps, something I also enjoy doing with certain passages from The Lord of the Rings.
 
The Thousand and One Nights is full of wonder. I can open it up to a page at random and become lost in it.

I often read it aloud for extra goosebumps, something I also enjoy doing with certain passages from The Lord of the Rings.
 
Akri said:
For fantasy books that remind me of being a kid, I have to go with Patricia Wrede's The Enchanted Forest Chronicles. Looking back, I think my lifelong obsession with dragons can probably be traced to those books. They were funny, imaginative, and I defy you to find a better princess role model for little girls to read about :D
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I keep debating about when to start my daughter on these. I've loved them since I bought a compendium from the Science Fiction Book Club in the late 90's. My wife and I almost named our daughter Cimorene. :)
 
I don't dislike Pratchett. I loved the early Discworld books. But after a while it started to get into more-of-the-same territory and my meh-ness increased.
 
I loved the Conan the Barbarian series, both books and comics (the initial 25 or so issues; after that I lost interest). Unfortunately the two Ahnold movies stank on ice. I recommend Red Nails as a terrific intro to the literature (IIRC it was a novellette) and Tower of the Elephant (Conan #4) in the comics.

Also Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser. Although largely forgotten today, this was a terrific series; I recommend starting with Ill Met in Lankhmar, the Hugo and Nebula Award Winner; while it was written fairly late in the game it actually features the first meeting between the two characters.

Currently I'm very much enjoying the Game of Thrones (aka Song of Fire and Ice) series, although I am forcing myself not to read ahead of the TV show (which I believe means I get to read the third book in about three months).

Two other comic books deserve mention: Cerebus and Bone.

ETA: And going way back in time, how about the original John Carter of Mars books?
 
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I forgot to mention Michael Swanwick. The Iron Dragon's Daughter was one of the more clever takes on the fantasy genre I've read in years.
Faerie exists, but they have kept up with technological advances on the mundane world.
Dragons are now the equivalent of stealth bombers, for instance, sentient, very high-tech devices/creatures.
Technology and magic work side by side.
 
Tokien & lately, Pratchett.

But as far as childhood series go, the Oz books (of which I still have 19, I believe) and the Alice books, followed by Prydain, as well as other non-series fantasy (Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang, Wind in the Willows, Wrinkle in Time, 20,000 Leagues, etc.). And later still, the Carlos Casteneda series (which I consider a form of fantasy, except for the first one).
 
Personally Pratchett's Discworld series, though I think that far surpasses the constrictions of the 'Fantasy' genre. Also the Xanth series and David Eddings (both the Belgariad and Elenium series).
The Harry Potter series isn't bad, probably the best of the 'urban fantasy' sub-genre. I'm not a fan of Tolkien, I find him rather overblown.
 
Fantasy is something I tend to either despise or adore.

I started loving fantasy before I could read, so looking back, it seems I established an aesthetic sense for what was good or bad fantasy before I ever read the novels or myths all this imagery and atmosphere came from. I think it started with collecting pewter miniatures from hobby shops and gift shops as a child in the early and middle 1980s.

My love of fantasy is as visual as it is conceptual. Probably because I'm an artist. I can't stand what comes off as tacky to me. But ultimately fantasy is home for me, probably from the escapism factor and my bumpy life.

The first series I read was Narnia. I took to reading rapidly and once I learned to read I've been on the same level pretty much, though my tolerance for what used to seem boring and long winded expanded with age. I chose Narnia for a silly reason, after a few years of reading in elementary school, I preferred the encyclopedia or the dictionary to the selection we had, and often would sit looking up stuff I liked or wanted to know about when forced reading sessions were implemented on the class. I chose Narnia for the cover art, at a moment in the library when my 4th grade teach insisted I check out a book. And the Silver Chair seemed to have the best cover, so I read them out of order. Funny enough actually, at this point I had already read the Elfquest Graphic novels collections which my cousin owned in 5 volumes, so I suppose I read those before any fantasy novels. That was in 1st and 2nd grade, and I would read them again every summer when he visited Oklahoma City from the far away lands of Seattle.

I need breakfast before I pontificate further or I'll be buried in tangents within the hour.
 
Pratchett.

And sadly, Pratchett's writing has ruined "straight" fantasy for me. Once you get used to things being wry, arch, sly, clever, and full of subtle and not-so-subtle allusions, everything else seems pretty juvenile.
 
TLOR, natch. Moorcock's Eternal Champion but I prefered Dorian Hawkmoon and Corum Jhaelin Irsei.

Robin Hobb's "Farseer" trilogy and the rest of the sequnce.
Rothfuss's Kingkiller books now in volume 2 and Scott Lynch's Gentlemen Bastards for current writers.
The Kane books by Karl Edward Wagner
The 2 volume Dark Border by Paul Edwin Zimmer - in large part for the awesome character Istvan de Vega.

Some of David Gemmel's work - Waylander books, much of the Drenai. Some "extruded fantasy product" in there as well though.
 
I really haven't kept up with the genre, though I used to read a lot of it. So, lacking anything more recent:

Glen Cook's Black Company series.

And Barbara Hambly's Darwath series.

Evidently I like some fairly depressing stuff.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
Pratchett.

And sadly, Pratchett's writing has ruined "straight" fantasy for me. Once you get used to things being wry, arch, sly, clever, and full of subtle and not-so-subtle allusions, everything else seems pretty juvenile.
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I think it's a phase many people go through. First you like a genre uncritically. Then you find an analysis, a spoof or a subversion of the genre and go "Wow, this is so much more sophisticated than the thing itself!". Then you remember the reasons you enjoyed the genre in the first place and go back to enjoying the good bits of the genre itself, although a bit more aware of the tropes and cliches.
 
Kevin_Lowe said:
I think it's a phase many people go through. First you like a genre uncritically. Then you find an analysis, a spoof or a subversion of the genre and go "Wow, this is so much more sophisticated than the thing itself!". Then you remember the reasons you enjoyed the genre in the first place and go back to enjoying the good bits of the genre itself, although a bit more aware of the tropes and cliches.
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I agree. I stopped reading "serious" fantasy long time ago. Last fantasy book I read was "The Legend of Jig Dragonslayer" by Jim C. Hines, and am currently reading "Goblin Corps" by Ari Marmell. Both are spoofs of fantasy with more than nod to D&D, and both are written from the viewpoint of traditional fantasy bad guys. Marmell in particular, throws every sword-and-sorcery cliche at you and dares you not to be entertained by them. And succeeds.
 
Kevin_Lowe said:
I think it's a phase many people go through. First you like a genre uncritically. Then you find an analysis, a spoof or a subversion of the genre and go "Wow, this is so much more sophisticated than the thing itself!". Then you remember the reasons you enjoyed the genre in the first place and go back to enjoying the good bits of the genre itself, although a bit more aware of the tropes and cliches.
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I dunno. I was never a big fantasy fan, but liked some of it back when I was a young person (teenage to early 20s maybe). I didn't run across Pratchett until I was around 45. I'm 51 now and still haven't gone back to straight fantasy (though I have tried a few--for pretty much the motives you suggest), but find them too juvenile.

I think getting older makes me realize that I won't in fact read everything in my lifetime, so there's no point in forcing myself to read something I don't care for.

(As an aside, I'm going to law school this fall and will be in for my first high-pressure, non-recreational reading in a good 20 years or so. So I might not be doing much recreational reading for a while.)
 
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