Re: Reading? Do people still do that?
Your thread title is dangerously near to sacrilege.
My own suggestion, not duplicating anyone else's, would be... actually, I haven't read much sword-and-sorcery-type stuff recently. Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman are pretty good. Lois McMaster Bujold's sci-fi series, the Vorkosigan Saga, I've really been enjoying. I read some of her fantasy in the past and it was pretty good, but I have no specific reccomendation.
Philosophical Strangler and
Forward the Mage, by Eric Flint. Humorous fantasy that I enjoyed a lot.
Dragon Precinct, Keith R.A. Decandido. Vaguely reminds me of Discworld in that it's medieval-ish fantasy cops, but different in tone. Not so humor-focused, as I recall. It was awhile ago.
Can't remember the titles of the books, but a woman named Hilari Bell wrote a trilogy of epic fantasy with a vaguely Indian inspiration/flavor.
Aaaand... Megan Whalen Turner,
The Thief, The Queen of Attolia, and The King of Attolia. There's a fourth in the series whose title I can't remember... (Cue Wikipedia) ah,
A Conspiracy of Kings. The first one is the best, and also targeted at a younger audience. (Usually, anyway.) Don't let that prejudice you, please. (EDIT: And that's ancient-Greek-flavored sword-and-arquebusier-and-divine-intervention fantasy.)
GrimWhim;422689 said:
There was a series of books written by someone and while I don't remember his/her name I do remember the name of one of his/her books and it was "The Black Cauldron".
It was fun to read but then again, I read it as a child so I'm not sure if an adult would consider it a "good read".
Lloyd Alexander. The Chronicles of Prydain series. Pretty good, but I haven't read it in awhile either. My suggestion would be to try it and see.
Angel;422633 said:
If you haven't done so already, I would strongly recommend Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. Also Terry Pratchett's Discworld, some David Eddings, Trudi Canavan, Maria V Snyder, Anne McCaffrey (sp?) and maybe the lesser known JRR Tolkein works such as the Children of Hurin.
I'm a book fiend- we have a few of us on here (Walker would be your best bet when it comes to recommending a good read). Unless you need something to put you to sleep, avoid the Sword of Shannara series like the plague - seriously.
Better believe I do.
I agree with basically everything she said. Discworld is awesome. Wheel of Time and Shannara are both on roughly the same level for me-- readable, but not my favorite by far, frequently confusing. The earlier prequel... I think they're called the Word series by Terry Brooks I actually enjoyed a bit more. He's in the process of linking the two together now, and I haven't read them recently.
Never read most of those others, actually. Anne McCaffrey does more sciency fantasy. Pern is probably most your style, her and her son.
Never read Children of Hurin, but Silmarillon was... enjoyable, if not exactly something I got roaringly enthusiastic about.
The Rh Factor;422804 said:
Awesome!! The people at the library are going to hate me when I go in there with my 2 and 1/2-foot-long list of books I'm looking for! :lol: Thanks everyone!
... (sigh)... unfortunately, I left that age range a loooong time ago. Lol. But thanks for the compliment on my youthful appearance... or persona... or whatever it is that is exuded through cyber space
We will. I promise... wellllll... depends. We'll be with you up to the twentieth book or so, then we start plotting entertaining deaths. And remember, librarians are always more accomodating than the circulation staff. They get paid more. *******s. JUST because they have master's degrees.
Don't be so quick to judge, would be my suggestion. I'm pretty close to that age range myself (20) but my humble opinion as a library circ employee and bookworm is that you're never too old for a book.
Seriously, the book I enjoyed more than any other recently was
The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman. Technically a kid's book. And most people here have probably read Harry Potter, and that's targeted for a younger audience.
Tyloric;423054 said:
The Dresden Files
The Greywalker Series
The Weather Warden series
all three are modern fantasy
Dresden Files I've read and are highly enjoyable. I liked the same guy's (Jim Butcher) Codex Alera series-- epic fantasy-type-- though not as much.