ISO New Series Recommendations

[TravellingIsAGatewayDrug]

So, after completing the wheel of time series I find myself needing to fill the void it left before my first re-reading.

 

Does anyone have any fantasy series recommendations? Is Earthsea worth reading? Any other older series in the same vein?

 

My only stipulation is that they cannot be LitRPGs or video-game adjacent. That stuff is just too immersion breaking and cringey for me.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

Not exactly the same vein, but I would recommend David Gemmell. His work is a bit cheesy and overly heroic, but it is fantastically good, imo. I recently re-read his first book, Legend, and that has not aged so well, too many heros, too many flippant, self-depreciating wits, but as a first novel it is pretty awesome. His later books become more nuanced, with more variation in the characters. The Rigante series is suitably ambitious, following a celtic-type psuedo-Scottish civilization from its struggles with the Stone (Roman) Empire, through viking invasions, and into Jacobean territories. 

 

I really like his writing and he is always guaranteed to have me crying, though not sure that says more about me or his writing 🙂 

[Scarloc99]

12 hours ago, TravellingIsAGatewayDrug said:

So, after completing the wheel of time series I find myself needing to fill the void it left before my first re-reading.

 

Does anyone have any fantasy series recommendations? Is Earthsea worth reading? Any other older series in the same vein?

 

My only stipulation is that they cannot be LitRPGs or video-game adjacent. That stuff is just too immersion breaking and cringey for me.

The chronicles of Thomas Covenant is a series of 2 trilogies and a final trilogy of 4 books that are just amazing, in my opinion the best fantasy series ever written. The lore and how things tie in to each other are fantastic and the series just improves book to book and trilogy to trilogy. 

 

You can read the first 6 books and leave the series there happily as well. 

[TravellingIsAGatewayDrug]

On 10/20/2023 at 3:42 AM, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

Not exactly the same vein, but I would recommend David Gemmell. His work is a bit cheesy and overly heroic, but it is fantastically good, imo. I recently re-read his first book, Legend, and that has not aged so well, too many heros, too many flippant, self-depreciating wits, but as a first novel it is pretty awesome. His later books become more nuanced, with more variation in the characters. The Rigante series is suitably ambitious, following a celtic-type psuedo-Scottish civilization from its struggles with the Stone (Roman) Empire, through viking invasions, and into Jacobean territories. 

 

I really like his writing and he is always guaranteed to have me crying, though not sure that says more about me or his writing 🙂 

 

On 10/20/2023 at 7:24 AM, Scarloc99 said:

The chronicles of Thomas Covenant is a series of 2 trilogies and a final trilogy of 4 books that are just amazing, in my opinion the best fantasy series ever written. The lore and how things tie in to each other are fantastic and the series just improves book to book and trilogy to trilogy. 

 

You can read the first 6 books and leave the series there happily as well. 

 

Thanks for the recommendations gang, I'll take a gander!

[Finnssss22]

Malazan Book of the Fallen

10 books but fair warning, those 10 books rival Wheel of Time's 14+Prequel for total size and it drops info on you at a record pace at times.

Great series and some absolutely stand out characters.

It's loosely based on the adventures from multiple D&D table top campaigns in a custom world the author's created back in 1982. 

Many of the characters featured are based on actual player characters from those campaigns over the years and the story is a weaving of those campaigns together into an epic tale.

It's a very good and very fun series.

Edited October 22, 2023 by Finnssss22

[EirikDaude]

On 10/20/2023 at 2:07 AM, TravellingIsAGatewayDrug said:

Does anyone have any fantasy series recommendations? Is Earthsea worth reading? Any other older series in the same vein?

I really liked Earthsea, but to be honest I the first book jammed better with me than the sequels. I'd definitely give it a try if you haven't read it though, Ursula K Le Guin is an amazing writer. If you like sci fi as well as fantasy, she has some great works in that genre as well.

 

Another older book series I can recommend is the Lankhmar short stories by Fritz Leiber. More sword and sorcery than epic fantasy, but I feel he manages to mix humour, grittyness, and well, fantasy, really well. Well worth a try if you haven't read them yet, and easy reads too.

 

For something a bit different, I really liked The Otori trilogy by Lian Hearn. What I really fell in love with in these books was the prose (which might have been thanks to the translation, I haven't read the English version), but it is a bit of a personal journey amid a struggle for rulership of the nation.

 

I'll note on the Thomas Covenant books which were mentioned earlier in the thread that they never really drew me in, but then again I never made it through the first book so maybe they get better later on.