other series as epic (or close ) as WoT

[PrinceOfRavens]

what about Riverworld by phillip jose farmer? Great read, though not on par with WOT(very little is)

 

one which IS is Emberverse. By S.M Stirling. He writes great alternate history. Also should try Harrt turtledoves worldwar series.

[graemehuntley]

The Codex Alera by Jim Buthcher, 6 books long, awesome battlescenes. It also has one of the best charecters i've ever come across, Araris Valerian. A nice easy read if your after something to fill inbetween waiting for other epic's

[mb]

Recently purchased the Wrinkle in Time series. I recall some class of mine going through the 1st book; I think 6th grade. Read a portion of the second sometime within middle school; do not remember how much nor exactly when.

[dscott8]

I may have missed mention of them, but here's a few series that I think are keepers/re-read worthy:

 

Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince/Dragon Star -- two trilogies with magic, dragons, political plots, great characters and wonderful examples of how the best of intentions can land you in a steaming heap of dragon dung.

 

Juliet E. McKenna's Tales of Einarrin and Aldebareshin Compass series. The first follows a profesional gambler/thief/con woman who gets mixed up with wizards, and the second a fallen warlord forced to work with wizards in a land where magic carries the death penalty.

 

L.E. Modesitt's Recluce Saga, which spans about a thousand years of conflict between order and chaos from the POV of mostly ordinary working stiffs who find their way to wizardry. Also his Corean Chronicles, three books dealing with leftovers from a lost magic civilization and three more set in that civilization's time.

 

Sharon Green's The Blending series, which explores the a society where EVERYBODY has magical talent.

 

BTW, I tried Dragonlance, and could just picture Weis and Hickman watching a group of high schoolers playing Dungeons & Dragons, and writing down every roll of the dice for their script. Bloody flaming awful, IMHO.

[redarm]

Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince/Dragon Star -- two trilogies with magic, dragons, political plots, great characters and wonderful examples of how the best of intentions can land you in a steaming heap of dragon dung.

 

 

These are really good reads. I enjoyed them greatly. Highly recommended.

[Owayn The Traveller]

Thats one of the couple i havent read yet. i dont have them all in front of me, but Bloodsucking Fiends and A Dirty Job i really liked.

 

I downloading a sample of A Dirty Job so fingers are crossed.

[madmike]

Try some older writings

 

Roger Zelazny amber series written in 70's over 10 books and anthologies

Stephen Donaldson Thomas Covenant 3 books

Terry Pratchett Discworld hilarious

Michael Moorcock Over 20 books faeturing the Eternal Champion(reincarnations)

[ONEMariachi]

David Gemmell is an excellent author, you can't go wrong with his books. Unfortunately he died not that long ago, but he has several excellent series out.

 

Read the first Drenai novel, Legend. It will get you hooked, awesome story. Legend tells the story of Rek and Druss the Legend, who is an old man that has achieved great deeds during his life. They find out that the Nadir (like Mongols) are going to invade the country of Drenai. The confrontation takes place at the fort of Dros Delnoch, which is a massive fortress built to stop the Nadir. Kind of a dark story, because the Drenai at the fort number 10,000 men, while the Nadir number about half a million I believe. So the good guys all expect to die. Good writing and you really get attached to the characters.

 

He also writes some historical fantasy fiction as well. A series about Parmenion and Alexander the Great, and a series about the fall of Troy. Both Good series.

 

I absolutely agree here, I've gotten 6 of my mates, 3 of which whom used to never read, reading these books and all of them. He has the Drenai series which are several books set out in the same world but not neccesarily linear. Set out at all different time periods.

If you want more than just stand alone, his Troy trilogy is brilliant and so is the Jon Shannow Trilogy.

 

I'm going to refrain from explainign books others already have, I'll jsut give pieces on ones that haven't been mentioned.

 

I recommend The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss as many others have also stated. Great book and cannot wait for the next one in March. His writing style reminds me alot of Jordan but a little faster in his pacing which to me is a good thing.

 

Also I can't believe no one has said Mark Chadbourn, he has a 9 book series that is amazing. Completely character driven amazing books, set in a present day world where technology starts failing and the old ways start to resurface. All the old gods/monsters/beings from numerous mythologies around the world come back to reclaim earth from mankind. Fairly gritty and mature series. Do yourself a favour and get into them!

 

Magician and the following 2 books in the Riftwar Saga by Raymond E. Feist are Also quite good.

 

George R. Martins A song of Fire and Ice series, another heavy series with far more gritty scenes than WoT

 

Any books by Michael moorcock, his books are fairly small but dense. Theres a good anthology of his books called the Eternal Champion which is a great one to get into.

 

Also have to agree on Terry Goodkind, I read the first 8 but simply could not do it anymore. Just became the same tired old shit over and over again. His characters have no flaws, or if they do they somehow overcome them in 2 pages and become 10 times more powerful. Richard is the most perfect Hero in everyway it gets frusturating as fuck. Also much has clearly been stolen from WoT. I'd say if you were going to read them only read the first book and treat it as a stand alone, I did actually enjoy that one even with the blatant rip offs of WoT and it was only in retrospect of reading the others that it lost its favour with me.

 

happy reading good sir!

[mb]

Not sure if this series was mentioned in this thread.

 

Left Behind.

Main series is 12 books. There is a prequel trilogy and one sequel.

A total of 16 books.

[mb]

Another series I would consider good would be the Choose Your own Adventure series.

I read some of those books I think towards the end of my elementary school years and some in the beginning of my middle school years. Currently do not own any of them.

[Werthead]

Not sure if this series was mentioned in this thread.

 

Left Behind.

Main series is 12 books. There is a prequel trilogy and one sequel.

A total of 16 books.

 

That's the series about the Rapture, right?

 

Yeah, absolutely fricking terrible. Do not come within fifty paces or your skin may be flayed from your bones by the sheer magnitude of its awfulness.

[TankSpill]

Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn by Tad Williams is pretty fantastic. It takes a lot of common fantasy tropes and turns them on their heads (though it plays many of them straight-edge as well). George R.R. Martin has said in interviews that he never considered writing fantasy until he read MS&T and realized that fantasy could be written in a mature, adult fashion. I've been reading this series (and re-reading it) since the second book came out, and I can't recommend it enough. Keep in mind, this series is absolutely notorious in the fantasy community to having a rather slow start - in my opinion, it is slow, but not ridiculous, but you should be warned that no major action happens in the book for the first 10 chapters, and don't expect flashy battles and spellcrafting to immediately draw you in. Tad is a world-builder, and does it very much in the first portion of the first book.

 

Shadowmarch also by Tad Williams. I've only read the first book, but the reviews of the rest of the series are pretty stout. One thing Williams is known for is really connecting the beginning of a series to the end in a way that is usually very surprising, and I've heard the completed Shadowmarch series is much the same.

 

Threat From the Seas by Mel Odom. It's a shared-world trilogy (Forgotten Realms), but by far, one of the best I've ever read. It's very different from most earlier FR books in that it is very brutal to the protagonist, and the theme and conflict is very dark.

 

The Saga of Recluce by L.E. Modesitt. I am one of a rare few (that I've found) who actually enjoys this series. Modesitt does a lot of Jordanesque gender-role-reversals in his novels, to such an extreme that I believe it turns people off. However, I really like the books. And the author himself is extremely approachable - he'll answer emails directly about plot content, etc, tell you what he's working on next, all kinds of stuff. The series is written out of chronological order, and the author (and myself) recommend you read them in the order they're written, not chronologically. Books 1 - 5 are by far the best, but the rest are good too, though I haven't had time to read one since book 10 or so (I think there are 15 out now).

 

The Belgariad, The Mallorean by David Eddings. Already mentioned, and also already talked about that the character development is rather dry, but it is considered to be a well-done early fantasy series. And the Will and the Word is a pretty cool idea for a magic 'system.'

 

Vlad Taltos Series by Steven Brust. That's not actually the name of the series - as far as I know, there isn't one, though I've heard it also called the Draegaren Cycle (or something like that). Very non-traditional fantasy, almost pulp-noir, and the main protagonist is an assassin.

 

 

Well, four books, really (the last was split into Part 1 and Part 2, but he still calls it a trilogy). I would not recommend this series. I have to post every time someone puts it on a list of good fantasy simply because I dislike it with a passion. It had its moments, but in the end turned out to be a waste of my time. YMMV, of course.

 

Yeah, it's known to be a bit of a "you-love-it-or-you-hate-it" series, but for what it's worth, that can be said of many series, including the epic series of which fan site we're on. I actually am one of those rare people that really hates A Song of Ice and Fire. I disliked the first book, but everyone told me it was so good, I went ahead and read the second book, and afterward, decided not to bother with any more. My personal opinion is that Martin writes much of he writes for merely shock value - he's like the Stephen King of traditional fantasy, as far as I'm concerned.

 

 

Please, stay on topic. I'm sure your deep personal views that you copied and pasted from somewhere else are very important to you, but still. :)

 

I find it extraordinarily interesting that you are so desperate to defend Terry Goodkind that you are not even participating in the conversation, and are rather just quoting-and-bashing.

[mb]

Not sure if this series was mentioned in this thread.

 

Left Behind.

Main series is 12 books. There is a prequel trilogy and one sequel.

A total of 16 books.

That's the series about the Rapture, right?

 

Yeah, absolutely fricking terrible. Do not come within fifty paces or your skin may be flayed from your bones by the sheer magnitude of its awfulness.

Main series begins with the rapture and the prequel trilogy ends with the rapture, but that is only a small portion of the series. The whole series is actually about the 'last days'.

 

What from the series makes it terrible/awful?

 

Edit:: Your response seems prejudiced; unless you can give some indication that you read at least part of the series.

[Ashaman Kovan]

 

 

 

Please, stay on topic. I'm sure your deep personal views that you copied and pasted from somewhere else are very important to you, but still. :)

 

I find it extraordinarily interesting that you are so desperate to defend Terry Goodkind that you are not even participating in the conversation, and are rather just quoting-and-bashing.

 

Well what a coincidence; Because firstly, I find it extraordinarily interesting that you would interpret anything I said as "desperate". Secondly, it's also extraordinarily interesting that you would think people who are only capable of copy pasting the same tired rant over and over again deserve anything but "bashing". Which, again, is a word I don't think I really agree with.

 

E.T.I. Well hey I think we both like the Belgariad and Mallorean. Or at least the concept of The Will and the Word. :]

[Werthead]

Well what a coincidence; Because firstly, I find it extraordinarily interesting that you would interpret anything I said as "desperate". Secondly, it's also extraordinarily interesting that you would think people who are only capable of copy pasting the same tired rant over and over again deserve anything but "bashing". Which, again, is a word I don't think I really agree with.

 

I don't really see the need for someone to repost the thing in his own words when a quotation can do the job just as well, although going to the original source (Robert Jordan telling Goodkind to ESAD with his final public blog entry after Goodkind's horrendously tasteless comment) might have been preferable.

 

For my part, I have no problem saying in my own words that Terry Goodkind is a juvenile, talentless, no-hoper hack who has no ideas to call his own and less writing ability than the average 12-year-old. He makes Christopher Paolini look like James Joyce. The fact that Goodkind has sold 25 million books proves, beyond any reasonable shadow of any doubt, that you do not need talent to succeed at anything in life, just luck, timing and marketing. He is the Sarah Palin of epic fantasy.

[Ashaman Kovan]

Well what a coincidence; Because firstly, I find it extraordinarily interesting that you would interpret anything I said as "desperate". Secondly, it's also extraordinarily interesting that you would think people who are only capable of copy pasting the same tired rant over and over again deserve anything but "bashing". Which, again, is a word I don't think I really agree with.

 

I don't really see the need for someone to repost the thing in his own words when a quotation can do the job just as well, although going to the original source (Robert Jordan telling Goodkind to ESAD with his final public blog entry after Goodkind's horrendously tasteless comment) might have been preferable.

 

For my part, I have no problem saying in my own words that Terry Goodkind is a juvenile, talentless, no-hoper hack who has no ideas to call his own and less writing ability than the average 12-year-old. He makes Christopher Paolini look like James Joyce. The fact that Goodkind has sold 25 million books proves, beyond any reasonable shadow of any doubt, that you do not need talent to succeed at anything in life, just luck, timing and marketing. He is the Sarah Palin of epic fantasy.

 

See, the difference is you have an actual opinion. That I can respect. What I can't respect is people coming on here and, like I said, copy pasting someone else's reasons as to why they don't like TG. Which, 90% of the time is simply because RJ didn't. That's neither a good reason, nor does it garner my respect when people can't have their own thoughts and simply follow the pack so as to "fit in".

I would bet you good money there are quite a few people here who actually enjoyed the SoT series. Problem is they're too timid to admit it because as soon as they do they're followed by a plethora of less than flattering posts and are never able to live it down again.

[Arc]

Don't know if they're already mentioned, but the 'Gentlemen Bastard Series' (Scott Lynch) are so damn good. They definitely share the first place in my bookcase with WoT and A song of Ice and Fire. (only 2 out of 7 books released so far though, it's quite new)

 

Song of I and F, like a lot of people would agree, is just as good as WoT, maybe better, or just to different to compare. I just love the down to earth Humanity of Martins' characters. The grim atmosphere of a continent in turmoil he paints with words, marvellous.

A (big) difference, IMO, between the two is that while the scale of events in WoT becomes increasingly huge over time, i feel like we lose a bit of the sensation of the whole, like the actions of the main characters become to stand so high above the ordinary armies and events. (it's partly justified by the pure epicness of it.)

While in a Song of I and F, we always stay with the foodsoldiers so to speak. The main characters (or at least those who survived most of the books) don't often rise above the situations, but remain in the middle of it. always trying to keep there head above the water while new problems arise.

 

oh, and don't know if this one 's already mentioned: R. Feist? if he isn't, then here it is: R. Feist. His Riftwar saga, the Empire triology and the Serpent wars are surely worth of a mention. after his first 10 books or so, his quality really started to go donw the hill though. anyway, would still be a shame if he wasn't mentioned already.

 

and to agree with the (almost) general opinion on this discussion: Goodkinds books aren't that good indeed (to remain polite)

[EmeraldCastrol]

I'm really surprised I haven't seen Katharine Kerr mentioned more than once. She is my favourite fantasy writer and although I love the WoT series, I have to admit I actually like Katharine Kerr better. Her Deverry series is just as epic as WoT and consists of 16 books. It is more tragic and the characters are more likeable than in the WoT series. Imagine a character like Birgitte as the main female character throughout it all and you have Katharine Kerr.

 

I don't agree with all the Goodkind bashing. I've only read his first 5 books and although he's not my favourite, I found him readable. But then again, I also don't have anything against Ayn Rand.

 

I used to like David Eddings when I was 13 but I think they are the kind of fantasy you can only enjoy while you're young. I used to really like Raymond E. Feist too but never liked his female characters. Even RJ's annoying ones are preferable.

 

I do like Robin Hobb and R.A. Salvatore. The Obernewtyn series is pretty good too. And i've always liked Ursula LeGuin but I hate the movie version with Kristin Kreuk.

 

Who do I think is terrible? Terry Brooks, Tad Williams, J.V. Jones and ... George RR Martin, who I think is overrated. George RR Martin is like reading gore porn, a fantasy book version of those terrible SAW movies that everyone seems to love.

 

I heard mention of Steven Erikson a few times. I've got his first book on my shelf but have never seem to get past the second chapter. I might give it another try though as I need a new fantasy to read. Might go out and grab some Mistborn too. It'll be happy reading for me this Christmas.

[mb]

Not sure if this was mentioned.

 

9/11 Series

Main event in the first book is the plane collisions into the Twin Towers.

Second book is a sequel to the first.

Third book is a sequel to both.

There are currently 3 in the series.

[Foamy The Master]

haven't seen it mentioned but also didn't read every page here

 

Try the godspeaker trilogy by karen miller I found it fairly good

Also for an easy and good read try James Clemens and his wit'ch books

[cgk84]

The Eisenhorn series and Ravenor series, both by Dan Abnett.

[Elan Tedronai]

I know this has been said many a time but a song of ice and fire. Much more epic and realistic than WOT. Other series also include dragon lance and shannara novels

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

i tried to read a shanarra book once (something like elfstone, or somesuch), about 20 years ago. the term "taciturn dwarf" was repeated ad nauseum. you don't know what repetitive is until you read shanarra. i finally decided that if i read that term again, i would throw the book as far as i could. and that's how that ended.

 

valdemar's not too bad, until it gets bad. dragonriders are OK, until they get awful. i think most series devolve. can't think of any except in children's books that maintain quality over the long run. except, of course, anything terry pratchett's done. total perfection. (aside from that one book about cats, which is meh, even if you love cats.)

 

the best thing i've done since i got out of school was to actually read all the books that were assigned in school that i refused to read at the time. not only are they universally awesome, they're much cheaper than newly published works. and if you like well done verbosity, you can't do better than dickens. and a lot of it was actually serialized, if that's really a requirement.

[RyanDuranGeiger]

Started the Sword of Truth series 5 or 6 months ago, or so.. Read three of 'em, didn't enjoy them way too much, so I put 'em away and did a re-read of The Wheel of Time, finished The Towers of Midnight, been bored recently. 10 days or so ago was bored, read the other 8 books in the Sword of Truth series.. Just finished the series.

 

 

For the most part, the main thing that annoyed me, was whenever anyone (Namely Richard) would spew philosophy for an entire page, out of the blue.. Nor did I care too much for Kahlan..

 

Main things I liked in it were the scenes where Richard was in the woods (I'm a big outdoors fan, so him being a woodsguide was a big up for me), the Mord'sith were enjoyable. And any scene with Nicci in it (Faith of the Fallen, by far the best book. Though, I liked last book with Ja'La dh Jin scenes.)

 

 

 

Not up to par with The Wheel of Time, but still a moderately okay series when you're bored.. And it helps pass the time while waiting for A Memory of Light.

 

 

 

With all that said, gonna buy the next book in the series on March 14'th.

[Thorum]

Nice week. Wish I could have weeks like that.

 

I've got about a hundred thousand pages left in my library that I haven't read yet (yes, I counted. Once).