I am running short on fantasy authors to read and I would like everyone's top five fantasy books with author's names. If anyone can give a reason for each it would be appreciated. I'll start with my five:

Conan by Howard: Brawling and vivid settings make these masterpieces.

The Crystal Shard by Salvatore: Introduction to Drizzt.

The Dragonlance Chronicles: Created a new D&D world with cool dragons, fallen temples and memorable villains.

The Hobbit by Tolkien: Self explanatory.

The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks: Great setting description and another whole new world with rousing adventure even if it is a LOTR clone.

The Silmarillion by Tolkien: Well ... uh, it's absolutely brilliant? There's always more to find in it. Big, magical place is Middle Earth.

The Farseer Trilogy - Robin Hobb: Page turning goodness - brilliant writing style.

Stardust - Neil Gaimen: Adult fairytale, lots of 'magicalness'.

The Last T'En Trilogy - Cory Danniels: Maybe not quite as brilliant as the others, but it appeals to me, anyway.

A Song of Ice and Fire - GRR Martin: Big, detailed, good characters and plot.


Also - The Saga of the Exiles by Julian May is waaaay up there - but you asked for fantasy, while this is mostly science fiction (though it has enough fantasy elements I suppose to list it here)

LOTR, Tolkien. Prefer it to the other two in middle Earth.

Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Stephen Donaldson
Superb world creator, believable main anti-hero, touch of darkness.

Well of Souls series, Jack Chalker. Childhood favourite (first forays into the "Adult" Library aged about 8) OK, strictly speaking it's somewhat Sci-fi but it has the full cast of centaurs, Yeti, merfolk etc.

Eternal Champion series, Michael Moorcock. Elric, Von Beck, Hawkmoon, Coram, an endless array of great characters and storylines.

Dark Tower series, Stephen King. Great writer, just stop reading the last book in the series when he tells you to. Trust me.

The Lyonesse Trilogy by Jack Vance (Lyonesse, The Green Pearl, Madouc) - a magical soap opera of a fairy tale.

Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay (actually, I'll read ANYTHING by Kay) - an epic story that's not an LotR clone, imagine that.

Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley - I'm an admitted sucker for anything Arthurian, and this one is GOOD.

The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny - magic, war, politics, intrigue, sex... this one's got it all

Thieves' World, originally edited by Robert Asprin, now under the helm of his ex-wife Lynn Abbey - sure, it's fluff, but I keep coming back to it. I'm even into the new series.

John Carter, Man of Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs - old stuff and hard to find, but worth it if you like fantasy, love and good ole fighting

Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett - fantasy and humor, very funny if you want a chortle

Heralds of Valdemar series by Mercedes Lackey - magic and magic fighting and paladins by other names, takes the right frame of mind to get into

The Adventures of Han Solo - I can't recall who wrote it, but it's a collection of three Solo books

Sorry I can't come up with a fifth recommendation. My local library has changed its hours to 10a -5.30p and I have no way of getting there while it's open.

Check out Steven Erikson's "Tales of the Malazan." Also, there are some fine book reviews in the SP Book Review thread in BoM.

The Shining by Stephen King is by far the best fantasy book I've read. I've grown bored of the generic fantasy setting of mythical beasts, magic and the like, and also the presence of a hero of untouchable morals. The Shining has a sentient house as the only villain. It features King's usual dark undertones, which is always good. It's much better than the film.

Echoes of the Great Song by David Gemmell is very good; not for the characters (although Viruk is my favourite character from any novel), but because Gemmell isn't afraid to kill off the main characters. I'll say no more than that. Fantastic ending, though.

Running with the Demon by Terry Brooks, and its two sequals, are good because there's no sense of eternal optimism that many fantasy books seem to have. From the outset, it's stated that eventually the world will burn. It's set in reality, and has realistic (with regards to personality, at least) characters. Good plot, too.

Bernard Cornwell's Warlord Trilogy is amazing. It's not strictly fantasy, but it's got a little druidic magic and it's filled with plenty of sword swinging :)

David Gemmell's Waylander trilogy (part of his Drenai series) is a great read with some of Gemmell's best work.

David Gemmell's Jon Shannow trilogy is worth picking up as well, since it's more or less Waylander with guns :p

but because Gemmell isn't afraid to kill off the main characters. tell me about it, it actually seems like a trend in his novels and it definitely ruined the ending of Dark Moon :rolleyes:

my recommendations..

farseer trilogy by hobb

anything by neil gaiman

a song of ice and fire by martin

um i guess that's it. most of the other stuff i read isn't what you'd call "formula" fantasy.

Steven Erikson - Tales of the Malazan Book of the Fallen

J. R. R. Tolkien - The Lord of the Rings

Robin Hobb - Farseer Trilogy

Robin Hobb - Liveship Traders Trilogy

George R R Martin - Song of Ice and Fire

These are all must-reads.

Lord of the Rings Trilogy, J.R.R. Tolkien.

Crucible: The Trial of Cyric the Mad, Troy Denning.

Silverfall, Ed Greenwood.

The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien.

The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien. (Mucho love to Tolkien books in here lol)

Steven Erikson, Tales of the Malazan Book of the Fallen - Probably the best fantasy series I've ever read, there's so much going on and so many great characters.
Douglas Adams, The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy - The funniest an most insane book I've read.
George R.R. Martin, A Song of Fire and Ice
Stephen King, The Dark Tower - I haven't read all the books yet. If my next paycheck is big enough I'll buy the "box set". :p
Robin Hobb, Liveship and Farseer books - I haven't read the first trilogy yet.

Stephen King, The Dark Tower - I haven't read all the books yet. If my next paycheck is big enough I'll buy the "box set". it's already finished? how many books in the series?

Robin Hobb, Liveship and Farseer books - I haven't read the first trilogy yet. farseer is the 1st trilogy isn't it? liveship comes next and then tawny man

There are seven Dark Tower books. I'm still waiting for book 7 to be delivered, and then I'll be happy.

:doh: I meant Tawny Man, haven't read the Farseer trilogy.

How did you end up reading Tawny Man before Farseer?

I thought it was known as the Assasins Trilogy.

Should add Stephen Kings "The Stand" as a great fantasy book.

My list would overlap a lot with the ones that have previously been mentioned so I will try to come up with my list of five that have not yet been mentioned.

The Runelords by David Farland. A very interesting approach to magic, and it is well written.

The Deed of Paksennarion by Elizabeth Moon - well writen and quite gritty portrayal of life in the ranks of a medieval type army. The later Paladin books are quite good too.

Oath of Swords by David Weber. Another somewhat atypical Paladin type here. It is well written with a good blend of action and humour.

The Nightside series by Simon Green. This takes place in the modern world but it is mostly fantasy based so I am including it here. It is hard to really pin down why this series is so enjoyable - the characters are interesting but I think it mostly comes down to storytelling. It is one of those series where I found myself chuckling quite regularly at the latest over-the-top development.

A Wizard of Earthsea - An excellent story focusing on an interesting character - just don't bother with the rest of the series.

That would be my fantasy list. If you consider science fiction okay my five favourites would be

Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkorsigan series - very character driven and they are interesting characters. There is a good mix of humour, drama and action.

Elizabeth Moon's Serrano Legacy series - mostly for the interesting characters and dialogue between them but Moon has some interesting ideas about technology as well.

David Weber's Honor Harrington books - the main character is interesting and when it comes to writing space battles no one else comes close to Weber.

Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy - if you want a Star Wars fix and are sickened by the prequels then you should check out this gem. The plot and characters are both excellent.

The War against the Chtorr series by David Gerrold. An interesting story as humanity pretty much futilely struggles against an alien terraforming initiative. It is very different in that the humans really have to work to find out every scrap of information about these aliens and what is going on - not to mention that the humans never seem to do much more than inflict minor set-backs on the aliens. Unfortunately Gerrold is a very erratic author and the series has been sitting in limbo after the fourth book.

Edit: Fixed a spelling mistake.

[ August 19, 2005, 01:10: Message edited by: JSBB ]