Kevin's Watch

I know Im preaching to an SRD site, but other then TCTC and the Gap Series, whats your favorite fantasy out there? Or second favorite rather.

my favourite??? Would have to be Tolkien's Middle Earth .. LotR's .. what a creation!!

yes I like The chronicles of Narnia too!! but I havent read that personally since I was a kid myself ..

I also like TErry Goodkind's .. Wizard series .. I forget its name .. but that was good! soemthing to do with Wizards First Rule and ... blaah blaah .. no I forget .. a bit dark though in places .. And I have some Jenny Wurtz that isnt too bad either ..

I would like to read GRR Martin more .. A Song of Ice and Fire ..

but LotR's would be my choice ..

It would be a tossup between the Lord of the Rings and Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. Both very different and very wonderful!

I enjoyed the Many Coloured Land (Julian May) series. Then the Gene Wolfe "Claw of the Concilliator" (i think that's the series) was very good.

I tried getting through the entire Gormenghast trilogy but Gormenghast itself is such a brilliant piece of work that the rest just seemed a bit flat in comparison.

aside from totally agreeing with what the duchess just said, I would list:
Ursula K. LeGuin 4 the Earthsea series
Tad Williams 4 the Otherland series (a combination of Sci-Fi and Fantasy)
H. P. Lovecraft simply 4 The Dreamquest of the Unknown Kadath
and of course:
E. R. Eddison 4 The Worm Oroborus, A Fish Dinner at Memison, Mistress of Mistresses & The Mezantian Gate-the archaic Master who opened the door 2 modern day Fantasy!!!!

Could we include DUNE and it's subsequent books as a "Fantasy" series? Probably not....however outside of SRD's work, All the DUNE series books, including the new ones written by his son would have to qualify as my other favorites - Honorable mention to Battlefield Earth by L.Ron Hubbard, the BOOK not the movie.

All the Middle-Earth stuff. Love Silmarillion.

Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy is first. I didn't even have to think about that.
Tolkien, of course.
The Abhorsen trilogy by Garth Nix.
The Mists of Avalon and its prequels.
Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy.
Harry Potter.
Discworld.

~Foamy~

LOTR

ummmm...Tad Williams, Memory Sorrow & Thorn

Elizabeth Hayden, Rhapsody Series (a fourth book just came out - can't recall the name right now)

The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay and G.R.R Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, are my current favorites. I also love Julian May but would call her work Sci-Fi rather than fantasy.

Why does Fionavar Tapestry ring a bell for me? Is that one with the 'Summer Tree' in it?

Somewhere here I've got the last two books of a trilogy that has something to do with a Summer Tree. I haven't dug 'em out for yonks, though.

That's the one - The Summer Tree, The Wondering Fire and The Darkest Road - wonderful books

most of my favorites have already been mentioned (especially Tolkien and Gene Wolfe who are on par with Donaldson... Williams comes close, too), but I'd like to throw The Book of Swords in by Fred Saberhagen and The Waterborn by Gregory Keyes. might as well add the Wheel of Time books by Jordan and the Deathgate Cycle by Weiss and Hickman.

Prince of Amber wrote:That's the one - The Summer Tree, The Wondering Fire and The Darkest Road - wonderful books

A-ha! Yep I really enjoyed these, left the first one on a train here and lost it ... goshdarn. Some hunter in woods and a wolf being naughty and a wierd place up in the mountains ... and a tree that someone was stuck to and it either killed them or revived them or something ... well those are my recollections!

Oh, yes, those ARE wonderful books!

PoA--have you even mentioned the Chronicles of Amber?

I haven't mentioned the Amber books recently, I could talk about them forever. I am a sometime visitor to the Hanger (Danlo's site) where we have a part-time Amber discussion going on, but there's not many members on that site.
My favorite books (apart from The Chronicles) change as I read, my wife calls me fickle, when I start the Amber books again they will be my favorite. There's just so many good books around. Has anyone else read the Robin Hobb - Apprentice Assasin books? I didn't like the first one too much but they really grow on you and I can recommend them.

Earthsea! Earthsea! And again, I say: Earthsea! LeGuin is phenomenal at bringing out the calm, deep wisdom of taoism in her world of magic.

-It is no secret. All power is one in source and end, I think. Years and distances, stars and candles, water and wind and wizardry, the craft in a man’s hand and the wisdom in a tree’s root: they all arise together. My name, and yours, and the true name of the sun, or a spring of water, or an unborn child, all are syllables of the great word that is very slowly spoken by the shining of the stars. There is no other power. No other name.-


-The water ran timelessly from its clear spring. He lay on the sand of the pool’s bottom letting running water, stronger than any spell of healing, sooth his wound and with its coolness wash away the bleaker cold that had entered him.-


“What brought you here, Azver?” the Namer asked. “I’ve often thought of asking you. A long, long way to come. And you have no wizards in the Kargish lands.”
“No. But we have the things wizardry is made of. Water, stones, trees, words…”


“My Lord Patterner, will you defy our Rule and our community, that has been one so long, upholding order against the forces of ruin? Will it be you, of all men, who break the pattern?”
“It is not glass, to break,” Azver said. “It is breath, it is fire.”


-Highdrake’s mastery of spells and sorcery was not much greater than his pupil’s, but he had clear in his mind the idea of something very much greater, the wholeness of knowledge. And that made him a mage.-


God I love LeGuin!!!

Hmmmm someone w/the name Mhoram, correct me if Im wrong but I think I remember someone else around here had a similiar handle....o well!

I read the "Wizard of Earthsea", I liked it. Never finished the series though...

You know... I'd like to have several nicks here, one for each mood I might find myself in the day I post, or maybe one for when I post about the Haruchai, one for when I talk about Giants, etc. But maybe that kind of thing isn't appreciated. Especially when someone looks at the memberlist to see how many members there are. And people could certainly confuse you and I.

Sooo, I'll just get over myself, and only post under the only other nick I've made here so far, Fist and Faith.

Anyway, GO READ THE REST OF THE EARTHSEA BOOKS!!!! Sorry, didn't mean to yell there But MAN are they good!! I recommend them as highly as TCTC. No, I don't think they explore as many aspects of humanity as TCTC, dealing mainly with the calm, deep, taoist wisdom I mentioned. But they are fantastic for that; LeGuin gives the best explanations for magic that I've yet read; they are much shorter, and so, a much quicker read; and they have some of the fun, flashy magic that you can find in Harry Potter, though not as much. (Interesting that Earthsea and Potter are both about a young boy who has tremendous magic potential and is sent to the school of wizards. Even more interesting that the books are so different that nobody could accuse Rowling of having copied anything from LeGuin.)